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starlightkun · 1 year

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❧ word count: 28.4k

❧ warnings: cursing, the b-plot pretty heavily references a drowning incident (but it’s not explicitly described), uhm that’s about it for this one!

❧ genre: fluff, slow burn, one (1) idiot and one (1) tease to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, fairy jungwoo, human reader, ft. various other magical ilichils and human johnny, spring break au

❧ author’s note: ahhh here it is! i love this one so much, it was so much fun to write, and i hope y’all have a lot of fun reading it!!

❧ spotify playlist

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

Just as you were about to turn around and smack Dongyhuck for real this time, Jungwoo grabbed the back of his collar and pulled the shirt over his head. You willed yourself to look literally anywhere else, but your eyes embarrassingly kept watching as he tossed the shirt to the side, laughing at something that Johnny had just said. This was entirely unfair, was he actually, literally, sparkling in the sunlight? Or was that just you?

There’s so much you’ll never know about Jungwoo, you thought to yourself as you snuck a glance his way. You could ask him a million questions every day for the rest of your life and still, you’d never know everything. But you want to try. You want to know what his favorite song is every day, what he had for lunch, what he looks like when he wakes up after sleeping in on Sunday mornings, and what his lips taste like. Strawberries… probably, was what you had decided upon after an embarrassing amount of daydreaming and speculating that you’d sooner be waterboarded than admit to.

And it wasn’t the fact that he was a fairy that fascinated you either, you had been around magical beings all your life. Your own best friend was a dryad, so you didn’t even blink the first time you saw Jungwoo sneeze and his hair flashed pink for a moment. There was something about Jungwoo that made you want to know even more about him, take notes, put him on a slide under a microscope in the lab you two had together, and bottle him up if you could.

Jungwoo readjusted the frames that had slipped down his nose as he worked on his assignment— a lab report, he was a Chemistry major like you. Did fairies even need glasses? They couldn’t magic away bad vision or something? You did manage to ask him that, the first time you’d seen him bring them out at a study session. Turns out they were blue light filtering ones, not prescription; looking at screens for too long strained his eyes.

You’d finished your own lab report thirty minutes ago and had been meandering through some assignments for next week in an admittedly pathetic attempt to prolong your time around him. The rest of your group that you were with all left for a vending machine break about ten minutes ago, and the study room had been just you and Jungwoo since.

Jungwoo hadn’t let up working on his report in that time, and you didn’t want to distract him by trying to take this opportunity to talk to him or anything. So instead, you just randomly clicked things on your computer, looked at Jungwoo, read a couple pages of your textbook, looked at Jungwoo, scrolled on your phone, looked at Jungwoo, drank some of your water, looked at Jungwoo, rinse, and repeat.

Today he was wearing a light pink crewneck sweater that was way oversized even on him, the neck of it slouching down far enough to one side to show his collarbones— you snapped your eyes back down to your keyboard and took a sip of your water. God, you needed Jesus or Pan or whatever other deities your friends had; you’d take anything at this point. After a few more moments, you risked another look at him. His brown hair that always looked so soft looked extra bouncy today, and you wondered if he’d showered and dried it right before coming to the campus library. You had a sudden want to know what shampoo and conditioner he used, and were so glad that you had one iota of common social grace to quite literally bite down on your knuckle to stop yourself from asking him that. You were going insane sitting in here alone with him, you needed to go.

“Uh,” you cleared your throat as you stood up. The force with which you had stood up pushed your rolling chair back with such a velocity that it crashed into the wall behind you, and you cringed at how loud the sound was in the dead silent study room.

Jungwoo looked up at you with round, curious eyes, slowly taking one of his lilac wired earbuds out from his ears. Your skin was practically on fire, and you could hear your blood roaring in your ears as you grabbed your metal bottle, “I’m going to refill my water.”

You didn’t wait to see if he had any sort of reply, fleeing the room.

Donghyuck found you curled up on yourself in a study cubicle ten minutes later. He presumably was able to follow the smell of your self-pity and agony. As a dryad, he was in tune with nature, and, as he so stubbornly reminded you, humans were included in that whole nature thing.

Your friend leaned against the side of the short cubicle wall, resting his cheek on his forearm as he looked down at you with an eyebrow raised, “Were we disturbing you? Had to come get your own little study nook?”

“No, I finished all my work a while ago,” you mumbled.

“I know.”

He tore open his bag of chips, popping one into his mouth then holding it out to you. The two of you shared the snack in a silence devoid of conversation, but full of mutual understanding and the sounds of crunching chips. When all the chips were gone, Donghyuck tilted his head back to dump the remaining crumbs in his mouth before tossing the bag in the recycling bin.

“Alright, come on, Yuta says he’s got a big announcement for all of us.”

“Oh, joy, a Yuta summons,” you stood up with a sigh. “Always a good sign when the siren calls.”

Donghyuck started leading the way back through the narrow library aisles, “It was actually Jungwoo who sent me out looking for you, said he was worried that you might be sick.”

“Shut up, that’s not funny.”

“You’re right, it’s not. That’s like, the lamest joke ever. No set up, no punchline. Not even in the format of a joke. That’s how you know I’m being serious.”

“Oh God, I was being such a little freak.”

“Y/N, you’re down astronomically bad for a fairy, and are friends with a dryad, siren, and basilisk, to name a few. And you’re worried about being a freak?”

“By comparison I pretty much am.”

“Mm, can’t argue with you there.”

Back in the study room, you and Donghyuck took your two empty seats right next to each other. The room was abuzz with chatter now, feeling much livelier than it had before.

“There you are, we were about to send out another rescue mission,” Johnny greeted the two of you brightly. He was the only other one of your friends who was a human like you.

Mark’s forked snake tongue flicked out to test the air, “Everything okay, Y/N?”

“Oh, yeah, got distracted looking at some books,” you fibbed, well aware that at least a third of the creatures with you could hear any jump in your heartrate, one could practically smell (taste?) fear, and another quite literally always knew if you were telling the truth or not. Taeyong never exposed you when you lied, nor held any against you—not that you lied to him often. Forgiveness kind of came with being a unicorn and all, you figured. Believing in a pure heart or whatever.

“I found her wandering with her nose stuffed in a book. Had to drag her back kicking and screaming,” Donghyuck followed your lead with a casual eye roll.

Yuta clapped his hands from where he was standing at the head of the table, immediately drawing everybody’s attention to him and quieting down the room. “Anyway!”

The siren pushed back his white-blonde hair from his face, making piercing eye contact with each of you in turn as he paused for dramatic effect. The iridescent scales visible under the skin of his cheekbones at certain angles shimmered from blue to purple to pink in the fluorescent lights and his silvery eyes flashed as the large pupils met yours before moving onto the next person.

“Tell us or I put a blabbermouth hex on you, Yuta,” Doyoung drawled, readjusting his many crystal and worn leather bracelets around his wrists.

“For the love of Hecate, not again, Doyoung!” Taeil, another witch, scolded him. He was in a big hoodie that had your school’s name proudly emblazoned across the front, so just the edges of his ritual tattoos peeked out on his neck and hands. “Sirens and blabbermouth hexes are practically death machines!”

“Yuta and blabbermouth hexes is hell on Earth,” Jaehyun deadpanned.

Johnny rubbed at the back of his neck anxiously, “Yeah, I almost died last time, Doyoung. I was only just able to go to the pool again like two weeks ago.”

“Which is perfect,” Yuta cut into the rabble, ceasing their squabbling once again. “Because we’re all going to Cape Solaria for spring break.”

“You seriously want me to go around you and water again?” Johnny asked in disbelief.

“Oh my god, you nearly drown your friend one time and you never hear the end of it!”

“One time?”

“Okay, one and a half times! And really, it was Doyoung’s fault, he put the blabbermouth hex on me, I couldn’t stop! Why aren’t you getting pissed at him?”

You and Donghyuck exchanged looks as the volume in the room rose once again.

Spring break was still a month away, and you admittedly didn’t have any plans yet. Cape Solaria was a gorgeous beach a few hours away, and despite the proximity to your college town, surprisingly wasn’t a very popular spring break destination. It was a sleepy little seaside village that hadn’t done anything to attract tourists, and if anything, actively warded them off, especially college students. There wasn’t much to do in the area except the beach itself, which didn’t have any public access points, only residents could use it. All in all, didn’t sound half bad for a siren, of course. Or nine other college students with nothing better to do.

“Come on!” Yuta’s sonorous voice broke through the din of the bickering. “My parents’ friends have a beach house there, they’re out of town until the summer and said we can use it! There’s a firepit on the beach, and a cute little downtown, and I pinky promise to every single god, goddess, and incorporeal abstract deity that we all have that I won’t drown anybody!”

Everybody was looking around the table at each other, clearly suspicious of Yuta’s too good to be true plan, and waiting for somebody else to cast the first stone.

“Sure, Yuta, I’ll come,” Taeyong smiled up at him. “Thank you for inviting us.”

“I’m bringing a spear gun, don’t think I won’t use it,” Johnny warned him.

Eventually, everyone had given their yeses, to varying degrees of enthusiasm, until there was just one left.

“Of course I’m coming,” Jungwoo grinned, his eyes meeting yours for just a flash before looking up at the siren. “It sounds like fun!”

Jungwoo caught up to you as you left the library that evening. Donghyuck had stayed behind to check out some materials for a class, and the rest of your friends were walking out in a large, amorphous blob.

“Hey,” he greeted you from over your shoulder.

“Hey,” you echoed, looking behind and up at him briefly. It was times like this that you were reminded just how big the fairy was, underneath the oversized sweaters, fluffy hair, and pouts. He was one of the tallest of your friends, magical or otherwise.

His glasses had been pushed up on top of his head now, the frames keeping some of his bangs from falling across his face. With his book bag slung onto one shoulder, he looked almost like your average human college student, except if you happened to look a little closer—which you always were—you could catch the faint flecks of gold in his otherwise warm brown irises. As you passed under the lampposts along the pedestrian walkway, the golden flecks would catch the light and gleam unlike anything that could exist in humans. Not quite starlight, more like craft store glitter, the kind that you’d accidentally spill and continue to find in every square inch of your house for years to come. Which was a comparison that as soon as it had clicked in your brain, only endeared him even more to you.

“So what do you think? About going to Cape Solaria?” Jungwoo asked, those big, glittery eyes focused down on you.

You thanked… something godly that he apparently wasn’t going to ask about your disappearance from the study room earlier.

“Oh, uhm, I’m actually pretty excited. I know Johnny’s nervous after the whole Yuta-Doyoung-blabbermouth hex-drowning thing that happened last semester, but I think it’ll be fun. I haven’t been to the Cape since I was little, it’ll be nice to see how much has changed, if at all.”

“You went when you were little?”

“My parents used to take us on day trips as kids in the summer. Still don’t know how they put up with us in the car for that long.”

“How far away is it?”

“Uhm…” You frowned as you tried to think of as accurate an answer as you could for Jungwoo. “I don’t remember exactly. Three hours? Four, maybe? Hold on.”

You had reached into your pocket to bring out your phone, fully intending on looking it up on your maps app right then and there, when a hand covered yours, a light giggle that sounded like the tinkling of bells rang out right next to your ear, and you damn near dropped your phone.

“That’s okay, Y/N, I was just curious,” Jungwoo reassured you, letting your hand fall from his as you went to stuff your phone back into your pocket. “I’ll just find out when we drive there.”

“Right, of course,” you muttered, casting your eyes down to your feet. “So, uhm, have you ever been? To the Cape?”

As soon as you said it, you wanted to smack yourself in the face. He literally just asked you how far away it was. If he had been there before, he would know that.

“No, this’ll be my first time.” Jungwoo bit the tip of his thumb, and you could feel how your eyes were glued to the action.

“Jungwoo!” Taeil called for him from the front of the group, Doyoung beside the older witch. The three of them were roommates, and were presumably all going home together.

“Coming!” The fairy replied. He focused a cheery smile down on you, “Well, see you, Y/N!”

“Bye, Woos…”

As the three roommates left, you desperately blinked yourself out of your Jungwoo-induced trance, trying to remember where you had parked your own car. Taeyong saved you from yourself, looping his arm through yours, “Come on, Y/N, I saw your car over by Jaehyun’s.”

“Oh. Didn’t even realize you guys had parked by me. Thanks, Yong,” you tried to reply as casually as possible, which was utterly pointless when dealing with Taeyong and his vampire roommate. Said vampire was walking on Taeyong’s other side, entirely silent.

When you first started hanging out with Taeyong and by extension Jaehyun, you weren’t able to get a good read on the latter, mostly due to the fact that he said next to nothing and emoted even less. But when he did finally say something, it was usually so entirely out of pocket that you either ended up in stitches laughing or were sent into an existential spiral. Judging solely from the thousand-yard stare on his face, you’d think he wasn’t listening to any of your conversation most of the time, except you knew that his supernatural senses made it impossible for him to do anything except hear everything: conversations, the wind rustling through the leaves, air conditioning, the blood pumping in your veins. You were surprised to find out that he wasn’t several centuries old, only in his mid-twenties; he’d been turned just a couple years ago. (This had prompted a hushed conversation with Taeyong: “So… he’s just like that?” “Like what?” “…Never mind.”).

You knew that Taeyong was Jaehyun’s primary food source, though you didn’t ask for many details aside from one that your morbid curiosity wouldn’t let go of: It doesn’t hurt Taeyong and feels generally pleasant. Since Taeyong’s a unicorn, Jaehyun doesn’t have to feed as often as he would if he were feeding from humans, and that is when you had put your headphones in during that little impromptu Q&A session during a study group. Renjun, the Magical Creatures Studies major who had tagged along with Donghyuck that day, could go ahead and listen about Jaehyun’s favorite places to bite Taeyong or whatever, you had much rather wanted to do literally anything else.

“I’m worried,” Taeyong confessed, gnawing on his bottom lip.

“About?” You asked, concerned.

“Johnny going to the beach.”

“Oh, Taeyong, I don’t think he even knows where to get a spear gun, Yuta will be fine.”

“No, I know Yuta will be okay. But I do think Johnny’s worry comes from a real place of distress.”

You saw the deep sorrow reflected in his features, your own heart hurting too as you recalled what happened to your human friend. “Well, yeah, he did almost drown himself in the guys’ bathtub at our non-denominational Friendsmasgiving as collateral damage in one of Yuta and Doyoung’s spats. Don’t tell any of the others this, Yong, but Johnny couldn’t wash his own face for a month after. I went over and did his skincare routine for him. I don’t even want to know how he showered or washed his hands.”

“Johnny must trust you a lot, Y/N.”

“I actually didn’t know him very well before that,” you admitted. “I think he just asked me because I’m the only other human out of all of us. I was the safest, you know, in his mind.”

Before that Friendsmasgiving at Taeil, Doyoung, and Jungwoo’s place, you had only seen Johnny at a couple group movie nights here and there, so you were honestly surprised to have gotten a text from him asking you to come over. You were mentally prepared for it to be a weird premise for a hookup and had all your usual rejections ready to go in the back of your mind. But no, he actually did just need you to help him wash his face. His hands trembled every time he tried to turn on the tap, and he absolutely couldn’t submerge his nose or mouth— he needed to breathe.

Unlike you, Johnny didn’t have any firsthand exposure to magical beings like your friends until he went to college. He grew up in a small town that was entirely human, and while he had a very open mind about it all, nearly drowning himself under a siren’s spell would understandably take a while to process.

“Oh…” Taeyong breathed out, and you could see his lilac eyes beginning to water, the tears themselves having an iridescence to them. “Oh, Johnny…”

“Shit, sorry,” you shook your head to clear your mind.

Unicorns were highly empathetic, and ruminating on an emotional memory for too long around them would project that state onto them. It wasn’t quite mind reading from what you understood, Taeyong couldn’t access your memories directly right now or anything, but he could get the gist of the feelings and emotions that your memories contained. So he and Jaehyun were honestly a match made in magical weirdo heaven.

“No, it’s okay,” he reassured you as the three of you slowed to a stop at your car. “I’m going to talk to Taeil and Doyoung, see if they can do anything for Johnny.”

“Doyoung should be moving fucking mountains to help, this is partially his fault.”

“I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.” Taeyong squeezed your arm before letting it go. “Have a good weekend, Y/N.”

“You too, guys,” you gave them a wave as they headed off in the direction of Jaehyun’s car.

SATURDAY

Spring break had snuck up on you. Between studying for midterms, working part-time at the campus bookstore, and maybe possibly sort of avoiding Jungwoo as best you could outside of your shared chemistry lab, you didn’t have the brain capacity to really be cognizant of the passage of time, only your constant state of stress and panic. So you had packed your bags just last night, and were now running around your apartment to get together the last of your things that morning. Johnny had texted a few minutes ago that he was on his way to pick you and Donghyuck up, meaning that you had maybe five minutes left before he arrived.

You ducked under the vine hanging at the entry to the bedroom hallway, and skirted around the monstera that marked the beginning of the jungle that was your living room. Donghyuck generally kept the plants to a lush but tasteful amount, and you liked the greenery, but with both your focuses on midterms week, they had gotten a little unruly without the dryad’s usual careful tending to them.

“Hey, Hyuck?” You called out to him from the kitchen.

“Yeah?” Came his reply from where he was reclined on the couch.

“You seen my sunglasses? I thought they were on my dresser but—”

“You loaned them to Mark last week when he accidentally petrified Johnny. He said he’s bringing them to give back to you.”

“Oh, right,” you stopped your frantic searching, joining your roommate in the living room. “Thanks.”

“Speaking of—” Donghyuck stood up from the couch with a big stretch, a couple small vines reaching out from the very tips of his fingers before receding back in when he dropped his arms. He focused his dark green eyes on you pointedly, “Johnny said they’re here. You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be at this point,” you sighed.

“Cool. So where’s your phone?”

Realizing that you hadn’t seen Johnny’s text yourself, you patted your pockets fervently. All empty.

“Shit!”

“I’ll call it.”

After retrieving your phone from inside the freezer—you didn’t even want to know how you’d left it in there—you and Donghyuck grabbed all your bags and rushed down to meet your road trip crew. All ten of you weren’t going to fit into one car, so you were splitting up between three in order to have a reasonable number of vehicles in town for the week: Johnny’s, Taeil’s, and Yuta’s.

Johnny was leaning against the trunk of his old SUV, and pushed off it to give you each a hug, “Hey! Ready to road trip?”

“Sure, Johnny,” you chuckled as he popped the hatch on the trunk. “Thanks for driving us.”

“Of course, of course. Always glad to be team dad for three magical creatures and a human,” he ruffled yours and Donghyuck’s heads as you each loaded up your bags on top of the ones that were already in there.

“Three?” You asked.

Johnny was struggling trying to pull his hand back from the leafy tendrils that had wrapped around his fingers when he went to muss up Donghyuck’s hair. When he’d finally gotten the limb back, he answered, “Oh yeah, Mark and I picked up a stray, so someone will have to sit with someone. Mark’s already got shotgun, sorry.”

The human opened up the back door, and Donghyuck and you peered in, just in time for Jungwoo’s head to pop up from the very backseat, cell phone in hand.

“Finally! Thought this was lost to the ether down there!” He said triumphantly, then his gaze fell on you and your roommate. “Oh hey, Y/N, Donghyuck!”

“I was planning on napping, actually,” Donghyuck took advantage of your stupefied silence to declare. “So I’ll take the middle row.”

“D—”

“You always complain about my moss when I nap on you, Y/N. You’ll be free of me this time! It’s perfect!”

And so you ended up in the backseat with Jungwoo, staring out the window as Johnny pulled away from your apartment building.

“Y/N? Could you please hand me my pillow from the back?” Donghyuck requested sweetly.

You narrowed your eyes at him before twisting around in your seat, rummaging around in the trunk until you were able to secure the pillow. Turning back around, you offered him a sarcastic smile as you practically smacked him in the face with it, “Here, Hyuck.”

“Oof!” He fell back, settling long-ways across the entire middle seat. “Thanks, Y/N!”

“Shut up and take your damn nap.”

You heard a jingling giggle from beside you, and looked over to see Jungwoo covering his mouth, but you noticed the telltale crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“I know I’ve said this before but,” he paused to let out another giggle, “you two are funny.”

“Glad we can provide in-flight entertainment for you, Woos,” you slumped back in your seat, shimmying your shoulders around for a moment to settle in for the long car ride ahead of you.

Johnny’s car didn’t have Bluetooth, so he had a CD of his playing over the speakers. Only one speaker in the backseat worked at all, and it crackled and popped at random intervals. Because of that, the sound controls were set so that the music played only in the front seats. You didn’t mind, you kept your focus on your own music playing through your headphones, eyes trained on the passing scenery. Until your wireless earbuds died.

“No, no, no,” you held the buttons down in a fruitless attempt to resuscitate them. “Damn it!”

“Are you okay?” Jungwoo asked you quietly.

Johnny and Mark were singing along to a nostalgic pop song in the front seat, and you were tempted to ask them to turn it up, until you caught sight of Donghyuck. He was covered in a literal blanket of moss, clover, and small white flower buds from his feet to his arms. His eyes were closed and his shoulders rose and fell with each breath he took. So he really was taking a nap.

Not wanting to disturb your friend for your own entertainment, you snapped your earbuds back into their carrying case. Which was also dead, because in your great planning for this trip, you had forgotten to charge that too.

“No, my headphones just died, and we have like, three more hours left,” you groaned, dropping your head back onto the headrest.

“Oh, here!” Jungwoo held out one of his wired earbuds to you. “You can just share mine.”

“Woos, that’s okay, I’ll just…” You desperately wracked your brain for a reasonable way to finish that sentence.

“Do you really not trust my taste in music that much you’d rather stare out the window in silence for three hours?” He had a playful pout on his lips.

In the back of your mind, you knew he was joking around, but also he was quite literally batting his eyelashes at you—were long eyelashes a fairy thing or a Jungwoo thing? Something else you wanted to ask him—and suddenly you were saying yes, the headphone was in your hand, and Jungwoo was happily scrolling through his music library. He’d found something satisfactory, and you put the earbud in to listen along.

“Y/N, you can’t be all the way over there, the headphones are gonna fall out!” Jungwoo scolded you with an exasperated sigh.

You looked at the empty seat between the two of you in bewilderment, where the headphone cords were pulled near taut. You were way too focused on trying to figure out if he actually meant for you to move to the middle seat to realize that Jungwoo had undone his own seatbelt instead—until his arm was sliding around your shoulders, long legs crowding yours in the small space of Johnny’s backseat, and the entire length of his side pressed up against you.

“There we go,” he said brightly. “Now the headphones won’t get tugged out of our ears if we want to look out the window.”

Your gulp was comically loud as your eyes were trained on your blank phone screen in your lap, “Right.”

“Oh, you’ve got a much better view over here,” Jungwoo leaned in front of you to peer out the window.

He seemed to radiate the warmth of a soft spring day, and while you still didn’t know exactly what kind of shampoo he used, you swore you could smell the faint, sweet scent of strawberries as he hovered just millimeters in front of your face. There was a single small diamond earring in his lobe, and it sparkled as it caught the light filtering in through the window he was looking out. He turned his head to look from the passing scenery over to you, holding your (surely alarmed, wide-eyed, maybe even terrified) gaze for a moment. The corner of his lips curled, and then he reclined back into his new seat beside you.

You hoped that Mark was too focused on their music up front to be regularly checking the scents in the car, or if he was, that he was going to keep his forked tongue to himself. You knew that you were oozing panic from every pore right now, you didn’t need a basilisk blabbing that to the whole car. Taking a deep inhale through your nose, you desperately tried to calm your heartrate back down. Fairies didn’t have super hearing that you were aware of, but with how close you two you were, you wouldn’t be surprised if Jungwoo would be able to hear your heart hammering anyway.

“So how did you end up riding with Johnny?” You asked him quietly, hoping that some light conversation would distract you from how hyperaware you were of every square centimeter of you that was in contact with him. “I thought Taeil would’ve been taking you.”

“Yuta was taking Jaehyun and Taeyong and didn’t have enough room for all the extra beach stuff in his truck. Johnny would’ve had enough room, except he was bringing you and Donghyuck, and we would’ve all been much more squished in Taeil’s car. So I got voted off the island and Taeil’s bringing Doyoung and the extra beach stuff.”

You chuckled, the tension in your body easing as you could perfectly imagine how that conversation went down between your friends, “How tragic.”

“I don’t mind, I like you.” Jungwoo’s breath washed over the shell of your ear, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and your shoulders jump a little. Which he could definitely feel.

“Oh!” The squeak in your voice was audible. “Yeah, we— we all like you too, Woos.”

“So do you like it?”

“Huh?”

“The music.”

You admittedly hadn’t even been paying attention to any of the songs playing in the headphones you were sharing, all too focused on your proximity rather than the alleged reason for it. Taking a few seconds, you listened to the song that was playing at that moment. It was a softer indie-sounding track, and you found yourself nodding maybe a little too enthusiastically, “Oh, yeah, yeah, it’s good.”

“Good,” he offered you a gentle smile. “You can pick the next album. I want to know what kind of stuff you listen to.”

Only two tracks into your chosen album, Johnny announced that he’d be pulling off at the next exit for gas, so any snack purchases and bathroom breaks would need to happen now as well. You gave him a weak thumbs-up in the rearview mirror, the only part of his face visible in said mirror being an inquisitively raised eyebrow. As Johnny slowed the van to a stop at the gas pump, Jungwoo slid away from you as casually as he had slid over, leaning over the seat to try to wake Donghyuck up.

“Donghyuck,” he cooed at him. “Donghyuck, wake up. Y/N and I need to get out.”

“That’s not going to work,” you sighed, hunching over the seat as well. “You have to resort to violence with Hyuck.”

“He’s covered in plants,” Jungwoo pointed out. “I’m not a dryad but harming nature still isn’t really my thing.”

“I didn’t say set him on fire or anything.”

“Then what—”

Mark had already hopped out of the car at that point, and opened the door to the backseat then. You and he made eye contact, nodded once in unison, then he grabbed one of Donghyuck’s ankles and yanked on it. The basilisk jerked his hand back before vines could wrap around it. But it worked, the dryad shot up, head whipping around as he looked around for the culprit, and his hands coming up to rub at his eyes sleepily.

“Who—”

“Gas station, Hyuck,” you told him as all the plants on him closed up and disappeared. “Can you move so we can get out please?”

He let out a heaving sigh, scooting across the seat to do so, “Fine, I suppose. Only because I need to pee.”

“Thank you for letting me know that you’ve been hydrating.”

With Donghyuck out, Johnny helped you finagle the fold-down middle row so that you and Jungwoo could climb out of the back, then gave you his card to buy him a soda from inside. You found Mark in front of the refrigerated section, and he dug a hand into the pocket of his shorts before pulling out your missing sunglasses and handing them to you.

“Here. Thanks for letting me borrow them.” His voice slightly drug out the sibilance of his ‘s’ as he spoke, slitted pupils just visible through the tint of his own pair of sunglasses he was donning now. He stuffed his hands back in his pockets as he looked over the drink options.

“Yeah, of course, Mark,” you perched your sunglasses atop your head, then quietly scanned the fridges for Johnny’s soda request.

Mark had come over to your apartment last week to study with Donghyuck for some class they had together, and Johnny tagged along so that you and he could have a little self-care night before the hecticness of finals week. Doing face masks together just felt natural after you had washed his face for an entire month. Johnny had been keeping you up to date on how his roommate was handling the onset of his powers lately. Basilisks, unlike other mythological creatures who were born as such, came into their powers comparatively much later in life, within a year after their first molting. Mark just had his last summer (the details of which Johnny had thankfully spared you but did let you know was awful to have to clean up around the apartment), and had been slowly but surely developing his various basilisk abilities since. One of which, petrification, hadn’t come on at all yet.

Until Johnny had stepped out of your bathroom that night with a green clay face mask on to grab his phone from the living room, turned the corner, and had startled Mark so bad that with just a split second of eye contact, he’d been petrified. Thankfully, not properly turned to stone, just paralyzed more so. He’d remained entirely fleshy and regained full use of his limbs within ten minutes, but Mark had kept your sunglasses on for the rest of the night just in case.

Mark suddenly spoke up again, pointing at a specific row off to your bottom left, the complete opposite direction from where you’d currently been scrutinizing, “Johnny asked for dragonfruit Fanta, right?”

You followed his gaze to a magenta bottle, “Oh! Yes, thanks!”

“No problem.”

“How’d you know?” You questioned as Mark grabbed his own drink, then turned around to peruse the snacks.

“He always tries to cut out caffeine on school breaks since he goes so hard on the coffee during the semester,” the basilisk sighed. “Which means he’ll be right back on it by Monday morning at the latest. If not, tomorrow. Do you see those firecracker things Yuta likes? I made the mistake of telling the others we were making a snack stop and got a whole shopping list.”

“Oh, the ones enchanted to literally pop and sizzle in your mouth?” You wrinkled your nose, remembering when he had let you try one at a movie night. Never again. “Uh… there!”

“Thanks.”

“I’m guessing Taeyong wants his usual too,” you grabbed a holographic box of gummy candies.

After grabbing a few more things, you and Mark paid then headed back out to the SUV. Donghyuck had already beaten the two of you back out there and Johnny was done refilling the gas, meaning that you all were just waiting on Jungwoo to return. Mark and Donghyuck waited in the car with the AC blasting, splitting their snacks between them while you leaned against the side with Johnny, enjoying standing up while you could. There were still at least two more hours left in your drive, not accounting for any traffic.

The human beside you cracked open his soda, holding it out towards you, and you clinked your drink with his before taking swigs in unison.

“So.” Johnny said.

“So.” You repeated.

“What’s uh… what’s up?” He took another drink of his dragonfruit Fanta.

You couldn’t help but laugh, “I don’t know, not much. What’s up with you, Johnny? Finals go good?”

“That’s not what I meant, Y/N,” he gave you a pointed look.

“Then what did you mean?” You asked, bringing your drink up to your lips.

“I meant the romance novel that’s been playing out in my backseat.”

To your credit, you didn’t do a spit take. You did choke on the sip you’d just taken to the point where Johnny felt the need to give you a couple good slaps on the back. When you’d recovered and were upright again, you shook your head.

“Johnny, that’s not— My headphones died, Jungwoo was sharing his and—”

“That’s like, the stupidest excuse I’ve heard in a while. I am actually offended that you think I’m that dumb, Y/N,” Johnny cut you off with a shake of his head. “But fine, you don’t want to tell your best human pal Johnny about your secret relationship, that’s cool. Little tip though, maybe tone down the PDA, then.”

Your tongue felt too big in your mouth as you tripped and fumbled over it trying to correct Johnny’s understanding of the situation. The grin on his face belied that he wasn’t actually that hurt and was instead delighted to know this “secret” information, as he smoothly got you in a loose headlock, affectionately mussing up your hair again.

“Johnny!” You squealed, ducking out from under his arm, not looking where you were going as you scrambled to get away.

And proceeded to stumble right into someone else. Mortification filled your veins as you went to apologize to whatever other patron of the gas station that you’d just bumped into, the words once again getting stuck in your throat as you looked up into familiar brown eyes. Jungwoo held your gaze with a tilted head, not even acknowledging Johnny as the fairy’s mouth turned down into just the slightest frown.

“I’m so sor—”

“Your hair’s all messed up, Y/N,” he informed you matter-of-factly, one hand reaching up to adjust whatever strands were out of place.

You imagined this was what Johnny had felt like last week when Mark accidentally petrified him in your living room. All your muscles were frozen in place, eyes unblinking as Jungwoo dutifully fixed your hair.

He gave the top of your head one last gentle pat, “There.”

“I’m sorry.” You finally managed to finish your thought from earlier. “For uhm, for bumping into you.”

Jungwoo let out a soft chuckle, and you realized that the two of you were still practically chest to chest.

“That’s okay, Y/N. Better you almost knock me over than someone else and we’ve got a pissed off dragon or something on our hands.”

“Hey,” Johnny called out, and you whipped around to look at him. He was still leaning against the car, spinning the keys around his finger as he gave you a knowing smirk. “Are we ready to go?”

“Yep!” The fairy answered cheerily, holding up the strawberry Fanta he’d bought inside.

Finally, after two more hours, many rousing car games led by the now-awake Donghyuck, and several full-car sing-alongs, you’d arrived at the coast. The vast highway gave way to meandering residential roads filled with small, colorful houses clustered together, each with a different quirky mailbox in front of it. Johnny rolled down the front windows, and you could smell the salty ocean air immediately.

A few more twisty roads later, and he slowed to a stop at the dead end of a line of houses in front of a periwinkle colored one, with a familiar small silver hatchback sedan parked out front by the mermaid-shaped mailbox.

“Huh, I thought we’d be the last ones to get here,” Johnny commented, putting his car into park as all of you starting unbuckling and getting ready to get out. Taeil and Doyoung climbed out of their own car to greet you all as well. “The others left before us, and we had to pick Y/N and Donghyuck up.”

There was definitely one vehicle missing, the driver of course being the one who had the key to let you into the house.

“Hey, guys!” You hopped out of the SUV, eager to be out of the cramped backseat again. Your legs weren’t quite ready for your leap, though, but Doyoung thankfully caught you in a half-hug, half-save.

“Hey, Y/N, careful,” he chuckled. “It’s gonna be a shitty spring break if you twist your ankle on the first day.”

“What, you and Taeil couldn’t magic me better?” You teased, righting yourself to give the other witch a hug hello.

“Not this time,” Taeil sighed, patting your back. “We’re a bit tired.”

“Oh? Why?” You pulled back from him to look between the two of them with concern.

“Because they made me this,” Johnny suddenly appeared between Taeil and Doyoung, slinging one arm around Taeil and using the other to hold up something around his own neck. It was a single pearl hanging from a leather cord, and he tucked it back under his shirt after he was sure you got a look at it. “An anti-Yuta charm.”

“Ahh, gotcha,” you smiled at the three of them. “They should really hand those out at orientation at school.”

Johnny let out a hearty laugh at that, giving Taeil and Doyoung each a head ruffle before heading off to see what the others were doing with the luggage in the back of his SUV.

After you were sure he was out of earshot, you turned back to the two witches, “That must be a pretty powerful charm to have made the both of you so tired.”

“Well, it’s a bit hard to tell a unicorn no to their face,” Doyoung rolled his eyes. “Especially Taeyong, he’s got those big round pouty eyes, you know? He asked us to make it for Johnny, said the guy was nervous about coming, even if he wasn’t showing it.”

Taeil added, “And Taeyong was right, it is your fault that even happened to Johnny. You put the hex on Yuta in the first place.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Doyoung waved his friend off, paused, then added, “Thank you for helping, Taeil.”

“Speaking of Yuta,” you said loudly, spotting a familiar vehicle in the distance, at the bottom of the hill.

The whole group burst into noisy jeers and complaints at the old blue truck as it got nearer and nearer, until Yuta had pulled all the way around and parked in the space Taeil left empty for him in the driveway. The heckles finally quieted down when the siren climbed out of his truck to glare at you all.

“Alright!” He held his hands up in a quiet-down gesture. “Sorry to keep you guys waiting. But we’re here now.”

“What took you guys so long?” Johnny asked, starting to help the three newcomers unload the bed of the truck.

“You get lost or something?” Donghyuck teased.

Yuta immediately whirled around on the vampire, “Jaehyun, I swear to God, snitches get stitches.”

A silence fell over everybody, so quiet you swore you could’ve heard a pin drop if not for the quiet background noise of the ocean. Jaehyun was standing on the opposite side of the truck bed, holding an umbrella with one hand to cast a shadow over his face, maintaining Yuta’s eye contact with entirely neutral features.

One.

Two.

“Yuta got pulled over.”

Raucous laughter erupted around you, you yourself cackling so hard your sides hurt.

“That’s it! I’m not inviting you in!” Yuta waggled a finger at Jaehyun, then threw his hands up as he kept ranting. “Hang upside down off the roof and sleep outside for all I fucking care!”

You were doubled over now, lightheaded as you grabbed your knees and tears sprung to your eyes. Taeyong covered his mouth as he giggled, Johnny was leaning against the side of the truck for support, Donghyuck had sprouted bright yellow marigolds along his arms, Mark was rolling around clutching his stomach on the asphalt—which you imagined would’ve been too hot for anybody who wasn’t cold-blooded, Doyoung and Taeil held onto each other to stay upright, and when you looked at Jungwoo, you saw that his hair was flashing back and forth between brown and light pink like a twinkling star. Your cackles lightened up to soft chuckles as you couldn’t help but be transfixed by the image of the fairy’s head thrown back in joy, eyes crinkled into delighted crescents, and laughs that sounded like music reaching your ears.

“What— What did you even do, dude?” Johnny managed to ask.

“I was going like two over the speed limit, okay?” Yuta huffed, crossing his arms.

“Oh yeah, I’m sure it was only ‘like two,’” Donghyuck snorted, standing over Mark as he waited for the basilisk to finish recovering from his laughing fit. The dryad offered out a hand to help yank him back onto two feet again.

“So did you get a ticket?” Taeil called out as he grabbed his luggage from his car.

“Nope!” Yuta announced proudly.

“Oh please tell me you siren charmed your way out of a ticket,” Doyoung said hopefully, hoisting a bag onto his shoulder.

“I would never!” The siren cried out in offense, then pointed to Taeyong. “Taeyong cried a little. Cop felt so bad he let us go with a warning!”

“Is this what those legendary unicorn tears are for? Skirting traffic laws?” You laughed, following everyone up towards the entry.

“I can’t believe you’ll cry to get Yuta out of a ticket but you won’t give me one little vial of your tears!” Doyoung shook Taeyong’s shoulder as he complained.

Taeyong elbowed the witch in the side, “Yeah and this is why! You don’t know how to ask for things nicely!”

Doyoung truly had a special talent, being the only person you’d ever met who was able to rile up the normally patient unicorn so quickly. As their usual bickering escalated into jabs and slaps and kicks, you went to try to duck away from the fray, being directly between and behind them, right in the line of fire.

“Hey, you two! Watch my face!” You warned, holding up an arm defensively in front of you.

“Do I need to come back there and separate you three?” Johnny warned from where he and Yuta were standing at the front door. The rest of you were in a line of some sort leading down the wooden walkway onto the drive.

“Three?!” You repeated indignantly. “What did I do?”

“No, Johnny,” Taeyong mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Whatever,” Doyoung huffed, letting up on the little fight too. “Bet your tears would make weak ass potions anyway.”

“Oh my God, you’re actual children,” you whispered to yourself. With their backs to you and each other, you were free to mimic like you were strangling them, “I’m gonna wring your goddamn necks one of these days.”

There was a giggle from beside you, and you hadn’t even realized that you’d ended up squished next to Jungwoo until right then. When you looked over, he was already looking at you with a smile on his face, and the split second of eye contact warmed you even more than the sunshine.

“What’s the hold-up, Yuta?” Donghyuck yelled from the very back.

“Door’s— just— a— bit— stuck—” Every word from Yuta was punctuated by the siren ramming his shoulder against said door. “God— fuckin— Oh!” He suddenly stumbled forward as the door finally gave way. “There we fuckin’ go!”

Everyone rushed in, stopping just inside of the living room. Well, almost everyone.

“Yuta.” Jaehyun was still standing on the welcome mat outside.

“Did you think I was kidding, you little tick?”

“Yuta,” Taeyong sighed.

“Fine,” Yuta huffed, dragging out the word. “Jaehyun, please come in.”

As Jaehyun lowered his umbrella and stepped in, you looked around where you would be staying for the next week. It was cozy, the beachy aesthetics perfectly encapsulated in the kitschy décor that was plastered all around the living room and attached kitchenette that you’d landed in. But it was kind of… small.

“Hey, Yuta?” Taeil turned to the siren.

Yuta shut the door behind Jaehyun, “Yeah?”

“There’s enough space for all of us to sleep, right?”

“What? Of course… I think.”

“Feels like we’re kids again,” Donghyuck sighed wistfully. “Twin beds, no privacy, I get to listen to your snoring all night.”

“At least we got beds,” you pointed out, heaving your suitcase up onto your own narrow mattress.

You two had been given what looked like a kids’ room, two twin beds on white wicker bed frames with matching nightstands, and a mural of fantastical sea life painted on the walls with friendly, animated faces. Some of the others weren’t so lucky. Taeil and Doyoung got a similar setup to you and Donghyuck, bunkbeds, with Jungwoo on an air mattress on the floor; Taeyong and Yuta were sharing the king bed in the master bedroom; Jaehyun and Johnny had bravely taken the couches (Jaehyun rightly pointed out that he didn’t sleep much anyway), with Mark’s air mattress on the living room floor.

“And nobody on the floor that we have to worry about stepping on in the middle of the night.”

“You know what we should do?”

Donghyuck looked at you with a conspiratorial grin, “Sleepover protocol?”

You nodded firmly, “Sleepover protocol.”

And a succinct ten minutes later, your beds and nightstands had been pushed together, the sheets pulled taut over the posts and lamps, vines and branches supporting the construction where needed: a blanket fort, the form of which had been perfected over years of sleepovers growing up. As you laid inside shoulder-to-shoulder with Donghyuck, you looked up at the ceiling of the fort, watching as he sprouted flowers and leaves along it.

Once he’d finished, he held up his hand expectantly, and you immediately gave him a satisfyingly snappy high-five.

A couple soft knocks came at the open bedroom door, followed by a voice, “Hey, Y/N— Woah!” Jungwoo’s sentence stopped short as he took in the scene before him. “You two got that up quick.”

Donghyuck looked over at you, a mischievous smirk already on his lips, before he innocently replied to the fairy, “Oh, and you should see the inside! Here, Jungwoo, I was just about to go see if Mark needed any help with his air mattress anyway!”

You darted your hand out to pinch him as he sat up on his knees. He hissed in pain as you managed to get some skin, swatted your fingers away, then crawled out of the fort. A second later the entire room mysteriously got darker, then Jungwoo’s head popped in at the entrance to the fort, playful glint in his eye, “Is there a password?”

You shook your head as best you could lying down, “Hyuck and I didn’t get to make one before he just ditched me.”

“What kind of blanket fort is this with no password?” Jungwoo clicked his tongue disapprovingly as he scooched into the empty space your friend had created, his right side now pressed against your left.

“Well then help me think of one, in case anyone else comes barging in,” you nudged his arm that was beside yours.

“I didn’t come barging in, I knocked.”

“Mhm.”

“You know what else this fort needs? In addition to a password.”

“What?”

“Some lights.”

“Okay well Donghyuck apparently turned the lights off on his way out, don’t fault the fort for that.”

“I was thinking something more like…” Jungwoo raised his left hand, and you watched as his fingertips danced across the flowers on the ceiling of the fort. In their wake, small dots of glowing golden light were nestled between the petals and leaves of the plants. You couldn’t help the small gasp that left your mouth at the utterly enchanting sight above you, it looked like a sea of tiny, twinkling stars had been captured and put in a field of flowers just for you.

You’d never really seen Jungwoo do much magic in the time that you’d known him. Sure, he owned the odd magic item here and there, pretty much all your friends did thanks to Taeil and Doyoung, or by way of their own magical community. And of course, the changing hair color, but that seemed more accidental or incidental rather than intentional. But you were hard pressed to think of a time that Jungwoo had really put his fairy powers on display in any distinguished capacity in front of you.

“Woos, this is… It’s unbelievable. Just beautiful…” You sighed out, reaching a hand up towards one of the flowers directly above you—a pink carnation—before you dropped it back down to rest on your stomach, thinking that touching the mysterious magical light might be a bad idea. Turning your head to the side, you looked over at Jungwoo, only to nearly jump out of your skin when you saw him already looking at you. Your noses were nearly touching, and you jerked your head back a tiny bit to regain your bearings.

You snapped your gaze back up to the ceiling quickly, “Uhm, so, what were you coming to our room for? It sounded like you needed something.”

“Johnny and them wanted help unpacking all the cars, so I was sent to get you and Donghyuck. But if he went out there looking for Mark, Johnny definitely found him, so…” Jungwoo shrugged. “I think we can stay here for a little while longer.”

It wasn’t until late afternoon that everything was finally together enough for you all to head down to the beach. Most of the group had taken off by the time you’d emerged from your room in your swimsuit and coverup. Jaehyun was still in the living room, standing at the little breakfast bar that separated the couches from the kitchenette. He was rubbing presumably sunscreen onto his skin, the tube set onto the counter beside him. As you walked by him towards the fridge, you were able to spot the little cartoon vampire fangs on the black bottle—special formula to keep him from burning to a crisp.

The fridge was empty save for some mysterious jars filled with a glittering purple liquid which you chalked up to Doyoung and Taeil, and therefore opted to leave alone.

“Did the others bring a cooler down with all the drinks?” You turned around to ask the vampire.

He nodded as he went to get his ears and neck next. Most of him would be covered by his t-shirt and swim trunks, at least.

“Don’t forget the tops of your feet.”

“Thank you.” He bent down to slather up from the knees down as well.

“Are we the last ones?”

Jaehyun nodded again.

“Alright, ready to go? Need anything else? Hat? Sunglasses? Umbrella?”

He grabbed a pair of dark, mirrored sunglasses that were also on the counter, his sunscreen, then gave you a nod. You nodded back, slid on your sunglasses, and shouldered your bag of beach items before moving to open the back door for your friend. Jaehyun hissed as soon as he stepped out, and you squinted your eyes as you did too. You could see your friends all along the beach already. A couple large umbrellas were set up with several beach chairs, folding chairs, and towels under them; a volleyball net was being put up; a firepit was in fact a little further down the beach; there were some little dots in the water that could be heads bobbing along with the waves; and a couple figures were chasing each other in the surf. From this distance, you were pretty sure those last two were Donghyuck and Mark.

“You know, Jaehyun, you don’t do much to dispel those vampire stereotypes,” you patted him on the back as you started down the boardwalk-lined walkway. “Hissing when you see the sun, being the weirdest fucking dude in the room.”

“I’m not trying to dispel any stereotypes,” he deadpanned. “The Sun hurts my eyes.”

“Why did you come to Cape Solaria then?”

It was then that one of the people who had been sitting down under an umbrella turned around, and you were able to identify them as Taeyong, who gave the two of you a big wave paired with an even bigger smile. You waved back. Jaehyun lifted his hand for a moment before dropping it back down by his side.

“All of you were coming. And I think… I think it would’ve made Taeyong sad, if we weren’t all together.”

You looked over at the vampire thoughtfully, and saw that same blank expression as always. But this time you decided that you could see some kind of fondness there, for Taeyong, for you, for all of your friends. You always joked about Jaehyun being emotionless, but you knew that he was human just a few years ago, had all the same mushy stuff churning inside him then as you did now. He didn’t talk a lot, so when you got to hear these rare moments from him, you were reminded of that fact. And you had to think that no, he wasn’t emotionless, he just felt it and expressed it differently than you were expecting him to.

“I think you’re right, Jaehyun,” you grabbed his forearm to steady yourself to take off your flip-flops now that you’d reached the sand. You let out a sigh at the warm sand between your toes. Giving his cold limb an appreciative squeeze, you then let it go, “Thank you, for coming with us. I’m glad you’re here, and I know Taeyong and the rest of the guys are, too.”

The vampire was quiet as the two of you finished your short walk to join the others who were under the two colorful umbrellas. Taeyong had saved a fully-shaded chair for Jaehyun. You plopped your bag down on a towel that you recognized as Donghyuck’s.

Taeil was on a reclining beach chair, floppy hat brim pulled slightly down over his face as if he were taking a nap. In just a pair of swim trunks, the ritual tattoos on his torso, arms, and neck were on full display in all their inky blackness. Thick, bold, intricate strokes that reminded you of tree branches winding across his skin. What you did know about them was mostly gathered from context clues, what the two witches had freely brought up in conversation. Taeil relied a lot more on grounding and building his internal power through long, studied rituals, which you figured was why he had more tattoos than Doyoung, who favored quick incantations—i.e., hexes, charms, and curses. The latter was magic that could be drawn from external magical sources like certain crystals or metals, hence Doyoung’s usual menagerie of jewelry.

The cooler was at the witch’s feet, and you flipped it open to root around through the ice before securing your drink of choice. Turning around to face the ocean, you took in a deep breath of the salty air. It really was spring break. Mark and Donghyuck were splashing each other in the shallows, about shin-deep in the water. A little further out, you could now see that Doyoung was treading water, watching another figure that was moving around with a speed and agility that made you stop and look with awe.

Yuta was fully in his element here, quite literally swimming circles around Doyoung. Holding up a hand to block out some of the Sun and get a better look, you swore Yuta’s legs were gone, and replaced by a… yep, that was definitely a tail, long, thin, and powerful. It was the same silvery iridescent that you had seen peeks of with his other scales, catching blue, purple, and pink in the Sun when it popped up out of the water. Two large fins were at the end of it, and a dorsal fin went from his still-human back down through where it turned into the tail.

You slowly walked towards the water to get a better look, mindful of Mark and Donghyuck’s splash war that had now turned into water wrestling. As Yuta slowed to instead do some rather ominous circles around Doyoung, you noted more fins had grown along his forearms as well. It looked like some gill slits were on his neck, too.

“Yuta, if you drown me, I swear to Hecate, I will become a ghost and haunt your fishy ass,” Doyoung went to splash the siren, who simply dove underwater, then popped up behind the witch.

“And I promised to everybody possible, including Hecate, that I wasn’t going to drown you,” Yuta pointed out, beginning to circle him again, an absolutely devilish grin on his lips. “That doesn’t mean I can’t play with you a little.”

“Ugh, you make everything sound so weird, can’t you just say that we’re swimming?”

“Nope!” Yuta dove down again with a flick of his tail.

“Shit! Where’d he go?!”

You laughed, taking a sip of your drink before there were suddenly two wet hands over your sunglasses and you let out a screech, “Jesus Christ!”

“Close!” A familiar voice said cheerfully. “Guess again.”

“Hyuck!” You jutted an elbow behind you, satisfied when you made contact with wet skin, and heard a grunt.

“Correct!” He wasn’t as cheery this time, hands still over your eyes. “You know, that would’ve hurt if it weren’t for my six-pack that I’ve been honing at the gym all year.”

You snorted, “Your what that you’ve been honing at the where?”

“Fair,” your friend sighed. “Anyway, are you ready?”

You were immediately on edge for whatever he was about to do to you. Splashing you, throwing you in the water, pushing your head underwater, any number of things immediately came to mind.

“For what?”

His hands suddenly clamped down over your head as he forcibly turned you around, and you grabbed onto his arm for support as you yelped and protested this, the sand underneath you uneven, especially with you currently being blinded. Donghyuck’s voice was closer to your ear as he whispered, “Well, to see Jungwoo shirtless, of course.”

“Oh God, Hyuck! Shut the fuck up!” You blindly threw a hand back in an attempt to smack some part of his face, but just found empty air this time. “We’re not in middle school anymore! I can handle seeing a dude at the beach!”

“Ok-ay…” He replied in a sing-song voice, clearly not believing you, at the same time that he finally took his hands off your face.

You had to blink your eyes a few times to readjust to the brightness of the sunny afternoon. Donghyuck had pointed you straight at the volleyball net that was now fully constructed, where Johnny was on one side. The human was holding a volleyball against his hip with one hand as he conversed with Jungwoo on the other side of the net, who was in a pair of yellow swim trunks and a white tank top.

“Hey, Y/N!” Johnny waved at you.

If this were a teen movie, there would be a record scratch right here. Your stomach plummeted as you frantically tried to calculate how long exactly you had been staring in their direction. You gave a meek wave as Jungwoo spun around to look in your direction too.

“Y/N!” Jungwoo called out, this time waving you over. Oh great, no getting out of this one.

You weakly shuffled over towards them, keeping your gaze on literally anything except Jungwoo’s bare torso. “What’s up?”

“Do you—”

Jungwoo was cut off by a shriek from the water.

“Yuta! Shark!” Doyoung yelled as he paddled back towards the shore.

“Yeah, this is Bear,” Yuta seemed entirely unfazed by the small dorsal fin meandering along around him.

The witch stopped to look at him in disbelief, “Bear the shark?”

“Blacktip shark, if you want to be specific,” the siren shrugged. “And he’s just a baby. He’s barely three feet.”

“Oh, fuck this,” Doyoung shook his head, resuming his journey back to the beach. “You and Bear have fun out here by yourselves.”

Returning your focus to the two men in front of you, you looked up at Jungwoo questioningly, “Uhm, so…?”

“Did you want to play?” Jungwoo asked.

“Oh, no, Woos, that’s okay,” you shook your head quickly.

“Really? You were looking over here pretty intently,” he pointed out, and the little half-smirk that played across his lips almost looked knowing. He leaned down towards you, momentarily blotting out the sun, “Seems like you wanted something. If not volleyball then…?”

Oh, you needed to get the hell out of here. Between Jungwoo’s everything, Johnny’s ‘oh really?’ head tilt, and the heat, you very much felt like you could pass out any second.

“Nah, you know, I don’t think three people would really work for teams anyway,” you rushed to say, scratching anxiously at the back of your neck.

“Hey Taeil!” Johnny bellowed out over yours and Jungwoo’s heads, cutting off whatever the fairy was about to say in response.

The witch flipped up the brim his hat to squint at the three of you, “Eh?”

Johnny held up the volleyball, “Wanna play? We need a magic fourth to make it even!”

“What? Big strong Johnny can’t beat one fairy and a human all on his own?” Taeil sighed as he started meandering over. “You need little ol’ me to come help?”

Jungwoo’s eyes sparkled mischievously as he straightened back up to address Taeil, “So we’re allowing magic then?”

“Only on the ball, not the players,” the witch laid out the ground rules.

“How about on the ball, and on you and me? No magic on Johnny and Y/N,” Jungwoo countered.

Taeil took a moment to contemplate this, then nodded, “Fine.”

You caught Johnny’s gaze, his wide eyes mirroring your own. Accepting that you weren’t getting out of this, you set your drink down by Jungwoo’s shirt.

“So how will we know who wins?” You questioned.

Taeil and Johnny exchanged a glance before the human answered confidently, “Oh, we’ll know.”

You narrowed your eyes at them. “Okay… but just in case, first to ten?”

“First to ten.” Johnny confirmed, sticking his hand through a small tear in the net. You shook it firmly.

As you all backed away from the net to take your places, he tossed the volleyball over the net to you.

“Here. You can serve first.”

“How kind,” you scoffed as you caught it, then turned to your teammate. “Do you want to serve, or should I?”

“You go for it, Y/N,” Jungwoo said, eyes focused over your shoulder. “I’ll be doing a little defense.”

“A little… oh.” You turned and saw Taeil and Johnny conversing much like you and Jungwoo were, the smaller looking over at the ball in your hand. “What do you think he’s gonna do?”

“Nothing you have to worry about,” the fairy patted the top of your head. “You and Johnny are off-limits, remember?”

“I know…” you mumbled, looking down at the volleyball in your hands intently. “Just wondering.”

Backing all the way up to the designated edge of the makeshift court, you waited until everyone looked like they were in place, then tossed the ball up to serve. It started a clear arc heading over the net towards Johnny, who was getting ready to set it back up, until it suddenly changed direction, veering off towards Taeil. The witch got his hands up at the last second, bumping it back towards his teammate.

Johnny hit back over the net, to which Jungwoo set it high for you.

“Y/N!”

“Got it!” You jumped up, spiking the ball down over the net as hard as you could.

Taeil went to save it, but his foot seemed to catch on something as he fell to the ground, landing just short of it. You had to hold back your laughter at the comical trip and tumble that he’d taken, sand flying up around him.

“Hell yeah, Y/N!” Jungwoo came up to you with two hands up, and you immediately slammed your palms against his in a satisfying double high-five. He laced his fingers through yours before you could pull back, a bright grin on his face as he gave your hands a squeeze then let them go.

“Taeil, are you okay?” You checked in on your friend as he brushed the sand off his knees and you all reset your positions.

“Oh, I’m great, Y/N. I’m having fun, promise,” he assured you, then focused a hard stare on Jungwoo. He pointed at the fairy accusatorily, “You, on the other hand, are not about to be!”

“Try me!” Jungwoo yelled back, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Johnny gave you another bewildered look. You shrugged; magic teasing and taunts were commonplace at playdates growing up with Donghyuck, it wasn’t unheard of for the two of you to alter the rules of common kids games to accommodate his powers. This was just the first time you’d seen it at this magnitude of power. Well, sort of. It was the first time you’d seen adults do it like this.

Johnny served this time, and while the ball was initially going straight for the space in between you and Jungwoo, you backed away to let Jungwoo lunge forward for it. A few more passes between the two teams happened without much incident, until Johnny went to pass it to Taeil, but way overshot it.

“Shit! Sorry— oh.” Johnny’s apology turned into wide-eyed surprise as the ball suddenly disappeared into thin air.

Then reappeared directly above Jungwoo’s head. It plummeted straight down, bouncing off his head, hitting the net, and coming to a final rest on the ground. You didn’t bother with the volleyball, rushing over to check on the fairy as he fell to his knees, holding his head.

“Ooh! Are you alright, Woos?” You asked, wincing sympathetically.

“No,” he bemoaned, eyes screwed shut. “I think I need... I need someone to... to kiss me better.”

You could feel yourself glitching out in real time, your hand that had been reaching out towards his head freezing in mid-air, your eyes blinking in rapid succession as you tried to grasp what he’d just said.

After two beats of neither of you moving, perfect statues, like the weirdest Baroque painting you could find at a museum, Jungwoo squinted one of his eyes open to look at you. You held his eye contact, stupefied.

“Hey! If you’re not concussed, can we get a move on with the game?” Johnny called out, startling you into pulling your hand back like you’d been burned. “We’re 1 to 1 and I’d really like to get back to beating you guys!”

“We’ll finish our melodrama another time,” Jungwoo whispered to you before jumping to his feet. He patted you on the back, “Now come on, I need my superstar partner back!”

You shook your head as you jogged back over to your side of the court, desperately trying to clear your mind. Volleyball. Volleyball. Not kissing Jungwoo. Just volleyball. Definitely not Jungwoo grabbing you by the waist and—

“Y/N!”

You looked up at the sound of Jungwoo’s voice, just in time to see the ball sailing over the net towards you. A little slower than it should’ve been, you realized. But that gave you the extra split second you needed to react, bumping it over to the fairy. He sent it back to you, and you leapt up to spike it back down. A satisfying wave of sand parted around the volleyball as it struck the ground like a small meteor, Johnny missing his save as it flew past him with way more force and speed than you had imparted on it.

“Two-one,” you pointed out as Taeil set up for his serve.

Now with your head sufficiently back in the game, you and Jungwoo kept racking up points as the match continued. Four-two, seven-three, eight-three, nine-four.

Jungwoo and Taeil were at maximum magical shenanigans now, and the entire group had gathered around the court to watch. It was a chaotic cacophony of tripping, speeding volleyballs, and ignoring the laws of physics and plate tectonics, all interspersed with very mundane passes by you and Johnny.

You hit the volleyball over. It wasn’t a perfect set-up, nor a perfect hit by you either. The ball was sailing directly in front of Taeil, he could just take two steps forward and get it, no magic necessary. Except as he went to do so, a circle of red-capped mushrooms appeared around him, and he dropped his foot in a childish stomp. The volleyball hit the ground, rolling to a stop at the gathered crowd’s feet.

“A fairy ring?! Seriously, Jungwoo?!” Taeil huffed, throwing his hands up.

But you were buzzing with way too much excitement to pay him any mind. That was ten points.

“Yes!” You pumped a fist in the air, bouncing up and down as you turned around, seeking out your teammate.

Jungwoo was beaming, once again holding up two hands for you, and you high-fived him, expectantly leaving your palms resting against his for a split-second after. He laced his fingers with yours, squeezing your hands even tighter this time. You swore his grin was brighter than the Sun.

He let your hands go only to nonchalantly throw an arm around your shoulders, half-dragging and half-leading you up to the net to address your opponents.

“I’m sorry, Johnny, what was that about you beating us?” Jungwoo teased.

The human chuckled, looking over at the pair of you with a grin, “My bad. Good job, guys. You two are good together.”

“Jungwoo.” Taeil cut in sternly, tapping his foot impatiently. He was still encircled by mushrooms. “The fairy ring.”

“Right. Sorry!” Jungwoo said brightly, and the fungi disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

“No you’re not.” The witch shook his head.

“All’s fair in love and sport.”

You squinted up at him, “That’s not the—”

The four of you were suddenly swarmed by the others, either jeering at Taeil and Johnny for losing, congratulating you and Jungwoo on your win, or also jeering at you and Jungwoo for winning. It was a mass of teasing, pushing, pulling, yelling, and shaking. One particular tug from Yuta and Donghyuck knocked you loose from under Jungwoo’s arm, but you were too busy laughing to really care.

As the Sun began to set, you all congregated around the firepit and the four benches there. Yuta, Johnny, and Taeyong were looking very much like three dads at a barbeque as they prepared the fire itself— Johnny insisted on doing it the human way for “authenticity” instead of one of the witches magicking a flame. Taeil and Doyoung were grabbing the s’mores ingredients from the house while Jungwoo, Jaehyun, and Mark chatted as they watched the three preparing the wood. You and Donghyuck were sat together on another bench, giggling as you played with a little sandpiper that had been following the dryad around since his arrival. The bird hopped from your hands to Donghyuck’s, then back.

“Thank Pan it’s not seagulls this time.” You gingerly stroked its head as it perched on your friend’s shoulder. Usually you wouldn’t dare to touch or approach wild animals on your own, but they all liked Donghyuck, and he made sure they were never in distress from your interactions.

You remembered coming to the Cape with Donghyuck and your parents as a kid, and instead of a cute sandpiper, he had instead befriended some obnoxious seagulls.

“Hey, those guys were great,” Donghyuck scoffed. “It’s not my fault you didn’t get their jokes.”

“And it’s not my fault that I don’t have a telepathic connection with animals.” You scoffed. “Is this one a comedian too?”

“No, she’s a quiet one. Just chillin’ out with us.”

Johnny let out a loud whoop, and you looked up to spot a little flame starting in the very heart of the pit. The three of them all exchanged enthusiastic high-fives and pats on the back.

Doyoung and Taeil returned soon after with all the s’mores ingredients, as well as some more drinks. The cooler had already been emptied earlier in the evening. You took whatever drink Doyoung pushed into your hand, and the marshmallow on a stick Taeil put in your other hand.

Jungwoo ended up sitting next to you at some point, knee bumping against yours every so often, you didn’t remember when that happened, but everyone was talking and laughing as the fire roared. Your face was warmed by the flames as you rotated your marshmallow, watching it turn golden. You’d lost track of what number this was.

“Can’t believe we get a whole week here,” you sighed contentedly, watching over all your friends having fun.

Jungwoo was quiet, and you were about to look at him, except your marshmallow caught fire, and you pulled it back quickly to blow it out. He laughed from beside you, and you glanced over to catch a glimpse of his smile, glowing by the light of the fire. You found that he was already watching you.

You diverted your eyes to grab your plate and assemble the s’more. “Do you want this one, Woos?”

“I’ll take the next one, Y/N. Thanks.”

Lifting the treat up, you took a bite, the melted chocolate and marshmallow immediately oozing out the sides. After finishing it, you were about to grab whatever was left of your drink when Jungwoo touched your arm.

“Y/N, hold on.”

“Hm?” You turned back to looked up at him.

Then Jungwoo’s hand was gently gripping your chin, his thumb swiping at the corner of your mouth and just barely grazing over the edge of your bottom lip. His hand was gone as quick as it had appeared, leaving a hot buzz under your skin in the wake of his touch. You couldn’t pull your eyes from him as he then brought his thumb up to his lips, cleaning off the digit. Your entire body was thrumming now. Hot, hotter than the fire was making you. His eyes glittered, and it definitely didn’t remind you of craft store glitter this time.

“You had chocolate on your face,” he explained, his voice almost sounding like he was teasing you. But this wasn’t like his usual jokes, there was an unfamiliar tension. He didn’t giggle after.

Your tongue instinctively darted out to lick that same spot, and you could taste the faint remnants of the chocolate bar used for the s’more. You swore his eyes followed the movement.

“Th-thanks, Woos,” you stuttered. Grabbing another marshmallow from your plate, you were in a daze as you said, “Here, I’ll make yours now.”

When the fire was eventually put out, chairs and umbrellas packed up, and the less tipsy of you had helped the more drunk of you into bed, you could finally retire to your blanket fort with Donghyuck. But no matter how late it was, how physically tired you felt, you couldn’t sleep. You knew your roommate wasn’t asleep yet either, he’d just put his phone down a couple minutes ago.

You stared up at the ceiling of your fort, at the dimming dots that Jungwoo had put up that afternoon, and let out a deep sigh. “I feel like I’m going crazy, Hyuck.”

The mattress creaked under him as he shifted onto his side. “Why?”

“Jungwoo…”

He snorted. “Hate to be the one to break this to you: You’ve been crazy for him since the fall.”

“I know,” you whined half-heartedly, not even having it in you to smack him around a little like usual. “But usually he just exists near me and I melt into a puddle. Today, I swear it felt like I was going to die.”

“Oh, at the volleyball game?”

“You saw that?”

“Y/N, it was hard not to. If he were a werewolf, I would’ve thought he was scenting you.”

“Uh…” You completely lost your train of thought, eyes focusing and unfocusing on the lights above you.

Donghyuck snapped his fingers in front of your face, “Earth to Y/N.”

“Stop it,” you shoved his hand away.

“Oh there we go, you’re back.”

“Anyway, it wasn’t just what you saw at the volleyball game.”

And so you recounted every weird little thing that happened just that day with Jungwoo to your friend. The car ride, the fort, the volleyball game before Donghyuck started watching, the goddamn s’mores. If you were talking to anybody other than your best friend, you would’ve been mortified to relay all this to him, to admit both how badly all this had affected you and that you’d remembered every single detail of every single incident.

“Y/N.” The dryad said calmly after you had finished.

“Yes?” You held your breath, ready to be told that you were in fact crazy, and getting worked up over nothing, and desperately needed to get your head screwed back on properly.

“You want to kiss him so bad you’re making yourself look stupid. Of course he was flirting with you.”

And somehow being validated was even worse.

You covered your face with your hands, shaking your head back and forth, “Nonononono.”

“What’s the issue here? You’ve been into him without making any moves for a few months now, and he’s like… very obviously showing interest.”

“I needed you to tell me I was wrong, Hyuck! Not fuel my stupid daydreams! God, I’m going to be absolutely delusional now.”

“Or, I'm right—as I usually am—and you can finally do something about it.”

You let out a prolonged noise that was something between a whine and a groan, crossing your arms over your chest.

Donghyuck mimicked the sound you’d made. “I’m confused, do you actually want to date him or not? I can’t tell sometimes.”

“I do, I do,” you said. “I just… I don’t know. What if he’s just being nice? My headphones had died, you know, he just didn’t want me to be bored on that long car ride. And the fort, I mean you and I are sleeping in here together and I’m not accusing you of wanting to date me. Then the volleyball game, we’re friends and we had just won, you know, he was probably just excited and he’s a sweet guy, he's kind of touchy in general with everyone, right?”

Your words were met with silence, and you braced yourself for whatever opinion Donghyuck had on your rant. But as the silence dragged on, you looked over at him. His eyes were shut, shoulders rising and falling with each breath as he was comfortably tucked under his blanket.

You couldn’t even be mad at him, giving him a fond smile, “Yeah... Goodnight, Hyuck.”

SUNDAY

You were one of the first ones up that morning, and ate breakfast with the earlier risers: Taeil, Doyoung, Jaehyun, and Johnny. More were beginning to stir throughout the house as the first of you finished breakfast and cleared out of the kitchen to make room for the next wave. The two witches caught up to you in the narrow hallway that held all the bedrooms and one bathroom.

“Hey, Y/N,” Taeil said. “We’re going out, wanna come?”

“Sure, where are you going?” You questioned, pressing to one wall to allow a zombified Donghyuck to walk by.

“There’s a coven nearby that runs an apothecary downtown we want to check out.”

“Taeil also wants to get an invite to their dawn sacraments next Sunday,” Doyoung snorted.

“And you don’t?” Taeil scoffed back.

Doyoung’s silence was answer enough.

“Yeah, I’d love to come!” You nodded enthusiastically. “But are you sure you want me to? Or that I’m like, allowed to?”

“Of course!” The older reassured you.

Doyoung added, “Just don’t touch something if you don’t know what it is.”

“To be safe.”

It was a short ride into downtown Cape Solaria, which was comprised of just a couple small cross streets. Colorfully painted storefronts with wooden signs for a candy shop, flower shop, bakery, several different restaurants, bar and pool hall, among other things. And tucked at the end of all of them, a simple sign that just said Apothecary. Street parking was easy to find, and you wondered if it was always like that or just because you were there so early in the morning.

You kept close to your friends in the store. The aisles were narrow, as it seemed like the owners had packed as many shelving units in here as possible. They were filled with jars of herbs, vials of liquids, and bowls of crystals. Some things were familiar to you, some were not. You kept your hands to yourself nevertheless.

Taeil and Doyoung would occasionally pick something up and show it to the other, and they would either nod or shake their head as to whether it would be purchased. You knew the two of them had been friends for some time, but you realized then that you didn’t actually know for how long.

“Can I ask you guys something?” You spoke up from where you were beside Taeil, who was perusing some jars of various powders. Doyoung was examining some of the larger crystal formations.

“Can I ask you something first?” Taeil countered.

“Oh, sure. It’s only fair.”

“Is your question about somebody?”

“Uh, yeah?”

They looked over their shoulders at each other, matching smirks growing on their faces before turning back to their individual sides of the aisle.

“Of course, Y/N,” Taeil answered for them.

Opting not to address that little moment, you went ahead with your real question. “So how did you two meet?”

Doyoung immediately hissed, “Taeil, I swear I will—”

“What, Doie? Hex me?” Taeil laughed. “You really need to try to talk things out with people before jumping right to hexing. This is how you nearly get your friend drowned in your bathtub.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he grumbled back.

“I’ll take that as a concession that I’m right.” The older hummed happily. “Anyway, Y/N, to answer your question, we belong to the same coven back home. So Doyoung and I have known each other since we were kids, kind of like you and Donghyuck.”

“If you can call two families a coven. In our town the only witches are my family and Taeil’s. Covens are usually at least five families.”

“And now you and I have got a two-person coven, Doie. It’s not how many, it’s what you are to each other.”

“Gross.”

Taeil rolled his eyes, turning his focus to you, “He knows that, he likes to pretend like he’s still nine years old and believes in cooties or something.”

“Why didn’t you want Taeil to tell me that, Doyoung?” You questioned the younger witch.

“It’s what usually comes next,” Doyoung sighed, picking up a couple black crystals.

“How we came to university.” Taeil offered.

“Oh yeah, if you had a coven back home, why’d you come to college?” You tilted your head. Covens were family for witches, both spiritually and literally. To leave their coven and come to college wasn’t entirely unheard of, but also wasn’t a typical trajectory for young witches.

“I didn’t care about higher education one way or another, but Doyoung really wanted to do it. He didn’t want to go by himself, though. Begged me to come with him.”

Doyoung snapped around, “Fuck the hex, I’m just going to find some duct tape and—”

Taeil kept speaking to you, voice fond as he recalled the memory, “I mean, we grew up in the coven together, that was all we knew, it was scary to leave. I was terrified of leaving our families and coming here. But brave little Doie still wanted to go, so I told him of course I would go with him. We were a coven, after all.”

“I hate when you do that,” Doyoung huffed, moving onto some herbs.

“Do what?” Taeil asked humorously.

“Be nice so I can’t be mean to you. Why can’t you just spike my tea to give me bunny ears so I can put wartweed in your acne cream?”

You couldn’t help but laugh at the image of Doyoung with bunny ears and poor Taeil with warts on his face.

“Because we’re not in middle school anymore,” Taeil grabbed a few small jars. “But if you want to start a prank war, I’m sure Jungwoo would want to get in on it too.”

You all were now going down the next aisle, which was primarily live plants.

“After seeing you get your ass kicked at volleyball yesterday, I would love it if he did,” Doyoung chuckled.

You felt something brush against your arm, and looked down to see a lover’s embrace vine from the top shelf beginning to wind itself around your forearm.

“Ack! No, no,” you said sternly, gently brushing at it. It got the idea, retreating back up to the top shelf. Thankfully it was a young one that hadn’t bloomed yet, so you were actually in your right mind to shoo it off.

Meanwhile, Taeil and Doyoung were still bickering like an old married couple.

“I did not ‘get my ass kicked.’”

“Ten to four, Taeil.”

“Hey—”

“And you kept eating sand too.”

“Not my fault he thought tripping me was just as funny the fifth time as it was the first time.”

“He was right.”

“And my partner—”

“Oh yeah, blame the human,” Doyoung clicked his tongue and shook his head in disapproval.

“Don’t put words in my mouth! All I’m saying is that Johnny played like he thought the ball was going to explode if he hit it too hard. Y/N actually knew how to play off of Jungwoo’s magic.”

Both witches turned back to look at you.

You raised your eyebrows curiously, “Hm? Yeah, I mean, I grew up with plenty of magical hijinks with Donghyuck.”

“And…?” Doyoung prompted you further.

“And… Jungwoo and I are lab partners, so we already work together a bunch, I guess?” You filled in, voice pitched up as if it were all a question, not exactly sure what they were expecting from you.

They were still looking at you.

“Come on, guys, give Johnny a break, I think he’s done pretty well at keeping up with all of us, all things considered. And the poor guy had to deal with Mark molting last year.”

“Speaking of—” Taeil peered around, “Have you guys seen rattlesnake skin?”

MONDAY

A crack of thunder woke you up that morning. You groaned, pulling your blanket over your eyes and rolling over. Instead of hitting Donghyuck like you’d expected, you instead just found more empty space. Squinting one eye open, you saw that the fort was entirely vacant of your dryad roommate.

With a frown, you shimmied out of the fort, wrapping one of your blankets around yourself to go look for him. He wasn’t in your room at all.

More thunder boomed outside and lightning flashed, illuminating the house as you shuffled through the hall. Johnny and Mark were peacefully asleep in the living room. And that’s where you found Donghyuck, sitting silently at the kitchen table with Jaehyun, watching the rain pelt against the windows.

Their backs were to you, and as you got closer you could see that the dryad had a steaming mug in front of him.

“Hey,” you whispered, gently setting your hand on his shoulder.

“Oh, hey, Y/N,” Donghyuck’s hand fidgeted with the handle. “I couldn’t sleep, and didn’t want to wake you up by tossing and turning.”

You squeezed his shoulder, “Thanks.”

The dryad always got sort of antsy with big storms like this. Just like Taeyong’s mood was influenced by the emotions of the people around him, Donghyuck was sensitive to the weather. A storm as tumultuous as this was definitely affecting him.

“So what do you got there?” You referenced his drink.

“Hot chocolate. We didn’t have any milk to mix with the packet though, so I had to use water,” he wrinkled his nose. “I’m going to ask Doyoung to make me some tea when he wakes up.”

“Ooh, that sounds good.”

“Sucks about the beach, though. No way we’ll be able to go anywhere in this.”

“Oh, I’m sure this will blow over by morning,” you rubbed his back soothingly.

The storm raged on all day, leaving the ten of you stuck inside. By lunchtime, you had exhausted all of the board games that you could find in the house, and you were becoming painfully aware of just how tiny the space was with all of you in here for hours on end.

“Bad news, gang,” Johnny announced from the kitchen, where he had gone to start on dinner preparations. If it weren’t for your phones and rumbling stomachs, you wouldn’t even know that it was time for dinner. The storm outside had kept the sky pitch black and devoid of sunlight all day, and the clocks on the stove and TV were each an hour off in different directions, the stove an hour behind and the TV an hour ahead.

Most of you were sprawled out in various places between the breakfast nook, living room, and kitchen table.

“What, Johnny?” Taeyong called back.

“We’re out of beer.”

A chorus of groans erupted around you.

“That’s it!” Yuta stood up from the couch, taking off down the hall. He came back out with a pair of rain boots and thick coat on. “I am not going to be stuck in here for another second sober. I’ll be back.”

“You’re going to get wet,” Johnny frowned.

Yuta stared at him blankly from where his hand was on the door, silvery eyes flashing with the lightning.

Then your human friend finally seemed to realize, “Oh. Right. Get some pizza too, will you?”

And the siren was gone, slamming the door behind him.

You were playing a game of Uno with Mark, Jaehyun, and Donghyuck that was quickly approaching mutinous with regards to stacking +2 cards on top of +4s, when the front door was thrown open again.

Wind and rain blew in with the siren, howling as it whipped by. You got misted by some of it, shivering as the freezing cold spray hit you. Taeil rushed to shut the door behind him as others helped with the three or four twelve-packs he had squeezed under one arm and five boxes of pizza he had balanced on the other hand. Yuta peeled off his heavy raincoat, shaking out his soaking wet white hair after.

“Behold!” He gestured to the spread on the table grandly, charismatic grin on his face. “Dinner. You’re welcome.”

“Thanks, Yuta!” You slammed your Uno cards down and leapt up, grateful to have something else to do.

Everyone else followed your lead, a mad dash for food and drink.

Somewhere between grabbing food and clearing off the coffee table of all the board games, it was decided that a movie night was in order. Which obviously called for popcorn too.

The living room had two sofas, a central coffee table, and Mark’s air mattress. The larger of the two couches was directly facing the TV, and had the air mattress at the foot of it. The other couch was smaller, closer to the size of a loveseat, and oriented perpendicular to the first.

You had already claimed a spot in the middle of the smaller couch, sandwiched in between Johnny and Jungwoo, and happily munching away on your pizza. You were under a cozy blanket, had good food, and were definitely not thinking about Jungwoo’s arm resting on the back of the couch behind you.

At least you weren’t as squished as the others, even with using Mark’s air mattress. Jaehyun, Doyoung, Taeil and Yuta were on the larger couch, while Taeyong and Donghyuck were on the air mattress, fighting back the others’ legs and feet.

Mark walked out of the kitchen with three large bowls of popcorn then, tongue flicking with distaste as he took in the layout before him. “Well, someone’s got to make room.”

“Oh here, Mark,” Johnny offered. He then made deliberate eye contact with you, “I’m sure Jungwoo and Y/N don’t mind squishing in. Right, guys?”

“No, no, c’mon, Y/N. I’m not Jaehyun, I don’t bite,” Jungwoo agreed brightly, and you could feel him shift beside you as he pushed himself further back into the corner of the couch. Holding your plate of pizza with one hand and blanket with the other, you hovered over the cushion as you planned on just scooting over until you were as close to him as you were in the car.

Then hands were on your waist, pulling you towards the fairy, and his voice was by your ear, for only you to hear, “Usually.”

“Well she does.” Donghyuck grumbled loudly. “Still have scars from summer camp.”

“And I’ll do it again, you little shit.” Your threat was hollow, automatic, as you were processing where exactly you had landed in the seat shuffle.

“And I’ll bite all of you if you don’t shut up for the movie,” Jaehyun stated.

The dark room was filled with amicable chatter as the DVD previews began rolling, none of you taking Jaehyun seriously.

You were practically half on Jungwoo’s lap, one leg over his, and part of your back to his chest. That same arm was on the back of the couch again. You didn’t even know what movie they had picked—some mystery thriller maybe?—there was no way you were going to be paying attention now. You just hoped it was going to be holding everyone else’s focus sufficiently.

In an attempt to maintain some semblance of your composure, you released the rest of your blanket from the tight grip you had on it and instead gently laid it over yours and Jungwoo’s laps. To be considerate.

Despite Jaehyun’s earlier warning, there was a fairly steady stream of conversation throughout the movie as everyone would have reactions to a scene, or guesses as to the who the killer was. Speaking of the others, your seating sacrifice at least wasn’t in vain, the basilisk was enthusiastically watching along with everyone else, smacking Johnny’s leg or chest—or one time, face—whenever anything at all happened.

You, however, had no clue what was going on in the movie. All of your concentration was on trying to appear as normal as possible as you were certainly not feeling very normal about your situation. Mark was on the opposite end of the couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees as he was enraptured by the movie. Johnny was next to him, reclined back with a beer in hand, caught between laughing at Mark’s reactions and getting as into it as he was. Every so often, part of his shoulder or knee would bump against you, but you barely even registered this. Because then there were you and Jungwoo.

Jungwoo hadn’t moved since the scoot to make room for Mark. You wanted to look over at him, to see if you could gauge anything about how he felt about this whole situation from his face. But then you’d be facing the other guys, and you didn’t want to know if any of them had realized where exactly you were. So you turned your eyes downward instead. You curled your hands into fists under the blanket, nails digging into your palms as you tried to refocus yourself.

If what Donghyuck was saying before was true... then it wasn’t fair to Jungwoo for him to be the only one putting himself out there like this. You could at least try.

Before you could lose your nerve, you reached one of your hands over to where you knew his other hand was resting on his leg under the blanket. You were a little off-target, you found his wrist first, but he seemed to get the idea anyway, turning his arm over to let you lace your fingers with his. Your skin was burning as you gave his hand a tentative squeeze, and you had a bashful but relieved smile when his thumb rubbed over yours in response.

TUESDAY

The storm was gone the next morning, which was obviously cause for celebration. While the storm coming was reason for staying in and drinking, the storm being gone was just as much of a reason for getting even more trashed. But this time on the beach with the bonfire going.

The Sun had set long ago, and you were sat on a bench with Taeil as the two of you watched the others dance to whatever music played from Yuta’s speakers. Johnny was picking the music from his phone, not trusting Yuta to put on music that wouldn’t lure him to his death. He didn’t budge even after it was pointed out that he was wearing his charm from the witches. You yourself didn’t care, you liked Johnny’s party music better than Yuta’s anyway.

You were catching your breath, having previously just been up dancing with everybody else.

“Y/N, can you pass me a seltzer?” Taeil gestured to the cooler by your end of the bench.

“What flavor?” You reached over.

“Surprise me.”

“Well,” you looked into the empty cooler. “Surprise: we’re out.”

He laughed, shaking his head.

You glared up at the others. “Hey! Who took the last drink and didn’t say anything?”

“Boo! Party foul!” Somebody yelled out.

Taeil stood up and grabbed the cooler, “Y/N, come help me grab some more? And also grab Doyoung, he’s being asocial right now.”

You hadn’t even noticed that your other friend had slipped away from the group at some point. “Oh, sure, sure.”

Looking back into the group, you waited to see if you could make eye contact with one specific person. Finally, you caught Jungwoo’s eye, and he raised his eyebrows inquisitively. You mouthed ‘be right back, Woos’ and gestured towards Taeil and the direction of the beach house. He nodded in acknowledgement, giving you a smile that made your stomach do flips.

You turned back to Taeil expectantly, “Okay.”

He seemed about ready to question that little exchange, opening his mouth but didn’t, closing it again and leading the way to the board walkway up to the house.

Neither you nor Jungwoo had talked about nor acknowledged movie night since last night, but you could feel that something was different. It had only been a day, but you were rarely apart. He was always seeking you out for things, at breakfast, on the beach, for the brief trip a few of you had taken into town to get supplies for the bonfire tonight. And you found yourself anxious if you couldn’t see him, looking for him yourself until he was back in your eyesight, immediate relief coming over you. It just felt natural to let Jungwoo know where you were going... for some reason.

Taeil stopped in the kitchen, tossing more ice in the cooler. He didn’t grab the seltzers in the door, however. Instead, he reached for the jars of glittery, lilac liquid that you had spotted on your first day. He put most of them in the cooler, then handed one to you and kept two to himself.

“Come on, this is how we lure Doie out,” he motioned towards the bedrooms with his head.

Leaving the cooler in the kitchen, you followed him to their bedroom. Doyoung was sat cross-legged on the bottom bunk bed, an old book across his lap. He already had his pajamas on, looking fresh out of the shower too.

“No, Taeil,” he said as soon as you two crossed the threshold, not even looking up from his reading.

“Oh, come on, Doyoung, we brought you something,” Taeil plopped down on the air mattress in front of him. He held out a jar to him, and Doyoung’s eyes flicked up to look at it.

He didn’t take it. “We’re breaking out the witch’s brew already?”

You moved to sit down beside Taeil, looking down at your own jar in your hands. You’d heard of witch’s brew before, it was essentially magic Everclear with none of the burn. But you’d never had the guts to try any before, knowing your tolerance to human alcohol plenty well.

Taeil set Doyoung’s down beside his foot before cracking his open and taking a sip, “Why not? We’re celebrating.”

Doyoung made a disgruntled noise, but said nothing more. You curiously opened your jar as well, sniffing cautiously. It didn’t smell like it had any alcohol in it. Taking a small sip, a pleasant, flowery sweetness immediately coated your tongue. It wasn’t too overwhelming, light and refreshing. And, as you swallowed, no burn. If this was as intoxicating as you’d heard, you could see how dangerous this could be to partygoers. You felt like you could easily chug the whole thing right now.

“So, any particular reason you brought a grimoire on spring break?” Taeil asked Doyoung, though you were sure he very much already knew the answer. “We’re supposed to be taking a break from studying.”

“We’re witches, Taeil.”

“So?”

“We’re going to be students of magic our whole life, not just for four years.”

“You sound like BaBa.”

“BaBa was right about a lot of things.”

“Who—” You got cut off by a hiccup. “Who’s BaBa?”

You’d been taking sips as you listened to their conversation, and hadn’t been watching your intake of the delightful drink. Now your skin was warm, your head was buzzing, and you could feel a funny kind of airiness in your chest. Holy shit, you were tipsy in just a couple minutes.

You set your jar down on the floor in front of you while you still had the motor skills to do so.

“BaBa was one of our crazy old aunties in our coven,” Taeil answered your question, then pinched the tip of your nose between two fingers. “And you are tipsy.”

“Aw, baby’s first brew?” Doyoung snickered.

“Mm, how could you tell?” You answered sarcastically, swaying in place.

“Don’t worry, we’d rather have you try some with us at home.” Taeil brushed some of your hair back from your face as he let you rest your head on his shoulder.

“Gee, thanks, Dad,” you mumbled into his shirt. You were cycling through your drunk phases quickly, already sleepy.

“She’s easier to handle than Jungwoo was at least,” Doyoung sighed. “Can’t believe we’re even letting him around witch’s brew again.”

Your interest was piqued, head snapping up, “J— woah... hold on.”

The sudden movement made the room spin, and you needed a moment to regain your bearings, your stomach, and your train of thought. Taeil giggled, patting your head and shushing you, encouraging you to rest your head on his shoulder again.

“Oh, she’s been Jungwoo’d,” he sighed wistfully.

“What?” You asked.

“Jungwoo tends to… dazzle people? That a good word, Doie?”

“Yeah, sure. How do you think we let a fairy move in with us?” Doyoung shook his head, flipping to the next page.

Panic and angst overtook you, and you buried your face in your friend’s shoulder, “God, I told Donghyuck it was stupid, Jungwoo’s just being Jungwoo. He’s just like this, you know?”

The room was quiet for a moment before Taeil spoke again, “Y/N, do you remember how Yuta almost drowned Johnny at Friendsmasgiving when Doyoung put that blabbermouth hex on him?”

You slowly sat up straight again to look at him with something between a pout and a thoughtful frown, “Uh, yeah. Hard to forget. You two had to make that warding charm for him.”

“Have you ever thought about why Yuta’s siren call worked on Johnny that day and not you? You’re both humans.”

“Oh, uhm, well no. I was too worried about Johnny and all the craziness at the time. And… I don’t know, it’s never been something I’ve really thought too hard about, I guess? This kind of stuff always happens to Johnny, like Mark petrifying him. My personal theory is that Johnny’s mom gave birth to him underneath a ladder while breaking a mirror and knocking over a salt shaker, so he’s just destined to have bad luck for the rest of his life.” They were both silent, and you threw your hands up indignantly, “Okay, come on, Donghyuck thought that was hilarious.”

“Well we’ve been working on a theory,” Taeil said. “One that doesn’t involve ladders, mirrors, or salt shakers.”

“We? Keep me out of your conspiracies, Taeil,” Doyoung retorted.

“Then leave.”

Doyoung stayed seated, turning to the next page in his grimoire.

“Anyway, our theory. Have you heard that you’re not supposed to give fae your name because it gives them power over you?”

You could remember hearing something like that before, legends and warnings from older relatives before you went off to college. “Sure, but that’s a bit impractical nowadays, isn’t it? It’d be really hard for Jungwoo to be at school and not know anybody’s names. And I mean, he knows all of ours.”

“Right. Just like Yuta isn’t out here luring all of us to our deaths, and Jaehyun isn’t draining all of us dry, Jungwoo doesn’t take any of our names for himself. There’s a baseline of trust in society. But the magic is still there, even if he doesn’t actively engage in it.”

“You lost me, Taeil,” you wrinkled your nose. Maybe you should’ve taken more Magical Creatures Studies classes.

Doyoung let out a loud sigh and put his thumb in his grimoire to close it. He looked you in the eyes to make sure you were listening as he explained, “The magic and power around names that fairies have control over…”

“Uh-huh.” You nodded slowly.

“That still exists, even though they’re not actually using it. Just like we still have blood even though Jaehyun’s not drinking it. Make more sense?”

You squinted in concentration. “I think so.”

“Because of that name magic, fairies get very touchy about how people use their names.” Taeil continued with his explanation.

“No nicknames,” Doyoung clarified. “If you give them a name, they see it as you giving yourself more power over them.”

“Wait really? But I call Jungwoo—” Panic hit you like a train and mortification then flooded your veins. “Oh my God! Oh no no! Why did you guys let me call him that? I can’t believe I’ve been like so rude this whole time! Oh my G—”

“Y/N! Hey!” Taeil cut you off, grabbing your shoulders to stop your wildly flailing limbs. “We didn’t stop you because Jungwoo wasn’t stopping you.”

“Seriously, we asked him about it the first time we heard you call him that. He said, quote, ‘She’s cute, don’t you think?’” Doyoung informed you, humor in his tone.

“God, if you’re real, strike me down now.” You clasped your hands together and pleaded to the clamshell-shaped ceiling fan above you.

The three of you were silent for a beat, as if waiting to see if you really would be stricken down. When you were still there after a moment, you accepted your miserable fate of continuing to exist, and, therefore, continuing this conversation, “So what does this all have to do with Johnny drowning at Friendsmasgiving?”

“We think it was Jungwoo’s magic protecting you from Yuta’s siren call,” Taeil declared.

Doyoung opened his grimoire again. “But we can’t prove it.”

“How would me giving him a nickname do that? Even with the name magic stuff,” you pulled your knees to your chest.

“That’s where the conspiracy falls apart,” Doyoung tsked. “We can’t prove one way or another how or if it was Jungwoo—”

Taeil narrowed his eyes at the other witch, “But it’s the best we’ve got.”

You picked your jar of witch’s brew back up, swirled the glimmering concoction around, and took a swig. “Right. Well. Thanks, guys. I guess.”

WEDNESDAY

“Hey,” Jungwoo’s voice startled you out of the solemn and lonesome reverie you’d been in.

After sleeping like shit last night, kept up ruminating on your conversation with Taeil and Doyoung, replaying memory upon memory of you calling the fairy by that nickname, and now feeling like a horrible person about it, you ended up being awake before the Sun in addition to everybody else. So, you’d made yourself breakfast to take down to the beach, eat by yourself, and watch the sunrise. You’d even made sure to sit in the chair that wasn’t visible to the house behind the umbrellas, not wanting anybody to join you out here. But you’d been found, and you didn’t have it in you to turn Jungwoo away now that he was with you.

“Oh, hey,” you gave him a half-hearted smile, gesturing to the chair beside you for him to sit.

He had a steaming mug in hand, his hair still tousled from sleep, and he was in pajama pants and a t-shirt.

The sunrise coming over the ocean was beautiful, burning oranges and yellows that reflected along the water. You popped a piece of fruit in your mouth. He took a sip from his mug.

“You didn’t come back last night. After going up to the beach house to get more drinks with Taeil,” Jungwoo said quietly.

You winced, “Oh, sorry, Jungwoo, I—”

“Who?” He cut you off abruptly.

“Huh?” You blinked, entirely thrown off from your lie about not feeling well or whatever.

“What’d you say?”

“Jungwoo—”

“Who?”

“J—”

“Who?”

“What are you, an owl?” You huffed, annoyed.

Jungwoo’s brows were knitted together, clearly as frustrated as you were, “Why are you calling me that?”

“What? Your name?”

“Yeah, which you haven’t called me since like August. It’s weird.”

“Everybody else calls you that.”

“You don’t.”

Your words were losing steam as you struggled to process what he seemed to be implying. “Am- Am I not everybody else?”

“No, you’re not,” he was calming down too, look at you more studiously than upset. “And you’re not passive-aggressive either, so I don’t think you’re mad at me.”

“No, of course not, W—!” You stopped yourself before the nickname could come out habitually, quite literally biting down on your tongue in your mouth.

“There! You were about to say it! Why didn’t you? Did someone curse you or something?” He leaned forward, eyes scanning your features as if he could see any remnants of a curse or hex on your face. For all you knew, maybe he could.

“No, I think,” you frowned thoughtfully. Your voice was getting smaller and smaller as you admitted, “I just... don’t want to be rude.”

“You don’t...” Jungwoo’s head tilted in confusion, before his mouth and shoulders dropped at the same time, realization dawning on his face. He sighed, “Taeil and Doyoung?”

You nodded meekly.

He set his cup down on the small table propped up out there, then gently lifted your chin up until you were looking him in the eye, “While I think it’s very cute and endearing that you were talking to my roommates about me, they clearly failed to mention the part where I like you calling me that. They say that?”

“Something like that...” You mumbled.

“Y/N, I like the nickname you gave me. Case closed, okay?” He said firmly.

“Okay.”

“Okay…?”

“Okay, Woos.” You relented, the name slipping off your tongue as naturally as ever.

“Oh, there we go! Everything is right with the universe again,” he exclaimed, finally rewarding you with his bright grin and laugh that sounded like bells. You couldn’t help but smile too.

You held your plate out towards him for him to take a piece of honeydew. He offered you his mug, and you took a sip, immediately recognizing it as some of Doyoung’s tea.

“It’s beautiful out here,” you sighed. The Sun was higher above the horizon, oranges beginning to give way to yellows and blues.

“Yeah,” Jungwoo agreed. “Sure is.”

“You’re welcome.”

You barely contained your scream at the voice that came out of the darkness and the vine wrapping around your wrist and yanking you into the room. Expecting your roommate to still be sleeping when you came back from watching the sunrise with Jungwoo on the beach, you had quietly opened the door, left the lights off, and kept the blinds closed. But it seemed he was awake.

“Hyuck! What the fuck would I be thanking you for? Giving me a fucking heart attack?” You scolded him, shaking off the plant.

You flicked the lights on to reveal him sitting cross-legged at the entrance of the fort, the plants shifted slightly to adjust the opening and height to accommodate for such.

“Gotta keep you on your toes, Y/N,” he inspected his nails. “But that’s not the only reason you should thank me.”

“Oh really? What else have you done in your never-ending quest for charity and benevolence?” You rolled your eyes, leaning against the closed door.

“You mock me and yet I made sure nobody bothered you and Jungwoo during your little beach tryst this morning.”

“What did you—”

“Mark saw Jungwoo going down there and his oblivious ass wanted to get everyone down there to take pictures with the sunrise. I told him that with my dryad knowledge, I could tell that the sunrise tomorrow would be even better and to wait.”

“You can’t predict that kind of stuff,” you arched an eyebrow.

“He doesn’t know that.”

“And nobody else called you out on that?”

Donghyuck grinned mischievously, “Doyoung and Taeil backed me up, actually.”

You groaned, dropping your head back against the door with a distinct thunk. “Just how many of you are in our business at all times now?”

“Our? So you and Jungwoo have joint business now?” He picked up on your word choice when you hadn’t.

“Hyu—” You stopped your string of curses short. The mention of you and Jungwoo sharing something made Taeil’s theory from last night come back to your mind.

Your friend looked concerned, “Hey, you okay? You always follow through on beating me up, verbally or physically.”

“You’re so fucking annoying,” you scoffed, moving to plop down next to him on the beds. “But… what do you know about fairies’ magic?”

“Bits and pieces. They’re similar to dryads and witches in that they’re connected to nature. But I think you have a specific question, Y/N.”

“Name magic?”

“Yeah, fairies can gain a lot of power over others by way of taking their name, their identities. But they don’t really do that anymore. With the way that society is now, they can get in a lot of trouble, especially when creatures like other fairies or unicorns can easily find out which fairy has taken someone’s name. Jungwoo’s not controlling you just because he knows your name, I promise you really are just this pathetic.”

“Hey!” You smacked the back of his head.

“Ow! I deserved that.”

“I swear you’re a masochist,” you shook your head. “Anyway, do you know if that kind of thing like, goes both ways?”

“What? Like how?”

“Taeil and Doyoung have this idea, about why Yuta’s siren call didn’t work on me at Friendsmasgiving like it worked on Johnny. They think that because I call Jungwoo by a nickname, I was somehow using the name magic or whatever and Jungwoo’s magic was protecting me. And I mean, it is weird that Yuta’s siren call didn’t work on me. I’m human, I didn’t have any kind of charm on, I was even sitting closer to him than Johnny was!”

Donghyuck seemed to think about this for a moment, tapping his chin. “That is strange…”

“Right!”

“Have you asked Jungwoo?”

“And how would I do that? ‘Hey am I accidentally using your magical powers by way of an ancient practice of your kind every time I call you by this silly little nickname that you’ve explicitly told me to keep calling you?’”

“One, you’re being intentionally negative and hyperbolic, you’re not that much of a weirdo in conversation.”

You stuck your tongue out at him.

“Two, he specifically asked you to keep calling him by the nickname that his witch roommates think is the conduit for him to be unintentionally—or now maybe intentionally—sharing magic with you?”

“I guess… I don’t know, we had a whole conversation about it this morning. The witches said fairies hate nicknames because of the name magic stuff. It’s basically like you giving yourself power over them in their culture. So I tried to call him by his name but—”

“I’ve made a grave miscalculation.”

Your eyes widened. “What?”

Donghyuck took both of your hands in his, looking you in the eye very seriously as if he were about to tell you someone died. “He wants to kiss you so bad he’s making the both of you look stupid.”

You shoved him off the bed.

THURSDAY

“Seriously? Nobody wants to play?” You whined, volleyball in hand.

“Nobody wants to play you two,” Donghyuck clarified, pointing between you and Jungwoo, who was standing next to you on the court. “You’re menaces with a volleyball. You should be on some watchlist.”

“Hey, we let you all set your own rules every time.”

“Yeah, it’s not our fault you guys suck,” Jungwoo agreed.

Being unable to convince any pair of your friends to verse you and Jungwoo in volleyball again, you decided to pop into the house for a quick break from the Sun instead. Jungwoo tagged along, and you found yourself getting more nervous as you realized it’d be just the two of you in the house together.

“Hey,” Jungwoo grabbed your elbow as you were about to make a beeline for the kitchen, intent on grabbing a popsicle from the freezer.

You stopped, giving him a questioning look, “Yeah, Woos?”

“Let’s go somewhere.”

“Somewhere?” You hated how your voice cracked over the word.

“You wanted to go to the ice cream place downtown, right? On Tuesday? But we didn’t have time.”

“Oh, yeah, I did,” you smiled bashfully, chest feeling funny about the fact that he had remembered some little thing that you had said, a moment that was so inconsequential. “Uh, right now?”

He shrugged, “Why not?”

“Okay, sure. Do you want to tell the others?”

“Do you?”

You bit the inside of your cheek, and shook your head.

He grinned. “Me neither.”

After quickly changing from your used beach clothes, you followed him out front. You expected to hear the beep of Taeil’s car unlocking, but Jungwoo instead veered in a different direction. You followed him towards the blue truck curiously.

“Yuta’s truck?” You asked, now spotting the keys in his hand.

“He’s who said yes to letting us use his car,” Jungwoo affirmed, then opened the driver’s door. “You’ve got to get in on this side, sorry.”

As you went to do so, you saw why. The seat was a bench seat, and on the far side, propped against the passenger door, was a giant rock.

“Do I want to know?” You sighed, climbing up into the cab of the truck.

“Doyoung wants to bring it back, but Taeil doesn’t want it in his car,” Jungwoo explained, sliding in after you.

“It couldn’t go in the back?” You eyed the empty truck bed behind you incredulously.

“Too valuable.”

“What is it? Other than a rock? Or is it a magic rock or something?”

The fairy started the truck, putting an arm over the back of the seat and turning around to back it out of the driveway. “Apparently there’s a relic encased in it. He wants to excavate it at home.”

“When did he find it?” You eyed it cautiously, scooting a bit further away from it, leg pressed against Jungwoo’s.

“Tuesday morning. The storm washed it ashore. I think you were in the shower.” Jungwoo wrapped his arm that had been behind you around your shoulders and pulled you even closer, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna let that thing come loose and hit you or anything.”

“Oh, thanks, Woos,” you mumbled, looking down at your hands in your lap.

It was a short ride into downtown, and Jungwoo was able to park right in front of the cotton candy pink ice cream and sweets shop you had spotted the other day. It was right next to a yellow flower shop and purple café, and way at the end of the block, you could see the sign for the apothecary you’d gone to with the witches.

A family of sirens was eating their ice cream at a table in front of the shop, the dad rolling his eyes fondly as he took a napkin to his son’s face that was covered in chocolate. But as the mom followed you and Jungwoo in to grab more napkins, you realized she didn’t have the same telltale flashy eyes or flickers of scales under the lights like her partner and son. She looked… human.

After you and Jungwoo got your waffle cones, you took them outside to walk around the shops. You stopped to look over some of the bouquets that were outside the flower shop, most of the blooms familiar to you thanks to Donghyuck. By the time you were at the end of the street by the apothecary, you still had most of your ice cream left. The path continued off away from downtown, unpaved, along the cliffs overlooking the sea. Having seen most of the town, the two of you meandered that way, still chatting between mouthfuls of ice cream.

“Woos, I have a question,” you announced. This seemed as good a time as ever to get in a few of your never-ending stream of things you wanted to know about Jungwoo.

“I have an answer,” he responded, then after a beat, added, “Maybe.”

“Why did you decide to study Chemistry?”

“After being around magic all the time, human science just sort of fascinated me,” he shrugged. “So, kind of the same reason a lot of the humans who pick Magical Creature Studies have, I guess.”

“So you grew up around other fairies for the most part, then?”

“Oh, yeah. It was nothing like how you and Donghyuck grew up. My hollow is really closed off to outsiders, even other fairies.”

“Then how’d you end up coming to school?”

“It’s not like I was under house arrest or anything,” Jungwoo laughed, taking in your wide eyes. “It’s just that I was pretty much the only one who was curious about anything outside of the hollow. I went into town all the time when I was older, so I knew about the college. Nobody in my hollow did any school past the mandatory primary education, of course, so I had to get a bit of help from the Admissions Office to apply. That’s where I met Taeyong, actually.”

“Oh yeah, he did work in Admissions.”

“And he introduced me to Taeil and Doyoung, who needed a third roommate to make rent.”

You nodded, taking another bite of your ice cream. “Okay, you’re a fairy and you’re studying Chemistry, so I think you’re a good person to propose this question to: What do you think is the difference between magic and science?”

Jungwoo thought about this for a moment, humming as he licked around his ice cream. Finally, he answered, voice resolute, “Humility. Science is an earnest effort to understand the world around you, what it is, how it works. And that requires approaching it from the position of inferiority, of acknowledging that you know less than the world.”

“But what about magic? Do we know everything about it and how it works and what it is? Couldn’t it be studied just like other fields of science?” You asked curiously.

“I’m saying this because I don’t want you to lose your cute little head, Y/N,” Jungwoo stopped walking and turned to you, cupping your cheek with his free hand. “Don’t say that to another fairy.”

“O-Oh.”

“There’s a reason I’m the first one in the Chemistry department, you know.”

“Wait, you are?” You furrowed your eyebrows thoughtfully, trying to recall some of your other classmates and professors. And, yeah, you couldn’t think of any other fairies off the top of your head. Plenty of other magical beings, dragons, vampires, dryads, werewolves, but no fairies. Just Jungwoo.

“Yeah,” he patted your cheek before dropping his hand and walking again.

“I didn’t— uh, didn’t— uhm, know that,” you stammered, only keeping up with him because he had looped his arm with yours and was now guiding you down the path. If he hadn’t, you definitely would still be frozen in place, gulping and stuttering. Dazzled, as Taeil had so aptly put it.

FRIDAY

There were only two more full days left of your vacation in Cape Solaria, including today, and you didn’t want to think about it. Maybe if you wished hard enough, this could last forever.

Sat on a beach chair that you’d set up in the surf to stay cool, you sighed to yourself contentedly.

A relieved groan and splash sounded from your right, and you squinted an eye open against the bright sunlight to look at who had sat in the empty chair beside you. It was Yuta, with legs and swim trunks this time as he crossed the limbs at the ankle to recline leisurely.

“Jungwoo won’t mind, will he?” He asked, referencing who had been sitting there up until a minute ago, when the fairy announced he had to grab something from the beach house.

“He’s not using it right now.” You shifted up in your chair to face the siren, “I’m actually glad you’re here, Yuta.”

“Really?” He grinned. “And why’s that?”

“I wanted to get your opinion on something.”

“Yes, Jungwoo likes you.”

You blinked at him, unable to think of how to reply.

“I know, I know, I’m not a mind reader, but—”

“That’s not what I was going to ask,” you cut him off, deciding to breeze right by that avenue of conversation. You had a limited amount of time before Jungwoo came back, and there was something else you really needed to ask Yuta specifically.

“Oh. Well, go for it.”

“Do you know why your siren call didn’t work on me at Friendmasgiving? And only worked on Johnny? We’re both human, I didn’t have any charms on. It should’ve, you know, done the same thing to me, right?”

That clearly wasn’t what Yuta was expecting you to ask. The cocky smirk fell from his face as he scrutinized you, “What? You wanted to drown yourself?”

“No, I was just curious—”

“I almost killed one friend, and you’re saying it should’ve been two?”

You fervently tried to reassure him, alarmed at how fast this conversation had taken a nosedive, “No, Yuta, I don’t—”

“None of you get how— how fucking awful it was, to watch myself nearly kill one of my friends and not be able to control what I was doing at all. So no, Y/N, I don’t know why it wasn’t working on you, but I’m fucking glad it didn’t. I don’t need you terrified of me too.” The siren’s eyes were watery and red, and the sea around the chairs was churning angrily, growing in strength as his words got sharper and sharper.

“Yuta.” Taeyong was suddenly a couple steps behind your chairs, and steadily waded through the turbulent surf.

As soon as the unicorn was in close proximity to the two of you, a calmness washed over you. Yuta’s jaw unclenched, and he bit down on his bottom lip instead.

Taeyong gently put a hand on Yuta's shoulder, and you saw the unicorn’s face contort almost painfully. He looked down at you, “Y/N, will you go get Doie and Johnny? They all need to talk, don’t you think?”

“Oh, uhm, yeah,” you nodded quickly, jumping to your feet.

Turning back to the beach, you saw that most of the others were there, pretending not to be paying attention to the three of you. You didn’t want to know how much they had heard. Johnny was the easiest to find, he was tossing a football with Jaehyun and Mark by the firepit.

You pointed at him as you walked by, “Stay.”

“I’m not a werewolf, but yes ma’am,” he saluted you.

Trudging up the boardwalk, you knew exactly where Doyoung would be hiding out, the same place he had been hiding out during anything that involved Yuta and Johnny and the water. His bedroom.

Jungwoo was in the kitchen, his face lighting up when he saw you, then turning serious when he registered the look on your face, “Hey, I was just grabbing a snack. Is everything okay?”

“Long story short, I’m grabbing Doyoung for Taeyong. Not optional,” you squared your shoulders as you crossed the living room to the hallway.

“Oh.” The fairy followed you curiously.

You knocked on the closed door, “Doyoung! It’s me!”

“Come in.”

You threw open the door, eyes immediately finding your target sitting cross-legged on the bottom bunk in lounge clothes, a grimoire in his lap. Narrowing your eyes, you stalked over to him, “You’re coming to the beach.”

“I’m at the beach,” he gestured around vaguely.

“Kim Doyoung, you’re going to get out of this house and come down to the beach with me. Now.”

“Taeil tried that on me two days ago.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose before switching tactics. Sitting down next to him, you leaned your elbows on your knees and took a deep breath.

“Doyoung, we’re your friends. And we invited you on this trip—Yuta invited you—because we like spending time with you.”

The finger that had been running under the words he was reading paused.

“So, can you tell me if there’s some reason you’ve been holing yourself up in here?”

Doyoung sighed, closing the grimoire, “I thought it best to reduce the likelihood of a repeat of last semester. Taeil’s right. I don’t think before I do things and end up getting my friends hurt.”

“What he was saying at the apothecary?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t remember him suggesting you become a hermit about it,” you snorted, bumping your friend’s shoulder. “And reading a bunch of books and never interacting with people is not going to help your social skills. Skills like, you know, conflict resolution.”

The witch looked down at the closed book with a small smile, “You might be right there.”

“So can you please come to the beach?”

“On one condition.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell Taeil I said he was right. Either of you.”

“Done,” you promised.

And just a few minutes later you were marching down the walkway victoriously, Doyoung in tow. Jungwoo walked a bit further behind you two, an unspoken agreement to make sure the witch couldn’t double back to the house. Down on the sand, Johnny was still tossing the ball around, and you pointed at him again.

“Johnny, come on!” You called out.

“Seriously, not a dog!” He yelled back, jogging over nonetheless.

Taeyong and Yuta were still out at the chairs, and you kept your sights on them. Doyoung eyed you suspiciously, “What are you doing, Y/N?”

“We’re going swimming,” you deadpanned, leading the two of them towards the water.

“This was a trap,” he scoffed, starting to turn on his heel.

“Doyoung,” Jungwoo was still behind you all, crossing his arms with a frown.

Doyoung grumbled something under his breath, but turned back around to you. Taking that as his acceptance, you looked at Johnny. The human looked warily between Doyoung and Yuta, hand coming up to grasp at the pearl hanging from his neck, seeming to check that it was still there. He didn’t make any move to leave.

You stepped into the tide, the first of the waves lapping at your feet. The water was much calmer than when you had left. Doyoung and Johnny followed you, and the three of you finally stopped at Taeyong and Yuta. The siren was still sat in the same chair, staring out at the horizon, one hand listlessly making figure-eights above the water, and the ocean below his fingertips swirling with the movements. An octopus had (lovingly?) wrapped itself around his ankle, and you were sure that if the water was deep enough, Bear would’ve been here. He didn’t look back at you all as you approached.

“Here,” you broke the tense silence, looking to Taeyong. “Johnny and Doyoung.”

“Thank you, Y/N,” Taeyong nodded to you.

“I’ll just—”

“Stay.”

It was Johnny who stopped your attempt to excuse yourself. He had a hand on your arm, and an all-too-familiar look in his eye. It reminded you of when he asked you, with trembling hands and a heaving chest, to stay and help him wash his face.

You nodded. “Yeah, Johnny, I’ll stay.”

Yuta finally spoke, “Look, I don’t know how many times I have to apologize. I’m sorry I almost drowned Johnny twice. Do I have to grovel at his feet for the rest of our lives? Will that make everybody happy?”

He slammed his fist into the arm of the pop-up chair. The octopus swam off.

“No, Yuta,” Taeyong shook his head. “That’s not what this is.”

“All of you are holding onto a lot of… stuff from that night.” You made sure to choose your words carefully. “And we think it’d be good if you actually talked to each other about it.”

“I’m sorry.” To your surprise, it was Doyoung who spoke up first. He was holding himself, hands wrapped around his upper arms as he spoke. “To both of you, Johnny and Yuta. I was impulsive, and vindictive, and an ass, and I hurt you with that stupid blabbermouth hex. I don’t want my magic to… leave lasting scars on people, especially not my friends. Yuta, you didn’t deserve the brunt of the backlash from that, I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you when I should have. And Johnny, you obviously didn’t deserve to almost drown yourself twice. I was a bad witch and a bad friend and I’m sorry, I really am.”

You looked between Johnny and Yuta’s faces hopefully to gauge their reactions. Johnny’s held the same surprise as yours at Doyoung apologizing first, then morphed into a soft smile. He threw an arm around the witch’s neck, nearly toppling him over and he was pulled into the taller man’s side.

“I don’t know much about the bad witch part, but I forgive you, Doyoung. Taeil says you’ve been doing a lot of uhm, reading about magic this whole time to get better at it. I know you didn’t mean it.”

Doyoung screwed his eyes shut, patting Johnny’s back.

“Yuta, tell them what you told me,” you encouraged the siren.

He sighed, finally turning around in his chair to look at the two of them. Around his eyes was pink, and he focused a harsh glare on Doyoung.

“Have you ever had someone do that to you, Doyoung?”

“Taeil and I used to hex each other as kids all the time.”

“No, I don’t just mean put a blabbermouth hex on you,” he scoffed. “I mean make you do something you don’t want to do, use your own powers to almost kill your friend and you just have to watch yourself do it. Twice. And then he’s terrified of swimming, of pools, of the water, of you. Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have teased you about whatever the fuck it was that day. But Johnny needed a fucking warding charm to even be able to come on vacation with me. You don’t want to hurt people with your magic… you hurt him with mine and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

Doyoung gnawed on his bottom lip, “No, Yuta. I haven’t had anybody do that to me. I’m so sorry.”

“Yuta,” Taeyong quietly called for the siren’s attention. “Look at where we all are.”

Yuta’s eyes flicked from Taeyong to you to Doyoung to Johnny, then down to the ocean water that everyone was standing in, about shin deep.

Johnny let go of Doyoung to reach up to his own neck, taking off the leather cord hanging there in one fluid movement. He wound his arm up over his head and threw it out into the waves as far as he could. It plopped under the surface, never to be seen again.

“I don’t need a warding charm against my friend,” Johnny declared simply.

A tear slipped down Taeyong’s cheek from behind his sunglasses, the iridescent liquid catching the light of the sun. You couldn’t blame him, you were feeling a bit overwhelmed yourself, even with your ordinary human empathetic abilities.

“Now, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting hot standing here,” Johnny continued, dramatically putting one hand on his hip and fanning himself with the other. “I think a swim sounds like a good idea, hm?”

Yuta looked up at him, and they seemed to immediately make some kind of telepathic connection as soon as they locked eyes. The siren got to his feet as Doyoung started looking around, holding up a hand to cast a shadow over his eyes.

“Y/N made me come all the way out here with my swim suit on, I guess I could—”

Doyoung was cut off by Johnny grabbing him around the chest and Yuta grabbing his legs, his words turning into a yelp as he was lifted up. His yells of protest went unheeded as the other two carried him further out to sea.

“One!” Johnny counted as they started swinging Doyoung between them.

“Two!” Yuta continued.

“Three!” They cheered together, tossing him gently into the thigh-deep water.

The witch popped back up, shaking his wet hair, “That’s it!”

Thankfully, instead of a hex coming out of his mouth, he instead jumped on Johnny’s back, trying to dunk the taller man underwater. Johnny walked out until he was deep enough to dunk the both of them, Yuta following. Now in deep enough water, Yuta transformed his legs into his tail, using his large fins at the end to splash the other two.

Too busy laughing at those three, you didn’t notice that anybody had joined you and Taeyong until a hand was on your back. You looked over at the owner, smiling up at Jungwoo.

“Oh, hey Woos,” you bumped his hip with yours before turning your gaze back to the others still playing in the water. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Didn’t seem like you needed me,” he bumped you back. “Good job.”

“I was just following orders, this was all Taeyong’s idea,” you shook your head, looking over to the unicorn.

Taeyong had a fond smile on his features, “I think it was a team effort, all of us.”

SATURDAY

“So you’re not dating?”

“God, Hyuck, how many times do I have to tell you this? No,” you groaned, pulling your blanket up over your head. It was your last full day in Cape Solaria and the bastard wasn’t even letting you sleep in.

“You two are like all over each other,” Donghyuck pointed out, smugly scrolling away on his phone. “Even Mark asked me yesterday if he missed some memo about you and Jungwoo dating.”

You yanked the covers back down, “And what did you tell him?”

“That I didn’t know.”

“You little—”

“Hey, I didn’t!” He went to defend himself. “And now I do. Now I know that you’re being a wimp.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“If I had a nickel for every time you said that in our lives, I’d have no student debt, Y/N.”

You rolled over away from him, fully intending on attempting to snooze for a little longer, when your phone buzzed. With a groan, you grabbed it to see who had dared to text you this early in the morning.

[woos: you awake yet?]

Turning to face Donghyuck again so that he couldn’t see your screen, you were about to text the fairy back, but another text came through.

[woos: if you are, i’m going down to watch the rest of the sunrise with a cup of tea in a few minutes]

You quickly typed out your text and sent it.

[you: make that two cups]

Just a couple minutes later, you left your bedroom with the sounds of Donghyuck making teasing kissy noises after you. Jungwoo was in the kitchen, illuminated only by the light over the stove. Johnny, Mark, and Jaehyun were all still asleep, and you quietly stepped around them to wait by the back door. The fairy joined you just a moment later, two mismatched mugs in his hands. His hair was ruffled, a few pieces in the back sticking up, but nevertheless, a sleepy and fond smile came across his lips as he looked down at you. You smiled back up at him.

Neither of you said anything until you had stealthily slipped out the door and closed it behind you as silently as possible. On the back porch, you could give him a “Good morning, Woos.”

“Morning, Y/N,” he handed you your cup.

You eagerly wrapped your hands around it, feeling the warmth seep into your fingers. “Thank you.”

He hummed his acknowledgement, looping a casual arm around your shoulders to start walking down towards the beach. The Sun was just starting to peek up over the water in the distance, giving you enough light to find a towel under the umbrellas to sit down on.

“So why are you up so early?” You asked, taking a sip of your tea.

“Honestly?”

“No, Woos, I want you to lie to me,” you replied sarcastically, earning a laugh from him.

“Had to pee and couldn’t go back to sleep,” he answered. “Ended up just getting stuck thinking and then definitely couldn’t go back to sleep. What about you? I didn’t actually expect you to be up when I texted, I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, I was already awake. Donghyuck woke up early and decided to make that my problem this time.”

Jungwoo chuckled, taking another drink from his mug.

You looked out into the ocean, watching a familiar fin meander around. Taking a deep breath, you steeled your nerves, and stated, “Hey, Woos, I have another question.”

“I have another answer.” Pause. “Maybe.”

“Why do you think Yuta’s siren call didn’t work on me at Friendsmasgiving?”

He looked at you curiously, “I’m guessing you asked Yuta this yesterday and—”

“It turned into that whole thing with Taeyong and Johnny and Doyoung, yeah. It didn’t seem like a good idea to bring it up again after that.”

“Why do you think it didn’t work on you?”

“I don’t know,” you confessed, pointer finger tracing the rim of your mug. “I’m human, I was sitting closer to him than Johnny was, I didn’t have any warding charms on me or anything like that. It should have done the same thing to me that it did to Johnny, but it didn’t.”

“Y/N…” Jungwoo said quietly, laying a hand on your arm. “Do you feel guilty that it only affected Johnny and not you? That he went through that, and you didn’t? Like you should have suffered with him?”

You couldn’t look up at Jungwoo, so you just kept your eyes on his thumb that was rubbing soothing circles into your forearm. “I- I don’t… yes. He was so scared of the water after that that he couldn’t turn on the tap by himself, Woos. I had to go over and help him wash his face every day for like a month. And I just got to… sit there? And I know it probably sounds weird, like I want to have gone through something so traumatic but—and I know Johnny wouldn’t have wanted me to have either—but I can’t shake this feeling that I avoided something I shouldn’t have. Like, cosmic balance or something. Does that make sense?”

Despite the disjointed nature of your rant, Jungwoo was able to respond without missing a beat. “Y/N, Y/N, hey. You’re afraid that it messed with some cosmic balance, right?”

You nodded.

“If you had gone through what Johnny did, and were as scared of the water as he was, do you think that you would’ve been able to help him for that month when he needed it?”

Taking your gaze off his hand, you looked up into his eyes, where the golden flecks glimmered in the waking morning rays. And you slowly shook your head.

He nodded encouragingly. “Right. That sounds pretty balanced to me.”

“Okay, yeah,” you mirrored his nods, a shaky sense of relief growing in you.

“And I don’t think you wondering about why something that logically should have happened didn’t happen is weird, either.”

“So… what do you think happened?” You wanted to see if he would bring it up first, or if he had any clue about the name magic at all, about the nickname thing, about Taeil and Doyoung’s theory, about any of it.

Jungwoo’s eyes traced over your face, and for a moment you were taken away, entirely breathless as the dawn light hit him just right and he was glowing, looking so gorgeous there with his behead, pajamas, pouty lips, and big brown eyes. Time restarted when he finally answered your question, “I don’t know. But whatever it was, I’m glad that it happened. I’m glad that you didn’t have to get hurt, and I’m glad that Johnny could have you there to support him after.”

You opened your mouth, tempted to retell the witches’ theory to him, but he was looking down at you so fondly, so beautifully, that in that moment, it didn’t even matter. So instead, you scooted even closer to him to rest your head against his shoulder, a giddy smile overtaking your face when he wrapped an arm around you to hold you to him even tighter.

“I want to show you something tonight, by the way,” he murmured, voice right by your ear.

“Something?” You echoed inquisitively.

“Something,” he confirmed.

[woos: ready?]

Your heart leapt at the singular word lighting up your screen.

[you: ready]

Slipping out of your bedroom and into the hallway, you saw that Jungwoo was waiting for you there. He’d already told you that whatever he wanted to show you wasn’t far, and that there was no need to change from your pajamas that you’d gone to bed in.

With a tilt of his head, he motioned for you to follow him through the living room, this time exiting through the side door at the end of the kitchenette. It lead to a narrow section of the wrap-around porch that had a porch swing and small table. But Jungwoo didn’t sit on the swing like you expected. Instead, he swung a leg up onto the railing that went around the house, gracefully standing up all the way. From there, he could easily step over the gap onto the top of the awning over the porch. He stopped there, turning around and looking back at you expectantly.

You looked up at him with wide eyes, “Uh…”

“Come on,” he said encouragingly.

Watching all of your limbs as closely as possible, you pulled yourself up onto the railing, not liking how narrow it was as you wobbled a little bit. The fairy’s hand shot out and caught yours before you could teeter too much, and you mumbled a thanks to Jungwoo. Aligning yourself first, you took the slight step up onto the awning, wincing at the creak it let out now that the both of you were on it.

Jungwoo kept holding your hand as you were standing on the awning over the porch together, and you took shallow breaths as you looked up at him, chest-to-chest to make sure you both fit.

“Now what?” You asked quietly, well aware that you were staring at him.

“Almost there, promise,” he smiled down at you, and gave your hand a squeeze before letting it go.

He turned around, where the proper roof of the house was, about chest-high for him. After easily pulling himself up, he gave you a helping hand where needed, until you were finally able to scramble up there with him. Looking around uncertainly, you remained kneeling as you got your bearings on the slightly sloped surface. Jungwoo lay down, tucking an arm under his head, then patted the space beside him as an invitation for you.

You shyly did so, suddenly unsure of just how close to get to him, and therefore left a little bit of space between the two of you.

To distract you from that thought, you focused your gaze dead ahead, and immediately your breath was stolen from your lungs. Above you was the entire cosmos, laid out seemingly all for you. More stars than you could count, twinkling in and out of view, sprinkled in the sky like pixie dust. The moon was nearly full, and you could see every crater, shadow, and mountain in crisp, clear detail. Yeah, you’d been out at nighttime before, but you’d never just looked at the stars like this before.

“Oh, Woos…” you sighed, quite literally starstruck. “This is… wow. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it, Y/N,” Jungwoo replied softly.

“How did even figure out that you could get up here?”

“This morning, when I was having trouble sleeping. I was kind of wandering around out here and got curious. I used to climb a lot in my hollow. Something about just being up high above everything else…” He inhaled deeply, then let it back out. “It’s really peaceful, right?”

“Yeah,” you agreed. “It’s lovely up here.”

And you finally looked over at him. He was bathed in moonlight, starlight, all the cosmic glow of the universe and yet you weren’t even thinking about any of that in the moment, too enchanted by the craft store glitter that blinked back at you. The cream yellow crewneck sweater he had worn to bed that night was a pale yellow in the nighttime, the bottom of it riding up to show just the thinnest strip of skin. When you realized how close his nose was to yours, you didn’t jerk your head back, but your brain was turning to white noise, so you turned your eyes back to the stars to see if that would get the ringing in your ears to stop.

Jungwoo didn’t seem to mind, letting the peaceful silence drape over the two of you. You kept watching the stars and thinking about the boy next to you, and your heart kept growing and growing with a fondness so strong it felt like your chest was going to burst if you didn’t do something about it.

“…Woos?” You practically whispered, startled at the sound of your own voice in the quiet. In the background, the waves crashed into the shore and receded in an endless rhythm.

“Yeah?” He lolled his head over to look at you attentively. You turned your head back to look at him again.

“What you were saying the other day, about the difference between science and magic…”

“Which part?”

“About how science is an earnest effort to understand the world. You know, how it works, what it is.”

“Mm-hm, what about it?”

“I’ve been thinking about it… and maybe it’s because it’s late and you’ve got me on a rooftop looking at a bunch of stars but…” You took a deep breath, glancing between him and the sky. “I think that’s how love is too. An effort to understand someone else, and coming to them with your heart open, humble. I don’t think love has to be this big, monumental, out-of-control, unknowable thing. I think it’s just got to be an earnest effort to know someone else. You know?”

He was quiet, mouth parted as he just kept staring at you.

“Woos, you’re not saying anything,” you muttered self-consciously. “Did that not make sense? God, I was rambling again, wasn’t I? Just ig—”

“Kiss me.” Jungwoo cut you off, an absolutely wonderstuck gaze focused on you.

“What?”

“Kiss me,” he repeated confidently.

“W-Why don’t you kiss me?” You stuttered out an attempt at a retort, brain simultaneously moving at a million miles an hour and feeling like it had gotten stuck in sticky bubble gum.

“Well if you insist,” he smirked.

Then his hand was cupping your cheek, lifting your chin slightly, and his lips were slotting together with yours. Your own hand grasped at the front of his yellow sweater, needing to ground yourself to something as your head spun and the sweet, soft kiss threatened to sweep you away.

When Jungwoo finally pulled back, you caught a glimpse of his hair fading back from pink to brown. His gaze didn’t leave your face as he mused aloud, “Strawberry.”

“Huh?” You questioned breathily, chest heaving, not sure if you heard him right over the sound of your heart thudding so loudly.

He swooped in to kiss you again, as long and dizzying as the first time. This time when he broke apart from you, he declared with a grin, “You taste like a strawberry sundae.”

“And you… are going to make me pass out.” You pointed at him accusatorily as you tried to catch your breath. “Don’t fairies need to breathe?”

“Sorry. Can’t help myself.” Jungwoo pecked your cheek this time. But it was a false sense of security, as he gave you only a moment to catch your breath before capturing your lips in a sugary sweet kiss once again.

All too soon for your liking, it was decided that the two of you needed to get down and go back inside. Both of you were yawning like crazy, it was getting late, and while you could definitely sleep during the car ride back, accidentally falling asleep on the roof didn’t sound very safe. So Jungwoo got down first, and kindly helped you down by the hand.

After quietly sneaking back in through the kitchen door hand in hand with him, you nearly let out a scream when you saw somebody standing at the fridge, illuminated by the appliance light.

Jaehyun looked at the two of you blankly, a popsicle in his hand. You stared at each other for a good three seconds before giving him a slow nod. He nodded back, then tore open the popsicle wrapper with his teeth. Shuffling by the vampire as he bit into the popsicle, your heartrate didn’t return to normal until you were in the darkened hallway to your bedrooms.

You felt your heart sinking as you prepared yourself to say goodbye to Jungwoo for the night.

“Goodnight, Woos,” you said quietly, squeezing his fingers that were laced with yours.

Enough moonlight was coming in from the living room that you could see half of his face as he looked down at you, one of his thumbs brushing over your cheekbone. He had a small, tender smile on his face, one that reached his eyes.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” he squeezed your hand back.

But you weren’t satisfied. Grabbing him by the shoulder, you pulled him closer to press your lips to his, pretty sure your entire body from your head to your toes popped like a balloon filled with confetti.

“Goodnight,” you repeated, slowly unwinding your fingers from his, almost in disbelief at yourself.

Jungwoo giggled, the sound like windchimes, “Goodnight again, Y/N.”

The two of you turned around to go to your respective bedrooms on opposite sides of the hallway. You had just gotten your hand on the door handle when you heard Jungwoo make a noise of surprise. Turning around curiously, you watched him look between your room and his in disbelief, then close the door again—without going in. And then he stood outside his door, staring at it in confusion.

Concerned, you walked over, lightly touching his arm to get his attention. He looked up to inform you, “Donghyuck is sleeping in my bed.”

You laughed, grabbing his hand to tug him towards your room, “Come on, you can take his spot then.”

“So worth losing my memory foam pillow,” he sighed dreamily, then pecked your temple with a loud smooching sound.

Under the roof of the blanket fort, you watched in delight as Jungwoo replenished the specks of light in the flowers, keeping them at a peaceful dimness. Laid on your side, blanket pulled up to your chin, and legs bumping his under the covers, you couldn’t fight the smitten grin from your face.

“Sleep well, Woos.”

“Sweet dreams, Y/N.”

SUNDAY

A yawn slipped past your lips that turned into a soft groan as you stretched in the morning hours. Rolling over and pulling your blankets back up over your shoulders, you had all intents of going back to sleep. Until you briefly blinked your eyes open, and caught a glimpse of Jungwoo beside you.

He was mostly on his side, cheek squished against the pillow. Even in his sleep, his mouth was drawn into a pout, and his eyelashes were visible against his cheeks. His soft brown hair was mussed up in all directions, and you reached a hand out to delicately readjust a strand that looked like it was uncomfortably poking into his eye.

His hand suddenly shot out of the covers and grabbed your wrist. “Gotcha!”

“Oh my god!” You jumped in surprise. “Holy fuck! Goddamn…”

Jungwoo opened his eyes, mischievous grin on his face. “Morning, Y/N.”

“Well good fucking morning to you too, Woos,” you scoffed, plopping onto your back to catch your breath. “And how long have you been up waiting to scare me to death?”

“I woke up about when you did,” he informed you simply. “Heard you stretching and rolling over. I was honestly trying to snooze until just now.”

You made a noise of acknowledgement, lifting a hand up to delicately trace over one of the petals above your head.

“Y/N,” Jungwoo called for you.

“Hm?” You turned your head to look at him attentively.

As soon as you did, he lunged forward to kiss you. Your hand fell from the carnation to his cheek.

Jungwoo didn’t leave much space between your mouths as he broke the kiss to say, “We need a password.”

“Oh, right,” you nodded, eyes glued to his. “We never did make a password for the blanket fort.”

He connected his lips with yours again. “And I don’t want to let anybody else in this morning.”

“Woos…” you whined, trying to cover your face with your hands, starting to feel shy again in the light of day.

“Y/N…” he imitated your tone as he grasped your wrists, pulling them away from your face until he had them pinned to either side of your head. The fairy was hovering above you on the mattress, a knee wedged between your legs for stability, and you held his gaze for a heavy, breathless moment. Then he went right back to peppering your cheeks and nose with kisses now that his targets were unobstructed, and you giggled as his hair occasionally tickled your ears.

“Woos...” You couldn’t help that the nickname bubbled up out of you again, too much happiness in you to keep it all contained.

Jungwoo stopped for a moment, beaming down at you, “You are a genius, Y/N.”

“What?”

“That—” He rolled off of you, but only to take you with him, pulling you into his arms pretty much on top of him. “Will be our password. Because only you can call me that.”

Thankfully, you all didn’t have to leave too terribly early. By the time Taeil and Doyoung came back from the local coven’s dawn sacraments the rest of you had barely started on breakfast. Well, most of you. You, Jungwoo, and Jaehyun had eaten breakfast first. Jungwoo and you didn’t really want the full brunt of everyone seeing the two of you leave your bedroom together, so you decided to get up and have breakfast earlier. And Jaehyun happened to be awake when you got out there, so he ate with you two—or, sat at the table while you two ate.

Once the witches were back, it was a hustle and bustle to pack. You and Donghyuck had to disassemble the blanket fort after packing your bags.

“Ew, why can’t you and Jungwoo deal with your little love nest—” Donghyuck was cut off by a pillow to the face.

“I’m sorry, who decided to sleep in someone else’s bed without permission last night like a little freak?” You retorted, taking the sheets off of your mattress now that the furniture was back in its original place.

“And who still hasn’t thanked me for my little freak nature, nor even told me what happened last night?”

You couldn’t even pretend to be mad, zooming over to shut your bedroom door then turning back to your best friend, absolutely buzzing with excitement. In a hushed voice—well aware of all the various creatures with superhearing in the house—you relayed the details of last night to Donghyuck as quickly as you could, needing to repeat them for your benefit, too, to convince yourself that it all really did happen.

“Oh fuck yeah, Y/N!” Donghyuck held up a hand for you to high-five, then low-five, then fist-bump. “Now, what do we say?”

“What?” You looked at him incredulously.

“Let me hear a ‘Thank you for being a little freak and taking Jungwoo’s bed last night, Donghyuck.’”

You scoffed, but threw your arms around his neck nevertheless, “Thanks, Hyuck. For being a good friend all week, and for being a little freak.”

You felt his arms and some vines entwine around you in return. “Anytime, Y/N.”

Jungwoo found you again in the living room as everyone else was milling about. At some point, your bags had been grabbed and packed up in the cars by the other guys, and you stayed out of their way, figuring they knew what was best. The fairy bumped your shoulder with his, and you bumped him back.

Taeil suddenly called for him from where he and Doyoung were by the front door.

“Oh hey, Jungwoo, we were able to repack the cars and there’s room for you in ours now,” Taeil said. “This way Johnny has to make fewer stops, and you can come right home with us.”

You and Jungwoo exchanged a glance before he went to reply to his roommate. “Oh, you did? Uhm…”

Then you heard Doyoung snicker, and Taeil broke out into chuckles too. “You should see the looks on your faces. I’m kidding, we have more crap than we came with, actually. Jungwoo’s still in Johnny’s car, don’t worry.”

“You’re not funny,” you crossed your arms over your chest.

“I think I’m the funniest person I know, actually.”

“It was a bit funny,” Doyoung concurred, the four of you walking out together.

You didn’t even want to know what Donghyuck had told them last night when he suddenly appeared in Jungwoo’s bed.

“Okay, everybody ready?” Johnny asked the group loudly. “Nobody’s forgetting anything?”

“Hold on!” You exclaimed.

Quickly running to the very end of the boardwalk before it dropped off to the sand, you gave the ocean a wistful wave goodbye. “Bye Bear!”

You then jogged back over to the rest of the group, and gave Johnny a thumbs up. “Ready!”

And with that, you gave all your friends that you wouldn’t be riding with hugs goodbye. First Taeil and Doyoung, who drove off with little beeps of the car horn behind them. Then Yuta, Jaehyun, and Taeyong, who were going to be leaving last. You felt bad for Taeyong, who was squished in the middle even more now with Doyoung’s rock riding shotgun. Yuta stood on the back of his truck to wave the four of you off as you drove away down the hill. You and Jungwoo were in the backseat again, waving back at them all through the rear window for as far as you could see them.

After they disappeared from your view, you settled into your spot in the middle seat, Jungwoo’s arm around your shoulders as he unfurled his wired headphones.

A hushed conversation up front floated back to you while Jungwoo struggled with a knot in the headphone wires.

“Seriously, they’re not dating, dude?” Mark whispered fervently to Johnny. Donghyuck had already laid down for his nap.

“Not that I’ve been told,” Johnny’s eyes flicked up to meet yours in the rearview mirror. He winked at you. You smiled back.

You leaned over Jungwoo to peer out the window at the passing houses turning into downtown, then the open road. Finally victorious, he held an earbud out to you, and you took it gratefully.

“Any requests?” He prompted you, opening his music library.

You already knew exactly what you wanted to listen to.

“Play me your favorite song today, Woos.”

⤷ blog masterlist ⤷ anthology masterlist

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hwaflms · 15 days

Text

HAPPY NOW? ★ [ j.jh ]

your family has been pressuring you for months to bring your boyfriend, jaehyun, over for dinner, and you think it’s really sweet that they like him so much. the only problem is that your “boyfriend” jaehyun, hates you.

———————————————————————

[☆] PAIRING. ex!jaehyun x f!reader

[☆] GENRE. angst, smut, fluff | fake dating?, exes to ??? au

[☆] WC. 19.9k (i don’t even know)

[☆] WARNINGS. angst, reader has anxiety, mentions of anxiety attacks, fighting, reader be lying a lot, reader has a little sister, crying, reader is kind of a dumbass, explicit content (piv smut), unprotected sex (don’t do this gang!), fingering, sex in public kinda, pls lmk if i forgot anything!!

[☆] NOTES. i’m so fucking annoyed with tumblr it’s not letting me insert images properly UGH this took me over 2 hours to upload man 🗣️ im pretty proud of this one ‼️ idek how it got this long but it’s my longest fic yet and it’s been sitting in my drafts for ages until i finally got the inspo to write it :p i want jaehyun so bad it’s not even funny tbh but anyway PLS GIVE ME FEEDBACK/A REBLOG LITERALLY ANYTHING IS APPRECIATED <33

———————————————————————

six months.

you haven't seen this door in six months.

it's funny because, this was a door you used to push open and walk through every other day, yet now you stand on the opposite side of it, unsure as to whether you should even be thinking of knocking.

your hand is raised to the door, shaped like a fist but you make no move to actually knock. you were aware that you still had time to bail out of this, that you could turn on your heel and make your merry way back to your sad little house and go back to pretending you're happy with the choice you made six months ago.

or you could just do what you came all the way here to do.

the weather seems to be in your favour, at least. the sun shines radiantly, making the temperature warm, but not too warm, and a cool breeze travels through the air in short intervals. the summer had begun early, birds chirping in their habitual singsong way and wild bougainvillea already flowering in various shades of pink and lilac. usually when the day starts off with good weather, the rest of it follows suit, and thus your day is made better. hopefully, this is the case for you today.

pausing for a short, morale-boosting intake of air, you tighten your fist and knock, knock, knock on the mahogany door, immediately regretting your decision as you feel your stomach churn and plummet. a good ten seconds pass, and you hear no reply nor movement from the inside of the house, and part of you is relieved because that means he may not be home.

more than happy to do a 180° and skip along joyously back to the metro that would take you home, your feet begin to make for that trip but your mind decides against it. you know that you are being overly dramatic, but even with being aware of this, your heart rate does not slow down one bit. you also know that what you've come here to do is more than just selfish, its pathetic and rather embarrassing. it's also a hugely unsavoury request, and if your roles were reversed, you'd most definitely laugh in his face and shut the door.

finally somewhat making up your mind with a quiet groan, you raise your clenched fist and rap against his front door again in a set of three. you nervously shift your weight from your right to your left foot, then back to your right and then once again to your left, the anxiety and anticipation not allowing you to stand still and relax, thinking that if he doesn't answer this time, you really will just return home.

"hold on, i'm coming!", a hurried, muffled voice calls from inside the house and you don't think your heart has ever beaten this fast in your life. not even during the one time you ran a marathon to prove a point to your friend chenle, and while you did show him that you didn't only run to get away from spiders, your body took its own sweet time to recover from that.

now you hear footsteps approaching the door from the opposite side of it, and you don't think you can handle anymore of this tortuous, build up of a wait because you are quite literally one step away from calling it a day and just sprinting your way out of there, just like you did on the last few metres of the aforementioned marathon, and you know he's nearing the door because the footsteps are getting clearer and clearer, and soon he's going to open the door, take one look at you and just slam the door right in your face, but not before spewing verbal explosives at you, which would be totally deserved since he has every right to just spit on you and tell you how you're a terrible, downright horrible human being completely unworthy of forgiveness and-

"sorry for making you wait so long, i was-"

if your heart rate was at its maximum speed before, now it just stopped.

standing in front of you, in the flesh, was the man who's heart you broke six months ago.

jaehyun had just about opened his door in a way that his body was sticking halfway out of it, but he was now frozen in that position, neither in nor out, just stuck there looking like he was contemplating his next move. he adorned a loose, white shirt that clung to his defined shoulders and chest, paired with a pair of red plaid pants with a patch of some different material stitched just above where his knee was. you'd recognise those pants just about anywhere, having worn them a number of times and being the cause of that strange patch with mismatched material (you'd tried to balance a pot of steaming hot ramen on your knee in order to move something, resulting in it causing a burn in the pant).

his attire tells you that he was either just about to eat breakfast, in the process of eating breakfast, or about to finish breakfast; jaehyun was not an early riser and he liked to take his time getting ready for the day.

apart from his slightly changed hair, jaehyun looks the same as he did before, if not better. his once shorter, straight, brown hair, was now a darker kind of black and longer in a silky, mullet-y, layered sort of way, the mullet part stopping just above where his shirt met his neck and the front bits falling on to his face in thin, soft wisps.

everything about the man was captivating and entrancing, but if you had to pick a specific feature that really takes the cake, it would have to be his eyes. his eyes, deep-set and fierce, always gave the impression that he was cold or unapproachable, whereas in reality, he was the opposite. as striking as they may be, they always carried a certain warmth to them.

while they still held the same intensity to them, the warmth was missing as he looked straight at you now. after the brief moment of confusion when he first opened the door dissipated, the familiarity had sunk in, and his expression now was more or less unreadable, but you still tried to make out what he was thinking and feeling- was it shock? anger? maybe even disgust?

"okay, are you going to just stand there or are you going to say something?"

you think it was largely a combination of the last two. in all your fidgeting and gawking, you'd forgotten to actually speak to the man who's door you'd just knocked on, leaving him standing there wordless and confused, an eyebrow raised as he waited for you to open your mouth.

you try to do so, so many words wanting to tumble out your mouth but an invisible gate seems to block it, so now you're just stood still with your mouth opening and closing soundlessly, looking like an idiot.

c'mon y/n, fucking say something, anything-

"how have you been?", is what you decide to go with to break the silence in the end, an awkward smile plastered on to your face. you realise before the sentence is even fully out of your mouth that that would be a really weird thing to start off with, seeing as you and jaehyun have had absolutely zero contact for six months, and are obviously not on the most wonderful terms.

jaehyun's eyebrows furrow, a look of clear disbelief on his face as he clutches his door handle a little tighter. he looks away with a sarcastic smile, shaking his head before turning back to look you dead in the eye. oh, he's going to slam the door on you, you just know it-

"really? 'how have you been'?", he questions incredulously, licking his bottom lip while an exasperated smile plays at them. funnily enough, his response is somewhat relieving to your pitiful self, because you weren't even expecting to hear a reply to what you said, you figured he'd just walk away. you would've. "we haven't seen each for six months since we broke up and 'how have you been' is the best you've got?"

you wince apologetically and bite your lip, playing with your fingers nervously as he quite literally stares you down, irritation written all over his face.

he waits a couple more beats for you to break the tense silence and speak but you are inwardly (and outwardly) struggling to word your thoughts, so he simply scoffs and backs away to return inside.

"okay wait, i didn't tell my family that we broke up and they keep pressuring me to bring you home for the holidays, so i would really like if you'd pretend you don't hate me and come with me."

you don't even want to open your eyes to witness his reaction to your blurted little confession, so you merely stand, frozen in place with your eyes squeezed shut tightly. a couple seconds pass yet you don't hear a door slam, a good sign, so you take that as an affirmative to open your eyes.

he doesn't say anything, or do anything either really, he just leans against his doorframe with another indecipherable expression. this irks you even though you know you have no right to feel irked, but the fact that you once had the ability to know what he was thinking and now don't bothers you to the core. plus, it leaves you feeling unsure as to whether to continue. he might just start laughing at you manically or angrily tell you to get off his property like some bitter, 60-year-old man, and either of these scenarios would be completely fair of him to do.

the heavy realisation that your request sounded absolutely delusional and conceited dawns upon you, and something about his irksome expression makes you feel like you should keep talking. "you have literally every right to just tell me to fuck off, and i don't even expect an answer, i don't really know why i even came here, oh my god- this is so fucking stupid, i'm so fucking stupid and honestly i don't know why you're still standing here listening to me ramble-"

"i need to get ready then. give me ten minutes."

✧ ──────── ✧ ──────── ✧

the front door you're stood at now holds a very different ambience to the previous one. while jaehyun's was quiet and peaceful, the front door to your parents house reveals that the inside is just bustling with activity. the chorus of kate bush's 'running up that hill' plays faintly from behind the door, so you figured that your dad must have brought out his old record player from the dusty attic.

jaehyun stands beside you, hands shoved into the pockets of his light grey hoodie that you feel he must be boiling in, because you're wearing a black tank top with some loose cargoes that you think you might have drenched with sweat.

the sweat would be from the burning heat, but also from the agitation you're really starting to feel. there are so many different ways this dinner could go. what if jaehyun suddenly tells them the truth? then everyone in the room would hate you, and rightly so. you don't want to have to explain to your parents why you broke up with him; it's a stupid fucking reason, if you can even call it that, and it made you completely miserable. how were you supposed explain to your little sister that you and jaehyun aren't together anymore? you suppose relationships are a totally foreign concept to her young mind, but you were sure that she knew you and jaehyun loved each other very much. and you knew she loved jaehyun very much.

he does not look at you, instead choosing to really focus on the christmas themed welcome mat that your parents put out during the winter of '09 and never bothered to change. how he even agreed to come here with you, you don't know, but to say you're grateful would be an understatement.

"you still have time to back out, you know.", you mumble softly, trying to give him one more chance to escape, but he doesn't even spare you a glance, shaking his head and squinting at the door.

"let's just get this over with."

with a small sigh, your raise your hand to press your parents doorbell, the embarrassingly loud 'ding dong' ringing out from behind the door. "oh, that must be her!", you hear the muffled voice of your father speak from the inside, making a slight smile form on your lips.

within a couple seconds, you hear the sound of the muted metal bolt as your dad struggles to open the door to let you in. a grunt of "this damn door..." makes both you and jaehyun release short giggles, and you peek over at jaehyun to see his lips curl upwards into a smile, a small one but it's still breathtakingly pretty . he clears his throat and it's gone in a flash, but the image doesn't leave your mind, and you're still seeing it when your dad finally manages to open the door. "i really need to start using the new lock", he mutters, shifting his eyes to you with a big grin, leaving against the doorframe with his arms folded. "hello, sweetheart."

you chuckle and throw your arms around him, squeezing him a little as he laughs and pats your back in return. releasing you, he turns to jaehyun with a smile, who promptly sticks his hand out politely. "hello, mr. l/n, long time no see."

your dad ignores his hand, throwing his head back with a gruff laugh. "what's with all the formalities, come here, son.", and with that he gives jaehyun a hug as well, a slightly shorter one albeit, but a hug nonetheless. the word 'son' repeats in your mind like an echo, sounding more and more distorted the longer you focus on it. you can't even begin to think of what was going through jaehyun's mind. this was not your brightest idea.

you notice your mom waiting by the door with her hands behind her back, eyes bright and shiny. "hi, mom.", you beam, and she laughs cheerily, opening her arms for you to run into, which you do. she presses numerous kisses to the crown of your head, making you groan lightheartedly and try to escape her hold, but it only tightens. "oh, how i've missed you."

"i missed you too, mom.", you say but she's already let you go and is making a bee line for jaehyun with her arms open, who falls into the hug so readily and comfortably. "i may have missed you, y/n, but i missed jaehyun ten times more.", she jokes, pinching jaehyun's cheeks affectionately.

jaehyun is turning bright red, but he has a toothy grin on his face, a real one, you can tell. his eyes travel the front room where all of you are stood with a nostalgic smile, having not seen it or your parents in over six months. you watch as they look from the various photo frames hung up on the wall alongside the staircase, to the curtains that they recently changed, finally landing on the record player thay was sitting on the table. "wow, mr. l/n, where did you get this?", jaehyun asks, and you wonder whether he's trying to make conversation or if he's genuinely curious. you think it may be the second one.

while him and your dad engage in small talk about his record player, you turn to your mom to ask of the whereabouts of your little sister, and as if on cue, you hear an excited squeal from the top of the stairs. all four heads turn to see your sister bounding down the stairs hurriedly, paying no mind to your mom's strained shout of "careful!".

"y/n!", she piped, finally reaching the bottom of the stairs and running straight to you, wrapping her arms around your legs. she barely reaches your hip so her hug is really just her face pressed into your thigh with her arms squeezing your legs together, while you pat the top of her head.

somehow managing to pry her off of your legs, you kneel and give her a proper hug in return, now happy that you made the decision to come home for a bit of your holiday. she lets go and reaches into her pocket, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper and jutting her hand out to you, urging you to take it.

you smile and furrow your eyebrows with confusion but you take the paper anyway, opening it as carefully as you could so as to not tear it anywhere. smoothing it out flat on your knee, you're greeted with a drawing; two people stand holding hands under a deep blue sky, a large yellow sun shining in one corner along with some "birds" that are really just little 'v's scribbled in black. they're stood on a beach, at least you think they are because there are two shades of blue on the paper, one of them probably being the blue hue of the ocean.

you assume the two people are you and your sister, since one of them has shorter, shoulder length hair and is miniscule compared to the other person, who's hair length and height are similar to yours.

you hold the picture to your chest and pull your sister in for another heartfelt hug, kissing her temple. "is this us?", you ask her, pointing at the two people in the drawing. she gives you a proud nod in return, taking the picture from your hands and holding it in front of her face. "yup! the big girl is you and the small girl is me! we're gonna go swimming.", she informs you, flashing you the toothiest of smiles. "thank you, it's perfect.", you tell her, ruffling her hair a little as she hands you the drawing back.

she clearly doesn't appreciate that, because she whines and swats your hands away, but soon her eyes focus on something behind you and they enlarge, the second excited squeal of the day emerging from her lips. "jae!", she just about screams, completely abandoning you in favour of running off to jaehyun, who has a wide smile on his face and looks equally as happy as her. he scoops her up in his arms and lifts her in front of his face, doing a little spin as peals of laughter escape her.

he finally puts her down but she holds on to his hand, looking at the male with absolute adoration. "hi, cutie.", he boops her nose affectionately to which she giggles, turning to look at you. "you didn't tell me jaehyun was coming!"

"i wasn't sure if he could make it", you reply to her honestly, looking at jaehyun as you speak because only the two of you know what you really mean by that. he holds your eye contact for perhaps a millisecond longer than he did before, but again, it was gone in a flash. he clears his throat a little and straightens up, rocking back on his heels.

sensing a shift in the air but mistaking it for some form of awkwardness, your mother shoos the rest of your family away in the direction of the kitchen. "they probably want to freshen up together, let's let them do that."

once they're gone, it feels like you can finally release your breath, truly seeing this situation going wrong in so many ways. they don't suspect anything yet, but how much longer until they eventually connect the dots? or what if they don't even need to do that, because jaehyun only agreed so he could embarrass you by telling them the whole story? you don't acknowledge the tense silence until jaehyun speaks up. "can i use the guest bathroom? still the second door on the right, yeah?"

you don't respond immediately because you're processing the fact that he still remembers these minute details. you also realise he's only asking because he doesn't want to share your bathroom with you, and that clears your thoughts up a little. you nod in affirmation and he begins climbing up the stairs, and you wait until you hear he's reached the upstairs landing before you move.

it's so tense. the last time you were in this house with jaehyun, you had taken a short road trip to get there. you say road trip, but it was just a couple hours long, but the playlist you and jaehyun had curated said otherwise. you arrived at the house and everyone was all smiles, your parents just happy to have you home and happy to see him as well. you think that part's just as hard as thinking about the two of you together. the fact that your slightly judgemental parents adored him, your little sister looked at him with stars in her eyes– you had lucked out in every department, and you were always aware of it, the joint guilt you felt from breaking it off and lying to your parents really getting to you now.

you swore that after this was over, you would apologise to jaehyun and finally break the truth to your parents.

finishing off in the bathroom, you step out into the hall, only to bump straight into jaehyun. backing up awkwardly, you both try to get past each but keep going in the same direction, resulting in a bunch of 'sorry–'s and 'wait– just–'s being blurted out by the two of you. finally getting past you, he doesn't look back at you again, just walking down the stairs mumbling something about "they're waiting...".

wincing, you make your way down the stairs as well, arriving at the living room to see your mom standing beside your dad with an excited expression on her face. you approach with caution, noting that your dad has his hands behind his back. "so...", your mother starts, raising her shoulders a little out of anticipation. "since we haven't seen the two of you in a while...we got you some presents! nothing too grand but..."

"mom, it's not even christmas", you whine, ready to argue with them because you feel bad that whatever they got was still overpriced, but your mother shakes her head, urging your dad to reveal the presents. "just take a look first..."

in one hand he holds a small, white box, no bigger than his palm, and your mom picks it up, holding it out to you. the print on the box is small and typewriter-like, the material it's made out of just screaming fancy. you narrow your eyes at your parents but take the box in your hand anyway, pushing it open. inside, it reveals maybe the prettiest necklace you've seen; dainty and silver, the chain is simple but it's the pendant that's the real charm– it's an uncut stone of some kind, a pale, translucent white crystal that's pretty much shapeless but it's wrapped in this thin silver wire that forms little loops and hearts over the stone and it makes it so alluring.

"it's a seaglass necklace", your mom speaks, taking the necklace out of its box for you and inclining her head for you to turn around. you're now facing jaehyun, who looks curiously at the new piece of jewellery with the faintest of smiles on his face. pushing your hair to the side, your mother places the necklace around your neck and clasps it (though it takes her a while, squinting and looking at the necklace hook from every angle because she forgot to wear her reading glasses). she leads you to the mirror by the entrance of the hall so you could get a better look at the necklace hanging on top of your collarbones, reaching up to touch it. "you remember? from that lady who owned the fancy place by the beach last summer?"

you do remember. that was the first trip jaehyun had joined you and your family for, under the suggestion of your little sister. when you brought up the fact that jaehyun was going back home to see his parents a little later than he had anticipated, your sister immediately asked if he would want to come with all of you, who were heading to the beach in a day or two for a little family getaway. and much to your surprise, your parents were very warm to the idea of jaehyun accompanying the lot of you. he must have severely impressed them the first time he met them, bringing a bouquet of flowers for your mother and a hearty bottle of whiskey for your dad– it's like he had won their hearts before he had even stepped inside the house.

of course, he had met them a couple more times again after that, but your parents had never raised any issues about your then boyfriend. your dad had claimed that he wanted jaehyun to come along so he could "keep an eye on him" and "see how he treats you in front of us", but you knew all too well he just wanted someone to talk to about his interest in sound systems. the trip had gone so smoothly, so perfectly and you think that it had planted the seeds of doubt in your mind about your relationship.

the position of the window and sun allowed for the light to bleed on to half of your face, the necklace glinting under the rays as you stood in front of the mirror and surveyed it. the last couple drops of the golden hour sun slipped through the windowpane and painted your skin like it was a canvass and the necklace was the cherry on top. you were radiant, and the look in jaehyun's eyes told you that he knew it too. when your eyes meet in the mirror, it's like he tears his eyes away from you, forcing himself to look at his shoes.

snapping out of your soon-to-be miserable thoughts, you fix a smile on to your face so as to not seem ungrateful, turning to hug your mother. "i love it", and you really do, knowing that you wouldn't be wearing a single other piece of jewellery for the next couple months.

jaehyun stands in the doorway soundlessly, just taking in the scene. he had always told you that he wished his family was as close and tight-knit as yours, but due to his dad always being away on some business trip or another and his mother having her own job to attend to, it resulted in a lot of time spent by himself.

you think that might be way he slotted right in with the rest of you, from the very first meet, because his desire to belong worked very well with your family's lively, chaotic home, which welcomed him right away. this was the main reason why couldn’t bring yourself to tell your family that you had broken up him mercilessly. they wouldn’t blame you of course, but you know everyone would be immensely disappointed when they realised that he hadn’t even done anything wrong in the first place; he was so good to you, and they just wanted to see you happy.

while your mom cooed at how pretty the necklace looked on you, your dad faces jaehyun with a wide grin on his face. "you didn't think we'd forget about you, did you?"

he probably wasn't expecting anything for himself, because you weren't either, so you and jaehyun simultaneously furrow your eyebrows. "oh, mr. l/n, you didn't have to–", he starts but your father is quick to cut him off, waving his hands. "what nonsense. of course we had to get you something, it's no big deal", he tries to appear nonchalant but the smile that creeps on to his face is a telltale sign that it is, in fact, a big deal. "besides, if you're family to y/n, you're family to us."

it's as if someone just stuck a large knife into you, the pang you just felt in your stomach. you can't even begin to think about what must be going through jaehyun's head, because even he can't hide the way his eyes soften at your dad's words. watching your sister spring up from the couch, she runs behind your father and plucks whatever he was holding out of his hands, now revealed to be a medium-sized bag. "i wanna give it to jaehyun!", with that, she's running over to him with the toothiest smile plastered on her cheeks, holding the bag out to jaehyun with stretched arms.

he ruffles her hair just like you did, but she makes absolutely zero complaints as he does it– if anything she's revelling in it. this makes you want to scoff, but you smile instead without thinking about it, taking a couple steps away from the mirror and towards them. "are you gonna open it or should i take it back to the store?", your dad jokes and jaehyun chuckles quietly while you don't even bother forcing a laugh, and he takes the bag from your sister's hands, mumbling a soft 'thank you'.

from where you're standing, you can't see what's inside the bag, but you can see jaehyun's eyes widen when he looks inside and back up at everyone. "me and mrs. l/n, i can't take this."

"of course you can", your mother tuts in response, dismissing him with her hand. "if i recall correctly, you had said something about your airpods not working properly?"

realisation dawns on your face when jaehyun pulls the shiny headphones from the bag, turning them over in his hand. "i think i did mention it, yeah...", he nods, eyes scanning over the clear box he holds. you remember that only one of his airpods would function properly, the other deciding whenever it wanted to do its job. you didn't realise your parents remembered, as well. "but these are so expensive, i can't–"

"do you like them or not?", your dad asks, shrugging his shoulders. jaehyun's quick to nod, "yes, i love them but–"

"then end of story." your father's not hearing anyone out, even going so far as to cover his ears jokingly when jaehyun opens his mouth again. after your sister tugs on his pant leg and urges him to try them out, jaehyun slips them over his ears, whipping his phone to connect them to it. he thought it was too expensive to try fixing his airpods so he resorted to listening with just the one ear in, or using your headphones till you broke up.

by the look on his face, they work just fine, and he couldn't be happier. a wide smile is pressed on his face, a real one that doesn't even drop when he makes eye contact with you. you smile back at him slowly, but he doesn't look away immediately, slowly turning to look at your parents. "i don't know what to say. thank you."

you'd had a couple boyfriends before, not none as close to your family as jaehyun had been. none of your previous relationships had lasted very long and you could never pinpoint the exact reason why, you just knew at some point that you had to break it off. your mother always thought that this was a result of your first ever relationship, the first and last man that ever dumped you. it crushed you at the time, though you were able to power through, but since then, relationships were never your strong suit. change seemed promising when you met jaehyun through a mutual friend, however. he was kind, he was smart and he was genuine, three traits that you didn't typically see in guys you dated, but you didn't see any reason to dwell on your biggest fumble yet.

the rest of time until dinner continues in a steadfast manner with all of you sitting in the living room. the scene looked like something out of a corny movie montage, but the beautiful part of it was that it was reality, all the laughs, the eye-smiles, the stupid jokes and conversations, all of it. your parents had recently returned from a holiday together that they took to celebrate their wedding anniversary, which meant that you two deserved to look through all eight hundred and sixty two of the photos they took. super proud of the new projector he had ordered off amazon, your dad had connected his phone to it and was going through his gallery slideshow-style, with your mom making offhand comments about every other photo.

"that's from when we went on a date to this fancy restaurant, that's from the shoe store your dad wanted to go to...oh! that's when your dad just learnt how to take 0.5x pictures on his new phone!"

your mom speaks animatedly while each photo is being shown, pointing out various different things without any prompting. there were badly taken selfies of your parents that made both you and jaehyun laugh, pictures of the different kinds of food they ate, the said 0.5's of your mother taken from the top of her forehead– your dad was slapping his knee even though your mom wasn't too impressed.

after what seemed like years, they ran out of vacation pictures and moved on to pictures and videos taken during your little sister's talent show. this was especially endearing, because your normally high-energy sister was suddenly all shy and avoidant of eye contact in the presence of jaehyun, particularly displeased with a video of her singing on stage.

jaehyun wipes the pout right off her face however, poking her cheek with a smile. "you sound amazing, s/n", he pipes genuinely, and she's back to smiling again, even offering to sing the song for everyone towards the end. no one has the heart to turn down so innocent a request, so for the next couple minutes you are subjected to a very slightly off-key rendition of some song from the movie 'frozen'. everyone cheers when she is done, jaehyun even throwing in a little "whoo!" for good measure, and your sister performs a small curtsey before seating herself between you and jaehyun's legs.

you're situated on the same couch, but only so that things don't look weird. you invited him here to pose as your boyfriend, and he agreed, so you have to play the part too. that part wasn't as hard as you expected, the acting like a couple, no, it was the avoiding questions that was really getting to you. at some point in the conversation, your dad had congenially asked jaehyun when the next time he'd be coming home was. normally, he would congenially reply with something like "as soon as possible", but this time, he just froze. he appeared to attempt a reply, but was cut short at "uh–", the rest of the sentence never following through.

hoping to repair the awkward moment, you start to construct a fib. "jaehyun's been uh– you know, working at one of those um, nursing homes–", this is too out-of-the-box a reply even for jaehyun who turns to you, trying and failing to the hide incredulous look on his face.

"a nursing home? oh, i didn't know you were training to be a nurse!", your mother is surprised but definitely not disappointed, placing her hand on her chest with a sympathetic look on her face as she looks at jaehyun. he looks as if he's trying to speak to you using only his eyes, widening and squinting them at a rapid pace, tilting his head towards you so your parents don't see his expression. there are clear signs of confusion and you're aware he's questioning your decisions, but that's as far as you get with his eye signals and you let him know by shrugging and wincing, so he closes them while sighing inwardly and turns to face your parents, a fake smile stuck on his lips.

"yes! haha, funny story, this one...", he grits his teeth but furthers your stupid concoction of a story, snapping his fingers while trying to think. "i'm not really training to be a nurse, i just volunteer there sometimes. love being around old people, you know, makes me feel full of life–"

you cut him off before he can make this even worse for the both of you, taking in your mother's furrowed eyebrows and your dad's slightly opened mouth. "yes, well, it's hard for him to catch a break, you know, with all the...", you slap your hand over his knee and give it a little squeeze, turning to him with a grin while he smiles tightly back at you, eyes focusing on the hand on his thigh without changing his expression. "...hard work he does."

jaehyun's eyes don't leave your hand, seeing as this is the first act of skinship in six months, albeit casual. your hand feels so hot that you think you might be burning a hole through the material of jaehyun's jeans, finally ripping your hand off of him.

"of course...", your father trails off in confusion, and no one can seem to make head or tails of the situation. in a moment, your mother pauses before clapping her hands, seemingly already forgotten about the strange situation as she chimes "dinner in five!~". your sister scampers off with claims of helping your mother out in the kitchen (and probably to try and secure a spot close to you and jaehyun), and jaehyun stands up and heads to the cupboard containing all your placemats without out even being asked. you offer to help but he shakes his head, and you opt to go sit back down on one of the arm chairs facing the kitchen area, just observing.

this was one of jaehyun's qualities that made you fall in love with him, but also pissed you off to no end. first of all, didn't he ever get tired of just being so good all the time? second of all, why couldn't his own parents see what everyone else saw in him? and thirdly, why did you choose to ruin your life six months ago? as for the last one, you knew why, but the extent of your stupidity was real apparent to you now.

you look away when he meets your eyes and catches you, your heart beating fast when you see out of the corner of your eye that his gaze lingers for a moment or two. underneath all that hatred, was there still a small part of him that cared about you? after you broke up with him, over call that too, he attempted to call you back two or three times, but you couldn't bring yourself to pick up. out of fear or maybe even shame, you never answered his calls and since then, you'd had no contact.

it was impossible. with a break-up like that and six month's worth of time to sit and think about it, you imagine that one could hold a surprising amount of hatred for someone–especially after a relationship as real as yours. if you switched the roles, you think you wouldn't feel much different.

at your mom's signal, you heave yourself off the couch and to the dining table, seating yourself next to jaehyun (everyone expected you to sit with him, they left the chair empty on purpose). your sister has already claimed the spot opposite jaehyun and was patiently awaiting the vegetables that she knew your mother was going to pile on her plate, a little pout forming on her lips at the sight of broccoli. "you can't make that face every time, like i'm feeding you dog food", your mother scolds her with a smile, giving her a generous helping of veggies. the pout deepens and she folds her arms with a cross look on her face. "you guys don't have to eat the broccoli. why do i?"

she's got a point, you think, but before you can tell her to just eat them, jaehyun speaks. "that's exactly what my little cousin sungchan said...", jaehyun tells her, looking around the table with a dramatic sigh. "and we all know what happened to him..."

little cousin sungchan? as far as you know, there is no little cousin sungchan, and you know a lot about jaehyun's family, so you put your fork down in favour of listening to his story at the same time your sister curiously asks, "what happened?".

"well, like you, sungchan didn't like eating his veggies", starting off the story with a shrug under your mother's listening ears, he talks in a low voice. "he'd always argue with my aunt till one day, he refused to eat them.

your sister is knocking food around her plate while she listened to jaehyun, and she's not impressed with the story so far. "see! why can't i do that?", she asks indignantly, and your mother shoots jaehyun a look to which he winced and continues. "nothing happened for a while, so sungchan thought he had proved his point. but he hadn't heard of the veggie monster."

the story is heading in such a stupid direction that you almost laugh out loud, but you catch yourself when you notice your sister's expression, guarded and wary. "...the veggie monster? ...that's not real...", she speaks like she's not fully sure of her words herself, pausing her attack on her food.

"sungchan thought that too", jaehyun agrees, lowering his voice like one would when telling a scary story, looking around him like it could be listening before continuing, for the story's sake. "but he didn't know that without veggies, a child's body is weak. their bones don't grow strong, they stay small and their minds aren't sharp at all. that's how the veggie monster chooses his targets."

you hold back a snort at your sister's wide-eyed expression and how serious jaehyun looks, he's even got your dad attempting to look nonchalant as he followed the story. "the less veggies a kid eats, the weaker they get, and that's easy pickings for the veggie monster. he comes late at night, and there's no point in hiding because he knows. he can smell when a kid doesn't have enough vitamins and it makes him hungry."

with your sister, your parents and even you hanging on to every word, jaehyun lowers his voice to almost a whisper, and all of you lean in closer to listen. "legend has it that he looks so scary that you lose the ability to move or speak, so he just takes you. sungchan was never seen again. the police said he was missing but i knew what happened to him."

you have to admit, jaehyun can tell a story. the atmosphere felt more eerie as he concluded the story cryptically, but your sister looks positively gutted. "did he take him?", she questions, face white and voice small. he nods slowly, like he didn't want to be talking about this, and all you can think about is how this man deserved an award after the show he put on. "i had my suspicions. no one believed me, but i'm ninety-nine percent sure that at dinner, i saw a pair of dark, red eyes staring straight into the kitchen from the window."

as if nature was a paid fucking actor, a slight crash sounds from outside the window on cue, like if a cat knocked over a plastic bin, but you're pretty sure your sister shit her pants. you've never seen her shovel vegetables into her mouth at that kind of record speed before, even your parents are looking at her astounded. with her food in her mouth, she pleads with glazed eyes, "please– i'm sorry, i'll have my veggies, don't let him take me!"

it takes all of you a little while to convince your sister that she'd be completely fine if she ate all the veggies given to her and that the veggie monster wouldn't even think of her, but it's safe to say that she'd never leave a bit of stray carrot on her plate ever again. your mom comically mouths 'thank you' to jaehyun which makes you laugh, and you turn to smile at him, and he gives you a nod in return. small steps, you think, because a nod is a whole lot better than a glare.

the rest of the dinner continues as if nothing changed. sure, you and jaehyun knew things were different, but it didn't fully feel like it at the moment. your mom had prepared a lot of nice food for the occasion, and your dad even helped, particularly proud of the way his stir fry turned out. jaehyun made sure to compliment both your parents on their cooking, and they all but melted– he still knew exactly how to talk to them. conversation was easy; you talked about work, you talked about how university was going, you talked about the school play your sister was going to take part in, about jaehyun's parents, nothing was forced.

you'd fall into comfortable silences at times in favour of sitting back and observing, listening, just being a part of the moment. for someone who was so reluctant to be here, jaehyun seems comfortable, the familiarity of the situation helping ease the tension between the two of you. expecting some bumps along the way, you were rather pleased with how things were turning out, but you were also anticipating the end of the lovely evening– where you and jaehyun would eventually go your separate ways. you don't want to think about it just yet, not when everything was going so smoothly, and your opportunity to snap out of your thoughts is presented to you, just not in the way you would have liked.

your mother's question seems to have thrown jaehyun for a loop as well, because his eyebrows are furrowed and he looks blatantly confused. at some point during a lull in the conversation, your mother had politely asked jaehyun how his christmas in japan had gone; the only problem with this question was that he never had a christmas in japan, not to his knowledge anyway. this, was yet another lie you had told your parents, when they had asked why jaehyun hadn't accompanied you home to celebrate christmas, like he had originally planned to. unbeknownst to them, you had already broken up with him prior to the christmas holidays, so jaehyun wasn't exactly going to come along anyway. so, you told them that he had to spend christmas with an aunt in japan, for familial reasons.

you didn't exactly have time to prep jaehyun and give him a run down of every single lie he had to play along with, so he turns to you with a look of uncertainty and desperation in his eyes. "my, uh- christmas? in japan?", he puts emphasis on the two keywords, not blinking when he speaks directly to you in hopes that you would take the hint and help him out.

"yeah, your christmas. in japan. with your aunt", you reply to him with the same tone and expression as he does, trying your best to sound subtle so your parents don't catch on.

"yes, with your aunt! we were so sad to hear that you couldn't make it for christmas", your mother is unknowingly helping jaehyun catch up with the fake story, and he releases a short "ahh" during his moment of 'recollection'. "right, my real aunt who definitely lives in japan."

he grits his teeth when he talks, making you grimace and the fact that your parents look completely puzzled doesn't help. you need to save your dignity anyway, so you try to cut jaehyun off before he can make things worse. "haha, jaehyun of course she's your real aunt, silly", you awkwardly chuckle, feigning nonchalance when you bump his shoulder with your fist, wishing you could telepathically communicate with him right now, but you'd probably only be saying "please, please, please" on repeat.

he sighs but speaks up again, much to your relief. "it was slightly boring, my aunt doesn't do much", he laughs softly, fully back in character. "but you know, it's still nice to spend time with your family."

if your parents are suspicious, they don't say anything, seemingly satisfied with jaehyun's answer. dinner continues with few hitches until jaehyun insists that he washes the dishes. "it's the least i can do, after you both made such delicious food."

your mother at least tries to argue with him for a bit, but your dad is quite happy to not have to wash dishes, patting jaehyun on the back before standing up. what surprises you however, is jaehyun turning to you with the sweetest, most fake smile you've seen in a minute plastered on his face. "you mind helping, y/n?"

smiling tightly, you nod and begin clearing the table. this is done in silence, neither of you even looking at each other as you pick up dishes and carry them to the kitchen. your sister has run off to the living room to watch some t.v with your dad, and it feels like you're finally allowed to breathe when your mother exits the room as you’re picking up the last dirty dish. walking into the kitchen, jaehyun's back is facing you while he washes dishes, the environment and the little tune he's humming making everything seem so domestic in your eyes. this is how dinner used to always go when he came over, with you and him washing the dishes together in the end, taking breaks to splash each other with the soapy water or making out secretly by the counter.

but the air is foreign now, none of the former warmth or softness remaining. he turns to you with a frown when you place the final dish on the side of the sink, and he really doesn't look too happy. "visiting an aunt in japan? really?", he scoffs, looking incredulous while you look sheepish, avoiding his eye contact entirely.

you were expecting something like this but you hated being put on the spot. "i don't know, okay, what else was i supposed to say?", the exasperation in your voice is evident but it only fuels jaehyun, and rightfully so.

"i got an idea, how about 'oh, he can't come because i dumped his ass over call for no reason, sorry'?", he digs snidely, voice laden with scorn. there it is. "or is that too close to the truth for you?"

he doesn’t even let you open your mouth, chucking the cloth he was using to dry the dishes on the counter somewhere, folding his arms while he looks at you in a hostile way. “you wanna know how i really spent my christmas, y/n?”, he sneers sardonically, a sarcastic smile etched on to his lips. “alone in my house. miserable. i wish i had an aunt in fucking japan that i could’ve spent it with.”

you hate to admit it, but his words sting and you are well aware that you deserve it. just asking him to join you for this dinner was a huge reach, a request you really didn't expect him to accept. you don't fully understand why he did, though. he clearly despised you, so many be it was out of love for your family? you know jaehyun cared for them, but doing all this was uncharacteristic even for him. when you don't say anything but wear an agonised expression on your face, jaehyun further questions you.

"do you not have anything to say for yourself?", he tries again, his voice a little softer and more hopeful than before but you look like you're fighting some internal battle that doesn't involve him. he exhales deeply, clearly disappointed in your lack of an explanation and just walks past you and out of the kitchen.

you remain in the kitchen for a couple beats more, trying your level best to collect yourself. you can feel tears pricking the corners of your eyes and your breathing is quicker, but this is the absolute worst time to have a little panic attack in the kitchen. how you wished the two of you could just forget about everything for a minute so you could wrap your arms around his figure and fall into his embrace, feeling like that would solve all your problems. it's selfish and wrong, but you know that you're not getting over jaehyun anytime soon.

you'd come to that conclusion a couple months back. the first month after you broke things off with him was possibly the worst time of your life, struggling to eat, sleep or even get out of bed. your friends urged you to reach out to him like they knew you wanted to, but you remained stubborn, convinced at the time that you had made the right decision that would hurt the least for the both of you. you were wrong, you could see that now, but you knew it was much too late. you'd already gone through all the stages of grief, but seeing jaehyun again in this environment had really gone and thrown a spanner in the works for you, all because of your terrible decision-making skills.

any hopes you had of the two of you at least being on semi-friendly terms had just flown out the window as well, and you suddenly think that this might've been the reason why jaehyun even agreed to come. an explanation. a well-deserved one at that. you don't know why you find it so hard to give him one, but you suspect it's because you're not ready to face all that yourself.

upon hearing your mother faintly call out your name, you realise how long you've been standing in the kitchen, taking a couple more deep breaths before you join the rest of them. it's clear that everyone's winding down, your sister curled up on your dad's lap, trying to blink away her sleepiness, while everyone else mutedly watched the television. "didn't mean to keep you all up past your bedtime", you try to joke lightheartedly because your parents look like they're about to hit the hay themselves, but it's really so that no one suspects you were having a little breakdown in the kitchen; especially jaehyun.

"you're not wrong", your dad agrees gruffly, stretching a little before tapping on your sister's cheek to wake her, much to her displeasure. "it's technically your mama's turn to put you to bed, isn't it?", he attempts, but is quickly shot down by your mother, pinching his arm after claiming it was certainly not her turn. after their grand performance, both of them comically turn to look at you with a suspiciously bright look in their eyes. you don't even have time to argue, because the second the hint of a sigh leaves your mouth, they're saying "thank you" and "how nice of you to offer", urging your sister to wake up to let her know that you'll be tucking her in tonight.

she perks up a little at this, nodding with a little glint in her eyes. hopping off your dad's lap, she sleepily totters over to you. "can jae come too?", her voice is hopeful and small, and she yawns in the middle of her sentence but she just has this certain charm that makes everyone unable to say 'no' to her. this includes jaehyun, because one look from her with her arms raised and he's picking her up, pretending to complain about it. you can't help but smile at the whole interaction.

"oh quick! before i forget...", your mom gasps in remembrance, picking her phone up from the coffee table with a tired smile. "don't know when i'll get to see the two of you again so, pictures!"

this may be the only part you were slightly prepared for. your mother had a special affinity for taking photos; not that she was any good at it, she just enjoyed capturing these little moments and treating her gallery like a scrapbook. she had more or less documented the entirety of you and jaehyun's relationship, from the first few months where all the photos were cheesy smiles and awkward poses, to when you had grown more comfortable around each other. in fact, a photo she had taken of jaehyun was your wallpaper for quite some time (it took a lot of effort and explaining to help your mom airdrop you the picture)– it was a shot of jaehyun and your sister grinning from ear to ear, both adorning aprons that were covered in flour after a failed attempt at baking cookies.

the point being, you're pretty sure jaehyun was also expecting the pictures, so it didn't really surprise you when he plastered a smile on his face and came to stand beside you. his hand finds the small of your back soon enough and it makes your body stiffen while simultaneously sending a jolt through it, and jaehyun feels it. mistaking the action for uneasiness, he immediately lifts his warm hand off you so that it's now hovering awkwardly over your body, though no one can see that from the front. while you are disappointed, you lean into him anyway, clasping your hands together behind your back as you both give the camera wide smiles. you're so close you can smell his cologne and it's making you dizzy, not because the scent is overpowering but because it's just so familiar and you can't get enough of it.

the moment is gone in a flash because your mother takes three to four photos while cooing at the two of you before she decides to call it a night, and then jaehyun is ripping himself from you. you don't think anyone else recognises it, the way he seems to want to be as far from you as possible because he's so good at masking these things, but you can feel it. you can feel this heat radiating off of his body whenever he's near you and it's not the warm, fuzzy kind of heat. the spot on your back where his hand rested still burns a little.

your parents are exhausted and look more than happy to be able to jump straight into bed, but not before thanking you and jaehyun. you hug and kiss them goodnight, promising that your next visit will be sooner than this one before they exchange pleasantries with jaehyun, making him promise the same. you know this has to be hard on him, making a mental note to apologise profusely before you part ways. with a reminder that the door now locks from the inside, they bid you goodnight and goodbye, trudging off to their room while your sister scampers up the stairs to hers, suddenly full of life.

you understand why your parents were more than happy to hand over bedtime duties to you and your "boyfriend", because putting your little sister to bed turned out to be a piece of work. she started off by blatantly refusing to brush her teeth, but jaehyun had that one sorted when he reminded her that the veggie monster had a lot of friends, so that was done. she changed into her pyjamas all on her own which was a relief, but you were at a loss over how to actually get her into bed.

you both humoured her for a bit, understanding that she was just happy to have her big sister and her big sister's nice boyfriend home again, so a little excitement was expected. jaehyun played along with her, which was a sight to see, following along with the characters she assigned him in her imaginary games. but when bouncing on her bed turned into running around the room like a crazed bunny, it was a little harder to convince her that she needed to sleep now. "look at me, i'm wide awake", she insists, widening her eyes with her fingers to show you both just how awake she was. jaehyun tried a couple times to catch her, but you're both taken by surprise at her remarkable speed and agility. in the end, you had to resort to just sitting down and hoping that she'll tire herself out, which eventually does happen.

she climbs into bed of her own accord, rubbing at her eyes while you pull the duvet over her body, up to her shoulders. "when are you coming next?", she mumbles curiously while you sit on the edge of her bed, jaehyun standing close by. "soon", you reply honestly, knowing that you'll always have a safe place to come to whenever you need. "maybe i'll even stay for a whole weekend next time."

she likes the sound of this, smiling tiredly with her hands peeking over the edge of her cover, holding it closer to her. "will you come too?", this question is directed towards jaehyun, who looks defeated when he opens his mouth to answer. it's not fair, expecting him to lie to your family like this, but you know you've gotta come clean soon. you'd made up your mind at this point and come up with a plan; you'd explain yourself to jaehyun and apologise after which you'll go your separate ways, then you'll tell your family the truth after tonight, or at least make up a more recent break up, and that's that.

when jaehyun looks to you for help, you play with your hands a little, not fully knowing what to say. "if the old ladies at the nursing home let him go, maybe...", is what you decide is the safest option to go with, and your sister seems satisfied enough, giggling drowsily. you know she's close to falling asleep, and you're about to inwardly celebrate a job well done when she pops her next, unexpected question. "will you both be together forever?"

oh. there's a hint of teasing behind her voice, but everything else about the question is innocent and genuine, blinking her eyes open so she can look at the both of you when you answer. though you're not touching him, you can feel jaehyun stiffen next to you, his voice sounding more than a little awkward when he lets out an involuntary "uhh".

"what do you mean, cutie?"

you don't know why he asks that, because it's a pretty straightforward question; will the two of you be together forever? you want to laugh at the irony because you know that if she had asked the same question last time jaehyun came home, you both would have exchanged knowing smiles, giggling shyly while you tried to answer. the answer would've been 'yes', and you know deep down that it still should be.

she clicks her tongue like it's the most obvious and easy question in the world, shrugging her shoulders when she speaks. "you know, that's what people do when they're in love,", she answers with no hesitation, and you want to roll your eyes because who kidnapped your little sister and replaced her with dhar mann? "just like mommy and daddy!"

"daddy and mommy are married, sweetie, it's a little different–"

"i know that", she cuts off your little improvised answer in a deadpan voice that almost makes you feel stupid, but all her questions have your heart thudding against your rib cage, and you're praying to god that jaehyun can't hear it too. "but still, they love each other, and that's why they're together forever. don't you love each other?"

you're pretty sure the world stopped spinning and your heart stopped beating simultaneously, most definitely not expecting these kinds of questions from your sister. how do you even prepare an answer for this kind of situation? you know for a fact that your cheeks are coated in a dark sheen of red, and out of the corner of your eye (because you refuse to look at him), you’re pretty sure you can see the distinct pink colour paint the tips of jaehyun's ears, like they always do when he's shy or embarrassed. you can't not give her an answer, because that looks weird and she's clearly waiting for one, but answering meant that you either tell her the truth, that no, you will not be together forever because your dumbass went and ruined everything for the both of you six months ago, or you can lie and say that she's right, which would be admitting a lot of things that you didn't want to admit–

"nothing's for sure, but you're right, if two people really do love each other...", jaehyun's deep voice brings all your spiralling thoughts to a halt, and you look at him for the first time in a bit, only to find that he's already looking at you, gaze raw and piercing. you hold your breath when he speaks, because you don't trust yourself at the moment. "...they'll end up together forever."

you hear your sister make some kind of a reply, but the heartbeat in your ears is so loud that you don't quite catch it, the eye contact you're holding with jaehyun so intense that it feels wrong to look away. what could he have possibly meant by that? or was it just some half-assed answer to get your sister to go to sleep? you realise that staring at him while trying to use your sixth sense to nonverbally convey these questions to him isn't going to work, but you can feel the lump forming in your throat, needing to get out of this situation quickly.

it takes everything in you to break the eye contact in favour of pressing a quick peck to your sister's temple, and she looks about ten seconds away from just crashing. "night y/n, night jae...", and with that she's out like a light, and you two wait wordlessly until her breathing evens out before silently exiting the room.

once her bedroom door is shut, you make a beeline for the front door, way too scared and vulnerable right now to look at jaehyun. he doesn't say anything, so neither do you, making sure the door is actually locked before taking your phone out of your pocket. the time on your phone screen reads '11:43', and you know it's too late to try and catch the metro or a bus, but you're too stubborn and embarrassed to ask jaehyun to drop you.

the air is cold outside, much colder than it was inside your warm house. at the current moment, there is no breeze either, the trees are still and there are only a few lights on around the street, and it just makes everything seem so still and loud. you look out at the road, eyes zeroing in on this one lamp post where you shared one of your first few kisses with the man standing beside you. it's crazy how time can change things, you think, because never would you have believed in the moment that jaehyun called you "the most beautiful girl in the world" before leaning in to sweetly connect your lips that he could ever be something so close to a stranger within months.

ultimately opting to look at him, you're once again unable to read the expression on his face as you try your best to speak your mind to him. "um, i'm gonna book a cab, so you're officially free to go. thanks again for tonight, you really didn't have to come with me, so i owe you one. or i don't have to owe you one, because we're not going to see each other again- anything's good with me, just uh...thanks."

he waits patiently for you to finish, and aside from the slightest hint of amusement in his eyes, you're at a loss over what he's really thinking, but his face is so stupidly handsome that you're feeling angry and a little awkward, choosing to look around, and at the floor, playing with your fingers as you spoke.

"you're so dramatic y/n, i can drop you home, it's no big deal", he's already walking towards the road and biting his lip, and you can't tell whether it's out of habit or if he's trying to hide a smile, yet something tells you that it might be the latter.

"so you just let me say all that even though you were gonna offer to drop me? dude..."

the initial ten minutes of the drive are uncommunicative, both of you choosing to look at the dark road instead of acknowledging the awkward silence that was swallowing the car up whole. you don’t talk about your argument in the kitchen, you don’t make small talk about dinner, you don’t talk. you'd normally play some music in the background and you know that your phone is definitely still connected to his car's bluetooth, but somehow it just doesn't feel right– punishing yourself by sitting in this impenetrable silence should do you better.

the roads are more or less empty, save for the lone car or bike that speeds past you. jaehyun knows the way to your house from your parent's because of the amount of times you've driven back and forth, so you don't feel the need to tell him to turn right or to keep going down a certain road, making for even more silence.

part of you is still a little thankful that it isn't the most short drive, even though you aren't even speaking to each other. all it takes is picturing your empty house, devoid of the homely domestic feeling it used to carry when jaehyun was a frequent visitor. what would you even do when you got home? wallow in self-pity over your life choices? play 'sweet' by cigarettes after sex because it reminds you of him, then put on his hoodie that doesn't even smell like him anymore, just so you can curl up in bed and have a good cry while you reminisce? you're starting to think that maybe attempting to talk to him isn't the worst idea, at least it'll give you something to cry about later.

you're going crazy wracking your brain, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't make the atmosphere even more uneasy, but all you got was "hey, thanks again for coming" and "hey, sorry for breaking up with you, what's good though?". you can't even help the wince creeping on your face, finally choosing to go with the former before you have a heart attack and die in jaehyun's front seat.

"thanks again for agreeing to come", you start, absolutely hating the break in your voice from not talking for some time. "you really didn't have to do that. and for dropping me."

he offers you a quick nod in your general direction and fixes his eyes on the road ahead like he was zipping through a crowded highway, though you're sure there isn't a car in sight. "like i said, it's cool", is all you get in return, and you have to remind yourself that he has every right to be short with you.

but still, you try again. "and you don't have to worry about my parents", chewing on your bottom lip, you actually look at him this time, hoping it'll prompt him to do the same, but it doesn't. "i'm gonna tell them the truth."

he releases a short breath from his nose like he finds your statement funny, but continues to not really say anything, just nodding to indicate that he heard you. you subconsciously clench and unclench your jaw at that, because god, he's so fucking annoying, but you swear you don't mean to release the slightly irritated sigh that you do. if you hadn't seen his knuckles turning white from how hard he's gripping the steering wheel, you might not have known that your little sigh pissed him off, because you can't tell it from his face, save from the barely-there eyebrow twitch.

you don't know what it is about car rides with only one other person that make you feel so vulnerable, but you think paired with this kind of silence, you could potentially confess to murder in this setting. it's infuriating, how unresponsive he is, and part of you thinks you're jealous of the control he's exerting, because you're dead sure that if you were in his position, you'd have a fair amount to say. it must be satisfying for him in a way, watching you squirm like this out of guilt and discomfort, but you know in your heart that jaehyun simply isn't like that.

"look, jaehyun", your mouth is working faster than your brain, the silence proving to be too much for you to handle. "i know i fucked things up a bit. with how i ended it and everything..."

perhaps you should've taken a little more time to properly articulate your thoughts, because even jaehyun can't control the astounded scoff that slips out of his mouth. you yourself can't believe that you chose to deliver your words like that and it makes you sound so self-righteous, but they're out, and now you're bracing yourself to finally hear what jaehyun really has to say.

"fucked things up a bit? are you serious?", you can hear it in his voice that he's holding back, but he chooses to laugh in disbelief instead, which you think is actually worse than him straight up screaming at you. "y/n, you didn't even bother telling me in person. you dumped me over the fucking phone, saying it wasn't working."

you now kind of wish that you had just kept quiet and sat in his awkward car, and exchanged awkward niceties when you reach home, never to see him again. but this is your final chance at some form of redemption, and now that jaehyun was actually speaking his mind instead of giving you tight nods, you tried to explain yourself.

"jaehyun, i know, i just–"

"i called you a bunch of times. i tried to come see you and everything, but you went and changed your lock and all your friends were saying you didn't want to see me?"

there goes trying to explain yourself. so you sat and listened instead, and it was the least you could do. jaehyun's voice became more and more strained as he talked, the emotions he was feeling now a lot more evident. he was angry, but more importantly, he was confused, and sad.

"i just- i didn't know what went wrong, you know? we were completely fine as far as i knew", he continues on in a laboured way and he's not looking for you speak right now, so you don't. "fuck i- i thought we were in love."

the little laugh he lets out in between his words more or less breaks your heart, the whole scenario sounding all too familiar. those exact words were the last thing you'd heard from jaehyun before you fully and cruelly broke things off, letting him know the decision was final before cutting the call. you remember that day so clearly. you had meant to go see him and explain all this in person, that’s the whole reason you were in the car, but for some reason, you just couldn’t do it. you remember how much your hands were shaking as you waited for him to pick up the call, sitting in the car by yourself in the middle of your driveway. how long you sat and cried after you ended the call, tears falling until there weren't any left. how it began raining the very second you stepped out of your car to go back inside.

the weather was a funny thing, choosing to mirror your mood only when it saw fit. it was warm and sunny on the day you broke up with him, gentle breeze and wispy clouds all around. it was warm and sunny this morning, the weather ever so pleasant as you plucked up the courage to walk to his door. it was still unusually warm and sunny for the couple months following your break up, feeling sour as ever that the weather was so lovely and all you could do was sit in your room and feel sorry.

you took note of all these occasions because it always used to piss you off. though you shiver now in the car, you think it's kind of satisfying in a way, because the only two times your mood and the weather lined up was right after the break up, and the second you stepped outside your house with jaehyun; it feels like a premonition, or a revelation of sorts. the grey of the stormy sky matched the absolute devastation you felt after breaking up with him, rain pouring from the heavy clouds like they were crying for you. now, the cold, still air feels like baited breath, awaiting your next move.

"and nothing, i hear nothing from you for six fucking months until you're suddenly on my doorstep, asking me to pretend to be your boyfriend for a night. that's fucking insane!", he sounds a little wild now, very exasperated, but you figure it's probably better to just let him get it all out of his system, and you'd do good to listen to him as well. everything he's saying makes complete sense, all the emotions he dealt with akin to what you would've gone through had it been you in his place. "and you know what's more insane? i agreed. after all that, i agreed."

that’s the part you don’t understand. your heart is racing listening to him and you have so many thoughts swimming around in your head, it's difficult to filter them. you feel similar to how you felt back in the kitchen, although this time you can't take a minute by yourself to get over it. you absolutely refuse to cry in this moment, not wanting to seem like you're trying to victimise yourself when you are aware you're the problem. but you can feel your heart breaking all over again.

"why did you agree?", you physically can't raise your voice to louder than a whisper, the tension too thick to try and overpower it.

"why did you dump me?", he counters like a child, and while you were expecting the question, it still makes you freeze up a little. he huffs in annoyance when you don't say anything, inclining his head while he waits expectantly for you to answer. "you wanted to talk? let's talk, y/n. you don't get to just waltz back into my life like it's nothing. it's not fair," it's so cold, the way he says your name, but you try your best not to let it further shake you, mustering up the courage to finally speak. "it's so stupid, jaehyun."

he looks like he's about two seconds away from just combusting, the only sound piercing the cold air being the gentle hum of the engine. "don't you think i deserve to know?", he urges, voice edged with hurt and frustration. "i spent the whole day with you and your family, pretending like everything was happy and normal when it's not."

"i know, jaehyun-"

"then, tell me."

you shift uncomfortably in your seat, teeth toying with your bottom lip as you avoid looking at him. "i don't know," you murmur, your voice barely audible to yourself over the pounding of your heart.

"you don't know?", he repeats incredulously, his tone tinged with disbelief. "after everything, you don't know? don't lie to me, y/n."

your throat tightens as guilt washes over you, but you try to stand your ground. "i just... i couldn't do it anymore," you confess, voice trembling with emotion.

"couldn't do what?", he presses, his frustration mounting with each passing moment. you know he doesn't believe you, dead set on getting the answers he deserves. he's driving slowly now, allowing him to turn his head in your direction more often.

"this!", you exclaim but immediately recoil when you see the look of hurt flash in his eyes. "no! not this, i mean- me! it's my fault, you did nothing wrong." you're saying all the wrong things, but you're too overcome with emotion to attempt to form a coherent sentence. still, you know it's time that the truth came out, so you continue to explain with a heavy heart.

"i didn't mean to hurt you," you choke out, and your voice is so thick you have to swallow before you carry on. he looks indignant and rightfully so, but you go on before he can interrupt you again. "but i was so scared, jaehyun."

his expression softens at your state, replaced with a mixture of sadness and resignation. "scared of what?", he asks quietly, his words hanging heavy in the air. you feel the need to pause for a moment, hands balled into tight fists as you try to regulate your breathing. you really didn't take into account how debilitating the night would be on yourself. sure, you knew it was going to be tough seeing jaehyun again, especially if he agreed to pretend to be together, but you weren't really expecting to hash it out like this, the weight of your decision pressing down on your like a leaden blanket.

the car moves so slow it may as well be still but when you turn to him, you can feel the burn of jaehyun's gaze, his eyes searching for some semblance of understanding. "i loved you", he whispers, voice cracking with the intensity of his words. "i would've done anything for you."

you're still, you're so so still. tears threaten to spill from your eyes as you struggle to find the right words to say, but he's completely thrown you off. the car has slowed to a stop, engine idling before he eventually turns it off in favour of turning to you.

"that's exactly why," you reply weakly, your voice a fraction of the volume it normally is. he surveys you intently, his expression a mix of confusion and hurt, eyes reflecting the very same sadness you feel.

"what do you mean?"

"i was scared of hurting you," your confession does nothing to ease his confusion, but you can see he looks more shocked than anything now. "scared of hurting me?," he echoes, his uncertainty and disbelief palpable. "this is so ironic, it's almost funny..."

you think hearing any more of what he has to say is actually going to kill you internally, so you know you have to rush to explain before he starts giving you a piece of his mind again. "i know, it's so fucking stupid, jaehyun", your voice is trembling from the sheer guilt you feel, bottom lip quivering so much you have to bite it to get it to stop. "everything was going so perfectly, you were so perfect, and it scared me so much."

he falls silent, much to your relief, his expression even softening minutely as he processes your words and this gives you the encouragement to continue. "remember that night on the beach? on the trip last year?", you speak tentatively, wanting him to understand your thought process and the tangled mess of emotions swirling inside you at the time, though it's not much of a defense. the memory floods into your mind so vividly, and you can see it all; the salt in the air, the gentle breeze, the feeling of the sand, your intertwined hands swinging. it was so serene and you'd give anything to be there in that moment again, though it's nothing but a distant dream now.

he nods slowly without speaking, and you release a wet sort of laugh, feeling like you'd choke on the lump in your throat. "we talked about everything that night, our families, our childhoods, our futures...and then you brought up what would happen after we graduated college."

you know he remembers because his eyes light up with recognition and he looks like he's replaying that exact moment in his head, and you hope he remembers it with the same soft, gushy feeling you do. "you said you wanted to move in together, and don't get me wrong, i was thrilled, but it made me realise how...serious everything was, you know?", your voice catches in your throat and you're talking to yourself as much as you're talking to him and he seems to understand that, because he makes no attempt to stop you.

it's silent again for a bit as you two reminisce, but you break it again. "i just knew i was going to fuck up, jaehyun. maybe not right away, but eventually, and the thought terrified me," you sniffle a little, not being able to bring yourself to look up from your hands to meet his gaze. "that feeling never really went away, and it was eating me up from the inside. it got so bad that i had convinced myself that you were going to leave me, so i had to do it first, before i fucked up."

your sorrowful confession hangs in the air like an echo and you finally give in to the urge to look at him, and you're shocked– he looks at you so carefully, his expression soft, much, much softer than before. you couldn't stop the tears from finally falling if you tried , the soft glow of the dashboard illuminating the contours of your now wet face. your shared eye contact makes you feel nervous, but not in the way you were expecting– it's too gentle, too raw and it makes you feel a certain way.

"i know it's not an excuse," you're blubbering so much that your cheeks feel hot, you're practically falling apart in the passenger seat of jaehyun's car while he watches and lets you pour all your miseries out onto him. "you don't know how much i regretted it...but i thought i did the right thing. for the both of us. even though i just ended up doing what i was trying to avoid by hurting you."

it's too much now, jaehyun's too silent, and too not-angry for your liking; why is he looking at you in a way that makes you feel like he doesn't think you're the worst person in the world? you can't hold back the sob that's building in your chest, doubling over in favour of pressing your hands against your face and bawling into them. you're not too loud a cryer, but the tremors of emotion you feel are making your shoulders shake, so you're crying silently into your hands while trembling. however guarded he tries to be, the gentleness of his voice overpowers it as he speaks. "i know, shh...," he murmurs and you can't believe your ears, that the man you thought hated you is actually attempting to comfort you after everything. "breathe, y/n."

like it's second nature to him, his hand travels to your back as the sobs wrack through your body, immediately drawing soothing circles on to your covered skin with his thumb. you don't know how but this almost makes you feel worse, the fact that he's still so caring towards you. you pluck up the strength to lift your face from your moist hands, and you're sure it's not a pretty sight that greets him. your nose feels unbelievably stuffy, and your face is on fire when you meet his sympathetic eyes, the warmth from his gaze and hand spreading throughout you, even though he's now removed it. "i'm sorry," you manage through sniffles, but you think you almost flatline when he reaches his hand towards your face, ever so gently caressing it. his thumb juts out and sweeps across the skin under your eye, wiping away at the wetness. "i know."

"shh, it's okay. you're okay", he coos gently and slowly takes his hand back in favour of imitating slow breaths for you, helping you relax a little as you copy him. "why would you think i'd leave you?", he asks carefully once you've calmed down a bit and wiped your tear-streaked face, simply surveying you now. all you can offer him is a defeated shrug, attempting to collect your thoughts. "remember i told you about my ex? the very first one?"

he nods.

"i moved on obviously, like ages ago, but since then i think i've always had this idea that getting dumped is inevitable", you try to explain, voice small as he listens patiently. "it was either leave them or get left, and i was so scared that it would happen with you, that i'd fuck up so bad that you would leave. i couldn't do it."

he frowns and calls out your name in a way that sounds like he's about to lecture you, but you know he can't tell you anything that you haven't already told yourself. "i know, jae, it was so stupid, i know. i don't regret anything more", you sigh, giving him a tight, small smile when you lock eyes. "i'm sorry."

you notice his eyes soften at the nickname, releasing a quiet huff before he runs a hand through his hair. his body language doesn't carry the same anger it did before when he was ranting, now looking subdued and reflective. "i understand why you did what you did. it was stupid, but i understand", he murmurs, his voice impossibly soft when meeting your gaze, the eye contact so intense that you have to physically remind yourself not to cry again by digging your fingernails into your palms. "i would've never left you."

you nod slowly at his admission, his words hanging in the air. "i should've just talked to you...", you concluded in a sullen way and he doesn't reply in full, just mumbling a soft "yeah" under his breath. you don't mind the silence that fills the car this time, the underlying tension more or less dissipated, but you do notice the time, realising that jaehyun still needs to go back home after dropping you.

"should we, uh...", you gesture towards the road and he jumps up in his seat, as though he forgot that he was driving you somewhere in the first place, muttering "sorry" before twisting the key to start the car. this makes you let out an involuntary giggle and jaehyun shoots you a quick glare which immediately shuts you up, a certain warmth blooming in your chest when you see a small smile creep on to his face out of the corner of your eye.

it's quiet for a bit, jaehyun focusing on the road while you gaze out the window. much to your dismay, both the road and the various buildings and shops start to look a lot more familiar, indicating that you are nearing your home. you shouldn't be dismayed really, because this wasn't the most congenial of car rides, but it means that your time with jaehyun is coming to an end. you don't know what the conversation that took place means for you and him however, because unless you're alarmingly stupid, you feel that he may not hate you as much as he once did. does this mean you might even be able to see him again sometime? in a setting where you're not sweating and shaking at just the thought of seeing him?

you think it might be a bit audacious of you to ask that, so you don't. instead, you turn to him with a light grin, playing with the necklace clasped around your neck. "hey, at least you got some new headphones out of all of this", you joke lightheartedly, eyeing the package sitting on the backseat. he lets out a heartwarming chuckle at your comment, glancing at the bag through his rear view mirror. "i can't believe your parents bought that for me. you think they'll make me return it when they find out we aren't together?", he remarks, and you do your best to ignore the little pang you feel at the reminder of your situation. his comment does make you snort though, and you nod along with him. "nah, you need it more than anyone. your airpods have seen better days."

he laughs again, and you wouldn't believe that you two were arguing back and forth like madmen some twenty minutes back. this feels familiar and comfortable, and you cross your fingers in case you jinx it. "do you remember that time when we planned a picnic..." jaehyun begins, a sense of nostalgia shining through his cheeks. "and you forgot to bring the speakers? and we tried blasting music through my one airpod?"

you can't stop the peals of laughter that escape from your mouth as you nod, covering your mouth when your snort makes him laugh as well. "remind me why we didn't just play the music straight from your phone?", you question, replaying the memory in your mind like it was recent. he pauses to think for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck while he hums. "yeah, what the fuck? why didn't we just do that?"

you're laughing in unison as you take this trip down memory lane together, the next few minutes of the car ride consisting of exclamations of "oh! remember when..." and "that time when...", both of you adding on to the memories with your own perspectives and insights. the fact that the conclusion of your little dispute remains ambiguous doesn't bother you too much at the moment, happy to just enjoy the warm atmosphere while you can.

jaehyun's animatedly recounting a story about your sister downloading a game on his phone when you face him, and the last thing you remember paying attention to was that she had somehow managed to spend a large amount of his actual money on it. your eyes are focused on him now, just studying him, and he seems to realise that you aren't listening to his story when he glances at you.

"what?", he questions, the corner of his eyes crinkling when he narrows them at you in an playful manner, taking one hand off the steering wheel to drum absentmindedly on his thigh. "nothing, i just...", you trail off, scanning his features. "you changed your hair. it's...nice. i wanted to tell you that earlier."

he clearly wasn't expecting the compliment, mouth opening and then closing as he tries to think of an admissible reply. "you like it?", he then asks, a shy smile tugging at his lips when he consciously cards his fingers through the longer bit at the back. at your reaffirming nod and heavy gaze, the expected pink sheen dusts his cheeks and though you can't see them, you know the tips of his ears are pink too. he mumbles something of a timid "thank you", both of you smiling like idiots while he trains his eyes on the road.

not too soon after, his car is pulling into your dark driveway. you can't help the sinking feeling in your chest, lips curved slightly downwards. none of the lights are on, save for the streetlight, illuminating the street in a ghostly, dim way. your house looks just like it had for the past many months, gloomy and lonely, and you're absolutely dreading the idea of moping around once again. if this day spent with jaehyun has showed you anything, it's that you're a 100% sure you've not moved on, and that you won't for a long, long time. simply put, you're still in love with him, and you'll have to carry the cross of your mistake for some time to come.

he switches the ignition off but neither of you move. you're sat in your dull driveway on an otherwise empty street, all the other lights of your neighbouring houses off. neither of you say anything, mostly because you're not sure what one is supposed to say in this situation, so everything is still.

"so–"

"well–"

you let out a nervous chuckle while he smiles a bit, both of you mumbling apologies for interrupting each other. "you go first", jaehyun compels you, but now you don't know what to say because you were just going to make it up as you speak. your mouth has a way of working faster than your brain sometimes, but neither seem to be too functional at the present moment. "no, you go", is all you got, and jaehyun has the nerve to roll his eyes, twisting in his seat a little so he's facing you.

"i was just going to say that we uh, reached your place", he claims in a deadpanned manner, but your car door is still locked and your seatbelt is still locked in. you think you must have lost your mind, hoping that he'd tell you to stay with him forever and never leave (which you would have agreed to in a heartbeat). "i guess we have...", you nod, looking out the window and observing your home. maybe it was the dread of going back to your old routine that gave you the sudden boost of confidence, but you realise he never answered your question from before.

"jaehyun...", you begin but falter when you think you might be overstepping, ultimately deciding to just ask anyway when he looks at you expectantly. "why did you agree to come today? we both know you didn't have to."

he looks like he was dreading the very question you asked for some time, shutting his eyes when he leans his head back against the headrest and sighs. "i don't know", is the answer he gives you, voice muffled through the palms of his hands that are rubbing his face tiredly. biting your lip, you have to hold back a similar sigh because you should've known he's not going to just tell you like that. you have no right to press, but yet you do, one more time. "jaehyun, please?"

maybe it's because you sound so meek, but he drops his hands in favour of looking at you, really looking at you, like he's searching your eyes. "why do you think?", he turns it back on you, but you know this is just his way of avoiding the question. "if i knew, i wouldn't be asking. i know you don't have to tell me, you don't owe me a single thing, i just–", you speak desperately with all of the confidence you can muster, worried that your bottom lip would start trembling again. "please, i need to know."

you're looking each other dead in the eye, and while your voice isn't strong, it's honest and raw, and jaehyun can sense that. you can see that there's a million thoughts running in his mind just by the pained look in his eye and your own heartbeat has picked up, the sound deafening in your ears.

"if you haven't figured it out by now, i don't know what to tell you."

thud. thud. thud. you wonder if he can hear your heartbeat over the sound of his, but the blood pumping through your veins is making your ears ring, because what did he mean by that? you hope it means what you want it to mean, but you can't just assume you know everything because you're delusional at this point. "jaehyun, what are you sayi–"

"i agreed because i'm still in love with you."

there it is. the silence after his confession is positively deafening, your mouth agape as your try to register what you just heard. your eyes flicker between his, searching for any signs that he's just messing you and that it's some cruel joke, though it would be completely in his right to fuck with you if he wanted. he's never looked more vulnerable, eyes trained on you in an almost frantic way, like he himself can't believe what he just said. the way he just blurted it out makes you think that he didn't fully mean to admit that, but it's out, nothing he could do to take it back.

"what?", your own voice sounds like an echo and you wish you had something else to say because you heard him loud and clear, but there's a burning ache in your chest that claws all the way up to your throat. the shock is evident in your voice, not knowing what to do with yourself as you visibly process his words. "tell me you're joking", you plead in a pained way, words barely above a whisper. he doesn't say anything, looking lost in his own thoughts as his eyes scan your face. "you don't hate me?"

"hate you?", he scoffs disconsolately, shaking his head slowly. "i couldn't hate you if i tried. and believe me, i tried."

you can hardly believe your ears. you know your heart shouldn't be pounding the way it is, it feels wrong almost for you to be feeling as relieved as you are. "after everything?", you insist dumbfoundedly, but the longing in your voice is palpable, even if you're trying to give him a way out. "i was so horrible to you, jaehyun." you hate the way your voice cracks, but jaehyun just sighs and offers you a sad smile.

"there's nothing you could do to make me hate you."

it's heartbreaking, how defeated he sounds, but he's also looking at you like you could do no wrong in his eyes. "i never moved on", you whisper, hesitance clear as you tell him the truth. "i couldn't delete any of our pictures, i still have all your clothes, sometimes i accidentally set the table for two when it's just me..."

he's blinking quickly, and if you didn't know any better, you'd say he was trying to hold back tears. your break-up did nothing but cause immense amounts of pain for the both of you, and you'd give anything in the world to make up the time lost. his wide-eyed and nearly motionless expression urges you to continue, ready to pour out your heart to the man you loved.

"i still have your number memorised", your face mirrors his, voice growing stronger by the minute. "all the gifts and letters you've ever given me, they're all still there in that shoebox in my cupboard."

"i thought about you everyday", his whisper is raspy, speaking right after you do. "every party i went to, i looked for you even though i knew you wouldn't be there. you know johnny tried setting me up with people?"

you try to suppress the little sting, but you feel it deep inside you. "he did?", you have to clear your throat, and you almost don't want to ask but you do anyway. he releases a sad little chuckle and nods, toying with his fingers. "yeah. i knew i was doomed when the whole date, i wished she was you."

the smile finds its way on to your face against your will, feeling that familiar lump make its way to your throat. "she could've made you happy, jae", you argue anyway because at the end of the day, you want the best for him, and you know you're far from the best.

"no one could make me feel the way you do, y/n", he replied honestly, and there's a sense of finality to his words, like he'd had this same argument with himself time and time again, only to come to this conclusion. “the thought of anyone else touching you made me sick”, he croaked, not missing the way his eyes ghost over your frame.

his words bring about a noticeable shift in the air, followed by silence. he watches you, and you watch him, breathing slow as your eyes dart across his face.”i don’t want anyone but you”, you confess slowly, and a few beats pass before you find it in you to speak again. "i love you, jaehyun."

silence.

you expected disapproval, maybe even a malicious scoff, but you certainly weren't expecting to feel a soft pair of lips against yours as he suddenly lurches forward.

you're stunned, so stunned that you don't even reciprocate the kiss, lips unmoving against his. it's only when he takes this as a sign of discomfort and breaks the kiss that you find yourself reacting, hands immediately making their way to caress his cheeks, leaning forward to chase his lips and close the distance between you. he lets out a sound of surprise against your lips but kisses you back right away, a hand wrapping around your neck from the back, tangling itself in your hair. the kiss is heated and so long overdue, tangible through the way his lips meld furiously together with yours, teeth clashing every now and then.

your hands make their way to his broad shoulders, one wrapping around them while the other comes to rest on his chest, gripping the material of his hoodie. you have the urge to be impossibly close to him, trying to lean forward to kiss him more fully but you're restricted by your seatbelt. it's almost as if he can read your mind, because the hand placed against your face now moves to press on the buckle to release you without breaking the kiss. "fucking seatbelt...", he mumbles disgruntedly against your lips, fiddling with the button until you hear it click, finally separating yourself from him to slip it over you. "there we go."

you don't stay separated for long because jaehyun uses the hand behind your head to pull you towards him again, capturing your lips in a way that makes all the air leave your lungs. "come here", he grunts, using his long arms to pull you clumsily over the gearshift and straight on to his lap. you settle yourself in to the somewhat awkward position in the enclosed space, but that's the last thing on your mind when all your thoughts consist of jaehyun, jaehyun, jaehyun. his lips are back on yours in a instance, tongue sweeping across your bottom lip messily and you gladly allow it to explore your mouth.

the air is impossibly thick, heavily contrasting to the cold weather outside the car, even his lips and hands feel warm against your hot body. you feel his hands grip your waist easily in this position, lips leaving your own to drag across the expanse of your jaw. you whine quietly at the feeling of his mouth sucking a particular spot on your neck, tilting your head back as you wrap your arms around his neck. "missed this", he muses, tongue peeking out to kitten lick at your neck, breath hot against your sensitive skin. "missed you."

the feeling in your chest when his hands find their way under your shirt and on to your bare skin is inexplicable, unable to stop the soft moan from tumbling from your lips when his big hands glide over your stomach, back and finally your breasts. everything about the way he's touching you and kissing you is greedy and urgent, like he's afraid you'll disappear from his arms if he loosens his grip even by a little bit. you'd be a fool to not match this energy, pressing into him while you squeeze your hands over his. "need you so bad, jae."

you're subconsciously grinding down against him needily, hips stuttering against his lap like you've never been touched before. "fuck", your eyes widen at the groan that leaves his throat, sounding absolutely guttural as he grips the skin of your hip harshly.

he's barely done anything and you're coming undone right in front of his watchful eyes, your panties dampening at the look on his face. "jae..", you whine when his fingers dip past the waistband of your pants, gently cupping your clothed core as you rut against it. "shit, baby", he marvels at the stickiness of your panties, feeling your wetness on his fingers just through the material. "you really missed me, huh?"

you don't even have the time to respond to his cocky remark before his fingers are slipping beneath the band of your panties to circle your clit, spreading the wetness around your folds. a breathy sigh escapes your lips, throwing your head back as he experimentally prods at your entrance and eventually slips a finger inside. "still so tight for me", he all but groans, pumping his finger in and out of you languidly, drinking in the sounds of your pleasure. he feels so blissfully familiar, and though you haven't been touched by him, or anyone for that matter for months, the stretch of his second finger feels the same kind of intimate as it did before, if not more.

you lean forward and press your lips against his once again, kissing him like you might never get the chance to again, all while you're grinding back down on his hand that's fingering you steadily with a thumb circling your clit at the same time. his free hand moves to bunch your top up above your breasts, peppering kisses over the tops of them. he wastes no time in pulling your breasts free from from their cups, attaching his lips to one nipple and swirling his tongue around it in a way that makes you cry out. "my pretty girl", he mumbles almost to himself while cupping your other breast, making a show out of it as his tongue flicks over your hardened bud over and over until your arching your back and pressing it further into his face. “thought about this all the time.”

keeping in mind that you're still technically in a public place, you bite your lip to contain the sounds of your pleasure, though jaehyun doesn't make it easy when he notices this and increases the pace of his fingers. the hand fondling your breast leaves it unattended for a moment to release your bottom lip from your teeth, smoothing his thumb over the swollen skin. "i've waited months to hear these sounds. let me hear you, baby", he all but purrs and that's all it takes for a moan to tumble out of your mouth, pressing your forehead against the side of his face while you screw your eyes shut out of pleasure.

with his attack on your sensitive buds and his fingers pistoning inside of you, you know you aren't going to last long. "already?", jaehyun chides with a small smirk, and it's embarrassing how well he knows your body, grazing his teeth against your nipple in a way that feels painful and heavenly at the same time. you can feel his rock hard bulge against you, and with the untimely grinding of your hips against him, you're sure this is torturous for him. "don't wanna come like this", you whine against his cheek, your entire body feeling sticky from the heat inside the closed vehicle. your puckered lips leave wet kisses all over the expanse of his cheek, and the boyish giggle that leaves his mouth makes your heart flutter. "wanna feel you, jae."

his head is thrown back against the headrest and his eyes are shut tightly, jaw clenched as he slowly slips his fingers out of you. though you whine at the loss of contact and you're almost grinding against the air, you want nothing more than to make him feel good as well. "want you to fill me up", you coo at him, softly linking your hands behind his neck as you test the waters with your words. it's clear they have an effect on him, both hands placed on your hips as he helps you lazily grind against his erection. "don't– have a condom", he grits out, hips bucking up to meet yours. "don't need one", you murmured immediately, knowing he wants this as bad as you do.

his eyes flicker open at that, one hand leaving your hip to brush some stray hairs away from your face, gently tucking some behind your ear. you could melt at the way he's looking at you, so tender and loving, a warmth spreading all over you until you feel like you have to look away. he doesn't let you however, hand quickly coming you to cup your cheek before leaning in place a small peck against your lips. "are you sure?", he sounds breathless, but still firm as his eyes glance between yours like he's reading them.

if he can read them, he'll know that you can't nod fast enough, dragging your hips across his needily to show him. "i'm sure. i want you, jae.", you're so needy that you don't even bother to take your pants or panties off fully, fingers fumbling with the waistband as you shimmy them down a little, leaving your underwear on. you swear your mouth waters when he unbuttons his pants and lets his cock spring out against his stomach, lustful eyes taking in the way he keeps his shirt up with his teeth. if this weren't such an awkward position, you'd have taken him in your mouth in an instant, knowing exactly what to do to hear the man in front of you whimper.

nudging your panties to the side, he focuses on collecting your wetness all over the tip of his dick, hissing at the contact. "please", you whine, not wanting to waste another moment, finally sighing in relief when he begins to press his cock inside you. he swears under his breath at the feeling, and you're feeling so stretched out just from him slipping it in even though you're still so wet that you just go lax in his arms until he bottoms out. "that's it", he grunts like he's holding back. "taking me so well, angel."

you preen at his praise, finally beginning to move your hips a little at his coaxing. sighing against the shell of his ear, he picks up the pace for you, not warning you before thrusting upwards to meet your movements with a groan. you can feel your mind going blank at the sensation, your moans sounding more like cries whenever he snaps his hips into yours, the obscene sounds filling the car. you're just so full, his hands gliding up and down your sides as he fucks deep inside you, making up for all the lost time. "you feel so good, baby", he barely gets his words out, but it gives you the encouragement to bounce up and down on his thick cock a little faster than before, his eyes widening at the feeling. "just like that."

he's kissing and sucking all over your neck again, lips ghosting over whatever skin he can reach and it's all so much, feeling a single tear stream down your face. he almost slows down for a second when he feels the tear drop on to his own face, eyebrows raised in surprise because he thinks he's hurting you, but he's even more shocked when you let out the high-pitched whine. "what's wrong, angel?", he mumbles into your neck, peering up at you carefully. you shake your head profusely, continuing to grind down on his cock. "i just- just love you so much, jae", you blabber incoherently, so wet that you're practically gushing around his dick.

"aw, baby", he shushes you sweetly, pressing his forehead against yours as his thrusts become more and more erratic. "i'm here. not going anywhere." the coil in your stomach is tightening and you can feel every inch of him inside you, more tears threatening to spill from your eyes before he's kissing them away. "i'm here."

he's hitting all the right spots inside you in this position, and he's basically doing all the work because you're like putty in his strong arms, all you can do is moan and cry out against him weakly. "i'm close", you warn him, but you know he already knows that, and you know he is too, slipping your hand down to where his rests on your hip and interlacing your fingers. "me too, pretty", he sputters through his teeth, giving your hand a tight squeeze as you start to come undone. “want you to cum. can you do that for me?”

"oh my god", you're crying out as you cum around his cock, body and mind going numb and ears ringing as the coil finally snaps. "cum inside me, jae, please", his eyes go wide at the way you're begging him, and he doesn't look like he can hold back much longer. "fuck angel, you- you sure–"

"yes, please, need you to fill me up", you cut him off, too sensitive from the way he's helping you ride out your high to move anymore. with a few more sloppy thrusts, his cock is twitching inside you before you lets out a guttural groan, his warm cum filling you up. you go limp against him, face nuzzled into the crook of his neck as the both of you try to regulate your heartbeats.

the sounds of your heavy breathing fills up the car along with jaehyun's soft murmurs of "so perfect" and "did so well for me". any doubts you had in your mind of this being a mistake in jaehyun's eyes are wiped away when he begins petting your head, gently smoothing your messy hair as he presses firm kisses to your head. his cock softens inside of you but he makes no move to pull out, wrapping his arms around your waist while you do the same around his neck, simply sitting in each other's presence silently.

you struggle but finally pick yourself up, gazing at his moonlit face from your place on his lap. “you okay? was that okay?”, he murmurs softly, his voice thick and eyes hazy as he traces little shapes on your back. “more than okay”, you reply tiredly, pressing your lips against his once again because you feel you’re in a dream-like state right now. you're sure he's the most beautiful man you're ever had the privilege of looking at, feeling incredibly vulnerable when you speak again even though he's looking at you with nothing but love in his eyes. "now what?", you question, suddenly feeling like you've jumped the gun when he opens his mouth to say something but stays silent. "never mind, don't answer that, we'll talk about it later", you shake your head, laughing a little breathlessly when he grins at you, pecking his forehead sweetly.

you look away from him and at your lifeless house, mouth working faster than your brain once again. "would you...want to come in?", you wince, feeling kind of stupid for asking but meaning it anyway. you're both comforted and thrilled when a large grin is plastered on to his face, feeling like maybe your home won't be as lifeless anymore.

"i think i'd love to come in."

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