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starlightkun · 2 days

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❧ word count: 8.8k ❧ warnings: cursing, uh reader gets called like a fantasy slur?, this one really focuses on the concept of ‘othering’ in this society and how it manifests in and around jeno and reader’s werewolf/human relationship ❧ genre: fluff, angst but like from outside sources (see warnings), modern magical creatures au, fantasy au, college au if you squint again, werewolf jeno, human reader, ft. werewolf sungchan, human renjun, and dryad jaemin, same universe as strawberry sunday, sequel to pupsick ❧ extra info: this is a sequel to pupsick! it theoretically could be read as a standalone with minimal confusion but i highly recommend you read pupsick first to see how these two crazy kids got together this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe (aside from pupsick to this one), they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!)

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

“Welcome!” Renjun smacked the tip of his lecture pointer against his TV screen. You jumped a little at the sound. “To your exclusive History of Werewolf-Human Romance crash course taught by yours truly!”

“Waah!” You yelped as you were quite literally swept off your feet by a pair of strong arms around your waist, and grabbed onto Jeno’s hands. A surprised giggle bubbled out of you. “Pup! You scared the hell out of me.”

“You were too slow.” Jeno clicked his tongue in feigned disappointment, nosing along from behind your ear down your neck. “I win.”

“As usual,” you sighed, reaching up to scratch your fingers along his scalp. The warmth of him holding you was a welcome one against the wintery chill of December that was fully set in around you. “If you didn’t need enrichment, I might lodge a formal complaint about the equity of these games, you know.”

“A formal complaint? With what authority?”

“Jaemin.”

Before your boyfriend could respond, an angry shout came from across the park, drawing your attention. You felt Jeno’s arms tense around you immediately. You spotted your friend that had come with you two, Sungchan, over by the water fountains, in a less than friendly confrontation with another man. From your viewpoint, the stranger was way out of his depth. Sungchan was a head and a half taller than him, not to mention a werewolf.

“The fuck did you just say?” Sungchan pushed the guy, who looked about your age, back by the chest. The other guy didn’t say anything, but didn’t move to back down either. Jeno let you go, but only to put himself between you and the other two, despite the distance that was already there.

“I said, say it again, to my fucking face this time, asshole,” your friend practically snarled at him and stepped forward, his fists clenched and teeth bared.

Jeno looked conflicted about leaving you or helping your friend. But before he had to make a choice, the shorter man turned on his heel and stormed off. Sungchan watched until he was completely off the premises before he rejoined you and Jeno. Your friend’s fists were still clenched in anger, and you noticed a prominent vein on his forehead that wasn’t always there.

“What did that guy say, Sungchan?” You asked him softly. You’d never seen your typically good-natured friend get worked up like that. He was always a rather calming presence, especially in contrast to the other excitable wolf with you.

“It wasn’t just some guy, it was another werewolf,” Jeno informed you, though his focus was also on the taller man.

Sungchan stretched his neck out, letting out a sharp sigh. “Yeah, he was a werewolf. He… he called you a knotslut, Y/N.”

You felt your jaw drop as Jeno immediately spat out, “He fucking what?”

“I can assume that’s not a compliment…” You said quietly, though you’d never heard the word yourself before.

“No, it’s not.” Sungchan crossed his arms, and his features softened as he looked down at you. “It’s an obviously derogatory term for a non-werewolf—usually human, and almost always a woman—who only dates werewolves specifically because of the more wolf-ish aspects of us.”

“Or just any human woman who’s with a werewolf.” Jeno pulled you closer to him with an arm around your waist. “I am so, so sorry Y/N—”

“Jeno, shh, shh. It’s not like you’re the one who called me that.” You waved off his apology. “I just… forget sometimes, that this is still kind of all new. Humans and magical creatures all living together.”

“That doesn’t make it okay for him to have called you that, Y/N,” Sungchan said sternly.

“I didn’t say that it did,” you replied just as firmly. “It was just an unpleasant little reality check, that’s all. Thank you for standing up for me, by the way, Channie.”

“Seriously, dude, thank you,” Jeno echoed your sentiments.

Your friend finally gave a small smile. “Of course. There was no way I was going to sit back and let anybody talk about my friends like that.”

You didn’t like the pensive look that was still on his face, though. “Is there something else bothering you?”

“No, I was just thinking…” He gave you two a sheepish look. “Now don’t get me wrong, I think you two are very cute together, and I truly couldn’t imagine a better match for either of you than the other. But that whole thing that just happened… just really solidified that I think for myself, personally, I’d just rather stick with dating other werewolves. No need to worry about weird werewolf fetishists, and my hypothetical future partner wouldn’t have to worry about dealing with stuff like that. Just a lot simpler, you know?”

You exchanged a look with Jeno. Oh, you two would have a lot more discuss about your thoughts on that later. But for now, to give your friend your lukewarm support.

“Yeah, I mean, you’ve got a couple good points,” you offered politely. “Obviously, I want you stay away from weirdos.”

“But…” Jeno hopped in where you had implicitly left off. “Don’t accidentally swear off happiness in your search for something simple.”

“You sound like a fortune cookie, Jeno,” Sungchan snorted. “I take it back, being in love is rotting your brain.”

“He’d need a brain to rot in the first place.” You gently knocked on your boyfriend’s forehead for emphasis, giggling as he scrunched his eyes and nose.

When Jeno hadn’t made any kind of comeback or retort, the taller werewolf asked incredulously, “Seriously? You don’t have anything to say to that, man?”

“She’s right,” Jeno shrugged and knocked on his own head this time. “I’m just a big dumb pup, remember?”

“You two are insufferable,” Sungchan groaned, looking up at the sky in facetious misery. “Why did I agree to hang out with you guys without a fourth wheel?”

You laughed. “Because you and Jeno wanted to play soccer. And you two have officially worn me out, so why don’t you play while I take a nice long sit on the bench?”

“Fine.”

As you watched Jeno and Sungchan kick a soccer ball back and forth, you hugged your knees to your chest on a bench overlooking the soccer field, glad that it hadn’t snowed lately so your butt was staying dry. Your phone buzzed in your pocket, and you took it out to see who was calling.

“Hey, Renjun,” you answered brightly.

“Hey, Y/N. Are you guys still at the park?” Your friend asked, and you could distantly hear the sound of his footsteps echoing behind him. You’d sent a blanket invite out to several of your friends for this afternoon, but Sungchan had been the only one that was able to make it initially.

“Yeah. The guys are playing soccer. I’m taking a break.”

“Do you think you’ll be there much longer? I finished up my essay early so I figured I could join you.”

Oh, he must be in the parking garage on campus.

“Of course! Channie was just complaining about third-wheeling alone anyway.”

“What were you and Jeno doing?”

“Long story, I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“Oh great,” he said sarcastically. “I’ll be there in ten.”

“See you, Renjun!”

“Bye.”

“So Renjun’s coming?” Jeno called out, holding a hand up to cast a shadow over his eyes.

You nodded, knowing that Jeno had only been able to parse out your half of the conversation from the distance he was at. “Yeah, he said he’ll be about ten minutes.”

Your boyfriend gave you a thumbs up before turning back around just in time to avoid a ball that Sungchan had kicked right at his head. “Dude!”

“Like I said! Being in love’s rotting your brain, Lee Jeno!” Sungchan yelled back, throwing his hands up in a grand ‘I-don’t-know’ gesture. “And your reflexes!”

“And I’m telling you, I don’t got a brain to rot, Jung Sungchan!” Jeno jogged after the soccer ball, lining up to kick it in an impressive arc back to the other werewolf.

Renjun showed up fifteen minutes later and plopped down on the bench beside you with a zealous huff. You didn’t even need to ask what happened.

“God, half the morons at our college don’t know how to drive!” He stretched his arms over the back of the bench, rolling his neck out. “And the other half are just jumping into traffic willy-nilly like they’re trying to get ran over or something!”

“Deep breath, Renjun, deep breath.” You patted him on the shoulder.

“As soon as I graduate, I’ll take the biggest, deepest beath of my life, I promise.”

“And until then?”

“Until then, I’m white-knuckling the steering wheel with one hand and laying on the horn with the other.”

You laughed heartily. “That’s one way to go about it I guess.”

“But how are you doing, Y/N?”

“Oh, fine. Something kind of… weird, I guess, happened earlier, though.”

“Weird?”

You squinted your eyes at the two werewolves now at the opposite end of the soccer field as before, trying to guesstimate if that was enough distance for your conversation to not be picked up by their superhuman hearing. To be safe, you leaned in towards your human friend and lowered your voice.

“There was this other werewolf here, and he said something about me and Jeno.” You admitted.

Renjun tilted his head curiously. “Said what?”

“Well, more specifically, he called me a-a knotslut?” The word felt unfamiliar in your mouth, and left a bitter taste on your tongue. Your lip curled unpleasantly at the memory it brought up.

His eyes widened as he looked around in alarm, then dropped his own voice to a whisper, “So where’s the body? Because there’s no way Jeno would’ve let someone that called you that leave alive.”

“Jeno wasn’t the one who heard him say it,” you clarified. “Sungchan did. Jeno and I were busy goofing off. Channie had gone to refill his water by the bathrooms and apparently the guy said it over there by him.”

“He probably thought that Sungchan was going to agree with him.”

“Must’ve been a shock for him when Sungchan almost bashed his face in himself.”

Renjun burst out in a full-bodied laugh. “Oh, I’m sure it was.”

“But, I want to ask you something, Renjun. Since you’re here.” You turned on the bench to fully face your human friend.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“You’re a Magical Creatures Studies major. Me and Jeno… it’s not that weird, right? Like, new, I mean? There’s got to be more of a history to humans and magical beings being together than six months ago.”

“Oh there absolutely is!” Renjun’s eyes sparkled as he straightened up in his seat. “I’m actually finishing up a class on Interspecies Marriage right now! Did you know that the earliest written record we have of a traditional werewolf mating ritual between a human and werewolf is nearly two thousand years old?”

“Wait, really?” You weren’t expecting that much precedent. Maybe a couple hundred years, not a couple thousand.

“Yeah! And as for how we would conventionally think of marriage today between a human and werewolf, that still goes back at least 800 years for official written historical records. And that’s just written. There’s oral traditions of entire packs that were equal parts human and werewolf that are much, much older with archaeological evidence to back it up.”

“Archaeological? Like, bones?”

“Well, yeah. But also artifacts of their villages. Things that—”

A movement in the periphery of your eye made you whip your head up to look back at the field. Jeno and Sungchan were leisurely walking over towards you two, the former carrying the soccer ball. You smacked Renjun’s knee to shut him up as quickly as possible. Offended, he seemed to nevertheless get the idea, thankfully, and stopped his never-ending stream of facts.

You smiled up at the two werewolves as they stopped beside you two. “Done already?”

“Just coming to say hey to Renjun,” Jeno informed you as Sungchan grabbed a bag that was next to the bench.

��Hey, guys,” Renjun greeted them.

Sungchan fetched a couple water bottles that were inside, tossing one to Jeno, who caught it one-handed. He then set the soccer ball down by his feet to twist the bottle open.

“And hydrate,” the taller wolf added.

The human rolled his eyes. “Oh. I feel so special now.”

“You guys want to join?” Jeno offered, using his shirt to dab at a bead of sweat on his forehead with the hem. You shamelessly watched his movements. “We can do teams now that we’ve got even numbers.”

“Yeah, werewolves versus humans,” Sungchan suggested with a grin.

“Only if you guys hop on one leg with your hands tied behind your back,” you retorted.

“How are we supposed to kick the ball like that?”

“You can figure it out with your big, non-rotted, pristine brain, Channie. I believe in you.”

“Well not if I’ve got Mr. Fortune Cookie over here making heart eyes at you the whole time.” Sungchan jabbed a thumb in Jeno’s direction, and when you looked over at him, he was already looking at you.

“I’m sorry, I thought you wanted me on your team?” Jeno rounded on him indignantly.

Sungchan shrugged as he finished the rest of his water. “Like you’ll really try if it’s against Y/N.”

Your boyfriend rolled his eyes, but didn’t do anything to dispute the claim. “Fine, then you’re taking Renjun?”

“No. I’m taking Y/N, obviously.”

As you and Sungchan walked out to your own side of the field, you studied him suspiciously.

“Why did you want me on your team?” You asked him, soccer ball in your hands this time. “If you think Jeno and I are too lovey-dovey to compete against each other?”

“Well I took your advice, and I thought about it with my huge, smart, peak condition brain—”

You couldn’t help but laugh in his face at his phrasing, to which he snickered as well.

“—and I figured that even if you don’t give it 110%, you’re still better than Renjun. So not only is Jeno not going to be doing good himself because he’s competing against you, but his teammate kind of sucks too.”

“Ohh, I got you,” you nodded along, which slowly turned into a disbelieving head shake. “I think we need to set you up with someone. You’re too smart for everyone else’s good, your brain’s in need of a little rotting.”

Sungchan turned to you then, squaring his shoulders. “I’ll make you a deal.”

“Hmm, since you’re not a fairy, I’ll hear you out. The terms?”

“If we win and I’m convinced that you actually gave your best against Jeno… then you can set me up on one date.”

“You’re agreeing to a blind date?”

“One.”

“With anybody of my choosing? You won’t back out no matter what they are?”

“I can’t back out of it.”

“And you have to put in an earnest effort, too. You can’t intentionally sabotage it.”

“I can’t back out of it, and I can’t intentionally sabotage it.”

You stuck a hand out to him. “Deal.”

Sungchan took your chilly hand, shaking it with his perpetually warm one. “Deal.”

God you were exhausted. Your legs burned, your eyes were watering from the cold wind, and you sucked in breath after breath of air that nipped at your lungs and seemed to hurt as much as it helped. But finally, someone declared the game over, and that you and Sungchan had won.

You let out an unintelligible, guttural grunt of victory, plopping yourself down onto the grass exactly where you were standing and pumping your fists up into the air from the ground instead. Sungchan jogged up to you, bright grin on his features as he held a hand down to you for a high-five.

“That was awesome, Y/N!” Your teammate celebrated as you weakly slapped your hand down against his. “I told you you were better than Renjun!”

“What? Why was disparaging me even part of your pep talks?” Renjun yelled from afar, tossing his hands up in the air in equal parts bewilderment and offense.

“Y/N!” Jeno ran up to you, skidding to his knees on the ground beside you to throw his arms around you. “Good job! Seriously, you did so good out there! Your passing got better and—”

“See? He’s happier that you won than if he had won.” Sungchan gestured to your boyfriend pointedly.

Through a tired smile, you pecked Jeno on the cheek. “Thanks, pup. You did great, too.”

Then, you turned your focus to the other werewolf still standing above the two of you, the smile dropping from your face. You pointed at him knowingly. “Consider my end of the deal fulfilled now, Jung.”

Sungchan crossed his arms over his chest, not seeming very happy about this, but he didn’t argue. “Fine. Later, okay?”

“Fine…” You gracefully dropped the subject at the moment. After all, you needed time to carefully consider. So for now, you wrapped your arms around Jeno and laughed as he kissed your cheek back two times.

“Hey, what were you and Sungchan talking about, by the way?” Jeno asked as he came into the living room with his after-dinner snack. You were staying at his place tonight to continue binging a show that you, Jeno, and Jaemin had started together.

“When?” You lifted up one side of the fluffy blanket that was on your lap for him to sit down under. Once he had, you immediately scooted closer to rest your head against his shoulder. When he was done eating, he would be the one snuggling up to you like usual, but for now, he did unfortunately have to attend to his inhuman metabolism.

“After we all played soccer. Some deal?”

“Oh, oh, oh!” You sat up straight, excited now. Looking at both Jeno, and Jaemin, who was stretched out on his own couch on the other side of the living room, you announced excitedly, “Sungchan’s letting me set him up on a date.”

“What?” “Seriously?” They blurted out at the same time.

“Yup. The deal was that if I gave 110% in the soccer game against Jeno, and Sungchan and I won, then he’d let me set him up on exactly one date.” You confirmed with a devilish hand rub.

Jeno scrunched his nose up. “How many werewolves do you know, Y/N? I guess I might know some from my pack back home that are nice…”

“That’s the best part. He can’t back out of it or self-sabotage no matter who it is, or what they are. So it doesn’t have to be a werewolf.”

Your boyfriend caught your eye, and you knew that the two of you were thinking the exact same thing. “Oh…”

“Yeah…”

“Hey!” Jaemin snapped his fingers to get your attention. Once you both were looking over at him, despite the fond smile on his face, he made a show of rolling his eyes as he grumbled, “I hate when you two do that. Mind filling me in?”

“Channie’s apparently got this thing about only wanting to date werewolves because it’s easier,” you explained. “You know, no worrying about weirdos who date werewolves because they’re werewolves.”

“And he claims that it’s just not worth any possible… harassment,” Jeno added. He’d apparently polished off his snack while you and Jaemin were speaking, because with two free hands, he pulled you closer to him again, pressing a kiss to your temple. “And after today, I kind of understand why.”

“Jeno, don’t talk like that,” you replied firmly, feeling a lump grow in your throat.

“I don’t agree with him, but I understand him. You don’t want the person you’re in love with to go through something like that. I want to be able to do something to make sure you never have to have someone treat you like that ever again, Y/N. But not if it’s not being with you. That… that doesn’t feel right to me.”

You laced your fingers with the hand of the arm he had around your shoulders, wrapping him even tighter around you. “Of course it doesn’t. Because it’s not right. And you’re not going to do something so stupid, Lee Jeno.”

“I know,” he squeezed your hand.

After a beat of quiet, Jaemin spoke up softly, “Will you… tell me what happened?”

“There was another werewolf at the park today. He called Y/N something awful.”

“What…?”

Figuring it might not be a good idea to say it again around Jeno, especially since your boyfriend apparently couldn’t bring himself to say it either, you jumped in, “Remember how we were just talking about people who only date werewolves because they’re werewolves?”

Jaemin’s face changed from confusion to recognition, then sympathy. “Oh, that’s horrible. I’m sorry, Y/N. That must have been terrible.”

“I’m okay, Jaemin. Thanks.” You smiled encouragingly to your friend. “Now, are we watching the show or…?”

“Yeah, yeah!” The dryad reached for the remote to select your show.

Later, once everyone had retired to bed for the night, you were staring up at the ceiling of Jeno’s bedroom, a discontented frown on your face. Your boyfriend exited the bathroom, flicking the light off behind him and flopping face-first onto his side of the bed. With no hesitation, he rolled over until he could rest his head on your middle. Except you didn’t move your fingers that had been laced together over your stomach as you stewed in your moody thoughts.

A comically confused sound came from Jeno at the unexpected barrier between him and his favorite pillow. And when you still didn’t move them, he lifted his head up to be able to look at you. “Y/N? Baby?”

“Hm?” You finally looked down at him, and registered the weight on your abdomen. You unlaced your hands and lifted them to make room. “Oh, sorry, Jeno. I was thinking.”

“About?” He prompted you as he settled in for his nearly nightly head scratches and rubs (they were only missed on the nights that you didn’t spend together). Your fingers began their habitual carding through his hair one way, then scratching gently along his scalp back the other way.

“When you said you understand Sungchan—”

“Y/N, I said—”

“Please let me finish.”

“You’re right, sorry. Go ahead.”

You sighed, keeping one hand in his hair and trailing the other down to caress his forehead, cheekbone, jaw, then tilted his chin up so he was looking at you.

“You’re both looking at it wrong,” you affirmed, holding his gaze steadily. “You don’t control other people’s actions solely by existing. That guy didn’t call me that today because I’m a human or because you’re a werewolf or because he heard me call you ‘pup’ or any litany of things about you and me. He said it because there’s something wrong with him. He said it because for some reason he just couldn’t imagine any scenario where you and I were simply just happy. And I for the life of me cannot bring myself to give a shit about pleasing people like him. So yes, while I do wish that you would encounter as little strife and hurt and injustice in your life as possible, Jeno, because I love you, I don’t believe for a second that any of it is caused by me loving you. I think that when things like this do happen, it’s caused by other people’s hate.”

Jeno’s throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed, and he slowly nodded, his eyes not leaving yours. His hand came up to cup yours that was cradling his face, his thumb gently rubbing over the backs of your knuckles. You leaned down to press your forehead to his, brushing your noses together.

Now that the fall semester and finals week were over, you were over at Renjun’s place. You had asked him if you could finish your conversation that you were having at the park about werewolves and humans. And truly, you don’t know why you had thought that you two would just grab coffee or something. You shouldn’t have expected anything less than a full-blown PowerPoint presentation from your friend who practically lived, breathed, ate, and slept Magical Creatures Studies.

“Did you just have that laying around?” You asked, referring to the pointer in his hand.

“Yes of course.”

“Of course,” you echoed humorously as you reclined into your seat on his couch. “Anyway, go for it, Renjun. I’m all ears.”

“Okay, so—” He pressed the spacebar on his laptop that was projecting to the TV. The first slide popped up. “Archaeological data. This is where we left off in our conversation. Entire packs have been found that were half human and half werewolf—”

You raised your hand. “Excuse me? Professor Huang?”

“Yes?” He called on you, having fully slipped into his role as lecturer.

“When you say the packs were half human, half werewolf, what do you mean? Like the population statistics were 50% humans and 50% werewolves? Or the individuals themselves were half-and-half genetically?”

“The former. These packs were integrated evenly with humans and werewolves.”

“And you’re saying ‘packs’ specifically. Not villages, or societies, or groups. Why?”

“From what we’ve been able to gather bout how they lived from the artifacts left behind, it seems their social structure more closely mirrored the customs and habits of werewolves than the humans that lived in that same area at the time.”

“So the humans that were in the pack adopted werewolf culture?”

“You’re getting ahead of me,” Renjun beamed at you. “You’re a very perceptive student.”

“Oh. Go ahead, Professor Huang.” You gave him a humble seated bow to proceed with the slide he was on.

“So, the archaeological data itself that was found was, like you said, bones, obviously, but also pots, stone tools, trinkets, even children’s toys or bits of clothing have been found.” He clicked to the next slide. There were pictures of some of the objects he’d mentioned, and a couple more. “This is where it gets interesting. Even if we hadn’t found any human skeletons, we would’ve known that humans had lived there because there were human tools found. Tools that werewolves didn’t need. Like knives to cut their food into bite-sized pieces, and jars that have residue from medicine that we know was used to treat diseases communicable among humans but not werewolves.”

“Wow.”

Next slide. This one had a picture of some objects on one side, pieces of worn leather, smooth colorful stones, and on the other side, a drawing of two necklaces, with matching opalescent stones wrapped securely in them.

“On the left—” he smacked said side with the pointer. “—are the pieces of two leather necklaces that were found with a pair of skeletons that were buried together. The right—” smack “—is an artist’s rendition of what the necklaces most likely looked like originally.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Werewolves will traditionally bury mates together.”

“Like human couples who buy a plot of land in a cemetery big enough for the both of them before they pass.” You nodded.

“Exactly. This specific pack wasn’t 50/50 werewolves and humans we think. From what we’ve been able to parse out, it was more 80/20, with more werewolves. But they still buried werewolf-human couples together with all the same rites as werewolf couples. This pair right here was a werewolf-human couple.”

You smiled up at the image on-screen, feeling the familiarity of them reach across time to you in that moment. “And the necklaces?”

“It was sort of like a wedding ring-slash-mating claim fusion.” Renjun tapped the two necklaces with zeal again. You were starting to get a little afraid that he was going to damage his TV. “You were asking if the humans in these packs adopted werewolf culture, right? For the most part, yes, they did. They took on all of the werewolves’ culture as their own as far as we can tell. And what they couldn’t do, like eating raw meat, they adapted so they could. Obviously, day to day meals, they’d cook with heat. But many culturally important events held significance in the rawness of the food, so the humans would cure meat in salt ahead of time so they could safely consume it for those instances.”

“What sort of events?”

“The celebration of the solstices, uh mating rituals, burials, any number of things most likely involved the consumption of specifically raw meat as part of the tradition. It was an important staple of the werewolf diet, hence why Jeno has to slam down those protein bars now.”

You chuckled a little bit, able to perfectly picture your boyfriend’s shelf in his pantry that was taken up by boxes upon boxes of protein bars specifically formulated for werewolves. “Ah, yes, the ancestral chocolate peanut butter flavored protein bars.”

“And now you know the important cultural significance of them.” Your friend sighed wistfully, then switched back into his lecture-mode. “Back to the necklaces. So while the humans largely assimilated into werewolf culture, they also introduced a few things of their own. Typically, when two werewolves mate for life, it’s a whole biting and scenting thing and bam— every wolf in a hundred-mile radius gets the message. But human noses and teeth aren’t exactly up to par for that, right?”

“…Right.”

“So these pairs did both.”

“Both?”

“Again, extrapolation, and oral tradition.” Renjun qualified his explanation as he quickly clicked to the next slide, which had bullet points for what he was now laying out to you. “Unlike a normal wound, a werewolf’s mating bite would heal quickly and had no risk of infection, even for a human. But a human couldn’t do that back to the werewolf, and the human can’t really smell that much of a difference. But handmade, matching necklaces with a precious stone? Now that’s something everyone can see and understand.”

You nodded, “Yeah, okay. I get it. You want to make sure that both of you feel honored and loved in however that manifests for each of you, and obviously you want your partner to express their love for you in whatever way feels the most genuine and powerful.”

“Uh… yeah…” Renjun gave you a strange look. “I mean, in the field we look at it as a fascinating example of the blending of different cultures but-but that’s… cool… too…”

You gave him an unamused look before gesturing to the screen and to the left. “Can you go back one?”

He obliged, and you pointed at pictures. “What stone is that? Do you know?”

“Do I know what kind of stone it is?” He scoffed mockingly. “Of course I do, it’s moonstone.”

“Helps werewolves have more control over and less pain through their shift on the full moon.” You smiled as you recognized exactly why the human had chosen it all those years ago. “A perfect choice for the necklace that you intend for your werewolf lover to never take off.”

Your friend put a hand over his heart, looking at you with delight. “I knew you’d like that one. God, I almost don’t want to tell you about the werewolf brothels of the 1600s now.”

“The what?!”

Leaving Renjun’s apartment you were a changed person, but overall better, and now equipped with a lot of useful and important information. Quickly dialing up a contact on your phone, you listened to the line ring one, two times before it was picked up.

“Hey, Y/N!” Jaemin greeted you enthusiastically.

“Hey, Jaemin!” You turned a corner, your destination already in mind. “Are you home?”

“Yeah, Jeno’s at the gym right now but he should be back soon if you want to come over.”

“Actually, I wanted to ask if you wanted to go shopping? With me?”

“So why doesn’t Jeno have any moonstone?” You asked Jaemin as the two of you meandered down the aisles of one of the apothecaries in town. “It seems like something that every werewolf should just be stocked up on.”

Jaemin delicately inspected a few live herbs that were growing in small pots on a windowsill. “Jeno’s… weird about his shifting.”

“Weird how?”

“He doesn’t want anything that’ll make the process like, comfortable at all? For some reason.”

You looked back at him in disbelief. “Jeno? Lee Jeno? We’re talking about the same man who turns into the most pitiful oversized puppy I’ve ever seen when he gets an upset tummy? He wants to unnecessarily suffer once a month, every month?”

The dryad shrugged, “I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve tried to convince him to get some moonstone or at least let me make him a tonic to take beforehand, but I’m sure you know by now how stubborn he can get.”

“Yeah,” you sighed, chewing on your bottom lip. It seemed like your errand was going to be futile.

Sensing your shift in mood, your friend patted your shoulder reassuringly. “I think you’ll have much better luck, Y/N. If there’s one thing that he’s more stubborn about than anything else, it’s how much he loves you.”

“Thanks, Jaemin.”

That apothecary ended up being a bust for moonstone (though Jaemin did rescue a couple new plants that he deemed weren’t being taken of well enough), and you had to head off to the bakery right after that, no time to check out any others that were around.

“Hey, Minseok,” you gave your boss a rather unenthusiastic greeting as you wrapped your apron around you and washed up in the sink.

The sphinx was surprisingly in the back with his own apron on, and not in the office. Whoever was on shift in the kitchen that afternoon must have had to call out today. You just had to come in to prep the doughs and starters that needed to ferment overnight.

“Y/N, good evening,” he waved at you as he packed up a few empty trays. “How are you?”

“Ehh, fine.” You started taking down clean mixing bowls. “And no, I really don’t feel like expounding on that.”

Minseok held his hands up in an easy surrender. “That’s fair. But uh, I feel the need to ask… everything okay with you and Jeno?”

“What? Yeah, yeah,” you reassured him. “Don’t worry, tomorrow’s opening shift is safe.”

“That’s reassuring, but not really why I was asking.” He caught your eye knowingly. Of course, he really did just care.

You nodded, “Thanks, Minseok.”

“Anyway, I didn’t get to do any of my admin work today so—” He untied his apron and hung it on a hook. “Looks like it’s you and me for post-closing tonight.”

“What a party. Me shaping a bunch of loaves of bread and you making Excel spreadsheets.”

Sat on Jeno’s bed that night, you let your head fall forward as his warm hands worked at the muscles of your shoulders and neck.

“God, Y/N, did you not use proper kneading form or whatever bakers do?” He chastised you half-jokingly, thumb finding another knot by your shoulder blade. “How did you get this messed up after one short post-closing shift at the bakery? Did Mr. Minseok put you on a dough hook in one of the mixers or something?”

“That actually kind of sounds like it’d feel good at this point.” Your laugh turned into a groan as he had finally loosened up one area of tightness, then moved onto another.

“Seriously, maybe you should look into some orthopedic footwear or something.”

“My shoes were plenty sensible. I was just too tense today, that’s all.”

“Something on your mind?” Jeno continued massaging as you slowly rolled out your shoulders and neck.

“Yeah…”

“Is it whatever you’ve been scheming up with Renjun and Jaemin?”

You whipped your head around to look at him, wincing as you just undid pretty much everything Jeno had just fixed in your neck. “Ow…”

Your boyfriend sighed, gently turned your head back around, and brought his fingers to the sides of your neck. He gently massaged the pain away again as he kept talking. “I’ll let you keep scheming, baby, but if you want to tell me, I’m all ears. Especially if it’ll keep your occupational hazards to a minimum.”

Now mostly pain free once more, you slowly reached forward for your laptop that was at the foot of the bed, Jeno’s hands falling from your neck to your hips as you did so.

“I want to show you something, pup,” you declared, opening the computer up.

“Okay,” he agreed in a sing-song voice, scooting back to sit against multitude of pillows, bringing you with him.

As Jeno hooked his chin over your shoulder to watch what you were doing, you pulled up a new tab on your computer to do a quick search. You already knew the image that Renjun had showed you earlier was available online; you’d found it when you were explaining your idea to Jaemin at the apothecary. Jeno made a small bewildered ‘hm?’ noise as you typed in “werewolf human burial necklaces,” but ultimately stayed quiet as dozens of academic articles immediately popped up, along with the image of the two sets of remains beside each other, the pieces of the jewelry among them. You clicked on the picture to make it full screen.

“So these—” you pointed to the two skeletons “—are a mated pair from over a thousand years ago, a werewolf and a human. Their pack buried them together just like any other mates.”

“Aw,” Jeno kissed your cheek. “It’s us a thousand years ago.”

You smiled to yourself at that, reaching up to scratch his head approvingly before focusing back on the picture again.

“And they also had these necklaces, with matching moonstones.” You tapped the screen again to draw attention to the gems.

“That’s beautiful, Y/N.” He nuzzled his nose into the crook of your neck. “Thank you for showing me this. Really.”

“Jeno…” You twisted to be able to see his face. “Why don’t you have any moonstone?”

You felt him breathe in and back out against your skin, and let him take as long as he needed to gather his thoughts. After a few moments, he sat up straight again, a thoughtful look on his face.

“It’s... kind of hard to explain. But it always felt like, I don’t know, a crutch? Like, I shouldn’t need it?”

“What?” You couldn’t keep the confusion from your voice.

“Saying that out loud, I’m realizing how uh, dumb that is now,” he chuckled sheepishly. “I sort of thought that werewolves before me always went through their shifts without any stuff like that just fine, so why should I need it?”

“Jeno, you realize that sounds like if I said that humans two thousand years ago survived just fine before the discovery of penicillin, so I shouldn’t go to the doctor for antibiotics when I get sick? Right?”

“Y-Yeah...” He grimaced. “Besides, I was wrong about werewolves of the past not using moonstone, clearly.”

He gestured to the picture on your laptop screen, and let out another sigh. “I just wish I knew how we got from packs burying werewolf-human mates together with matching moonstone necklaces to... where we are now.”

“Oh, Renjun has a PowerPoint on it if you really want to know.”

“That’s what you two were doing today? For three hours?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll pass.” He wrinkled his nose. “I think I’ve got a much better teacher right here anyway.”

“This was the first three slides, you know? Bold of you to assume I retained anything else Renjun said after.”

Jeno’s eyes crinkled as he laughed. “That’s fair.”

“So...” You pushed the laptop forward again, then rested your hands over his that were wrapped around your waist. “Will you get some moonstone? I hate to think that you’re suffering every month when you don’t need to.”

“On one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

“We get a matching set.”

You nodded, a soft smile spreading across your face. “Okay. Yes.”

Jeno’s grin was blinding, but you only saw a glimpse of it before you were fully twisting around to throw your arms around his neck. He let you tackle him back into the pillows, pulling you down with him. You laughed as you landed on top of him, his arms holding you tight. You took this as your opportunity to pepper his face with kisses as he always did to you, across his cheeks, and nose, and forehead, until you had a sufficiently giggly werewolf beneath you.

“You were right,” he murmured, the bright grin not falling from his face, but morphing instead into a tender smile as he looked up at you, bringing one hand up to caress your cheek.

“I know I was,” you teased, turning your head to peck the palm of his hand, then turned it back to lean into his touch. “But I have no clue what you’re talking about specifically.”

“Love isn’t pain. It’s what stops the hurting.”

His words went right to your heart, and you could only bite down on your lip and nod so as to not burst into tears then and there. Jeno wrapped both his arms around you again, rolling the two of you onto your sides and tucking you under his chin. You pressed your face into his shirt, basking in how warm and secure and loved you felt and knew you were in that moment. And that Jeno knew he was too. The fact that he knew, he finally got it, and was letting you two put it into practice in your lives, too. Your life, together.

Oh, yep, you were crying. But they were happy tears, loving, loved tears. You were feeling with every fiber of your being.

You breathed in deeply, breathed Jeno in deeply. Being a werewolf, his sense of smell was sensitive, so he didn’t use heavily perfumed products, nor wore any colognes or perfumes himself. So you could just smell clean, fresh Jeno. And he, oh so cleverly, smelled like home, like safety, like love.

When you finally looked up at your boyfriend, he looked down at you so lovingly, you felt another round of tears welling up already. But you held them back just long enough to tenderly brush a stray piece of hair from his forehead, and whisper into the quiet of the night, “I love you, Lee Jeno.”

He pressed a long kiss to your forehead, then murmured back, “I love you too, Y/L/N Y/N.”

Unlocking the back door to Half Moon Bakery the next morning, you flicked the lights on and led the way in with a skip in your step. Jeno trailed in behind you still rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Yeah, he was never going to be a morning wolf, especially when he now insisted on accompanying you when you went in at 4 a.m. to do the pre-opening kitchen prep, instead of coming in for the front opening at 6 a.m. like he used to. You secured your apron around your waist, put on your music, washed your hands, and got to work.

While it was more tiring to have back-to-back post-closing and opening shifts, you tended to prefer being able to bake your own doughs and loaves that you prepared the night before rather than ones that someone else had done. Not that you were necessarily a perfectionist or elitest about it (okay maybe a little bit that), but it was always satisfying to see the end product of something that you had started. To work on something from start to finish.

You hadn’t kept track of time, nor even of where your boyfriend was, until Jeno popped his head into the kitchen—you admittedly hadn’t realized he’d left it—to announce, “T-minus ten minutes until opening.”

“Got it, thanks, baby,” you smiled up at him, hands preoccupied with dusting powdered sugar over some pastries.

When you came to a stopping point with that task, you went to pause your own music, and could finally hear Jeno’s floating in from the front. You took joy in the small delight of Jeno’s voice being carried back too as he conversed with customers, smiling to yourself when you could hear his voice pitch up if he got particularly excited about whatever they were talking about, or drop with confusion as he would ask a customer to repeat an order that either didn’t make sense or he didn’t hear.

As you carried out a tray of cream-filled croissants—matcha flavored and strawberry flavored—you kept your eyes focused on your destination, the display case of pastries up by the register. You knew that these were a popular item, and usually worked to refill them first. There were only two matcha ones and a strawberry left, so it looks like you brought out a fresh batch just in the nick of time.

“Ah, perfect timing, Y/N!” Jeno’s voice made you stop dead in your tracks as you were setting the fresh tray on top of the case and were about to grab the old one.

You stood up straight, looking over at him in alarm. Three young kids, a dryad boy, human boy, and phoenix girl were at the register, barely big enough to see over the counter, accompanied by who you guessed to be the phoenix’s father.

“Hello,” you nodded to them politely, then looked to Jeno for an explanation. “Is something wrong, Jeno?”

“Y/N here is our baker, she makes all the delicious treats you guys eat,” Jeno said to the kids. “Including those brownies you loved so much.”

The adult phoenix spoke up, addressing you, “They loved the limited-edition peanut butter brownies you all had in the summer. They come in and beg poor Jeno here for them almost every day. I’ve tried to explain what limited-edition means to them, but...” He trailed off, giving you a sheepish shrug.

“They were sooo good!” The phoenix exclaimed, clutching her stomach dramatically.

“Why did you take them away?” The dryad asked curiously, a slight pout on his face that matched that of the toad perched on his shoulder.

“Is it ‘cause nobody was eating them? ‘Cause we’ll come eat all of them!” The human gestured to the three kids.

You chuckled, “It makes me really happy that you guys liked them so much. Thank you.”

“I beg her to bring them back all the time too, guys. Never works...” Jeno sighed melodramatically, and you elbowed him in the side.

“I literally made you some last week,” you said to him under your breath through gritted teeth. “Spoiled…”

Your boyfriend simply smiled at you innocently, and you turned your focus back to the children.

“Since I know they were so popular, I will see what I can do, okay?” You told them.

They erupted into cheers, and you found yourself grinning too, feeling your heart warmed to see so much happiness just from your baking. You finished swapping out the trays of croissants as Jeno rang up their order, then you disappeared back into the safety and quiet of the kitchens.

Minseok, whose initial appearance a few hours ago let you know it was 8 a.m., left his office then, grabbing an apron hanging on one of the hooks along the wall.

“Filling in again?” You asked him curiously, taking a fresh pan of bread out of the oven. Must be 11:00 already.

“Johnny called in sick. Or, his roommate called in sick for him. Apparently he accidentally petrified the poor guy,” your boss sighed, washing up in the sink. “He was trying to tell me the petrification usually only lasts ten to thirty minutes so Johnny would be late, but I just told him Johnny could have the day off. Sounds like he’s going to need it.”

You winced sympathetically. Poor Johnny. Mark, Johnny’s roommate, was a friend of Jeno’s, so you were keenly aware of the basilisk’s struggles with his recently developed powers; and Johnny was a new part-time hire at Half Moon, so you had gotten to know the human and had heard from him some of the unfortunate happenstances the two roommates would find themselves in as well. Johnny was at least usually in good spirits about it and seemed to find them funny most of the time.

“Mark’s trying his best…” You tried to put up a lukewarm defense of your boyfriend’s friend.

“I’d appreciate it if he tried a little harder not to petrify my employees.”

You didn’t have a good comeback, and so with that, Minseok took a tray of half-moon dipped cookies that were ready to go into the front with him. Jeno popped back in just a couple minutes later with the empty tray, already snickering.

“It’s not funny,” you pointed at him, warning in your tone. You knew what he was laughing at, surely having asked Minseok why he was working up front today.

“It’s a little funny,” he argued.

“No it’s not.”

“Come on, I bet Johnny thinks it’s funny.”

“And I’m sure Mark is mortified and hates his life right now.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of Mark’s general state of existence,” Jeno pointed out, meandering around the kitchen towards you.

You turned around to face him as he came up behind you, crossing your arms over your chest. “Be nice, pup.”

“Mmm, I’ll consider it,” he teased, standing in front of you and crossing his arms to mimic you. “Why?”

“If you don’t, I won’t ask Minseok if we can bring back the limited-edition peanut butter cup brownie.”

Jeno narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t disappoint those little kids just to teach me a lesson.”

“And, I won’t give you the peanut butter cookie discard I saved you from earlier.”

You saw his face perk up at that. His eyes glanced around the kitchen countertops searching for it. “You saved me one?”

“Well not if you’re going to be mean. I’ll just give it to Mark, sounds like he needs a pick-me-up right now a lot more than you.”

“Okay fine it’s not funny! It’s so unfunny! I definitely didn’t dribble water all over myself when Mr. Minseok told me because I laughed and choked because it was so funny. Because it’s not funny! I promise!” Jeno pleaded with you, uncrossing his arms and grabbing your shoulders desperately. It was then that you could see that the front of his shirt and apron did in fact have wet marks on them.

You rolled your eyes as you reached out to touch the damp material. “Jeno, seriously?”

“That was before I learned that it wasn’t funny! I’m sorry!”

“Is this why you came back here? To get a new apron?” You surmised, already knowing the answer by the nervous little smile you got in response.

“And return the empty pan and see my beautiful girlfriend that I love so much,” he added, which admittedly, did make you smile fondly as you pulled him over towards the sink by his forearm.

You held out a hand expectantly. “Apron.”

He untied the garment and handed it to you, and you went to swap it for one of the spare ones. Hopefully it would be mostly dry by the time you two left so you could just take it with you and toss it in the laundry when you got home. Jeno had taken a couple paper towels to the worst patches of his shirt, but unfortunately, it was grey, so he was just going to have to look like someone who didn’t know how to drink water for as long as it took to dry.

“Here.” You handed him the fresh apron, accepting the used paper towels in return to toss out for him.

“Thank you.”

“Honestly, how did you survive this long without me, Lee Jeno?” You clicked your tongue in feigned disappointment as you watched him put his apron on, leaning against the counter with your hip.

“Says the girl with strawberry frosting on her face,” he shot back smugly.

“What? Where?” You squeaked, looking around for a napkin.

But Jeno was already grabbing a paper towel, and held it under the persistent drip of the faucet that Minseok couldn’t seem to keep fixed. He grabbed your chin, leaned in close, and gently wiped the damp napkin over a spot on your cheek.

“Right there,” he murmured.

You looked into his big, brown, heart-stopping eyes for just a second before surging forward to close the short distance between your mouths. He smiled into the kiss, the paper towel falling from your cheek as he then gave you one, two more short pecks before pulling back.

Jeno was still holding your chin and pinched it in between his fingers affectionately as he looked at you with his adorable eye smile. “Alright, unfortunately, if I’m back here any longer, Mr. Minseok will come looking for me.”

“I suppose I’ll let you get back to work, then,” you sighed facetiously, grabbing the hand that was on your face and giving it a squeeze before letting it go.

“Yeah, you’re too much of a distraction back here, you know.”

“Shut up and go work, Jeno.”

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#jeno day 🫶#sr

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starlightkun · 2 days

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❧ word count: 11.8k ❧ warnings: cursing ❧ genre: fluff, modern magical creatures au, fantasy au, college au if you squint, werewolf jeno, human reader, ft. various other magical dreamies & neos and human!renjun (and an extra special guest appearance), hybrid au adjacent? (you’ll see what i mean, but i swear he’s a big bad werewolf), same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: and here’s werewolf jeno too! continuing my big baby jeno agenda in this one so please take care of him, y’all <;33 ❧ sequel

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

Your friend’s eye roll was practically audible over the phone. “Just because I’m a Magical Creature Studies major doesn’t mean I’m a werewolf doctor, Y/N. I study them in a sociocultural context—”

“He’s grown ears and a tail, Renjun. Not wolf ones.”

Unlocking the back door to the bakery, you flicked on the light switch by the doorway. Immediately, the kitchen was illuminated, and you dumped your bag on a stool to root through it. You secured your navy blue apron from inside it, putting it over your neck then fastening the straps around your waist, now ready to start your opening checklist. The idea of a 4 a.m. opening shift should’ve made you shudder, but you always came into Half Moon Bakery with a bounce in your step despite the distinct lack of sunlight.

The first thing was to preheat the ovens: separate ones for yeast breads that needed more moisture, and sweets like cookies, muffins, and cakes that didn’t. You took the yeast doughs out of the fridge first that you’d prepared yesterday. It was all muscle memory, turning and shaping the dough with your hands and bread scraper. After shaping loaf after loaf after loaf, you put those aside for their final proof, then started on the sweets. Some had also been prepared the night before by the closing shift, whichever cookie doughs needed to sit overnight before being shaped. In the mornings, you mixed up the doughs and batters that didn’t need to be chilled prior to baking.

By the time the bread was finished proofing, you had usually at least spooned out your first batch of cookies as well. Those went in the sweets ovens first, then you turned to scoring the loaves before putting those in the bread oven. And it was usually at this point that you were entirely on autopilot, operating solely on dings of timers, no other units of time or place really having meaning to you.

You only knew that it was 6 a.m. when your coworker arrived. The employee entrance opened again while you were setting a hot pan of blueberry lemon scones down, Lee Jeno stepping through. He pushed some of his hair out of his eyes sleepily, lifting a hand in your direction in greeting.

“Morning, Jeno!” You chirped, pausing the music blaring from your phone.

He mumbled something akin to ‘morning’ back as he dropped his own apron around his neck then fumbled with tying the knot around his waist.

“You are never going to be a morning wolf, huh?” You sighed, grabbing the other pans that were in the oven.

“No,” he shook his head. “‘S too early.”

“What if I told you, that I…” You set down the pan of chocolate chunk cookies you just took out, then darted over to a different counter. A plate was there, a single broken sugar cookie on it. If the cookie were whole, it would have been half-dipped in chocolate to look like a half-moon. But alas, this one didn’t make it.

You held the plate out towards Jeno. “…Saved you a discard.”

The werewolf visibly perked up at this. “Really?”

“It’s not peanut butter, sorry.”

He rushed over to take the plate from you. “I can have it?”

“Yeah, Jeno,” you chuckled. “I accidentally snapped it trying to take it off the baking sheet. Better it go in this garbage disposal than the actual garbage.”

You poked his stomach on the word ‘this,’ earning an indignant scowl from him. Which didn’t have the intended effect, as he already had stuffed the entire cookie in his mouth.

“Thanks, Y/N,” Jeno said once he’d swallowed the food in his mouth. “I didn’t have much for breakfast.”

“Oh?” You frowned as you returned to your station, starting on preparing the icings to drizzle over the batches you’d just taken out. Werewolves usually had quite the appetite compared to humans, Jeno must be starving. “Were you running late or something? You could’ve eaten, I wouldn’t have minded if you were a couple minutes late.”

“No, I just… I don’t know, wasn’t that hungry.” He shrugged, starting to go about his own opening tasks.

“Who are you and what have you done with Jeno?” You pointed a whisk at him accusatorily as he opened up the storeroom.

He laughed. “I’m serious, though. It was weird, I made breakfast but when I sat down to eat I just… didn’t want to.”

“You seemed to handle that cookie just fine at least.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, voice slightly muffled as he took a couple steps inside the storage room to tally up the ingredients. “I don’t think I’d ever be able to turn down your baking, Y/N.”

You grinned to yourself as you whisked up the lemon icing for the scones. “Aw, thanks, Jeno.”

“Seriously, I don’t know how Mr. Minseok and I managed before you came along.”

“You seem to be forgetting that Minseok bakes. And very well, too,” you scoffed, referring to your sphinx boss. He had started the bakery by himself some years ago and Jeno had been his very first hire when he realized he couldn’t handle the front and back at the same time. You’d only started at the bakery a little less than a year ago, having been a passionate home baker who needed extra income now that you were in school. It was the summer right now though, between spring and fall semesters so you found yourself at the bakery most days.

“I know, I know. But like half our menu is your recipes now. And you improved some of Mr. Minseok’s.”

“Okay, improved is a choice word there, I streamlined the process a litt—”

Jeno emerged from the storeroom with a big sack of flour over his shoulder, and you completely lost the rest of that sentence as your eyes were drawn like magnets to where the muscles in his arm flexed and tensed. The sleeve of his white t-shirt—the same one you were wearing, with a small half-moon embroidered above the cuff—strained a little around the bulge of his bicep, veins crisscrossing his skin like roots of a tree.

“Y/N?” Jeno tilted his head curiously. This was truly so unfair; he was simultaneously looking like a confused puppy while holding a bag of flour one-handed that would take two humans to carry normally. “That’s a lot of icing on that scone.”

You looked down at where your hand had frozen over a scone, the spoon that you’d been drizzling icing with now pooling and entirely covering one with it instead. “Oh, shit!”

Picking up the scone, you held it over the icing bowl to shake and scrape off as much as you could, taking a few deep breaths.

“Anyway, this is our last bag of bread flour, and we’ve only got half a bag of whole wheat. We need to order some more?”

“Yeah, yeah.” You kept a laser focus on the scones as you went back to drizzling, refusing to look up at Jeno or his stupid big, stupid strong werewolf muscles. “Uhm, two bags of bread flour, one whole wheat. And how are we looking on all-purpose?”

“Still got three bags.”

“Order a bag of that just in case.”

“Heard, chef!” You could see him salute you in your peripheral vision before disappearing back in the storeroom.

After finishing his back of the house opening tasks, Jeno went to start to open the front of the bakery. You, very thankfully, didn’t do much in the front of the house. People in general were alright, but you’d much rather deal with dough and batter, and hear secondhand from Jeno how much everyone supposedly enjoyed what you baked and how delicious they apparently thought it was. You still had a job, so you figured that the customers liked your food just fine, at least. Sometimes you’d be called in as a very last resort to cover a front house worker’s shift, but usually the only times you ever emerged from the kitchens was to drop new batches off in the cases, then you’d disappear again.

Jeno popped in and out to take the food out to the display cases as it got closer and closer to opening, then dropped off an empty tray without picking up a new one.

“T-minus ten minutes until opening,” he informed you with a bright smile, disappearing back through the swinging door to the front for the last time this morning.

You knew it was 7 a.m. when you heard the quaint coffee shop playlist Jeno always put on start to filter in from the front. There wasn’t always a customer right at opening, so you usually relied on the music to reorient yourself in time. Chatter from the front would rise and fall as waves of customers came in and left, but you just kept working on your batches and washing up between them. Now with the bulk of your baking done for the morning, you had a lot of cleaning to do.

Minseok’s arrival let you know that it was 8 a.m., you were already 4 hours into your shift. Your boss came in through the employee entrance as you were dipping some now cooled half-moon cookies in chocolate.

“Morning, Minseok!” You greeted him with a grin.

“You know, Y/N,” he stopped in the middle of the kitchens to turn to you. “I will never doubt my decision to hire you. You know why?”

“Uh... why?”

“Who else could I possible give the 4 a.m. opening shift to and they would still give me such a nice greeting every single time?” He chuckled. “You should’ve seen Jeno’s face the first time I told him what time I open the bakery at.”

“Oh, yeah, he doesn’t seem to be a morning person.”

“You kidding me? Kid asks for the morning shift now,” he snorted, shuffling over to inspect the cookies you were dipping. “Jeno used to be about ready to rip my throat out with his teeth whenever I had him open with me.”

You raised an eyebrow, “Really?”

“Really,” he confirmed. “Though that was the early days of the bakery, you know, when he was just my hormonal teenage summer hire because I was doing his dad a favor and needed someone to work the register while I baked.”

“Now it’s almost like you two are a real business or something.”

Minseok laughed, his sharp canines glinting in the fluorescents. “Almost. Anyway, I’ll be in the office. Holler if you need me.”

You knew it was 11 a.m. when another coworker arrived. It usually cycled between a few different front house workers, and today it was Donghyuck, a dryad friend of Jeno’s who was a newer hire. You waved at him as best you could with two soapy hands, cleaning while a new batch of bread dough bulk proofed. A second front house worker usually came in a little before the lunch rush to help out, make sure whoever opened could take their break, and take over when their shift finished.

A little while later, Jeno came into the back, stretching and groaning. He took his apron off, hanging it on a hook against the wall by Minseok’s office door.

“That time already?” You asked knowingly.

“Yep. Lunch?” Jeno grabbed his keys from his pocket, spinning them around on his finger.

“Wish I could, but these loaves are going to finish proofing in like half an hour,” you sighed wistfully.

“I’ll go bring something back for us.”

“Oh, Jeno, you should go enjoy your lunch break away from work,” you tried to insist.

He made a face. “All by myself? How would I enjoy that? No, I’d rather hang out with you. Now, what do you want?”

Sat on two stools in the small, usually unused breakroom attached to the kitchen with Jeno, you bit into your sandwich gleefully.

“How do you not get tired of bread after working here?” He asked, peeling up one of the slices of his own sandwich.

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “I just like it. Isn’t that kind of part of the job requirements?”

“Mm... good point.”

You were halfway through your sandwich when you realized that Jeno had barely taken a bite of his. The most he’d done was pick a little bit at the fillings, but he really had just been chatting with you. Normally he would have already devoured his, and been pretending not to be eyeing yours.

“Jeno? Aren’t you going to eat?” You asked, gently pushing the food towards him by the wrapper.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I don’t... want to...”

You set your lunch down. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I feel fine,” he nodded. “I’m just not very hungry.”

Concerned, you stood up and headed towards the door that led back into the kitchen. “Wait here.”

You went over to the cooling racks, searching for a specific tray of cookies. You pulled off a peanut butter cookie and walked back over to the werewolf, holding it out towards him. He sat up a little straighter, but it wasn’t the usual ecstatic reaction he had to his favorite kind of cookie.

“Here,” you pushed it in his hand. “You can have it.”

To your relief, he didn’t hesitate to eat half of it in one bite. His eyes crinkled into familiar little crescents as he happily munched on the cookie, quickly polishing off the other half.

Minseok approaching your station from the front typically let you know that was mid afternoon, about time for your shift to end as well. His schedule was variable, it depended on what kind of administrative duties needed to be done, and whether or not he needed to help out in the front or back at all that day.

The sphinx stopped across the counter from you as you put away clean utensils that you didn’t need anymore. “Hey, it’s too slow today. I already sent Donghyuck home and I’m having Jeno close the front. Go home once you’re done cleaning up.”

He was walking towards the back door when you suddenly thought of something. “Oh, Minseok!”

“Yeah?” Your boss stopped, his hand almost on the handle.

“I actually wanted to ask if I could stay after my shift and test a new recipe?”

“Sure. What kind?”

“New flavor of brownie?”

“Hm. If all goes well, it can be a limited flavor. Keep Jeno to taste test.”

You grinned, already planning on doing that yourself. After all, this recipe really was for him. “Will do, thank you!”

“Call if you need anything. Bye, Y/N.”

“Bye, Minseok!” You sent him off for the day with an enthusiastic wave.

Jeno came into the back just a few minutes later, tossing a washcloth into the laundry basket. “You need any help back here?”

“Yes, actually.” You couldn’t hide your beaming smile.

“Oh no,” he groaned. “What is that smile? We’re getting off early and you’re happy about giving me more work?”

“You can go if you want...” you sighed teasingly. “If you really don’t want to help me taste test the peanut butter brownies I’m about to make.”

He gasped, face immediately lighting up, “You’re making what?”

“Yep, the test kitchen is open this afternoon. But, since you want to leave work early, I guess I won’t have my trusty taste tester this time.” You let out another comically deep sigh, shutting away mixing bowls into cabinets. “And to think... all that peanut butter just going to waste... I guess I could give some to Sungchan. I know he says it’s not a werewolf thing to like peanut butter but—”

“Y/N!” Jeno cut in with a whine, grabbing your arm. “I’m staying! I’m your taste tester!”

You couldn’t help but giggle, turning to your friend and patting his cheek, “I know, Jeno. Now come on, help me put this stuff away and we can get started.”

Despite having worked at a bakery for a few years, Jeno didn’t know much about baking. He knew what the different kinds of baked goods that the store offered were, but he didn’t do any of the cooking. Mostly his role in your little test kitchens was to just taste test. And when your arm got tired of mixing sometimes, you’d pass the batter and spoon off to him. Sure, you had electric mixers for that kind of stuff, but for small batches like this, you preferred to just do the mixing by hand.

This time, you were making brownies swirled with peanut butter and with mini peanut butter cups in them. It was something Jeno had been begging for nearly as long as you’d been working at Half Moon. It had been sort of always in the back of your mind to get around to eventually, but Jeno’s disturbing lack of appetite today had finally spurred you into action.

As you folded the mini peanut butter cups into the brownie batter, you saw a hand snake under your arm towards the batter.

“Hey,” you gently pushed Jeno’s hand away from the mixing bowl. “That’s unsanitary, Jeno.”

“We’re not serving it to customers!”

You shook your head, pouring the batter into the square pan. Turning back to Jeno, you handed him the big mixing spoon, still coated in batter.

“Here.”

As he happily went to work licking the batter off the spoon, you put the finishing peanut butter swirls and mini peanut butter cups on top, popped the pan into the preheated oven, then set the timer.

“Alright, now we wait,” you declared, grabbing your hand towel off your shoulder and wiping a stray dollop of batter off the back of your hand.

“And by wait, you mean…”

You latched onto his forearm, the hand of which was holding a now batter-free mixing spoon, and hauled him over to the sink, which was filled with the dirty dishes from preparing the brownie batter. “I mean active waiting, of course. Come on, Jeno, do you want to wash or dry? I’ll let you pick, I’m feeling extra nice today.”

He sighed, nudging you over towards the other side of the sink, “I’ll wash today.”

Your eyebrows shot up as he turned on the faucet and picked up the sponge, squirting a small amount of dish soap on it. Normally if either of you were given your pick, you’d take drying, hands down. No chance of touching gross wet food, no soapy smelling hands, and no pruned fingertips. Drying was clearly the superior task.

But you were never one to look a gift horse in the mouth—or a gift werewolf, you supposed—so you grabbed a clean dish towel.

By the time you two were done with the dishes, the brownies were only about halfway done. So you did Jeno’s preferred method of waiting: passive waiting. Grabbing two chairs from the dining area, you sat down right in front of the oven, the interior light on, and watched them bake.

“And you’re sure liking peanut butter isn’t a werewolf thing?” You double-checked.

“I’m sure.” He confirmed with a chuckle.

“Okay, because you like really like it. Don’t get me wrong, Jeno, it’s endearing. But it’s practically supernatural how much you like it.”

“Well, it kind of is.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know that werewolves have heightened senses, right? Compared to most other creatures. Other than vampires, I guess…”

“Well, yeah.”

“Sight, hearing, smell, taste…”

“Touch?” You asked curiously. That one was always left out of whatever werewolf lore you’d hear about.

“Oh, sure. I like really fuzzy blankets.”

You couldn’t help but smile fondly at the image of Jeno bundled up in a bunch of fuzzy throw blankets.

Jeno continued on with his justification of his love for peanut butter. “So, when I find something that I like the taste of, I really like it. At least, compared to a human, you know.”

“Because you taste it a lot more strongly than humans do.”

“Yeah!” He beamed at you.

“Got it. That makes sense. And you just happen to like peanut butter, like some humans will like peanut butter-flavored stuff more than others.”

“That’s part of why I like working here so much, too. Everything you make smells so good.”

“Aw, thanks, Jeno. I like working here too. You’re one of the easiest coworkers I think I’ve ever had. Aside from the incessant begging for peanut-butter flavored menu items.” You lightly flicked his ear, your tone teasing.

“I’m sorry!” He rushed to apologize.

“I’m kidding. Like I said, it’s endearing.” You waved off his apology. There were a few beats of silence, the two of you continuing to stare at the brownies. Something he said had stuck in your brain, though. “You said that was only part of why you like working here. What’s the other part?”

“Uhm…” Jeno’s eyes widened, flicking between you and the brownies nervously. “You know, Mr. Minseok is a really great boss! He’s super easy about asking for time off, and making the schedule around our classes and finals and stuff!”

“Yeah, Minseok’s great…” You agreed, eyeing your friend suspiciously. He was absolutely lying. Not about your boss being a good boss, Minseok really was great, but that definitely wasn’t what he meant when he said that just then.

But then the oven timer went off, and you decided not to press the matter any further. If Jeno wanted to be weird, that was his prerogative, you weren’t going to demand that he tell you something that he was clearly uncomfortable about.

Grabbing the dish with your oven mitts, you now transitioned into your least favorite part of doing test recipes with Jeno…

“Is it ready?”

“No, Jeno, it needs to cool down.”

“Oh.”

And just a minute later:

“Is it ready?”

“No, Jeno, still too hot.”

“Right.”

Two minutes later:

“Are you sure I can’t have just one bite?”

“It’s still steaming.”

“Okay…”

Another minute later:

“Y/N…”

“Jeno, I know you think I’m doing this because I’m a big meanie, but I promise it’s because I care about you and don’t want you to singe off all your tastebuds.”

“Fine.”

And finally, once he'd given up:

“Jeno!”

“They’re ready?!”

“Yes,” you confirmed, grabbing a knife and triangle server.

Serving Jeno up a corner piece, his favorite, onto a half-moon plate, you then dropped your own piece onto a full moon plate. After tapping your brownies together in a little cheers, you two took your first bites.

The brownie was still warm from the oven, fudgy, and gooey thanks to the swirls of peanut butter in there. You got a couple mini peanut butter cups in that bite that melted over your tongue. Altogether, you had to hand it to Jeno, this was a fantastic idea. It was missing a little something, though. Quickly grabbing a shaker from the counter, you dropped a couple flakes of coarse sea salt on top of just your brownie, then took another bite. Oh yeah, that was perfect.

Jeno had already polished off his brownie, and you could see him trying not to be obvious as he eyed the pan of seven others.

“That was really good, Y/N!” He praised you, eyes turning up into delightful crescents. “Like, I think the best thing you’ve ever made!”

“You say that with everything I make,” you pointed out, taking another bite.

“But this one’s seriously the best!”

“Because there’s peanut butter in it?”

“Well…”

“You can have another one, by the way.”

The sentence was barely out of your mouth before he had dished up another brownie. It didn’t even make it to his plate, instead going straight from pan to his mouth. You chuckled. Why did you even bother with dishes with him, honestly?

But really, it warmed your heart to see somebody enjoying your baking so honestly, so thoroughly, and unabashedly. You’d take a hundred customers like Jeno over any pompous pastry chef any day. And you were glad to see that his appetite was back.

He’d finished his second, and you guessed was about to go for his third when you stopped him.

“Jeno, hold on.” You grabbed his upper arm, looking around for a napkin or paper towel.

“What?” He asked, eyes on your hand that was on his arm, curious.

“You’ve got chocolate like, all over your face, dude.”

You’d finally secured a napkin, and stretched back to dampen it in the persistent drip from the sink faucet. Scooting your stool closer to Jeno, you leaned forward to get a better angle at your task. The werewolf jerked away, but you just clicked your tongue in your mouth and grabbed his chin to gently pull him back towards you.

“C’mere, Jeno. It’s just a little water,” you teased him, wiping away the brownie, chocolate, and peanut butter that were on his cheeks. “Don’t tell me the big bad wolf is scared of the equivalent of a baby wipe?”

“‘M not,” he mumbled as you dragged the wet napkin over the corner of his mouth.

You got a smear that was on the tip of his nose next, “How’d you get it up here anyway?”

He made a ‘I don’t know’ noise in the back of his throat, but stayed perfectly still as you moved back to scrutinize your work. Jeno’s face and ears were definitely much pinker, and he was looking straight up at the ceiling.

“Oh, missed a spot,” you sighed, bringing the napkin up one more time to the curve of his bottom lip. “There, Jeno, all good to go.”

It was then that your heart seemed to have caught up with the rest of the team, as you froze where you were. Jeno’s eyes were locked on yours, his warm breath hitting your face as he took shallow, quick breaths. Your blood roared in your ears. You were so close to him, your hand was still holding his chin, if you just—

Before you could actualize that thought, Jeno let out a yelp, tucking his chin to his chest and curling in on himself in pain.

“Jeno?” You stood up, panic overtaking you as he let out something closer to a grunt this time. “Jeno, are you okay?”

He keeled forward into you, and you easily caught him. Easing him off the stool and onto the ground with you, you sat down, cradling him to your chest as he still wasn’t responding.

“Jeno, what’s wrong?” You asked, carding a hand through his dark hair soothingly.

“It hurts, Y/N,” he whimpered.

Your heart broke at how distressed he sounded. “What hurts, Jeno?”

“Everything!” The werewolf wailed.

“Oh my god, okay. Shh, shh,” you tried to calm him back down, still stroking his head. Pressing the back of your hand to his forehead, you swore he felt warmer than normal. Werewolves naturally had higher body temperatures than humans, but he felt hot. “How bad? Do you need to go to the doctor? Should I call someone? What do you need from me, Jeno?”

“Don’t go!”

“I didn’t say I was going anywhere. But you need somebody else.”

“No I don’t—”

“Jeno—” Your sentence stopped in its tracks as your hand that had been running through his hair suddenly bumped into something. Turning your eyes back down from the ceiling to the werewolf in your arms, your eyes widened comically when you saw two fuzzy white ears emerging from the mop of dark hair atop his head. Trailing further down, you saw a fluffy white tail, too.

“I don’t need anybody else,” Jeno insisted.

“Jeno.” You stated quietly, desperately trying to maintain your composure. “I need you to listen to me. I’m not going to leave you. I’m not going anywhere. But we need to call somebody else to look at you.”

“Why?”

“You have ears and a tail.”

Jeno huffed. “I’m a werewolf, remember?”

“Are they always white and fluffy?”

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, “No...”

“I’m going to call Renjun.” You decided, shifting so you could ease your phone out of your back pocket.

“Y/N!” Jeno buried his head in your lap.

“I’m not going anywhere, Jeno,” you reassured him, resting your free hand on his back. “I was just grabbing my phone.”

Dialing up the contact, you prayed that your friend wouldn’t be deep in a study session. Renjun had an annoying habit of being a good student and turning his ringer off when he studied. Finally, after way too many rings for your liking, he picked up.

“Hello?” Renjun picked up tersely. It sounded like there were other voices in the background.

“Hey, Renjun!” You put as much pep into your tone as you could muster. “Sorry, are you busy?”

“I’m at Chenle and Jisung’s, but we’re just watching movies.” He referenced two of their other friends, a fairy and dragon, respectively. You really just knew them from when they'd come into the bakery to (lovingly) pester Jeno. “What’s going on? I thought you and Jeno were working.”

“That’s why I’m calling.” While you felt bad interrupting their hangout, you had something a little more pressing. “I think Jeno’s sick.”

“He’s grown ears and a tail, Renjun. Not wolf ones.”

“I’m coming over right now.” And he hung up.

Jeno was still letting out little groans and whimpers every few minutes when you heard a knock at the rear employee entrance.

“It’s open!” You yelled out. It felt like you wouldn’t be very successful if you tried to get up right now.

Renjun threw open the door, eyes scanning the kitchen for a moment before they finally found you. The two of you were in the same position as before: you propped up against the cabinets, Jeno curled up nearly fetal, head in your lap as he clutched at whatever hurt. His stomach, his chest, his head. Everything.

He rushed over, face turning pained when he saw the state that Jeno was in. Squatting down beside the two of you, the human looked over your friend, but was careful not to touch him.

“He says that everything hurts, and I swear he’s running a fever.” You reported to Renjun. “In addition to, well, the obvious.”

Jeno’s feet scrambled for purchase against the concrete floor as he tried to curl up into an even tighter ball, holding his stomach.

“I know, Jeno, I know,” you murmured, stroking his back. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to help you get better. Just hold on.”

Renjun leaned towards his head, squinting at where the ears were growing out of his hair.

“You know... I’m surprised the other two didn’t come with you.” You commented, just to say something, to fill the silence.

Fae were naturally mischievous folk, there was no way Chenle would miss an opportunity to see Jeno with literal dog ears and a tail. And usually, wherever Chenle was, Jisung wasn’t far behind. From your understanding, dragons tended to be solitary creatures; however, according to Jeno, Jisung had taken a liking to the fairy some time ago and vice versa, and the two were inseparable ever since.

“I told them Jeno was throwing up. Didn’t mention the ears and tail.” The human scooted to inspect the tail next. “Now, I’m guessing he didn’t show up to his shift like this.”

“No, he was fine. We were testing a new recipe and then it just happened out of nowhere.”

Renjun sighed. “I think he’s just pupsick.”

“What?”

“Pupsick. Usually only little werewolves get it, hence the name. It’d be kind of like if you or I got chickenpox. Like, we can get it, but usually only kids do. Pupsickness isn’t contagious to humans, by the way, so don’t worry about that.”

“Then how’d he get it?”

“Pups usually get it from each other, outbreaks will sort of crop up in daycares and classrooms. But the fact that Jeno’s got it… I don’t know for sure. Werewolf immune systems are practically superhuman once they’re adults, even to their own diseases. This one’s past my expertise. I’d call Sungchan, see if he knows anything.”

“Alright, I will. Thanks, Renjun.”

Renjun stood back up, then looked around the bakery. The half-eaten brownies were still on the countertop, not to mention you had your close-up checklist to do. “You should get him home, Y/N. Here, give me your keys, I’ll clean up here and lock up. I’ll put them under your mat when I’m done.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’d much rather be on bakery clean up duty than pupsick Jeno duty,” he nodded towards the werewolf. “Trust me, I don’t envy you.”

You gave him a half-hearted smile, then looked down at Jeno. He’d been quiet all throughout your conversation with Renjun, and you prodded him gently. “Jeno?”

“Yeah?” He mumbled.

“Can you stand up? I’m going to take you home.”

He let out a whine again, but this time higher pitched, sounding more like a petulant child than like he was actually in pain. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Come on, you’ll be so much more comfy at home in bed with all those fuzzy blankets, right?”

“Fine.” He dragged out the vowels, but scooted off of you to let you stand up.

“Alright, come on, Jeno,” you helped him get to his feet. “Now you’re going to have to walk there mostly of your own power. You’re a bit too solid for me to carry on my own.”

You patted his firm chest for emphasis. “If the stairs are going to be too much, let me know and I’ll make a couple calls. I think Sungchan and Jisung combined could probably get you up there. Maybe get Shotaro for good measure. I know sirens aren’t super strong like werewolves and dragons but—”

“No, I can do it,” he mumbled, looping an arm around your shoulders. “Don’t need… don’t need them.”

After untying both yours and Jeno’s aprons and handing them to Renjun, you took your bakery keys off your keyring to give those over as well, then wrapped one arm around Jeno’s waist and started guiding him over to the back door.

“Y/N,” Renjun caught your attention before you could push it open. “Don’t worry too much. It’s like a bad cold. He’ll just be really pitiful for a few days.”

“Right,” you nodded, mustering up a small smile. You were sure you looked frazzled still. “Thanks again, Renjun. We owe you one.”

“Free muffin and we’ll call it even.” He waved goodbye to you two. “Feel better, Jeno!”

It was thankfully a very short walk to Jeno’s apartment, he lived just around the corner. Once you got him inside, normally you would’ve been able to pass him off to his dryad roommate. But Jaemin was studying abroad for a month, as evidenced by the very droopy-looking plants around the living room.

“Here, let’s get you to bed, Jeno,” you murmured. “Which one’s yours?”

He pointed. “Left.”

Jeno’s room was surprisingly tidy. Though you weren’t sure if you were expecting it to be messy because he was a college boy, a werewolf, or based off his distaste of cleaning up at work. But regardless, you pulled back his covers and ushered him into bed.

“I’ll get you some ice water, you still feel really warm.” You told him, pressing your hand back to his forehead. “Do you want something to eat?”

“No. Don’t want you to go…” He grabbed your hand with both of his as you went to take it off his forehead, nuzzling his cheek against it this time instead.

Okay, his brain was definitely melting in there.

“I’ll be right back here, Jeno. You definitely need some water.” You shook him off as gently as possible. “I’m just going to your kitchen.”

Now free, you rushed to his kitchen, throwing open cabinets until you found one with cups, grabbing the first one your eyes landed on. You scooped ice in, then filled it up from the tap. Initially, you had planned on calling Sungchan while you did this, but you didn’t think Jeno would be that patient.

You speed-walked back down the hallway to his bedroom, finding the werewolf exactly where you left him, curled up in bed, staring at the doorway. You offered him as bright of a smile as you could, “Hey, Jeno! I’m back! Here’s your water.”

He lit up, moving to get up in bed, and you surged forward in concern.

“Woah, hey, are you good to do that, dude?” You asked, hands flitting over him nervously.

“‘M fine, Y/N, I’m fine. Just…” He yawned, covering his mouth. One of his ears twitched. “Really tired.”

“Well, drink this water first, please.” You lifted the glass to his mouth. His refusal of food was still worrying you, though. Werewolves had much higher metabolisms than humans, and the appetites to match. “Are you sure you don’t want something else? You ate hardly anything on break. Other than those brownies, the only thing you’ve had today was whatever you had at breakfast. It’s almost two…”

After gulping down half the glass, Jeno wiped his mouth and shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”

You sighed, patting his cheek and pressing the glass back to his lips. “Okay… Just let me know if you change your mind. I’ll make something or order something. Whatever you want.”

He took a couple more sips before pushing your hand away. “You’re- You’re not going to leave?”

His voice was hopeful, eyes round and pleading—literal puppy dog eyes—as he asked that. You shook your head.

“No, Jeno, I’m going to stay right here with you. I want to stay with you.” You set the cup on his nightstand, gently nudging him forward and further in to make room for you to scoot onto the bed behind him.

Jeno immediately flopped around onto his front, wrapping his arms around your middle and burying his nose into your stomach. You giggled, squirming around for a moment.

“Ah! Jeno, that tickled.”

He mumbled something that sounded like an apology into your lap, squeezing his eyes shut. Your hands dropped to his head, careful to avoid the two white ears there as you ran your fingers through his hair again.

Soon, his breathing evened out, and you stilled your hand. He was asleep.

It was dark when you woke up. You didn’t remember falling asleep in the first place, the last thing you remembered was scrolling on your phone and thinking to yourself how good a nap looked and sounded right now. Jeno was still wrapped around you, peacefully asleep, and you were slumped in the multitude of pillows at the head of the bed. There was a little crick in your lower back, and you had the urge to stand up and crack it. Your stomach growled, and good god you needed to pee.

You tried to sit back up all the way, but Jeno was remarkably heavy in his passed-out state, and you barely moved an inch. Flopping back down, you instead tried shaking him awake.

“Jeno. Jeno, hey,” you said softly. Your lips twitched in amusement when you saw one of his white dog ears perk up towards the sound of your voice. The rest of him didn’t move, though. You shook him with a little more gusto. “Jeno... come on.”

The other ear was at attention now, and you could feel a grumble start in his chest. You switched to lightly squeezing his human ears, sides, and whatever parts of his arms you could reach.

“Jeno! Up! Wake up!” You pleaded with each gentle pinch, finally feeling victorious when he recoiled after you got his nose.

He jerked an arm back to cover his face in his elbow as he sneezed three times in a row.

“Bless you!” You snickered, quickly pulling yourself into a cross-legged sitting position now that you had an opportunity.

“Ack! Y/N, what was that for?” Jeno complained, voice thick with sleep, sitting up as well.

“I needed you to move so I can go use the bathroom,” you snorted, scooting towards the edge of the bed.

Before your feet could touch the floor, a pair of arms had wrapped around your shoulders, and a nose was nuzzling into your neck. “Y/N...”

“Jeno...” You mimicked his tone in an attempt to cover up how the sudden contact had made your back stiffen. You almost tilted your head to the side on instinct to give him more space, but kept your spine pin-straight.

You half-heartedly tried to push at him. “Dude, seriously, I need to pee. And aren’t you hungry?”

“Not hungry.”

“For real?” You frowned, contorting awkwardly to look at his face as you tested for his temperature again. “You’re still burning up. Do you have a thermometer around here? What’s a werewolf’s temperature even supposed to be?”

“We don’t have a thermometer. ‘M fine.”

“I’ll believe that when you’re back to eating six meals a day, Lee Jeno.” You scoffed. “Now I am going to the bathroom, then I’m coming right back. Okay?”

“No!” He clung onto you tighter, and you swore you saw his eyes getting moist as his lower lip trembled.

“Jeno, I’ll be right back, okay? I pinky promise.” You held one of your pinky fingers out to him. He begrudgingly linked one of his with it before letting go of you.

“Thank you.”

You slipped down the hall quickly. After relieving your screaming bladder and washing your hands, you pulled out your phone, seeing that you had a couple texts. They were both from Renjun from several hours ago.

[renjun: locked up the bakery, keys under your mat. how’s jeno doing?]

Then, a couple hours later.

[renjun: hey, just double checking that you found your keys and that jeno got home okay.]

[you: sorry for not replying, he’s been a bit of a handful. i haven’t made it home yet to grab my keys, still at jeno’s. thanks for locking up and dropping my keys off tho!]

You briefly thought of calling Sungchan, but you were worried about Jeno. Poking your head out of the bathroom and back down the hall, you listened for any signs of life. You could hear him tossing and turning restlessly in bed. So he at least hadn’t fallen back asleep.

Your stomach growled again, taking center stage now that the more pressing need had been dealt with.

“Hey, Jeno,” you said loudly as you entered the room, already pulling up a food delivery app on your phone.

Jeno sat up at attention, and with the sheets falling away from him, you could see the fluffy white tail behind him wagging vigorously as he gave you possibly the brightest smile he’d had since this whole thing started. “Y/N!”

“Jeno!” You repeated his name with a bewildered chuckle. “Am I covered in peanut butter or something? What’s got you in such a good mood all of a sudden?”

“Can I not just be happy to see you?” He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. His tail kept wagging, though.

“No, you can. I was just curious.” You leaned against the doorway, scrolling through the restaurant options. “I think I’m going to order delivery. Which means you’ll have to let me go get it when it gets here. Do you think you can do that?”

He yawned and stretched. “No promises.”

“Alright.” You turned your phone off. “Let me go raid your pantry really quick. You do have food, right?”

“Yeah...” Jeno laid back down, his sudden burst of excitement seeming to be wearing off expeditiously.

Giving him a thumbs up, you took off down the hall again. Jaemin and Jeno’s pantry was fairly human-friendly. Jaemin left three weeks ago, so there weren’t many of his organic trail mixes and granola bars left. And of course, plenty of Jeno’s werewolf protein bars—to supplement when he just couldn’t get enough protein for what his diet naturally called for. But mostly there were snacks that you’d find in your own human apartment, which you were grateful for; you’ve had some unfortunate moments with friends of yours whose appetites didn’t line up as closely with humans. You still shuddered at the thought of the plate stacked with slimy kelp that you’d been offered by Sungchan’s siren roommate, Shotaro. Sungchan and you ordered pizza that night.

Grabbing a few things for yourself, a couple water bottles, you then headed back towards his room. You’d also snagged one of Jeno’s protein bars, maybe you could convince him to get something close to a meal in him.

“I’m back, I’m back,” you announced as you hurried in, dropping the snacks on the nightstand.

Jeno rolled over just enough for you to sit back in your same place against the headboard. As soon as you were settled in, he scooched to put his head in your lap.

“How are you feeling? Still hurting?” You asked, cracking open the first bottle, then the other.

“Yeah…” He rubbed at his eyes.

“Tired?” You stroked his bangs away from his face.

“Mhm.”

“What about your temperature? Still got that fever?” You leaned down to press your lips to his forehead before you realized what you were doing.

You froze halfway back up, eyes locked on Jeno’s. Letting his bangs fall through your fingers and back down onto his face, you forced out a chuckle.

“Sorry, uh, my mom always did that to check my temperature when I was sick as a little kid. Just, kind of happened,” you stammered out as you kept fixing his hair to cover his forehead back up. “Do- Do you feel hot, Jeno? Or cold? Like any sort of chills or hot flashes or anything?”

His whole face was pink, and you couldn’t remember if it was already like that from the fever or not. The werewolf blinked up at you a couple more times before answering your question.

“I’m cold.” He pulled one of the fuzzy blankets up to his chin then as if for emphasis.

“Okay. Alright, well if you’re tired, hurting, and cold, I think you should get back to sleep.” You smiled down at him, patting his chest over the blanket. “Can you just drink a little more water for me?”

After getting a couple sips in him, Jeno rolled over and was out like a light. Oh that looked nice. You would probably take care of your hungry stomach and then join him in dreamland, honestly. Today had been… a lot.

The thought of spending the night in Jeno’s bed made your stomach twist and turn, and you briefly considered creeping out to the couch. But if something happened to Jeno with this pupsickness and you weren’t there, you’d hate yourself forever. No, you needed to stay right by his side, as much for yourself as for him. And so, you grabbed some trail mix and prepared to settle in for a long night.

You were still munching on some of Jaemin’s trail mix when suddenly, your phone rang. You panicked, scrambling to grab it so that it didn’t wake Jeno up. The werewolf in your lap didn’t even stir as the loud ringer kept going, though.

Keeping an eye on him, you answered the call in a whisper, “Hello?”

“Y/N? Sorry, is this a bad time? I had a question about the lecture from yesterday.” It was Sungchan on the other end, your only other werewolf friend, and project partner in your Magical Botany I class.

“Hey, Sungchan. Uh, it’s sort of a bad time but also the perfect time.” You kept your voice low and quiet, holding the phone close to your mouth.

“Oh. And what does that mean?”

“You go first.”

“Can you send me the notes?”

“That’s all you needed to ask me?” You snorted. “The notes from yesterday?”

“Can you send me all of the notes? From the whole semester?” His voice was pleading, sounding like he was braced for ridicule.

“Are you kidding me?”

“The last full moon was rough, okay?”

“Used your Bot I notebook as a chew toy, huh?”

“Will you send me them?” He groaned.

“Yeah, yeah, it might be a little while though.”

“That’s fine! You said this was a bad time, right? Sort of?”

“Right.” You gently dabbed at Jeno’s sweaty forehead. “So I have a werewolf question…”

Sungchan paused, sighed, then said, “Because you’re you, and I know are therefore not about to ask me anything weird, I will entertain this. Go ahead.”

“Do you know why an adult werewolf might get pupsick?”

“Is Jeno okay?”

Sungchan didn’t know Jeno as well as you did— the two werewolves had met a couple times in passing, when your classmate would buy something from the bakery, or the two of you would bump into Jeno while studying at the library. But Sungchan mostly knew of him from you. You happily talked about your job, your sphinx boss, and werewolf coworker to your friends, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that he was able to guess what this was about.

“Immediately blew my cover, huh?”

“It seemed like an awfully specific question.”

“Yes, Jeno’s pupsick. At least, according to Renjun.” You tested his temperature again, with your hand this time, on his cheek. He was still burning up, feeling very much like a heated, weighted blanket. “He’s exhausted, he’s moody, he doesn’t want to eat, he’s got a fever I think—”

“Wait, are you with him now?”

“Yeah, his roommate’s studying abroad for a month and I felt bad leaving him alone.”

“Those are his only symptoms? Sounds like he’s just got a cold.” Sungchan scoffed. “Why would Renjun say it’s pupsickness? Just because he’s a werewolf? Honestly—”

“Oh and he’s got ears and a tail.”

The other end of the call was silent for far too long. “Channie?”

“Ah. Yeah. He’s pupsick.” He confirmed.

“So… do you know why he’s got it? Renjun said that adult werewolves usually don’t get pupsick.”

“They don’t. Although I’m not surprised Jeno is.”

“What? Why? Is he okay? Does he have like… a werewolf autoimmune disease or something? Do you guys have those?”

“Jeno’s immune system is fine, Y/N,” your friend reassured you.

You relaxed again. “Oh, good.”

“It’s a combination of things that determines whether a werewolf gets pupsick or not. Yes, it’s our immune system, but one of the biggest symptoms of pupsickness is what you’re looking at: the partial shift.”

“The ears and tail.”

“Yeah. Pups can’t control their shifting yet because they’re more volatile emotionally and magically.” Sungchan walked you through it. “And like any other kids, they’re germ factories. So they get pupsick a lot more than adults do.”

“Then why’d Jeno get it? It’s not like he’s an education major or anything, he hasn’t been around any pups.”

“Adults usually get it when there’s something in their life that’s made them emotionally and magically volatile again.”

“Volatile?” You echoed, looking down at the peacefully napping wolf. He really just looked like an oversized puppy.

“You said he’s moody?”

“Mhm. Kind of… down? I don’t know, he’s not as bubbly as he normally is, you know? I could barely get him to let me get up to use the bathroom earlier, he looked like he was about to cry. And then when I came back, you’d think I brought him a jar of peanut butter or something he was so happy.”

“That’s what I mean, not like he’s going to snap and break a vase or something. And his shifting is obviously not in control either.”

“Well he’s going to get better, right?” You asked hopefully. “Renjun said it should just be a few days.”

“It is for pups.”

Your stomach dropped. “That sounds like there’s going to be a but coming…”

“But for adults, they got sick because something in their life was out of balance.” Sungchan reiterated.

“So he’s going to be like this unless we get his life back in balance? I’ve got to what, sign him up for werewolf yoga or something?”

“Or wait until the next full moon. A full shift should do the trick to reset him.”

“Oh. When’s that?”

“Three weeks.”

“Three weeks?!” You couldn’t help the loud panic in your voice. One of Jeno’s ears flicked, and you held your breath as he shifted slightly, but ultimately stayed asleep.

Sungchan was still talking, “And there’s no promise that he won’t just catch it again if he’s still at unrest.”

“God, who knew you werewolves were so sensitive? You’re like orchids, you need a very specific soil pH or you’re going to die!” You hissed into the phone.

“We’re a very hardy species, actually. You know, if the Black Plague were to come back, humans would—”

“Yeah, I’m sure humans would all die out, and werewolves would inherit the Earth or whatever Revelations says.” You cut him off, all too used to his lectures on the differences between humans and werewolves. With a sigh, you determined that you’d gotten all the useful information you could from him. “Well, thanks, Sungchan.”

“Of course, Y/N.”

“Wait…”

“What?”

“Why did you say that you’re not surprised that Jeno’s pupsick then? Do you know what’s making him sick?”

“Y/N…” Your friend sighed. “You are so smart, and yet…”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve only met Jeno a couple times, but the guy so clearly has a huge crush on you. A better name for what’s wrong with him would be that he’s lovesick, honestly.”

Your jaw dropped as your eyes were glued to Jeno’s peacefully sleeping features. “S-Seriously?”

While you’d had a creeping suspicion—you weren’t that stupid, no matter what Sungchan was implying—you were also a little worried that it was all in your head.

“Every time I see you two together, he’s all heart eyes for you, Y/N. I don’t know how you’re missing it.” Sungchan chuckled.

“Must be your superior werewolf eyesight,” you replied sarcastically.

“Must be.” He repeated humorously.

“So like… what should I do?”

“He’s your wolf, Y/N. Do what you will.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” You sputtered out, jolting up in your seat.

Sungchan’s cackling laughter came through your speakers as you felt Jeno shift and stir in your lap. He lifted his head up slightly as he mumbled out a very sleepy, “Y/N?”

“Oh my god, you woke Jeno up!” You snapped at the other werewolf at the phone. “I’ve got to go!”

“I woke him up? Oh really—”

You cut Sungchan’s incredulous words off by hanging up, then tossing your phone aside on the bed. Jeno had settled back down a little bit, and you scratched between his ears.

“Go back to sleep, Jeno,” you murmured quietly. “Back to sleep… Sweet dreams, baby.”

As he relaxed again, you started humming a familiar tune, a lullaby that your mom used to sing to you when you would wake her up in the middle of the night because you weren’t feeling well. You didn’t let up even after Jeno’s breathing had evened out again, keeping it going as you slowly shifted around until you were no longer sitting up, laying down now. Jeno’s head still laying on your midsection, a comforting pressure. The rest of him was under all his fuzzy blankets, and you made sure he was securely under them all, gave him one last head pat, then let your eyes flutter shut, drifting off still humming that lullaby to yourself.

It was bright out when you woke up. You sighed, squeezing your eyes shut and trying to roll over to bury your face into your pillow. Except there was a weight attached to your back, and a low whine right next to your ear. Your eyes flew open, and you quickly remembered that you were not in your own bed.

Which meant that— Yep, that was Jeno koala-hugging you from behind. He had a pout on his face even his sleep, which turned into a peaceful smile as soon as you’d given up on moving, relaxing back into him.

His two white dog ears were splayed out to the sides, and while they were very cute, they also worried you. Your conversation with Sungchan yesterday came back to mind. God, what the hell were you supposed to do about that?

“Hey, Jeno? You awake?” You asked softly, quiet enough that if he weren’t, he hopefully wouldn’t wake up.

“Mm… mhm,” he nodded his head against your back. “Yeah… ‘m up.”

You turned over onto your back in Jeno’s arms, then feeling for his temperature on what part of his forehead that you could get to. “How are you feeling?”

“Still sleepy…” He muttered, the words muffled against your collarbone from where he had readjusted to nestle his face into the crook of your neck.

“Sorry if I woke you up,” you hummed, stroking his head. “You can go back to sleep.”

“Who were… who were you talking to?”

“When— Oh, last night. Sungchan. I was trying to figure out how to make you better.”

He made a noncommittal noise of acknowledgement, and for a brief moment you thought he might’ve fallen asleep again, until he looked up at you with the most heart-stopping, big, round eyes.

“Uhm, he said that when you shift on the full moon, that’ll probably kind of reset everything.”

“But the next full moon’s in…” he let out a yawn, punctuated by a sniffle. “Three weeks. I don’t know if I can take feeling like this for another three weeks.”

You rubbed a hand up and down his back soothingly, “I know, Jeno, I’m sorry. He did say something else.”

The werewolf’s animal ears perked up. “Something else?”

“Well, he was telling me about why adult werewolves get pupsick when its usually only pups who get it.”

“But I haven’t done anything to throw off my spiritual balance,” he whined. “I think… I mean, I haven’t pissed off any witches that I can think of, my shift on the last full moon went great, and everyone in my pack back home is okay.”

“Well, Sungchan said that it could be something personal, too. Not exactly related to werewolf stuff. Any kind of serious rift in your life, you know.” You tried to paraphrase your friend’s explanation as best you could without the heavy implications that he had. “Can you think of anything like that?”

“No...” he dragged out the vowel. “Just—”

Jeno suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence, going still in your arms.

“Just? Just what?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Clearly it’s not nothing,” you said pointedly, giving one of his dog ears a gentle tap. He fidgeted a little, but didn’t move away from your touch.

He shook his head. “No.”

“No?”

“It’s going to ruin everything.” Jeno just sounded utterly defeated now, refusing to look up at you. “I’m going to ruin everything again.”

You were ashamed to say that you were gobsmacked in that moment. You took a deep breath, desperately trying to throw together any kind of acceptable response.

“What are you talking about, Jeno?” You needed more information.

“I always break stuff, and I get too excited, and I don’t stop, and I’m too much and that’s not even on the full moon!” Jeno rambled. “I always have to replace my stuff because I tear it or break it or chew it or crush it and I don’t even realize and—”

“Jeno, Jeno, Jeno, woah, woah,” you shushed him firmly but kindly, hearing in his voice that he was getting himself too worked up. “It’s not like you’re Godzilla out here leveling cities or anything, okay? You’re not ruining anything, and you’re not too much or whatever stupid stuff you’ve been told before. Don’t be offended, but I honestly can’t imagine you as some big bad wolf blowing houses down and eating little piggies.”

The dog ears on his head perked up, and he sniffled again. “Really?”

“Really,” you confirmed, scratching behind one of the animal ears. Under the sheets, you could see that the dog tail had started wagging back and forth. “I mean, you’ve been curled up in my arms like an overgrown puppy for over twelve hours now.”

You had expected him to have some kind of objection to you calling him an overgrown puppy, but instead he just seemed to melt even more into your hold, his eyes fluttering shut as a lopsided, content smile took over his features. Seeing him so relaxed almost made you rethink your want to press the issue.

“Was that it? Do you think that’s what was wrong to make you pupsick?”

Jeno let out a heaving sigh, and his eyes opened again as the smile fell from his face. “No. But fixing my pupsickness is just going to ruin something else. Something really important.”

“You can’t stay like this forever, Jeno.”

“What? You don’t like the ears?” He joked with a dry chuckle.

“They’re cute, but not so much if they’re a symptom of you being so sick.” You habitually checked for his temperature on his forehead again (hot, as expected), then wrapped both your arms around his shoulders tightly. “Now, humans don’t exactly have pupsickness, but when we get really stressed out in work or school, it puts too much stress on our bodies and our immune systems, and we get sick more easily too. It makes us take a break and take care of ourselves. Whatever’s wrong, it’s not sustainable for you and clearly your body knows that too.”

“Yeah… I know.”

“So? What is it? Can I help?”

The werewolf shifted in your hold, and you loosened your arms to let him sit up from you completely. You followed his lead curiously, the two of you now sitting cross-legged on his bed facing each other, knee to knee. He brushed some of his hair out of his eyes, other pieces sticking up in random directions around the two fluffy white dog ears. Now that the covers had fallen off both your bodies, the tail rested beside him, no longer wagging happily as he gave you a forlorn look.

“Y/N… please remember that in order to cure the pupsickness, I just need to get this off my chest, okay? My health is not dependent on your response at all, it’s all about my internal state being stagnant for too long. So… don’t feel obligated to respond any one way for my sake.”

Your heart picked up speed in your chest, and there was no doubt that he could hear it. But still, you put on an encouraging smile for him. “Okay. Go ahead, Jeno.”

He kept his gaze down on his hands, seemingly messing with a seam on one of his blankets. And after one more deep inhale, he finally admitted, “I really like you, Y/N. Not coworkers, not friends. And I’m really sorry that I just—”

“You didn’t ruin anything.”

“What?”

“Do you think I really would’ve done all this for like… just anybody?” You confessed weakly. “I like you too.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, Jeno, I do.” You couldn’t help but laugh at his constant disbelief in what you were saying. “Why do you just think I’m constantly lying to you? Like— Oof!”

Your sentence was cut short because in that moment, you were caught in a tackle-hug and nearly smothered under the weight of a very excited werewolf. Laughter poured out of you as you wrapped your arms around his neck, squeezing your eyes shut as you just let the happiness in your chest get bigger and bigger with each passing second.

“You really are just a big puppy, huh?” You teased, reaching up to scratch behind the dog ears on his head. Except, they weren’t where you were expecting them. You couldn’t find them by feeling around in his hair, and opened your eyes to look for them. The only thing on his head was his mop of dark hair, fluffed up by your fingers, but otherwise, entirely typical. Peering around his shoulders, you couldn’t spot a tail either.

“Jeno!” You gently pushed on his chest to encourage him to get off of you for a moment.

“Mm?”

“The ears and tail are gone! You’re not partially shifted anymore!” You pushed a little harder, and he seemed to finally get the idea, rolling over and flopping onto his back instead. You shot up to a kneeling position beside him, looking down at him excitedly. “How are you feeling?”

He seemed to think about this for a moment, and you couldn’t help but put the back of your hand to his forehead once more, relief washing over you when it was just a little warm compared to your skin, but pretty much the usual difference between humans and werewolves this time.

“Feels like your fever’s broken,” you announced giddily.

“I still feel a little yucky, like I’m getting over a cold,” he informed you, grabbing your hand that had been feeling for his temperature and resting your linked hands over his middle.

“Aw, poor pup,” you cooed, squeezing his hand, and not missing the way his cheeks flushed, but he didn’t reject the nickname entirely. “Well, we do have today off anyway. I can stay, if you want?”

“Please?”

“On one condition.”

“Anything!”

You leaned over to grab something off the nightstand, the werewolf protein bar you had snagged for him yesterday. It hadn’t been touched at all the night before, and you now held it out to him.

“You eat.”

He nodded. “I think I can make that work.”

Jeno was still feeling off by the end of the day, so you called Minseok and explained most of the situation to him—that Jeno was getting over pupsickness and you were helping take care of him. Your boss was understanding, and easily gave you two the next day off as well, sending the werewolf well wishes to get better soon.

Slowly but surely, Jeno’s appetite was coming back, but your mind wouldn’t truly be at ease until he was back to eating six meals a day, no matter how many times he reassured you that he felt fine.

Jeno wasn’t sleeping as much, but now he’d finally taken one of his rare naps on the couch—he’d fallen asleep trying to show you one of his favorite movies, which you’d paused as soon as you’d realized he was asleep, so that you could finish it together later. You were snugly in his arms, head resting on his chest and now contemplating attempting a nap of your own.

Then the front door opened. You would have sat up to look at who it was, if your position allowed for that at all, and if you didn’t know well enough already who that definitely was.

“Jeno?” A voice carried through the apartment from the front door easily. “Thanks for picking me up from the airport, asshole! I had to get a ride from His Highness, so now I owe him one! Which, by the way, you’re so going to help me repay when he comes to collect—Oh!”

The dryad had finally made it to the living room and stopped in his tracks as soon as he spotted the two of you. He was in a hoodie and sweatpants, a duffel bag over his shoulder and towing a suitcase behind him. Clearly fresh off the plane back from his month of study abroad.

You and Jaemin just stared at each other for a moment. Jeno hadn’t stirred.

“Uh, hey,” you greeted him awkwardly, cringing internally at the crack in your voice. “I’m uh… I…”

“Y/N, right?” Jaemin grinned down at you. While you had seen each other in passing when he'd come into the bakery on occasion, and of course knew of each other through the still slumbering werewolf with you, you'd never really been properly introduced.

“Yeah, I’m Y/N,” you smiled back at him, not-so-subtly smacking at Jeno’s arms to try to wake him up. “It’s nice to meet you, Jaemin.”

“It’s so good to finally meet you, Y/N.” Jaemin gushed. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good. Uhm, how was your trip?”

“It was great! Saw lots of sights. Still seeing some more now that I’m home, too.”

The werewolf under you had finally come to at that point, and groggily looked between you and Jaemin, eyes snapping open with alarm when he realized what was going on. “Jaemin! What the hell?”

“Could ask you the same thing, Jeno.” The dryad threw a hand over his chest. “I was abandoned at the airport and had to call Chenle for help—a fairy! And then I finally make it home, thinking the whole time that surely you must be injured; in the hospital; dead! to have gone back on your promise. Only to come home and find you napping with the Y/N. I mean, I was only gone for a month, what the hell happened?”

Jeno single-handedly chucked a pillow at Jaemin’s head, which the dryad easily dodged.

“I was sick, you little shit,” the werewolf groaned, rubbing his eyes with one hand, and keeping his other arm firmly wrapped around you. “I got pupsick like two days ago, I’m still recovering. I’m sorry about forgetting about your flight.”

“And what did I tell you before I left?” Jaemin put his hands on his hips, staring his roommate down pointedly. “I hate to say I told you so but—”

“No you don’t.”

“—but I told you that you were going to get yourself pupsick if you didn’t do something about Y/N.”

“You’re lucky I don’t have another pillow to throw,” Jeno covered his face with his hand.

“And you just brushed me off like everyone else does.” Jaemin threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “Dryads aren’t just a bunch of hippies, you know. Nature and your connection to it is very important, it’s nothing to mess around with. I hope you know better now, Lee Jeno.”

A low grumble started in his chest at the scolding he was getting from his friend, and you bit down on your lip to stifle your giggles at the scene that had been unfolding around you.

“Yeah, Jaemin, I know that you’re always right and I don’t know anything ever and should always listen to you. Happy?” Jeno retorted sarcastically.

“Quite.” Jaemin smiled back with the same amount of sass, but you could feel that the tension was dissolving in the air. He grabbed his bags again. “You're also helping me repay the favor I now owe His Highness, by the way."

Jeno groaned again, but didn't argue.

"Anyway, I’m jetlagged and exhausted. I’ll leave you two alone. Lovely seeing you as always, Y/N. So sorry you had to deal with a pupsick Jeno for this idiot to finally confess to you. Goodnight!”

“Hey!” Jeno cried out indignantly.

“Goodnight, Jaemin,” you replied humorously, taking a look at the clock. It was only 11:00 a.m.

And with that, it was just you and Jeno again.

“Ugh, sorry about him.” The werewolf readjusted his hold on you, pecking your forehead.

“Don’t worry,” you chuckled. “I had a pretty good idea of what he’s like.”

“I know, but he didn’t have to make a scene like that.”

“I think he was entitled. You left him for dead at the airport, after all.”

“Oh my god.”

“He had to get a ride from Chenle.”

Jeno scrunched his nose, presumably remembering that he and Jaemin now jointly owe the fairy a favor. “Yeah, I probably should’ve at least arranged for one of the other guys to pick him up.”

“Mhm…” You picked up the remote again. “So, ready to finish the movie, pup?”

sequel :･ﾟ✧｡･:･*

⤷ blog masterlist ⤷ anthology masterlist

#happy jeno day 🩷#sr

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starlightkun · 2 days

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JENO DREAM HAUS EP.1

#he so sweetie boy w this hair im 😭#jeno #gif

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starlightkun · 2 days

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#prettyyyyyy ✨️✨️✨️✨️#q #yangyang #gif

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starlightkun · 2 days

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240423 NCTsmtown Twitter + IG Update

"🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO #JENO

WE💚YOU"

#hbd sweetie 🩷 hope u have the best day ever 🫶#jeno #pic #literally love this short hair on him sm. hes gonna b a good egghead in a few yrs.......

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starlightkun · 2 days

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jeno has the energy of a jellycat amusable. happy. no thought behind those eyes.

#jeno day? jeno day.

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starlightkun · 2 days

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oooooooh we are at 54k right now for frankenstein complex and not done yet :) gonna be longer than my previous 60k projection i think, but also my first projected wc was like 20-25k or smth so 🫡

#i wrote like 8.6k for it this weekend! had a grand ole time #and the semester is almost over so im gonna have summer break aka all my nights and weekends back >:))#anyway gn <3333 #going to hell (work w/o one of my favorite coworkers) tmrrw wish me luck 😔#talk #text #mine #f: frankenstein complex

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starlightkun · 3 days

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➥ word count: 28.9k ➥ warnings: cursing, side character makes one (1) kms joke (“walk into traffic”), probable overuse of the word skeeze for a couple scenes ➥ genre: angst heavy at the beginning then fluff, science fantasy au, soulmate au (red string), speculative fiction, star crossed lovers, a little mystery-ish, artist sungchan ➥ author’s note: omg i’m sooo excited for this one! had a lot of fun with the worldbuilding and such, and as always, with characterizing sungchan. unfortunately due to tumblr’s 1000 block limit (which was created to hurt me personally), i had to do some modifications to this in order to make it fit (i was like 150 blocks over and really didn’t want to split it into two parts for no reason). if you want the authentic, unadulterated experience with original formatting and one extra scene, i highly, highly recommend reading it on ao3

Humming along to your music, you watched the city pass by, felt the bus start and stop, and were vaguely aware of the same passengers as always getting on and off. You took the same bus every day, Monday through Friday, as you had for the past two years, since you’d been promoted and moved to better accommodations that you could afford with your new pay.

There were regulars on your commute, such as the elderly couple who got on one stop after you on the first Monday every month, and got off at the stop that you knew was closest to the art museum. They sat in the row behind you, and explained to you once that they had been passholders at the museum for years, and that was when new exhibits were rotated in. Or in the front of the bus, a pair of sisters that you had inadvertently seen grow up over the years, who got on some time before your stop, and got off two stops before you in the morning, close to a nearby private school. You could sometimes hear the older one helping the younger with homework, or making last-minute fixes to her hair or uniform.

There were of course lots of office workers as well, who all rushed on and off the bus with promptness at their stops. You recalled fondly the primary school teacher who used to sit next to you, young and always dressed in fun, colorful prints. She had blurted out one morning that she was pregnant, and you were the first person she was telling, even before her husband. She didn’t know how to tell him yet, but was so excited and had to share the news with somebody, even a stranger that she only knew for a few minutes a day on the bus. You’d watched over the months as she started to show, then told you one morning she was just going on a short maternity leave to have her baby boy but would be back sooner than you’d know. She never got back on again. You hoped her son was beautiful and healthy, and still thought of them every so often when you’d look up and pass by her stop.

And then there was you. You sometimes wondered what they thought of you, if any of them did. It would be strange if they didn’t have at least a passing opinion of you. Not because you yourself did anything remarkable on your daily commute. You got on, took the same seat every day, listened to your music with your headphones in, and got off at the same stop. But no matter how normal your routine was, how quaint your occasional conversations with your fellow commuters were, there was something that set you apart.

As signified by the strawberry red jumpsuit you donned five days a week, you worked at The Soulmate Factory. It was technically called the Bureau of Interpersonal Affairs, but everyone just called it The Soulmate Factory, even the employees. Not the most popular place to work, but the work that was done there had to be done nevertheless. All Factory employees were ineligible for matching, in order to maintain the integrity of the Bureau’s image. Your family could never understand why you’d accept a position there; never getting a soulmate of your own, never getting the one person destined for you. But you didn’t see it like that. It’s not like you could never fall in love, find a partner to spend your life with, or be fulfilled in any millions of other ways.

The bus jerked to a stop again, and the doors swung open. You stood up and hurried off. You were the only passenger to depart here, as usual. A building loomed in the distance, all flashing windows and pink marble. Following in a few other coworkers in matching red jumpsuits, you hurried up the stairs, catching up to a familiar head of hair on the way up.

“Morning, Jaemin!” You chirped, nudging his arm with yours as you fell into step with him.

“Oh, hey, Y/N! Morning!” He offered you a bright smile, stepping off at the same floor as you and walking over to your neighboring desks.

“Hey, did you ever read that book I leant you?” You asked, dropping your backpack off at your desk before heading for the breakroom together. There was always a quiet buzz in the morning that you liked, when everybody was still mellow from waking up, but excited to start the day.

He hissed regretfully, a sheepish smile already coming to his face, telling you everything you needed to know, “Well...”

“You haven’t touched it since the day I gave it to you.”

“I’m going to! Promise!”

“It’s coming up on my re-read list,” you warned him, starting a fresh pot of coffee. “I only have like four books ahead of it. That gives you like, four weeks max.”

“You need to rot your brain with some TV or something.” He shook his head teasingly, reaching up into a cabinet and pulling down a box of cereal.

“Hey, isn’t that—”

“Na Jaemin, if you value your life, you’ll put that box down now.” The stern voice of Huang Renjun cracked through the air.

Jaemin turned around, hiding the box behind his back as he offered your other coworker a sickly sweet smile. “What box?”

“Come here, you son of a—”

“Hey, let’s not commit homicide before the weekly agenda meeting, maybe?” You suggested loudly over their squabbling, as Renjun had just grabbed Jaemin by the collar. “Because I’m pretty sure if you kill Jaemin, they’ll just reassign you his work, Renjun. Might want to see what your workload is like first.”

Renjun yanked the box of cereal out of Jaemin’s hand then, holding it to his chest protectively and scowling. “Fine. You better hope that you’re on data synthesis, Jaemin.”

He walked out still clutching the box to his chest.

“He’s just going to eat it dry by the fistful, isn’t he?” You sighed, starting to pour yourself a cup of coffee.

“Definitely,” Jaemin confirmed. “And I’m suddenly really wanting to do some data synthesis this week.”

After getting dismissed from the weekly agenda meeting—during which Jaemin was assigned data synthesis, and Renjun got profile compiling—you headed back to your desks. You weren’t assigned anything because your job was the same every day. You were on a very specific career trajectory at The Soulmate Factory after showing promise in the typical six months of entry-level training for new employees. Following those six months, your fellow trainees went on to start their jobs, while you went through an additional two and a half years of specialized training for your position: matchmaking.

You didn’t sit down at your computer when you got back to your desk, simply placing your nearly empty coffee cup on it before taking off down the hall to the room in which you actually did most of your work.

Swiping your badge at the access panel, the door clicked to unlock, and you pushed it open. There were a couple of other matchmakers already in there, who didn’t offer you a single glance or any indication that they were even aware of your presence. Sitting at your station, you were face-to-face with a quaintly archaic-looking computer. Compared to the newest monitors at every desk in the main bullpen, which could display images in a resolution so crisp it was hard to tell the difference between that and real life, the small, square glass and pixelated text that was in front of you seemed so out of place. But this was the system. Pressing the Enter button on your keyboard, your screen came to life, already giving you your first match.

N!#83LPd5D4ZR$PYQ^KLT6WnY##4GYVm74v^f@96#q#hheeRYgLLf3Ft9KQw

‘Matchmaker’ was a misnomer, really. You didn’t set people up to be soulmates whatsoever. The computer gave you the results, all you did was read them. Take the seemingly random string of letters, numbers, and characters, and parse out the meaning. Your training consisted of watching other matchmakers work, then trying your hand at doing some on your own, being told that you were wrong or right, with no explanation as to why either way—until you stopped getting them wrong. And whenever it would be your turn to train a matchmaker, that would be exactly how you’d train them. Because there was no way to tell them what exactly you were seeing, or how to do it. They just had to do. The longest part was looking up the profile numbers in the program, selecting them, and sending off the match results. As soon as you submitted that one, your next match came up.

jkD%NVSC3%JCacN%vWS5#k!Z4GqGW#ZfMyqGUfc@wQT5L5vK2uWU5N*5Lg&6

Your body moved as if by itself, in understanding with the machine, the program. The matchmakers often talked about entering a sort of trance when working, becoming one mind with the computer, completely unaware of their surroundings, time, or bodily needs. Only the next match. That’s why all of your screens had to be simultaneously forced into a shut-off at lunchtime, or else none of you would take a lunch break, then again at the end of the workday.

Blinking a few times to readjust from the hours spent interfacing with the program, you looked around you at the other matchmakers slowly getting up from their seats as well. With a sigh, you stood up and shuffled out after them. Jaemin was still at his desk when you got back to yours, fervently clacking away at his keyboard. You grabbed your coffee mug, went to wash it out in the breakroom and set it up to dry, then returned to your desk. Swallowing in an attempt to wet your dry throat, you asked him, “So how was your thrilling day of data synthesis?”

“Not over yet,” he groaned, scrolling down in his spreadsheet. “Hey, wait up a minute, would you?”

Checking the time on your watch, you nodded. “My bus doesn’t come for another twenty-five. They let us out early again.”

“Yeah, I heard the Director on the phone to somebody a while ago. He sounded pissed. Apparently, there’s some concerns over the Factory’s energy usage. They must be cutting you guys a few minutes early every day to try to help since you still use old hardware, right?”

“Mm,” you hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, could be.”

“You’d think we’d be the one agency that wouldn’t be hit with budget cuts,” he scoffed, clicking a few things before his monitor displayed the login screen again. He spun around in his chair, giving you a wide smile. “Alright, ready?”

“Sure.” You grabbed your backpack from your seat. Jaemin and you headed down the stairs, awash in pinks and oranges from the sunset streaming in from outside.

“So, I already know what the answer is going to be, but I have to be able to say that I asked, alright?” Your coworker began, making you scrunch up your face in confusion. “My sister wanted me to ask if you’ve done hers yet? Na Minhee?”

You sighed, “Jaemin, you know I don’t know any of that—” “I know—” “—it’s all just… stuff. And you’ve compiled profiles, those are completely anonymous.”

“I know, I know,” he reassured you. “I just needed to be able to tell her that I asked, and that’s what you said. She wouldn’t take my word for it.”

“She’d know if hers has already been done, anyway.” You held up your hand, wiggling your pinky finger. “Why ask you?”

“Because she’s impatient.”

“Well, I can’t help her.” You shrugged. “It’ll happen when it happens.”

“I’ll tell her that. Thanks!”

“Yeah, no problem, dude.”

“When does your bus come?”

You checked the time again. “Fifteen minutes or so.”

“You want me to wait with you?” He offered, looking around the empty bus stop. “Kind of dark.”

“I’m alright, thanks. Go break your sister’s heart, champ.” You gave him a mock punch on the shoulder.

On your own again, you took your phone and headphones out, popping one earbud in your ear as you went to choose your playlist. As you scrolled, tapped, and swiped through your phone to try to pick the perfect song, some fuzz fell from your jumpsuit onto your right pinky finger, and you absentmindedly shook it off as your focus stayed on your music library. But it was stubborn, and the red fleck didn’t budge. You wiped the digit on your pants, eyes on where you had finally gotten the perfect choice, the song starting up as you lifted your now-clean hand back up.

Except it was still there. You looked at your hand for the first time, really looked at it, and felt your stomach drop. A thin, bright red string, the same color as your jumpsuit, was tied around your right pinky finger, just above the juncture where the finger met your hand. The string hung off in the air, becoming transparent and disappearing altogether less than a finger’s length away. You turned your hand over, palm to back to palm to back, and the string moved with it, the end fluttering with each of your movements. Stupidly, you tried to grab it, as if to pull it off, but when you took hold of the silken thread and gave it a yank, it didn’t budge. For a split second, amputation came to mind, but you quickly pushed those thoughts away. There were stories of people losing fingers or entire limbs and their strings reappearing on the other hand, or in new places altogether if they had no hands at all.

You looked around for any of your coworkers. Nobody else except the two people on either end of the string could see it, but you still didn’t want anybody to be observing your behavior, and then have to try to explain said behavior right now. It was easy to explain why you were doing what you were doing—you just got a red string; but not how—you weren’t supposed to get one. Ever. The area around you was empty, the majority of your coworkers driving, taking the subway, or not having left work yet. You looked over your shoulder, at the pink marble building looming in the distance.

The squeal of brakes and hiss of compressed air as the doors of a bus were flung open made you turn around. Rushing up the steps onto the bus, you then plopped into your usual seat, keeping your backpack on your lap and instinctively tucking your right hand between the bag and your body to keep the string hidden. You didn’t know who could possibly be your soulmate now, you had to be vigilant. You didn’t relax until you were safely tucked away in your apartment, door locked behind you, no plans to see any other humans for the rest of the day.

The next morning, you kept your right hand hidden away as much as possible on your commute, in your pockets, behind your bag, under your thigh. You didn’t feel remotely safe until you were in the matchmaking room, at your station. Even then, it took you longer than normal to stop from looking at your pinky and actually focus on the first match up on your screen. Once you had, everything else faded away like usual, and you could only think about reading the matches.

vLZD%v7^XftyvnM6HcxszgUbT6EaPaza41tJtv%#HFby%5Y2rWdujYUj8X21

At lunch, you typically would’ve taken your packed lunch to a nearby public park to eat, but that was too risky. So you took it to the breakroom, sitting at the small table and taking out one of your books from your bag. A few other coworkers came in and out to use the microwave or retrieve their own lunch from the fridge, but nobody bothered you as you read. You finished your food rather quick, and found yourself a bit too distracted to focus on your book. The red string on your finger was back in the forefront of your mind. Checking the time, you saw that you still had over half of your break left. With a sigh, you shut your book and walked back over to your desk next to Jaemin’s.

The floor was pretty empty, only a couple of your coworkers left who either took early or later lunches. You turned on the desktop computer, waiting for it to start up before quickly signing on. Opening up the program where profiles were compiled to be fed into the matchmaking system, you chewed on the inside of your cheek thoughtfully, clicking around on the controls. During the basic training you’d received over five years ago, you’d been shown how to compile and enter a profile into the database, and you obviously searched them up from your matchmaking station. But these were all profiles that hadn’t been matched yet, that didn’t have red strings. You needed to get into wherever the profiles that had been successfully matched were. If they were kept somewhere at all.

After poking around some more in the application, you determined that either you didn’t have the technical know-how to access that information, the administrative access to do so, or that information wasn’t stored in the first place. Exiting out of the program with a sigh, you dropped your chin into your palm, scrunching your eyes and nose up as you continued thinking. It felt like it was right there, right on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t grab it for some reason. The weekly agenda meeting, something about the weekly agenda meeting—Jaemin was assigned data synthesis. They compiled information on all kinds of stuff regarding matched soulmates: average time to meet after the strings appear, get married, have kids, how many kids, length of time they’re together prior to death, the list goes on. That couldn’t come from nowhere. They had to keep track of soulmates somehow, right?

You quickly opened the Internet browser, going to the Bureau’s website and finding the ‘Studies and Statistics’ page. All of the things you were thinking about were there, complete with fancy little graphics. It didn’t tell you anything about where this stuff was stored internally, but this meant that it had to be, somehow, somewhere. Which meant that your match had to be somewhere, and if you could just find it, then you could—

What? Undo it somehow? It had to be possible. But first you had to find out how it happened in the first place, which meant laying eyes on the match itself, at least. You needed some kind of starting point, and that felt like as good as any.

At the end of the day, the matchmakers were let out early again, and you waited up at your desk as Jaemin was still working. He looked over his shoulder at you curiously. “You need something, Y/N? I don’t have your book, sorry.”

“No, I have a question. But you can finish your work first.”

He made an interested noise, and turned back to his screen. After entering a few more things into his spreadsheet, he pressed save, then exited out with a satisfied groan. He shut down his computer and leaned back, audibly cracking his back. “Fucking finally! If I ever have to look at another number again, I’ll walk into traffic.”

You chuckled as the two of you set off. “Data synthesis that bad?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed one of his eyes. “Anyway, what’d you want to ask me?”

“It was actually about data synthesis…”

“No!” He whined, shaking his head fervently.

“One question! One question!” You begged.

“Fine…”

“The data that you use, how do you get that? Like, where do you get it from?”

He looked at you, squinting with confusion. “From soulmates that have already been matched?”

“Then the Factory keeps records of matches after the strings have been triggered.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“Where? Is it a separate database from the one that you enter new profiles into? Or is it part of the matchmaking program?”

“I mean, it’s probably its own thing? I don’t know, I get the numbers in my data synthesis project assignments. If I need more, or something different, I tell the project manager and he gets it for me.”

“Huh.” You kept the disappointment off your face, as well as curiosity. While he didn’t know a lot, what he didn’t know actually was helpful to you. “Okay, thanks.”

“That was more than one question.”

“Right, sorry.”

“What’s going on? Why the interest in data synthesis all of a sudden?”

“Just curious, since you guys seem to hate it so much.”

“It’s… mind-numbing, to say the least.”

“Here’s hoping next week you’re on profile compiling.”

“Fingers crossed,” he sighed. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow, Y/N.”

The next few days passed without incident. Your intervals of snooping around on your desktop computer during your lunch breaks were fruitless in finding wherever completed matches were stored, and soon it was Friday evening, and the work week was over. Not even a crisis like this could make you work late on a Friday. You realized when you got home that you were out of groceries, and ordered delivery to your apartment. Can’t risk someone at the restaurant being your soulmate.

Saturday morning you woke up and left early to go grocery shopping, hopefully before most anybody would be out and about. Well, before one person in particular would be awake—your soulmate. Only problem was, you didn’t know who that was, so you had to avoid pretty much everybody. As you walked through the streets keeping your hands crossed and tucked under your arms, you kept your head down, eyes focused only on your feet. If you couldn’t see anybody’s hands and couldn’t possibly see a red string, hopefully they wouldn’t see yours.

Except as you rushed through the streets, you passed by your favorite small bookstore, with its doors wide open, and a sign out front on the sidewalk advertising a huge sale, 70% off a table of books right by the doorway. You couldn’t help but stop—just for a second—to check it out, spotting a title by one of your favorite authors that you’d been meaning to read but hadn’t yet. Picking up the book to look at the price and turning it over in your hands to skim the blurb on the back, you were barely aware of the sounds of some young men playing with a Frisbee at the park across the street, their yells fading into the din of the waking city.

That was, until the purple, plastic disc came skittering across the pavement to a stop right at your feet, and a tall man jogged up after it, still calling to his friend over his shoulder, “Nice aim, Anton! You almost took this poor woman’s head off!”

You missed what his friend said in response as you were already looking up from the Frisbee with the intent to tell him that you were quite alright, then your eyes got caught on a thin red loop around his pinky finger. Snapping your gaze down to your own hand, which was still holding the book, then back to his as he stood now right in front of you, your eyes widened with alarm.

To your horror, the string completed itself, connecting seamlessly to the pinky of the stranger in front of you. The young man looked at you with wonderment, a wide smile coming to his features, brightness and recognition in them. He opened his mouth, presumably to say hello, or whatever soulmates did when they met, but before he could utter anything, you dropped the book and took off at a run. You sprinted away, turning down streets at random, until your legs were burning and you had a stitch in your side. Ducking around another shop, you hid behind the building to catch your breath, sure that you had lost him. Your heartbeat was thudding loudly in your ears, and you habitually tried to shake off that stupid, pesky red string again.

“Look—” A voice suddenly registering right over your shoulder made you jump and scramble back. The man had found you, holding his hands out in front of him like he was trying to calm a wild animal or a spooked horse. His chest was heaving as he was as out of breath as you were (presumably from running after you). There was a bewildered, confused look in his wide eyes as he kept himself between you and the only way out of the alley you had unintentionally backed yourself into. “I don’t normally chase women through the streets, sorry.”

You stayed silent as you looked between him and the exit. The red string hung between you, painfully obvious.

“I just… wanted to talk, you know,” he continued, gesturing to said string. “I’m Sungchan.”

You shook your head, clenching your jaw tightly to avoid making any kind of sound.

“What?” He tilted his head. “You… won’t tell me your name?”

You stared at him, unmoving.

“You know what, we got off on a bad foot, and clearly this is not a good time for you.” Sungchan stepped away from the alley entrance entirely. “Bye for now.”

Taking hesitant, shuffling steps, uncertain that he was actually going to let you leave, you kept your eyes laser focused on him until you were out of the alley, at which point you promptly booked it down the road again. You didn’t stop until you could no longer breathe, your legs shook and threatened to give out any second, and you had tears streaming down your face from the wind blowing into them.

That day you looked up how to get rid of a red string. You knew it was stupid, impossible to do at home. You literally worked at The Soulmate Factory, you were a matchmaker, for fuck’s sake, you were the one giving them out in the first place.

None of it worked, of course. Not meditating, praying, attempting to light it on fire, soaking your finger in a mixture of various oils and herbs from your spice cabinet, scrubbing really hard with the coarse side of a sponge, or crying for thirty minutes straight (that last one was just you being frustrated, no Internet listicle or sketchy guru suggested that). It was still there after everything, as pristine as when it appeared less than a week ago. Less than a week ago. Much faster than average, according to the statistics that you had just looked up the other day. The average time from getting the red string to meeting was seven months and eighteen days, with some taking several years. And yours just had to be within five days. You felt like you could cry again, if you didn’t already have a throbbing headache from how much you had done that earlier.

Now, you were sitting under the spray of your shower, holding your knees to your chest, trying not to look at it. You couldn’t look at your finger, at the red string, but if you closed your eyes, you just saw his face—Sungchan.

On Monday, you continued your investigation with renewed vigor. When you swiped into the matchmaking room, you didn’t go to your station, instead you headed for the back, where there was a short flight of stairs up to an office. Knocking on the door, you waited for the familiar voice inside to beckon you in.

“Come in.”

Pushing your way in, you nodded politely to your supervisor, “Good morning, Ms. Kwon.”

“Good morning, Y/N.” She brought her hands down from where they had been poised over her keyboard to rest in her lap. “How are you?”

“I’m well,” you lied. “How are you?”

“Fine. What brings you to my office this morning?”

“I… have sort of a weird question, if that’s alright.”

She gestured to the two chairs opposite her. “Of course.”

You sat in one, making a conscious effort to keep your knee from bouncing nervously.

“What is your question?” She prompted you.

“There’s never any mistakes, right?”

“Mistakes? No, you’re all trained right.” Ms. Kwon arched an eyebrow. “Do you think you’ve made a mistake, Y/N?”

“No, not the matchmakers. I mean… the computer does whatever it does with the information it’s given, right? That we collect?” You took a deep breath, preparing yourself for what you were about to say. “What if… it gets the wrong information? Wouldn’t it all be wrong if it’s given the wrong stuff in the first place?”

“The profiles we compile are extremely rudimentary, and that isn’t all the information it uses. The computer does more than we can ever know.”

“But what if… there’s an extra profile in there that was never supposed to be in there?”

“Like a person that doesn’t exist? How would a fake person even get created in the first place?”

“No I mean like—You know how Factory employees are taken out of the program? What if somehow, someone got missed? Like, their match happened right before their first day or something crazy. So they got matched up when they weren’t supposed to.”

“I’ve never heard of that happening.” She shook her head, leaning back in her seat and crossing her legs at the knee. “As soon as we receive someone’s application, their profile is removed from the program. If they’re not hired, their profile is put back in. If they are hired, the data is permanently destroyed.”

“Where’s it stored when it’s temporarily removed during the application process, then?”

She didn’t answer your question, her face turning concerned instead of simply confused as before. “Y/N, what’s going on? Do you know of a Factory employee who’s been matched up?”

You shook your head, trying not to deny it too quickly or with too much fervor. “No, I just—Got a brain itch about it, I don’t know. Seems too… uncertain.”

“I can assure you, no Factory employee has ever been matched up. Accidentally or otherwise,” she replied smoothly, a reassuring smile coming to her features. “You can rest easy; no mistakes are made here.”

“Can you just… answer my question? Please?” You pleaded, picking at your nails to avoid messing with your pinky. “I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

“Alright, to soothe your brain itch,” she agreed, sounding amused. “It’s another list in the profiles database that we import into your matchmaking program, except only personnel with a certain clearance can view, add, and remove profiles from the list. Once a round of interviews has been completed, the applicants on the list are either marked as hired or not. If they’re marked as hired, their profile information is permanently destroyed upon their first day of training. If they’re marked as not, it’s returned to the main database that everyone has access to.”

“One more thing?”

“Sure.”

“Once a match is made, where does that information go? Like, the reports, the profiles, is it stored anywhere?”

“We maintain all of those records in another program. Those with higher clearance have access to it, for security purposes, since profiles are de-anonymized in it. Data synthesis uses them for reports frequently.”

“Okay, thanks.” You offered her a feigned, relieved smile, then tacked on a quick fib, “Just wanted a little refresh, in case we got any new hires anytime soon.”

“Already looking to train, Y/N?”

“Oh, maybe…” You laughed nervously, as if shy about being caught with your eye on a promotion already and not anxious from having to discretely interrogate your supervisor.

“You always were ambitious. And wanting to learn more about the program and the Bureau… I like it.” Ms. Kwon nodded her approval. “Feel free to ask about any other brain itches you get, okay?”

“Right, thanks.” You stood up, giving her a polite bow. “I should get to my station. Thank you again, ma’am.”

As you hurried down to your matchmaking station, you easily came to the realization of what you’d need to do next. There was no way you’d be able to just wait until you were promoted to a position with high enough security clearance for the post-matched program, that sounded like it would be people of Ms. Kwon’s position and above. You’d have to get into the program using one of their access points. Somehow. But you didn’t have time to brainstorm a plan for that at the moment, you had matches to read. You sank down into the comfortable, posture-saving chair, and let your mind mesh with the computer as the first one loaded up on the screen.

The next day, you waited at your bus stop, leaning against the shelter and eating your apple one-handed. Pedestrians would occasionally pass by, but your area was mainly young families, so most residents drove their children to daycare or school, then either returned home, or went to work themselves. There was the occasional parent who would jog by with a stroller, or pulling a stroller hitched to the back of a bicycle, but for the most part it was just you and your apple, which you were nearly done with. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw a lone jogger approaching, and took a step back to allow him to pass, eyes still down on your phone and apple as your bus hadn’t arrived yet. Except this jogger slowed to a stop in front of you. You followed the red string from the hand that held your apple core up to a somewhat familiar face, looking down at you in mild confusion.

He was admittedly sweatier now, pieces of hair curling and sticking to the skin at his hairline, and his t-shirt sported a damp spot starting at his collar going down the middle of his chest. But this was definitely Sungchan, as signified by the red string connecting your right pinky to his left. He lifted the hem of his shirt to quickly pat drops of sweat away from his face and took one of his earbuds out as he offered you an easygoing smile.

“Hi. Feeling better?” He asked, his tone light and teasing.

“Why are you here?” You practically snapped. You thought you’d be safe at your bus stop of all places, which you were at every day. You knew your neighborhood, the people on your bus, but he still somehow showed up. “I-I take the same bus every day, at the same time, and I’ve never seen you jogging in the morning!”

“Oh, yeah, I stayed at my sister’s place last night, she lives around here.” Sungchan casually gestured over his shoulder at the general vicinity. “So I had to take a different route than normal for my morning run. You live in this area?”

You stared at him, jaw clenched.

“Sorry, probably sounded a little weird asking you that, huh?” He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uhm, it’s just that you said you’re at this same bus stop every day at the same time, so I figured you, uhm… never mind. I’m Jung Sungchan, I realized I didn’t properly introduce myself last time. I’d offer my hand or hug you or something but I’m a bit sweaty…”

Taking a deep breath, you tried to think of how to politely phrase the everything you had to tell him, but he just kept talking.

“I’d like to uh, you know, know your name, too. Since we’re uhm, you know… soulmates? And uh—”

“Sungchan!” You cut him off, and he immediately shut his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know my name.”

“What? What are you talking about? But we’re—”

“I’m not supposed to have a soulmate!” You gestured wildly to your uniform. “This was a mistake! An error! I’m sorry. This shouldn’t have ever happened. I’ll get it fixed, okay? I’ll figure out how to undo it, and make sure you get put back in.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “I thought the Factory didn’t make mistakes.”

“The computer doesn’t. But somehow, somebody must have put a paper in the wrong stack, or not deleted something when they should’ve, I don’t know! But I’ll fix it.”

The bus finally arrived then with its usual screech of brakes and hiss of the pneumatic doors, and you stepped away from Sungchan towards it.

“I have to go.” You told him with finality, tossing your apple core in a nearby trashcan and boarding the bus without waiting to hear if he had something else to say.

Without having to avoid the entire world now, you actually took your lunch today. But as soon as you stepped outside of the building and turned from the front doors, you spotted a familiar tall figure standing awkwardly off to the side, no longer in sweaty running gear. You made a beeline for Sungchan, grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him to the most secluded corner of the open space as you could, away from all your coworkers who were heading off to take their own break.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” You hissed at him, constantly glancing around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear you two.

His face did look genuinely regretful, though exasperated at the same time. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know how else to find you.”

“Why are you trying to find me?”

He held up his left pinky. You pushed it back down. “I’m working on it!”

“No, I—” He let out a frustrated groan, rubbing his face. “Can we like… I don’t know, talk, or something?”

“Why?”

“Don’t you think I should get a say in you undoing this?”

You inhaled sharply. “You’re right, Sungchan. I’m sorry. We should talk.”

“Finally, thank you.”

Checking the time for a moment, you then offered, “I have fifty-five minutes left of my lunch break. Do you want to join me?”

“Sure, sure.”

You led him away from The Soulmate Factory, along a familiar path. There was a riverside public park nearby, and on days when you packed your lunch, and it was nice out, you would eat outside.

Sungchan broke the silence, “Will you ever tell me your name?”

“Y/N. Y/L/N Y/N,” you informed him flatly. “Happy?”

“Y/N,” he repeated, as if savoring your name. “Okay, thanks.”

The park was only a couple minutes’ walk, and you had a very specific destination in mind once you two got there.

“I packed a lunch today, sorry,” you said quietly, sitting down on the wall overlooking the river, your feet swinging in the air.

Sungchan sat down next to you. “That’s fine. I can grab something later.”

Opening your lunch bag, you grabbed your sandwich and held out half to him. He accepted it gingerly. “Thank you.”

“I haven’t figured out how to undo it yet, but I can enter a profile into the program easy, so once I do undo it, don’t worry about me putting you back in. You’ll be all set,” you reassured him, taking a bite.

“You’re still talking like this is a done deal. Undoing it.”

“I’d be fixing someone’s mistake, Sungchan. That’s what you do at work. When you see a piece of paper is misfiled, or a decimal is in the wrong place, or a typo on a presentation, you fix it, even if you didn’t do it.”

“It’s just… human error?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all that’s happened here, you think?”

“Whoever was supposed to take my profile out didn’t for some reason, and the computer got it when it wasn’t supposed to,” you confirmed emphatically.

“How does it work, the program? And the profiles, and the computer? All of it?” He questioned.

You gave him as simplified of a version as you could, “Profiles and a bunch of other data points get put into the program, which imports them into the computer. The computer spits out the resulting matches, I—we, matchmakers read them and submit the match reports, triggering the red strings.”

“So it wasn’t given any incorrect information about you or me? Nobody tampered with the system to force it to match us, or falsified a match?”

“No, you can’t do that. It’s impossible.”

“The only hiccup, in your opinion, was that it was given your data at all.”

“Yes, Factory employees aren’t allowed to—”

“Whose rule is that?”

“The Bureau—”

“So, it’s literally just bureaucracy?”

“I like my job,” you huffed, frustrated that he wasn’t seeing the blatantly obvious mistake that had happened. “It’s a rule for a reason. Factory employees are taken out of the program so the public doesn’t think employees are rigging their matches.”

“Can’t rig your soulmate if you don’t get one,” he scoffed.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“You say that like having one would be the worst thing in the world!” Sungchan replied incredulously.

“It is for me! Because do you know what would happen if people at the Bureau found out this happened?” You looked at him with wide, pointed eyes. “Just losing my job would probably be the best outcome. And who knows what would happen to you!”

“But—”

“I’m sorry, Sungchan. I’m sure you had imagined all of this, your red string, and the person at the other end of it, going a lot different. And I’m sure it will, when I fix everything.” You stood up, cutting your conversation and lunch short. “Don’t come to my work again, okay? For both our sakes.”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry,” he muttered, looking out at the water.

Back at the Factory, you finished eating your lunch at your desk, then shuffled back to the matchmaking room. After swiping in, you realized that you were pretty early, the first one back. Curious, you peered up at Ms. Kwon’s office. She was in there, of course. No way would you be able to attempt to use her computer to access the higher-clearance data. You sank into the chair at your station with a deep sigh. Drumming your fingers along the desktop, you let your eyes flutter shut. You’d have to wait for the others to get back from lunch for the power to be returned to the screens. In the meantime, you could just ruminate.

“Y/N?” Ms. Kwon’s voice came from the direction of her office. “Back so soon?”

You opened your eyes back up, turning to look at her. You nodded sheepishly. “Quick eater…”

“I feel like I’ve seen you in the breakroom with a book before. Nothing today?”

“Forgot it at home.”

“Alright, well… have fun, I suppose.” She turned to go back into her office.

“There’s no way to undo a match, is there?” You blurted out, stopping her in her tracks. She turned back around to look at you curiously as you continued, “Once we press submit on the computer, that’s it?”

Ms. Kwon cocked her head, leaning against the railing at the top of the stairs. “You should’ve been told this in training… No, there isn’t a way to ‘undo’ a match. We aren’t even matching them, just reporting on what the computer says. All the reports do is trigger the strings. The two people are soulmates regardless of the computer. We just intervene so they can find each other.”

You gulped and nodded. “Of course. I knew that… I… I don’t know. Thank you, Ms. Kwon.”

“Another brain itch?”

“Yeah, I guess,” you forced out a couple of chuckles to cover up the dread you felt on the inside.

“Alright. Remember, ‘The Soulmate Factory’ isn’t very accurate. We don’t make soulmates here, they’re already out there.”

“Right, yeah. Terrible nickname, huh?”

She shrugged. “It’s cute. Good for branding. I’ve got a few things to work on, unless you have any other burning questions for me?”

“No, Ms. Kwon, that’s it. Thank you, again.”

“No problem, Y/N.” And with that, she retreated into her office once more.

Dragging your feet back out to your desk at the end of the workday, you chewed on your bottom lip, contemplating pretending to have extra work so you could stay late and try to sneak onto Ms. Kwon’s computer to access the matched profiles. But her office was behind a door with swipe access, it would log that you swiped in after hours. A digital breadcrumb trail.

“Hey,” Jaemin got your attention as you sat in your chair and stared at your screen. You spun your chair around to look at him, lifting your eyebrows in a silent question. “Who was that guy?”

Your blood turned cold. “Huh? Who? When? What guy?”

“Oh now that wasn’t suspicious,” he snorted. “The guy that was waiting for you at lunch whose ass you looked like you were about to kick.”

Oh God. Jaemin saw Sungchan. Who else saw him? You had to assume everybody. You stood up from your chair hastily, fully intent on running away. “Just—Nobody, it doesn’t matter.”

Jaemin gasped, then dropped his voice, “Y/N, you didn’t...”

“Didn’t what?” You squeaked, now ready to stick around. You had to know what he knew, which was obviously the truth.

“You totally did.” He shook his head, clicking his tongue. “Never a good idea, getting involved with people who are destined, even if they don’t have their string yet. Because one day they will.”

Of course. He thought, perfectly reasonably, that you had dated, slept with, done something with somebody who was going to get their red string someday, while you would remain without it forever. You swallowed down your sigh of relief, and instead crossed your arms over your chest, quickly switching trains of thought to follow this new cover story.

“And that’s what I told him, Jaemin, I swear,” you whispered insistently.

Your friend finished up and switched off his desktop then, giving you a frank look. “How many times, Y/N?”

“I told him like a hundred times—”

“No. You know what I mean.”

You hurried down the stairs, Jaemin right with you, rolling your eyes as you tried to think of a number that wasn’t excessive, but messy enough to possibly warrant a guy turning up at your work. “I don’t know... a few! A girl’s got needs, Jaemin!”

He chuckled and shook his head again, pushing the front door open for you. He turned suddenly, grabbing you by the shoulders and spinning you around to face the building with him, then gestured grandly up and down the entirety of The Soulmate Factory. “A whole ten floors to pick from, Y/N. No messy red strings to worry about after.”

“Yeah, just awkward encounters at work,” you scoffed.

“I heard Park Jisung on the second floor thinks you’re cute.”

“What is this? Middle school?” You elbowed him to get him off of you, ducking out from under his arm and taking off towards your bus stop at a speed walk.

He easily kept pace with you. “I’m just looking out for you. Rule Number 1 of dating with no soulmate: Stay away from people with one.”

“Uh-huh, noted,” you replied shortly. “You done?”

“Are you?”

“Yes! God!”

“Alright.” He was still grinning, clearly finding the whole scenario amusing overall. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Bye, Jaemin.”

A couple nights later found you rooting through the frozen section of a corner store. You’d gotten home from work after yet another day of getting nowhere with this stupid red string and had wanted nothing more than to wallow in misery with a pint of ice cream. Except you had none in your freezer, and your usual corner store was out of your favorite flavor, so you had to go to one several blocks over.

After paying for the ice cream and grabbing a plastic spoon from the available utensils, you hurried out of the shop. Turning sharply onto a side street to take a shortcut back to your apartment, you nearly tripped over somebody sitting on the sidewalk curb, their feet in the street. They were wearing a hoodie with the hood up, and you jumped back as you went to apologize. Then they looked at you over their shoulder, and you stopped your apologies, flabbergasted and a little pissed off at the universe at this point.

“Oh my god, again?” You stared at Sungchan, eyes bugging out of your head.

“Okay, ouch,” he retorted. He had his own pint of ice cream and plastic spoon in hand, about two-thirds of the way done.

“Sorry, I was just… I wanted to drown my sorrowsin ice cream alone.”

He turned away from you, resting his arms on his knees as he went back to looking down at the pavement. “Well, I’ve got dibs on this street corner for sadly eating ice cream.”

You winced. “Sungchan… I’m…”

Sorry? Was that it? Not for wanting to undo the string. Sorry that this all happened to him in the first place, and that he was now sadly eating ice cream by himself on a street corner? Absolutely. Even though you wanted to remove your red string that connected you two as soulmates, you still felt for the guy as a person, and you felt bad just leaving him here. In a different set of circumstances, you could see the two of you being friends. Against your better judgment, you sat down next to him on the curb, opening your pint of ice cream. He looked at you suspiciously out of the corner of his eye, and you caught a glimpse of his damp, bloodshot eyes in the light of the streetlamp above you two before he focused them back down on his own ice cream.

He shoveled a spoonful into his mouth before speaking again. “We’re going to keep running into each other, don’t you get that?”

“Yeah, I know, the string always gets tighter again. But I didn’t think our string would be like a fucking rubber band.” You shook your head, licking the lid of your container clean. “Honestly, this is kind of ridiculous.”

There was a moment of awkward silence as he ate another bite of ice cream.

“The computer doesn’t make mistakes.” He stated bluntly. “That’s what you said the second time we met. Do you actually think that? That what goes on in there is making soulmates? Finding them? Whatever.”

“I-I mean, yeah.” You carefully carved out your first spoonful from the pristine surface. “We do analytics and data gathering post-matching and… yeah, it works.”

He was quiet as you took your bite of ice cream into your mouth.

“Then we’re soulmates.”

You couldn’t swallow quickly enough, mind reeling at you tried to think of anything to say. “But my profile—”

“Whatever may have happened before the computer got our data doesn’t fucking matter, it still did all the same stuff that it does when giving you all the matches that you read,” Sungchan cut you off, and you saw a fresh tear catch the light as it rolled down his cheek. “And it figured that we were soulmates. But suddenly you’re doubting it? Suddenly it’s not right? What’s so fucking special about you?”

“I…”

“Has somebody’s profile even been through the computer twice? Ever? And you want to just stick me back in there. What if it rejects me because it already processed me once? What if I don’t get another match? What if it breaks the whole damn program? The whole fucking Factory?” He wasn’t yelling, but his voice was strong and hoarse at the same time, and you froze up as you felt the anger and hurt in him.

You didn’t have an answer for him. You always had an answer. You always knew, at work, when reading the matches, you just always knew, but you didn’t now. You had nothing, it was all blank, empty in your mind. You swallowed thickly, staring at him as he looked over at you furiously. White hot shame and guilt made your skin prickle.

“I don’t know,” you admitted quietly.

Sungchan put his pint down on the pavement, then covered your hands with his. Even as you held onto your ice cream, you could feel that his skin was colder than yours. “I’m trying to understand you, Y/N, but this isn’t making any sense to me.”

“I thought I’d have a choice,” you told him shakily, slowly pulling your hands away. “I thought I’d be able to choose…”

He blinked, and his face twisted up with pain as he took his hands back. He grabbed his nearly empty carton, standing up and blotting out the lamp light as he towered over you.

“Trust me, you’ve got a choice. A big one.” He sighed bitterly, tossing his container in a nearby trash can. “I’ve said my piece. Goodnight.”

“Where are you going?” You called after him as he started down the sidewalk.

“Somewhere. When you’re ready, you know how to find me.” He lifted his left arm up and waved his hand, his end of the red string fluttering back and forth in the air with the movement.

You watched him continue to walk down the street, not slowing down or looking over his shoulder once. It was only when you could no longer see him that scalding tears welled up in your vision and stung your eyes. You didn’t bother wiping them away as they streamed down your face and fell onto your shirt, leaving dark patches in their wake. Despite the ice cream being your original intent for coming out, you suddenly didn’t have an appetite, burying your face in your arms to cry alone on the curb.

What’s so fucking special about you?

Sungchan’s words were still in the squeal of the bus brakes in the morning, and the hum of strangers’ conversations, and the shuffle of leaves as the wind shook tree branches. You stared at the grooves of the hardwood floor in the breakroom, hearing his voice in the gurgle of the coffee machine as it ran on the counter behind you. You didn’t even need your usual morning cup, still wide awake, as you had been all night. Fingers snapped in front of your eyes, and you lazily dragged your gaze up to the owner of the hand, Renjun.

“You look like shit,” he deadpanned.

You took a long, deep sigh, not even having enough in you to react to the comment as you usually would. “Do you ever think about your soulmate, Renjun?”

“Uh… no?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Because I don’t have one? Remember?”

“I know, Factory employees get taken out of the program. But doesn’t that mean that the computer is really working with incomplete data or whatever? Since it doesn’t actually have every single person in there?”

He crossed his arms over his chest as he seemed to think about this for a moment. “I guess.”

“If we were all in there, we’d get matched up with somebody. Our soulmate. We’re not all in there, but whoever we would be matched with still is. So they just… get their second-best match?”

“What is it that matchmaking lady always says? ‘The computer does more than we’ll ever know?’”

“Ms. Kwon?”

“Yeah, her.” He nodded, turning around to get his cereal down from the cabinet. He answered your question over his shoulder, “No, I’ve never thought about this, Y/N. But you have clearly been doing a lot of thinking about it.”

“Too much,” you groaned. “My head hurts.”

Your coworker’s voice was a bit softer as he offered, “You, me, and Jaemin—Drinks after work?”

After work you ended up on a rooftop bar with Jaemin and Renjun, nursing your second beer of the night as you stared out at the lights of the city. The two of them were chatting about some movie that was coming out this weekend that they were interested in, and all three of you had your feet kicked up on the ledge of the rooftop.

In a lull in their conversation, a finger poked your head from the left. “What’s wrong?” Jaemin asked.

You sighed. “It’s… ugh.”

Another finger poked the right side of your head. “Come on,” Renjun insisted. “You’ve been weird all week.”

You took a swig of your drink, then let out another deep sigh. “Why did you guys start working at the Factory?”

“What?” Renjun scoffed lightly, as if he couldn’t imagine why you’d even ask that.

“Why did you start working at the Factory?” You repeated. “I mean, accepting a life without a soulmate.”

“My parents met at the Factory, actually,” Jaemin said.

“Wait, really?” You turned to him curiously. You knew that Factory employees dating each other wasn’t off-limits, and theoretically that meant they could settle down and have lives sort of like soulmates, but you’d never heard much about it actually happening.

“Yeah, they weren’t soulmates. So it was one of those things where, I don’t know, I got to grow up knowing that there was another way to live.” Jaemin shrugged casually. “I didn’t even really think about the no-soulmate thing when I applied, they just always talked about how much they loved their jobs, it sounded like a cool place to work.”

“I applied at a bunch of different places, this is the first one that called me back,” Renjun gave his own answer.

“Why did you start working here?” Jaemin turned your question back on you.

You tapped your fingernail against the side of your bottle. “Pay’s not bad… And I didn’t… hate the idea of having a say in my love life, you know? Instead of this string showing up one day and telling me who I’m supposed to be with forever. Getting to choose on my own.”

“Sounds like you don’t think the computer knows what it’s doing,” Renjun snorted.

“No, it does! It does! I just… didn’t mind the idea of never knowing.”

Jaemin furrowed his brow curiously. “What do you mean?”

“Like… I can wake up tomorrow and have cereal, or eggs, or buy breakfast on my way into work. There could be someone new on my bus in the morning. I can get a haircut, or dye my hair. It could rain tomorrow, or be sunny, or overcast. Life is always in flux, always changing, new, different.”

“Knowing who your soulmate is, would be too… certain?”

“Some people like having that constant in their life,” Renjun pointed out. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“I don’t know, like what if you get your soulmate and they kind of suck? Then you kind of have to ask yourself what did you do to deserve someone who kind of sucks? Because that’s literally the best you can do,” you ranted, gesturing around to the night sky with your bottle. “At least without a string, there’s always a chance that there’s someone better out there.”

“Ah, you’ve got the Boy Scout mindset,” Jaemin said knowingly. “Just in case. Just in case it rains, I’ll bring an umbrella. Just in case whoever you’re seeing now kind of sucks, you can always try again.”

You crossed your arms defensively. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, since you don’t have a string.”

“Very polite way to say she has commitment issues, Jaemin,” Renjun snickered.

“Rude!” You smacked his arm with the back of your hand.

He wasn’t dissuaded by your minor battery, however. Bringing his two feet back down to the ground, he leaned his elbows forward on his knees and looked over at you, “Sounds like to me, you want infinite second chances. Just in case.”

“There’s only so many of us at the Factory, really,” Jaemin pointed out. “Wouldn’t a soulmate actually be infinite second chances? Since you know you’re destined to be with them, you can kind of mess up as often as you want?”

You frowned, thinking of Sungchan walking away from you. “You really think so? I mean, they’re still a person. Wouldn’t they stop putting up with you after so long? Even if they were your soulmate, I’m sure being alone would be better than having a shit soulmate.”

“Well, then you have to ask: What is a soulmate? Just the best you can do? Or someone who’s going to make you better? Is there such a thing as a shit soulmate?”

“There has to be, right? There’s bad people, and those people have soulmates.”

“Are they bad forever? Are they bad people to their soulmates? Or do they also have shit people for soulmates? So, relative to each other, they don’t even realize that they have a shit soulmate?”

“My head hurts again…” You groaned, pressing the heels of your palms against your temples.

A long silence passed as you three each finished off your beers. Renjun shrugged and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grunt. “Thank God we’ll never know, huh?”

Your Saturday was spent walking. Walking all over town, from your apartment to your bus stop, to the park where Sungchan had been playing Frisbee before, to the corner store where you’d last seen him, and everywhere in between. You kept your head on a swivel, straining for any sign of his tall head over the crowd. But you couldn’t see him anywhere.

When you finally gave up mid-afternoon and went back to your apartment for a late lunch, you knew that you were actually relieved that you hadn’t found him today. If you had ran into him, you didn’t even know what you’d say, where to start, where to end, what to say in the middle. Your head was a jumbled mess, simultaneously too full and too empty. There was no way you’d be able to articulate a single comprehensible word when you yourself didn’t know a shred about anything that you were thinking or feeling.

Sunday you were kept busy with Sungchan’s lingering question. What’s so special about you?

In the moment, it felt like he was asking why you thought you were special enough to be exempt from something that everyone else experienced: getting a red string and finding their soulmate. But as you went about mindless chores in your apartment, doing the dishes, folding laundry, you thought about him.

What’s so special about Sungchan? What would make him your soulmate? And you wondered if he was asking himself the same questions about you.

Monday morning you almost missed your bus. You’d been so distracted going about your morning routine that you ran straight from your apartment building onto the bus, the doors closing right after you. The elderly couple was on today, and you plopped into your seat in front of them, offering them a breathless smile and greeting.

“Tough morning, dear?” The woman asked you knowingly.

“Oh, a bit,” you laughed. “Tough couple of weeks, honestly. But I’ll make it. What’s the new exhibit for this month?”

“It’s a contemporary artist who does large-scale mixed media collages,” the husband explained.

“That sounds so cool! Is there a particular theme for the collection on display or it more eclectic?”

“Oh, we don’t read up much before,” she said with a shake of her head. “We like to go in blind, no presuppositions or expectations, good or bad.”

You continued chatting about the museum with them until their stop to get off, and watched fondly as the man helped his wife up, the both of them bidding you farewell before departing. As the bus peeled away, you were able to glimpse them starting arm-in-arm down the sidewalk together.

After dropping your backpack in your chair, you headed towards the breakroom, where you found Jaemin hunched over something at a counter, his back to the door.

“Renjun’s cereal?” You surmised immediately.

He jumped in place, turning around clutching his chest. “Fuck! You scared the shit out of me, Y/N! Don’t sneak up on a guy like that!” He did in fact have a familiar box in his hand, clearly having been pouring some into a cup.

“I wasn’t sneaking. You just flipped out because you know you’re being a little cereal thief right now.”

He quickly closed up the box and put it away. “There. Like it never happened.”

“Why don’t you just bring your own box of cereal?”

“It just tastes better if it’s free.”

“Stolen.”

“Synonyms.” He grinned slyly, shooting you a wink as he walked out.

As you were milling about, trying to gather everything to start the first pot of coffee, Renjun entered, heading straight for where his cereal was stored. You watched out of the corner of your eye as he grabbed it, froze midair, and tested the weight of it in his hand.

“Na Jaemin…” He hissed, slamming the container onto the counter.

“Suggestion—” You announced, turning around to look at him with your arms crossed over your chest. “Keep the cereal at your desk instead of leaving it here unattended where he steals it all the time.”

“I never keep food at my desk. What if it attracts ants?”

“Padlock.”

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You may be onto something there…”

Renjun wandered out of the room, still musing over this with the cereal box tucked under his arm. You realized you didn’t really want a cup of coffee and put the empty coffee mug away.

The weekly agenda meeting was short and sweet, and you were slow to follow the other matchmakers down the hall after. You were the very last one to swipe in, and to take your seat at your station. Everyone else was already reading their matches, but you just stared at your blank screen, not even turning it on yet. At some point, two weeks ago, someone in this room, one of your coworkers—or maybe even you—had read a match result, looked up a bunch of numbers, and submitted a match report that had changed your life forever. You listened to them clacking away at their keyboards, dozens more strangers’ lives being irreparably altered like yours was.

“Y/N?” Your name was called from across the room, and you whipped your head around to look over at Ms. Kwon, standing in the doorway of her office. She gestured for you to come over. “A moment?”

“Oh, of course, ma’am.” You rushed to stand, hurrying up the stairs and following her into her office.

She closed the door behind you, sitting back down behind her desk, and offering the chairs across from her for you. You nervously took the one closest to the door.

“Is everything alright with you?” Your supervisor asked gently. “You’ve been sitting at your station for the past fifteen minutes and haven’t turned the screen on…”

“Sorry…” You winced, self-conscious as you pictured Ms. Kwon watching you stare at a blank screen for fifteen minutes. “I’m uhm… I…”

“Have something on your mind?”

“It’s worth it, right? Giving up your soulmate to work here?”

Ms. Kwon took your question in stride, folding her hands together over her desk as she answered, “It’s good work that we do here, Y/N, don’t get me wrong. Necessary. But choosing to live without a soulmate, that’s not a noble sacrifice on our part. We’re not any better than anybody else because we choose to work here and they don’t. I don’t know a single executive here who would talk about it like that.”

You could feel all façades slip off your face, your eyes widening slightly and your mouth parting, though no sound came out.

At your apparent speechlessness, Ms. Kwon continued, “We’re not... monks or nuns taking some holy vow, Y/N. It’s morally neutral. Neither good nor bad. It just is.”

A split-second of rage burst inside you. “Then why would any of you choose it? Why would anybody go without a soulmate?”

“Why did you?” She asked you calmly.

“I... was afraid to know,” you admitted quietly.

“Everyone here is sort of like that. They have some other reason. It’s usually not a good one, but they never have to confront it. Ever.”

“So the Factory... is the easy way out?”

“Y/N, listen to the words I’m telling you: It is neither good nor bad to choose to work here. It just is.”

“Is it good to have your soulmate, then?”

“I am not the arbiter of good or bad in your life. I’m just your boss,” she replied, sounding a bit tired now. “Look, you’re very smart. That’s why you were chosen for matchmaking. But I’m urging you to stop this line of thinking here. This is how you end up—”

“I’m resigning,” you declared, and suddenly all of the noise in your mind was quiet.

“That is what I was afraid of,” she sighed. “May I ask why?”

“I… have a soulmate.”

“Of course you do.” Ms. Kwon smiled placidly. “All of us at the Factory do. But quitting now will not put your profile back in to get matched with them.”

“No, I—I was matched. Somehow, I don’t know how, but… I have a red string, Ms. Kwon.” You held up your right hand, pointing to your pinky, even though you knew she couldn’t see it. You couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden lightness of your shoulders. “I have a soulmate, and… this is just a job. It’s a good job, and I love it. But there’s other jobs. I don’t have another soulmate.”

She was quiet for a moment, simply looking at you intensely. After a moment, she reached out to hover her hands over her keyboard. “Would you mind if I took just a moment to confirm? It’ll take less than a minute.”

“Sure, go for it.”

Ms. Kwon quickly typed away and clicked a few things on her mouse as you quite literally twiddled your thumbs over your lap. Just a few seconds later, she took her glasses off, rubbing between her brows as she let out a deep sigh. “So it seems you have been…” She sat back in her chair. “Have you… found them?”

“Uhm, yes, ma’am,” you nodded awkwardly.

“This is why you were so interested in undoing matches as of late, I presume.”

“Yes… but not anymore.”

She sat there for a few more moments, eyes closed, before putting her glasses back on and sitting up straight again. “I accept your resignation, Y/N. With a heavy heart, might I add.”

“That means a lot, Ms. Kwon.”

“There will need to be an investigation.”

“I figured.”

“I expect full cooperation from both you and your soulmate.”

“Oh, uh, sure, sure.”

Ms. Kwon looked at you oddly. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“We’re not… exactly… friendly… right now…” You admitted quietly. “And it’s completely my fault…”

She let out a few soft, wistful chuckles. “He didn’t take too kindly to you attempting to ‘undo’ your string, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.” You shook your head, biting the inside of your cheek regretfully.

“The string will tighten again, Y/N,” she reassured you, her voice kind. “The computer doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Right. Thank you, Ms. Kwon.”

She cleared her throat, becoming formal and businesslike again. “Provided the investigation turns up exactly what I think it will, I’ll also write an excellent reference letter for you, if you would like.”

“What do you think the investigation will turn up?”

“A mistake. Something was misfiled. A paper was put in the wrong stack. A name left off an email. I don’t think you tampered with the program somehow to put yourself back in. Did you?”

“No, ma’am, not at all.”

“There we go.” She shrugged. “Do you have anything else for me?”

“I get my severance pay and all that, right?”

“Of course.”

You stood up, set your key card on the desk, and shook her hand before leaving her office, walking right out of the matchmaking room as the others kept at it at their stations. Making a beeline for your desk, you could see several heads of your coworkers popping up to peer at you curiously before looking back down at their computers. One remained up and focused intently on you from further down your row, Renjun.

As you stopped next to Jaemin and opened your backpack at your desk, he took his headphones off to turn to you. “Uh hey…?”

“Hi,” you replied cheerily, beginning to grab personal possessions off your desk and load them into your bag.

“What are you doing?”

At this point, Renjun had stood up from his desk and stalked over to you two, eyes wide as he took in what you were doing. “What’s going on?”

“I quit!” You informed them, not being particularly quiet about it.

“What?!” “Seriously?!”

“Seriously,” you confirmed, unplugging the receiver for your personal wireless mouse, and putting it back inside said mouse, before chucking the whole thing into your bag. “Resigned. Quit. Handed in my zero day notice.”

“Why? I thought you loved this job!” Renjun sputtered out, his hands on his hips.

“Yeah! Like, I thought you were going to be Director one day!” Jaemin nodded. “What happened?”

You looked around the wide-open bullpen, still having enough tact to not want to blab about your string in front of everybody. Zipping up your backpack and throwing one strap over your shoulder, you asked your friends innocently, “Walk me out?”

They practically dragged you down the stairs, flanking you on either side, none of you saying a word until you were outside.

“What’s going on?” Renjun demanded as soon as the front doors closed behind you. “Is it something we need to know about? Should we be looking for other jobs?”

“Did you ask for a raise or something and they wouldn’t give it to you?” Jaemin asked. “Or a promotion? Or—”

“No, it’s nothing like that. You guys are fine,” you promised them, lacing your two hands together in front of you. Taking a deep breath, you admitted, “I have a red string, and I found my soulmate.”

Their jaws dropped, and they looked at each other, flabbergasted, then at you, then each other again, then stared at you. Renjun was the first to shake himself out of his stupefied state, “How did that even—”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know how much I can even say until the Factory finishes their investigation, so…” You trailed off. “Yeah, that’s why I quit. And Ms. Kwon didn’t ask me to stay.”

Jaemin’s eyes widened comically as he pointed at you accusatorily. “The guy at lunch, was he your—”

“Yeah, that was him.” You rubbed the back of your neck nervously. “Anyway, you guys can’t say anything to anybody else at the Factory, okay? Just let management handle this however they want to. Keep your noses out of it.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Renjun asked.

“Uh… try to find him? Again?” You said sheepishly.

“You lost him?” Jaemin asked in disbelief. “Like, in a well or something? How? What?”

“We kind of had a fight… Let’s just say the ball’s in my court, and I don’t know how to play.”

He patted you on the back. “You’ve got this, Y/N.”

“Thanks,” you nodded to him gratefully. “I should let you two get back to work now. Thank you both, again, for being the best work buddies a girl could ask for.”

“Hey, don’t talk like you’re going off and dying,” Renjun scoffed, poking the right side of your head.

“Yeah, we’re your real buddies, too.” Jaemin poked the left side of your head. “I still owe you your book.”

“You two have got to make sure you don’t kill each other over cereal in the mornings on your own now. I won’t be there to referee,” you warned as you took a step back, facing them.

“As long as Jaemin keeps his grubby mitts to himself, no problem.” Renjun nodded.

Jaemin grinned. “No promises.”

You laughed, going in to give each of them a hug. “Bye, guys. I’ll see you around.”

And you proceeded to walk. From the riverside park near the Factory, to the curb where you’d eaten ice cream together, to your favorite bookstore. You walked until your feet ached and your stomach growled, and even after that. You found new parts of the city that you’d never seen, never had any reason to go to before. As you came up to a street of small shops, you peered into each window carefully as you passed by. Your feet skidded to a stop all on their own and your heart leapt to your throat as you inadvertently made eye contact with a patron right on the other side of the glass of one store. The exact person you’d been looking for.

While Sungchan froze in place, you ran for the entrance to the shop, throwing open the door and ducking around shelves and displays to find him still glued to the same spot, staring out the window at the pavement where you used to be. You grabbed his left hand with your right, watching the string complete itself, and pulled him around to face you.

“Sungchan!” You said his name breathlessly, a relieved smile on your face. “Found you!”

“Y/N…” His voice was guarded, uncertain, gaze trailing over your red jumpsuit that you were still in. “Are you… on your lunch break?”

“No, I uh, I resigned this morning,” you told him, not an ounce of remorse in your tone.

His eyes widened, and his demeanor immediately changed as he looked down at you with concern. “What? You didn’t have to—Y/N, what happened? Oh my god, what are you going to do?”

A throat was very conspicuously cleared from nearby, and you snapped your head over in the direction of it, spotting a group of several guys leaning against shelves further down the store, a few trying to look busy and not like they had just been listening to your conversation. One stood at the front of them, looking directly at Sungchan.

“Oh, sorry, guys,” Sungchan waved them off. “Go on without me, okay?”

And with that, he set down the merchandise he had been browsing—which you were now seeing was a stack of old magazines; it looked as though you were in a thrift store of some kind—and pulled you out the door by the hand. Just a little ways down the street was a bench overlooking the river, and the two of you stopped there.

“I wouldn’t have been able to keep working there with a red string, Sungchan,” you explained. “If I didn’t resign, I would’ve been fired whenever they found out. I wanted to tell them myself.”

He frowned. “When I said you had a choice…”

“I chose to keep the string, and stop looking for a way to undo it. I know that’s what you were asking me.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask…” he sighed. “What made you change your mind?”

“A lot of different things, but… I think realizing that I’m not that special.”

“Y/N, I—”

“No, I mean, I kind of had this complex about working at the Factory. Thinking that it was some sacrifice for the greater good, me giving up my soulmate so I could help other people find theirs. But like… it was just a job.” You laughed at how ridiculous that sounded now, even just a few hours after resigning.

Sungchan smiled a little at that, but still looked pensive. “So what are you going to do for work now?”

“I don’t know,” you admitted quietly, but couldn’t keep the giddy grin off your face. “That’s really scary… but it’s kind of exciting, in a weird way, right? I’ve had the same job since I got out of school, and now I can do anything.”

“We’ll find you a job. That’s like, Priority One, okay?” He reassured you. “We’ll do some brainstorming, find some job listings, we’ll figure something out.”

“We?”

“Yeah?” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m not leaving you out to dry after all this.”

“Thanks, Sungchan.” You fidgeted with your fingers, eyes gracing over the finished red string again. “And uh, if that’s Priority One, then Priority Two is probably going to have to be the investigation.”

“The what?”

“The Bureau has to investigate how this even happened, our match. Me resigning was just the beginning, not the end. They’re expecting our full cooperation.”

“What are we going to have to cooperate with, exactly?” He crossed his arms.

“They’ll probably just want to ask us some questions. Me more than you, since I’m the one who actually worked there. Ms. Kwon—my old boss—made it sound like it’d be more a formality than anything else. I’m sure they’re already auditing all my match reports for the past two years, and looking through my key card log, and going through my computer as we speak.”

“Alright, yeah. Fine.”

With his agreement, the two of you were quiet for a moment, and you felt an air of uncertainty. You’d found each other, you were soulmates, you weren’t trying to undo your string anymore, and yet you were still practically strangers. Where did you go from here?

“So… what’s your favorite color?” You asked.

“What?” He blinked, seeming confused at the sudden change in topic.

“I don’t know anything about you…” You said quietly, feeling your skin get warm with embarrassment. “I don’t know, that’s just the first thing that came to mind. Forget it, it was stupid.”

He chuckled and answered anyway, “Purple. My favorite color is purple.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“What’s yours?”

“Pink. Uh, cotton candy pink, specifically.”

“That’s good. That’s really good.” He was still laughing, more than your awkward question warranted.

“Okay, what’s so funny? Other than me being stupid.”

“No, I’m not laughing at you, it’s just…” He reassured you, trailing off as he seemed to be trying to put his thoughts together. “There’re all these books, and magazine articles and stuff, you know. 15 Things to Not Do When You Meet Your Soulmate. 10 Best Opening Lines for Meeting the One. I Met My Soulmate and It’s Awkward: Now What? How to Get Over First Meeting Flutters. And you’re nothing like that. You’ve probably never even read anything of that sort of stuff, have you?”

“No…” You shook your head, then squinted at him suspiciously. “Have you?”

He held his hands up defensively. “Well, call it morbid curiosity—”

You couldn’t help but giggle, attempting to cover it with your hand, having the perfect image of him lying on his bed on his stomach, legs kicking up behind him as he scrolled on his phone late at night reading cheesy internet columns about love.

“And that’s funny, yeah, okay. I didn’t fool you with the… yeah.” Sungchan laughed again, this time at himself, and you were quickly starting to think that it might be your favorite sound.

“It’s cute, it’s cute!” You promised. “I’m uhm, sure me running away really threw a wrench in whatever great opening line you had planned.”

“Yes and no.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You were really pretty, and when I looked at you, I suddenly forgot every word I knew. And then you ran away, and I was just confused at how I had messed it up before opening my mouth.”

Your body burned on the inside and outside twofold from him simultaneously saying you were so pretty it made him speechless, and also the shame at how stupendously you had fucked up your first meeting. You squeezed your eyes shut, covered your face with both hands, and shook your head as you groaned out an apology, “Oh god, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine, really— Helped snap me out of it, you know?” He chuckled, and you were glad he could at least see some humor in it now. “Looking back now, completely understandable for you to do that. Sorry again for chasing you through the streets, I’m sure that didn’t help.”

“Also understandable on your part,” you said. Before you could scramble for another thing to ask Sungchan, your stomach rumbled loudly, and you cringed, knowing full well that he had definitely been able to hear that. “Sorry…”

“I was supposed to grab food with the guys anyway.” Sungchan stood up. “Let’s get you something to eat, hm?”

You followed him to a small café a couple streets away, and after grabbing your food, you two sat at a table outside. “So what do you do? For work? Or are you a student? You know quite a bit about my old job, but…”

“Oh, I’m an artist.”

“What kind? Like, what medium? Is that the right way to ask that? I guess I’m asking what kind of stuff you make?”

“Don’t worry, those were all good questions. Different questions, but good.” He smiled warmly, taking a sip of his drink before answering. “I mostly focus on making mixed media collages. Sometimes I source my materials from other places, but sometimes I make it myself. Take my own pictures, paint it myself, put the clay on myself. Just depends. So I work with a lot of different materials and mediums, too.”

“Oh!” You immediately thought of the couple you talked to on the bus that morning. “You should totally check out the art museum on 2nd this month! I heard they have an exhibit showcasing mixed media collages. I haven’t been, but there’s this couple on my bus in the mornings who goes every month, they told me about it today.”

“Did they say the artist?” He asked mildly, picking at his food with his utensil.

“No, they don’t do any research before, they like to go in blind.”

“Yeah, uhm, that’s my exhibit,” he practically whispered the last two words behind a napkin as he wiped his mouth with it, looking down at his plate. His ears were bright red, and he grabbed his drink to take another long sip.

Your eyes widened. “Wait really?”

“I understand if you think I’m lying, it’s on the exhibit webpage on the museum website, but yeah…”

“Sungchan, that’s so cool!” You exclaimed, even as you brought out your phone to bring up the website. Not because you didn’t believe him, but just because reading the headline of how the museum was proud to feature ‘New Local Artist Jung Sungchan’ in an exclusive exhibit was practically surreal. He, however, still couldn’t seem to meet your eyes. “Why do you look like you want to die?”

“I didn’t want to use my real name, but my… manager thought it would be a good idea. And obviously I had to tell you.” He rubbed a hand over his face, making everything from his forehead to his neck pink. “I just hate people looking at my art and thinking they know me. They can look at my art all I want, project onto it, feel from it, call it stupid, say they could have done better, I don’t care, I just don’t want them to know it’s mine and think they know me because of it.”

“Who’s your manager that made you use your real name? Don’t artists use pseudonyms sometimes?”

“My sister’s husband. He’s good at his job, and he’s done a lot for me. I’m really thankful for him, honestly. It was more like when I was first starting out, he thought that using a pseudonym would make me seem sort of pretentious. People would like a regular guy a lot more.” Sungchan sighed. “I agreed, and have regretted that decision with every art show I’ve attended since.”

You nodded slowly, tapping your fingers on the tabletop in a rhythm as you thought. “So… why do you think you make art, then?”

“I have to,” he shrugged. “Not making art would be worse. People connecting with my art… I like that. But I don’t like when they try to assume things about me because of my art. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does,” you assured him. “Death of the collagist.”

His face cracked into a grin. “Exactly.”

“Would you mind if I went to your exhibit sometime?” You asked. “You totally don’t have to come, I’m sure that’d be weird for you. But I’d like to go see it, and not make any assumptions about you at all.”

“It’s a public museum, I can’t stop you from going.”

“Well, yes… I don’t know, it’s still your art, and I’m not just a member of the public, am I?”

Sungchan’s eyes held a softness as he looked at you across the table, and he shook his head. “No, you’re not just a member of the public to me.”

“And you’re not just some random artist to me,” you responded.

“I wouldn’t mind if you went, on one condition.”

“Mm?” You prompted, expecting it to be something along the lines of ‘don’t tell me what you think’ or ‘don’t ever mention it to me.’ Nothing at all in the realm of what he actually requested.

“I go with you.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “Wait really?”

“Really.”

“Okay, yeah, of course!”

“Then it’s a date.”

You nodded, suddenly feeling shy at him calling it a date, turning your eyes back down to your food. “Yeah, okay. A date.”

You ended up spending the whole day with Sungchan, just getting to know each other. And browsing online job listings for you—turns out he wasn’t kidding about that being Priority One.

He used revising your résumé as an opportunity to learn more about you. Education—Oh where did you go to school? What did you study? Which devolved into you two telling stories about classes you liked, professors and teachers you loved and hated, and old school friends. Work Experience—So what actually was your official title? What were your job responsibilities? Which led to you fondly reminiscing in your times at the office with Jaemin and Renjun, talking about your training to be a Systems Analytics Specialist, and his disbelief in how exactly you even did your job. It was when you got to the Skills portion that you balked a little bit. It felt like your only skills were specific to the Factory: reading the matches from the computer, inputting match reports, keeping Renjun from killing Jaemin over a box of cereal. Sungchan helped you get a bit creative with your technological experience, creative thinking, quick learning, and conflict resolution skills.

As he walked you back to your apartment after getting dinner together, you were still asking him your never-ending stream of questions. “So what were you supposed to be doing with your friends today?”

“I was collecting.” He craned his neck up, and you followed his line of vision to look up at the few specks of light in the sky that you could see against the brightness of the city. “Gathering materials for collages. Thrift stores are pretty good for old magazines, books, newspapers, photo albums, all kinds of stuff. The guys were tagging along, they wanted to get lunch and do some shopping too.”

“Oh. Sorry for taking you away from them.”

He gave you a funny look. “No.”

“What?”

“No, you’re not going to apologize for that.”

You blinked at him in confusion. “Uh… I think I already did?”

He stopped you two in the middle of the sidewalk, devoid of other pedestrians, holding your eye contact very seriously. “Thank you for finding me today.”

“Oh,” you chuckled nervously. “You’re welcome. Thank you for… everything else about today. The look on your face when I found you—I was sort of afraid that you were going to run this time.”

He laughed, continuing to walk again. “Did I really look like that?”

“Through the window, yeah. When I came in the shop, though, it was more like… you thought you were dreaming. Like you were going to pinch yourself at any moment, just in case. Or you thought I was pranking you.”

“Well, you’ll have to understand why I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high; all our previous meetings didn’t quite have fairytale endings.”

“No, they didn’t,” you agreed.

“But this time felt different. So I let myself be a little hopeful,” he admitted with a grin, nudging your arm with his. “And I was right.”

“How’d you figure that?”

“You didn’t act like finding me was a terrible inconvenience, first.”

You winced. “Mm-mhm.”

“And the smile on your face when you ran in and grabbed my hand.”

“What about it?”

“I’d never seen you smile before that.” He then added a teasing, “I didn’t know if you could.”

“Hey! I wasn’t that bad.”

He snickered, affectionately bumping his elbow against yours again. You rolled your eyes, smiling as you elbowed him back. You arrived at the main entry to your building soon, and you stopped there to say goodbye to Sungchan. He looked between the door that you were standing in front of, and the familiar bus stop just a few meters down the road, well within view.

“Oh wow, it must have really freaked you out when I jogged by your stop, huh?” He commented, scratching the back of his head.

“Yeah, you can imagine the ‘ready to fistfight the divine universe’ energy I had in my body at that point.”

He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Pretty sure I witnessed some of it, too.”

You looked longingly at the bus stop, holding yourself, and sighed. “It’s going to be weird not getting up and going to work tomorrow.”

“So what are you going to do tomorrow? With no work?”

You passed a bubble side to side in your mouth as you thought, then shrugged. “Sleep in?”

“Great way to start the day.”

“And then… send my résumé to some of those places we found?”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Probably read outside somewhere if it’s a nice day?”

“Ooh, sounds nice.”

You dug your toe into the ground. “I don’t know, what are you doing?”

“Sleep in, and I promised Shotaro I’d help him with this thing, but then… if you don’t mind the company, I think reading outside sounds pretty lovely?”

“What are you helping Shotaro with?”

“Taking Instagram pictures.”

You let out a short round of giggles. “I’d like to spend time with you tomorrow too, Sungchan. Just let me know when you’re done helping Shotaro with that thing.”

“It’ll be the quickest photoshoot he’s ever done in his life.”

“No, still do it right!”

“It’ll be right, just quick.”

You shook your head disapprovingly, but the fond smile on your face very obviously negated that sentiment. “Goodnight, Sungchan.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

And with that, you unlocked your building door and gave him one last wave over your shoulder before closing and locking it back up behind you. Alone in the stairwell, you let out a sigh of contentment.

The next morning, you slept in on a Tuesday for the first time in a while and didn’t put on your red jumpsuit after getting out of bed. Instead, you shuffled out to your kitchen and made yourself breakfast, which you slowly enjoyed with a cup of tea. After taking your sweet time in a nice hot shower, you got into a t-shirt and pants, and sat on your couch to start sending in applications to new jobs. As you typed on your laptop, you’d catch the occasional flash of the red loop around your pinky finger, but instead of filling you with you dread or apprehension, it now made you smile a bit, and push on with your task, knowing you had someone right there in your corner just on the other end of that string. After a couple hours of filling out applications, searching through more prospective job listings, and finding a few new ones that had been posted since you and Sungchan looked yesterday, you deemed that to be plenty for your first morning of job hunting. It was nearly lunchtime, and you hadn’t left your apartment yet. Looking outside, you saw that it was sunny, with a few passing clouds creating occasional patches of shadow, and breezes gently rustled the leaves on the trees. A perfectly lovely day.

Gathering up a couple books, you packed a light going-out bag, then headed out. As you passed your bus stop, you thought of the regulars on your morning commute, and wondered if they noticed your disappearance this morning, and if they thought anything of it, like you thought of the primary school teacher sometimes. You hoped the sisters got to school okay, and that the elderly couple liked Sungchan’s exhibit, and even that the office workers who you had never spoken to had good days at work—not too terribly stressful. As you had just arrived at your destination and picked out the perfect spot to read, your phone buzzed with a text.

[sungchan: done! with a satisfied customer, might i add]

[you: oh good! i’m done with my applications for the morning too! out reading right now]

You sent your location, then took your book out as there was another buzz.

[sungchan: omw :) ]

You were so caught up in the chapter you were reading that you didn’t realize Sungchan had arrived until he set his bag down next to you. You jumped a little bit, closing the book on your thumb as you clutched your hand over your heart, which was now beating wildly out of rhythm.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a scare.” Sungchan didn’t look that sorry, as he had a clearly amused smirk on his face as he looked down at you. “I did call your name.”

“It’s alright, sorry I didn’t hear you.” You waved off his apology, then nodded to the spot beside you for him to sit down. “Lovely day out, huh?”

“It is,” he agreed, stretching out his long legs as he settled in against the large tree trunk. He reached into his bag, and you looked with intrigue at what book he was going to read for today.

You perked up with interest as you recognized the cover immediately. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to read that book! I love that author. Just haven’t picked it up yet.”

“Yeah it uhm—” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “It was the book you were looking at when we met. The one you dropped.”

“You…”

“I didn’t know how long it was going to be until the next time I saw you, so I went back and bought it. You know, sort of hoping I could learn something about you in the meantime.”

“And in the meantime, I was scheming to undo our string…” You muttered, eyes falling to your lap.

“Which you, no offense, failed at,” he clicked his tongue and elbowed you teasingly. “I’ll speedread so you can borrow it after me, okay?”

“No, read it right! That author’s so good, you’ll miss stuff!”

“I’ll read it carefully! Just also super fast.”

“Those are literally antonyms when it comes to reading!” You insisted.

“You’ve never seen me speedread then.”

You smacked your open book over your face, despite knowing that he was joking. “Oh my god…”

Two weeks later, and you and Sungchan were going to The Soulmate Factory for your interviews. You were sort of surprised it had taken them this long to talk to you, but at the same time, that it was happening this quickly. It felt weird going to the Factory not in your jumpsuit, but you knew that would’ve been possibly the worst choice. So you instead put on something nice, presentable, but not overly formal. After all, it wasn’t your job interview again. Sungchan was wearing a button-up shirt, a stark contrast to the rather casual attire you’d always seen him in before. As the two of you entered the lobby of the Factory, you could see him looking around at everything with an air of suspicion.

You stopped at the front desk, giving the attendant a polite smile and starting to introduce yourself, despite having just been colleagues a few weeks ago, “Hi, uhm Y/L/N Y/N and Jung Sungchan, here for a 9:00 appointment with Ms. Kwon?”

“Of course,” she nodded, looking between you and Sungchan with a strained smile of her own. “You… two can have a seat. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

Leading Sungchan over to sit on a settee nearby, you looked around, taking a few deep breaths as your knee bounced up and down nervously on its own. You had gotten the two of you here fifteen minutes early, so you already knew that you’d be waiting for some time.

“Why did she say it like that?” He hissed to you under his breath.

“Say what?” You whispered back, looking at her out of the corner of your eye to see if she was listening, but it looked like she was taking an incoming call.

“You two can have a seat.” He repeated snidely. “And the way she looked at us? Looked at you? Like we’re the weird ones for being soulmates?”

“I told you, Sungchan, there’s a reason Bureau employees don’t get soulmates. People will think I rigged it somehow. Even other employees.”

“You said it was impossible for you to have messed with it. Shouldn’t they of all people know that?”

“Well, with me being a matchmaker…” You tried to think of how to succinctly sum this up without telling Sungchan too much stuff that he wasn’t supposed to know right before his interview. “Even other Bureau employees don’t know what goes on in the matchmaking room. I’m sure there’s been rumors since I’ve left.”

“But you didn’t do anything. What’s the point of working here if you’re just as bad as the people who don’t?”

“They also probably think that when this gets out I’m going to give the Bureau and the employees here a bad rep, make the public distrust them for a while. Even the employees that don’t think I did anything will probably hate me at least a little for that.”

“Well I still don’t like it,” he huffed, resting an arm along the back of the furniture behind you.

“You’re allowed to not like it. I’m just saying there’s not much we can do about it.”

He proceeded to focus his hater energy on making comments about the décor being tacky, and you couldn’t help but giggle quietly and join in. You never really thought about it much before, but being called The Soulmate Factory and having a color palette of red, pink, and white was a bit much. You two also had a small game of how many “subtle” red lines you could find in the designs of decorative throw pillows, rugs, carpeting, and pieces of abstract art on the walls. Finally, you heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and looked up to see a somewhat familiar face. It wasn’t Ms. Kwon, as you had hoped for, but Lee Jeno, one of the executive assistants that you often saw when he was sent down from the ninth floor on important errands by his bosses.

“Jung Sungchan?” He called, looking directly at Sungchan.

“Yeah, that’s me.” He lifted his hand that had been resting on his leg between pointing out tacky décor. He ushered you up with him with the hand that was behind you on the couch. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

“Sorry, just Mr. Jung right now,” Jeno clarified with a slight wince.

Sungchan looked like he was about to argue, but you patted his arm reassuringly. “It’ll be fine, Sungchan. I’ll see you in a bit, okay?”

He sighed, giving your shoulder a squeeze. “Alright, fine. I’ll be back soon.”

“Be good.”

“Always am.”

You watched him follow Jeno up the stairs, Sungchan casting you one last glance over his shoulder before the two of them fully disappeared from your view. It was then that you finally sat back down, and started chewing on your thumbnail.

Only fifteen minutes later Jeno came back down the stairs. Alone. “Y/N?” He addressed you more casually.

You stood up and didn’t hide the concern on your face as you looked around behind him. “Where’s Sungchan?”

“Mr. Jung has been moved to another waiting room. You’ll see him after your interview.”

Letting out a breath, you tried really hard not to shoot the messenger as you responded. “Fine. Lead the way, Jeno.”

The fact that you were going up the stairs and not to the elevator was interesting. You must not be going to his bosses’ floor, unless they wanted you to collapse on your way there.

“It’s good to see you again, by the way,” your former coworker said quietly. “I had to hand-deliver a memo to Ms. Kwon the other day and the matchmaking room was weirdly empty without you at your station.”

“Thanks.” A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “I wouldn’t have even noticed your presence if I was there but… it’s nice to know that someone noticed my absence.”

“Well, we did our intro training together. You don’t forget those people.”

“No, you don’t,” you agreed. “Us, Jaemin, Renjun, Donghyuck in Budgeting.”

“Is it nice? Your life now? Don’t tell me anything specific, I can’t know.”

You laughed. “I haven’t lived much of it, honestly. I’ve only been gone a few weeks.”

“That’s true. There’s just been so much that’s happened, it feels like a lifetime.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“But has it been good at least? Overall, you think?”

“Yeah, it’s good, Jeno. He’s good.”

“Of course he is. The computer never makes mistakes.” And with that, the two of you stopped in front of a conference room on the second floor. He nodded politely to you. “This is where I leave you. If I don’t see you again, I wish you the best, Y/N. With everything.”

“Thank you. Bye, Jeno.” You smiled at him, knocking on the door as he pivoted on his heel and walked down the hall.

“Come in.” Came a familiar voice from within. Opening the door, you saw two figures stand up from the small conference table. Ms. Kwon, and a man who wasn’t familiar to you at all.

“Y/N, hello,” Ms. Kwon nodded to you. She didn’t even let you open your mouth to greet her back, gesturing to the man with her. “I’m not sure if you ever had the pleasure to meet AD Yang of Risk Management while you were here.”

And in one curt sentence, she had told you everything you needed to know about the situation: This was the assistant director of the risk management department at the Bureau, aka the legal department, which meant that this was serious serious, this would not be some quick interview to check off boxes, and she had only been let in because of her job title and as a professional courtesy to her, she wouldn’t be in control of the processions. But most importantly—she was on your side, for whatever that was worth. And honestly, it was worth a lot to keeping your composure as you turned to face the man.

AD Yang was deceptively young, you wouldn’t have pinned him as being as high up in the Bureau as he was just by looking at him. He only looked to be maybe ten years older than you, not a touch of grey in his pristine black hair, and only a hint of the beginning of worry lines on his forehead. He wore a suit, as all Bureau Executives did—it was only the lower level workers like you who wore the red jumpsuits—though his looked just a little too big on him, and his red tie was a little loose and slightly crooked, as if he still hadn’t mastered tying it yet. Both these things only aided in making him look younger and inexperienced. But the air of caution Ms. Kwon had about the whole situation immediately let you know not to underestimate him. You were thinking maybe his dress choices were intentional, so people would do exactly that, let their guards down around him.

AD Yang offered you a practically boyish smile as he held out his hand across the table, which your former supervisor hadn’t even done. You gingerly shook it as he introduced himself. “Please, just Mr. Yang is fine. Ms. Kwon is always so formal, you know. And I’ll call you Ms. Y/L/N, so we’re all on the same level here.”

You nodded.

“I don’t think we ever did have the pleasure to meet, Ms. Y/L/N,” Mr. Yang kept talking, his tone conversational. He then said as if it were a joke, “People usually only see me when they’re in serious trouble, you know?” He laughed, the only one to, then reassured you, “That isn’t what’s happening here, don’t worry. We’re just going to ask you a few questions, then you and Mr. Jung can head on out and off to your new life together, okay?”

You nodded.

“So, why don’t we sit, hm?”

The three of you took your seats, the two of them on one side of the conference table, you on the other. Mr. Yang took a moment to shuffle his papers, then smacked his hand to his forehead as if he’d suddenly remembered something. “I’m sorry, would you like some water, Ms. Y/L/N?”

“No, thank you.”

“Alright, let’s get started then.” He reached for a small device in the middle of the table. “I’ll be needing to record this conversation. Is that alright, Ms. Y/L/N?”

“Sure, yeah.” Not like you could really say no.

“Great.” His boyish smile disappeared as soon as the recorder clicked on. He started by listing off the date and time, then addressed you. “This is AD Robert Yang, interviewing Ms. Y/L/N Y/N. Also present is Ms. Kwon Siyeon, Supervisor of Systems Analysis and Reporting. Ms. Y/L/N, you are aware that I’m recording this conversation, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Yes.”

“A few formalities before we begin: Since I have the recording going, I ask that you let me finish my question before you answer, even if you think you know what I’m going to ask. Cross-chatter is a bit difficult to parse out when you have to listen back to it.”

“Okay.”

“I also want you to answer everything aloud. No nodding or shaking your head, or ‘uh-huh’ or ‘nuh-unh.’” He showed the motions as he did them, and you could tell he had done this spiel many times before. “The non-verbal cues don’t translate great in an audio format.”

“Will do.”

“Thank you.” He cleared his throat, clicked his pen a couple of times, then looked up at you to begin with his first question. “Now, can you tell me how long you worked at The Bureau of Interpersonal Affairs prior to your resignation?”

“About five years.”

“Do you remember when your first day was?”

“Of training or on my own?”

“Training. After being hired.”

“Probably… spring five years ago. May, after I graduated.”

“Okay, good, good. And so you were hired, did your six months of standard training, right?”

“Right.”

“Then what happened?”

“I did more training to be a Systems Analytics Specialist.”

“How much?”

“Two and a half years.”

“So three years of training total, then you got to start on your own as a… Systems Analytics Specialist.”

“Yes.”

“I believe the other name for that position is matchmaker, correct?”

You bit down on your tongue to keep back an eyeroll. All of you in this room had to be aware that he was feigning ignorance right now. He might as well have asked if the Bureau was also sometimes called The Soulmate Factory. “Yes, we’re often called that as well.”

“More than Systems Analytics Specialist?”

“Yes.”

He jumped topics. “So why did you start working at the Bureau?”

“It sounded like a good place to work.”

“How so?”

“It seemed like the Bureau did good work. Helping people find their soulmates.”

“And you didn’t want to find yours?”

“I was willing to give that up for something bigger than me.”

“Did you join the Bureau with the intent of manipulating your soulmate match?”

“No.”

“Did you sign up to be a matchmaker with the intent of manipulating your soulmate match?”

“No. I didn’t sign up to be a matchmaker in the first place.”

“You didn’t?” He arched an eyebrow curiously.

“No.”

“How did you become a matchmaker?”

You glanced over at your former boss. “Ms. Kwon chose me at the end of my six months of basic training.”

“Why you?”

“I don’t know.” You shrugged.

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“You agreed to two and a half more years of training for a specialized position that doesn’t even recruit one new person a year without being told why you were suited for that position?”

“Yes. I was young and it paid better. I didn’t need to know.”

“When you were working as a matchmaker, were you ever asked by friends or family to manipulate their matches in any way, shape, or form?” He switched topics again. You weren’t sure if he was trying to disorient you, or if he simply decided that he was done with that line of questioning and wanted to move on with the next one.

You opened your mouth to say ‘no,’ then suddenly thought of the sisters on your bus in the mornings, recalling a day when the younger one had been crying as you got on, and her sister stopped you specifically. Tilting your head, you replied, “I once pinky promised a little girl that I wouldn’t match her with this smelly boy in her class. Does that count?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes.”

He made a show of scribbling something down on his notes, of which he had already filled up the first page of a large legal pad. AD Yang flipped to the next page as he announced, “I’m going to skip forward a little in time. When you found out you had the string, what did you do first?”

“Went home.”

“Went home?” He repeated.

“It showed up after work. So I went home.”

“Where were you?”

“The bus stop outside of the Bureau.”

“Around what time of day was this?”

“Between five and five-twenty.”

“That’s a pretty specific time frame. How do you know that?”

“It was after work ended but before my bus showed up.”

“So the Bureau was still open, then. There were still people inside that you could have reported this to, such as Ms. Kwon here?”

“I don’t know if there were people in the building, and certainly not if Ms. Kwon specifically was still in the building, since I was outside and could not see inside of the building,” you answered frankly.

“Right, of course.” He gave you a close-lipped smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Do people usually stay after five here, at the Bureau? To your knowledge?”

“Some people, sure, on some days.”

“So, it would have been a good guess, that there would’ve been somebody inside, when you realized that you had a string?”

“Possibly.”

“Then why didn’t you go back inside?”

“Honestly, I panicked,” you admitted, closing your eyes for a moment as you thought back to that night again. “I thought it was impossible for me to get one. I thought I might’ve been able to figure something out on my own.”

“Figure something out? Like what?”

You opened your eyes and gave a half-hearted ‘I-don’t-know’ gesture with your hands that had been resting on the tabletop, despite his prior instructions to keep non-verbal cues to a minimum. “Like what happened, what went wrong.”

“And did you?” He prompted.

“No. I didn’t.” Not even a little bit.

“And is that when you told Ms. Kwon? When you gave up?”

“No.” You told her when you decided you wanted to keep the string. Not because the dead-ends had frustrated you.

“Why did you tell her? Why not continue your renegade investigation?”

“You’re asking me why I followed proper protocol?”

“I’m trying to piece together what happened. All the events that happened, and exactly in what order. What happened that caused you to tell Ms. Kwon at the time that you did? Did you even tell her? Or was it found out? I’ve been assuming, I’m sorry.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly, but consciously relaxed your face back into a pleasantly neutral expression. Ms. Kwon would have obviously had to do her own report including all of the details of your conversation with her. He should know all of those particulars. Was he trying to catch Ms. Kwon in a lie?

“Yes, I chose to report it. Because I had done some self-reflection. And I don’t think there’s anything further to be said that is of import for the Bureau to know.”

There was a moment of still air as he held eye contact with you. Out of the corner of your vision, you saw Ms. Kwon’s lips part, as if she were about to say something, then she closed her mouth again, waiting. Mr. Yang cleared his throat.

“Sorry to jump around like this, I’m sure it must be disorienting, but I’m going to go back in time now.” He was very clearly not sorry at all. “Did you know Jung Sungchan before this incident?”

“No.”

“Had you ever met, seen, or heard of him in passing?”

“Not to my recollection, no.” Sure, you could have walked by him on the street before, but you had no way to know that.

“It’s my understanding that he’s an artist, you may have seen some of his work? Heard of him that way?”

“No.”

“So there was no reason that you would have wanted to manipulate your match with him?”

“No.”

“How soon after getting your string did you meet Mr. Jung?”

Now you felt like he was messing with you. “You have that data.”

“I’m asking you.”

“The string appeared on Monday evening, we met that Saturday morning.”

“So, less than a week?”

“Yes.”

“Quick.”

“I suppose,” you replied noncommittally.

AD Yang hummed a single note in the back of his throat as he looked over one of his papers, then his sharp eyes were back on you. “How many times did you meet before reporting your string to Ms. Kwon?”

You had to take a moment to think before answering. “Four, including the first meeting.”

“I’d like to return to your job, for a moment. Now, I have Ms. Kwon here with me not only because she was your boss, but because I obviously have no clue what goes on in that room when you guys work with the computer. Really, from what I’ve heard, it’s some incredible stuff. So she’s kind of here to help me out in case I go way off the mark with what I’m asking you with some of this.” He let out an imitation of a nervous laugh, grabbing a piece of paper from his stack. He pushed it over to you, asking, “Now, can you take a look at this for me?”

It was a nearly blank piece of copy paper, except for one long string of characters printed across it.

jkD%NVSC3%JCacN%vWS5#k!Z4GqGW#ZfMyqGUfc@wQT5L5vK2uWU5N*5Lg&6

“What do you see here, Ms. Y/L/N?” Mr. Yang questioned.

You looked up from the paper, having to consciously choose not to slip back into reading it and instead focus on the conversation at hand. “It’s raw match data from the computer. This is one match.”

“Does it look familiar to you at all?”

“I mean, it looks like every other match I’ve ever read.”

“So you don’t remember reading this specific match at all?”

“No, I don’t remember reading this specific match.” You didn’t even need to look at it again. Of course you didn’t remember it, they were all just a bunch of stuff that you read practically in a trance, there was no way you’d be able to remember any of them.

He grabbed another paper from his folder to show to you, a clipping from a spreadsheet of some kind, several columns showing a date, time, and eight-digit code that was unfamiliar to you, except for the letters appended to the end of it—your initials.

“According to our audit logs, this match was read at, and the match report submitted from, your station in the matchmaking room.”

“Okay.”

“Is it safe to assume, therefore, that you submitted the match report?”

“Was it during business hours?”

“Yes.”

“Was I swiped in?”

“Yes.”

“Did Ms. Kwon see me at my station during that time?”

“Ms. Kwon?” Mr. Yang prompted her without breaking eye contact with you.

“I do not have specific recollection of this day, so I cannot say in the affirmative or the negative,” she spoke for the first time since you had entered, and you had to suppress your smile at her response.

The man lifted his arms up and then down in a sort of ‘oh well’ motion. “We don’t know.”

“The electronic data does make it seem likely that I read this match and submitted this match report,” you finally said.

“This is your match with Mr. Jung.”

You tried not to show your utter shock on your face—you knew he wanted to get some kind of reaction from you—but you couldn’t help the sudden jolt forward in your seat as you went to pull the piece of paper closer to you again, your eyes drinking in the characters once more.

jkD%NVSC3%JCacN%vWS5#k!Z4GqGW#ZfMyqGUfc@wQT5L5vK2uWU5N*5Lg&6

There was still no way for you to distinguish specifics, but just knowing that somewhere in this seemingly meaningless string of nonsense was you and Sungchan, you kept rereading it, desperately wishing for it to feel special now.

“And how do you read the matches? Walk me through the process.” AD Yang’s voice brought your focus back to the present.

You exchanged a knowing look with Ms. Kwon. “I really can’t…”

“Trade secrets?” He said humorously. “It’s alright, I work at the Bureau.”

“No, I mean, it’s impossible to describe. I can’t tell you what I’m reading or how I know. I just do.”

“Then how do you know it’s right?”

“Because it is.”

Ms. Kwon stepped in then, “Mr. Yang, I’m advising you that you are getting close to questioning the computer and the program itself, not Ms. Y/L/N.”

He held his hands up in a sort of surrender. “Well that is certainly what we are not here to do, hm? Let me just take a look at my notes, and make sure I’ve covered everything. Should only be a few more minutes of your time, Ms. Y/L/N.”

AD Yang kept you in there until you started watching the sun begin its journey downwards in the sky. At some point, you started going in circles, and you knew he was just trying to catch you in lies, or confuse you, or get you to admit more than you had before out of exhaustion, or in hopes that he’d let you out. But you gave no different answers, no contradictory or new information, and you knew he’d eventually let you out. After all, there was no proof anywhere that you had done anything wrong, because you hadn’t. The most they could really get on was not telling someone at the Bureau sooner when you’d gotten your string but what could they actually do? Fire you?

When Mr. Yang finally declared the interview over, and turned the recorder off, you had to keep in your groan of relief. Instead, you maintained your composure, standing up when they did in order to shake their hands.

“Thank you very much for your time, Ms. Y/L/N. I do apologize for taking so much of your day, that had not been my intention,” Mr. Yang once again laughed as he shook your hand. “But this was very helpful, and I promise, yours and Mr. Jung’s answers are going to help us here at Bureau improve the way we do things in the future.”

“Right. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Yang.” You nodded politely to him, then turned to your old boss, a genuine smile coming to your face. “It was good seeing you again, Ms. Kwon.”

“Jeno had something to do, so I’ll show you out, Y/N.” She informed you, gesturing to the door.

The two of you were quiet as you walked through the halls of the second floor, until you finally reached a small waiting area on the other end of the building, made up of only a few uncomfortable-looking armchairs. Sungchan was the only person there, slumped down in a chair and bouncing his leg as he cracked his knuckles. He looked up when he heard footsteps, jumping to his feet as soon as he saw you, and while you would’ve felt a little weird about running in an office, he clearly didn’t care, taking just a few long strides to reach you and wrap his arms around you.

“God, Y/N! There you are! What the hell? Why the fuck did they keep you so long? They wouldn’t tell me anything, just that you were still being interviewed and I could either leave or keep waiting. I wasn’t going to leave but—”

“I’m fine, Sungchan, I’m fine,” you reassured him, hugging him back despite the slight awkwardness you felt with Ms. Kwon still definitely being right there. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

He didn’t say anything else, just kept holding you as you turned around in his arms to address Ms. Kwon.

“Uhm, we’re good to leave, right? Do you need anything else from us?”

She was clearly fighting back a smile as she replied, “I ask that you wait just a little bit longer, okay?”

“Okay, sure,” you nodded. “What is it? Something for me to sign? An NDA or something?”

“Just a moment, okay?” And with that, she left.

“God, I fucking hate it here,” Sungchan grumbled into your shoulder. “Let’s just go, whatever NDA or whatever the hell they want you to sign is going to suck and be coercive as shit and not worth it. It probably won’t even be enforceable or whatever.”

“I can’t even tell how much of that is even good or bad legal advice. I think all of it was probably bad?”

“It’s definitely going to be written by that fucking skeeze who interviewed you for like seven hours straight, which means it’s going to be bad.”

“What if it’s stuff for my severance pay and benefits? Ms. Kwon also said she’d write me a letter of rec if the investigation went well—”

“Y/N!” “Y/N!” You were cut off by two familiar voices calling your name from down the hall, and whipped your head around to look, your jaw dropping in disbelief. Jaemin and Renjun were rushing towards you, waving all four of their arms wildly, as if you could miss them. You squealed, darting over to them and throwing your arms around their necks.

“Oh my god!” You laughed as they hugged you tightly. “I wasn’t expecting to see you guys today!”

“We were specifically not told when you were coming,” Renjun admitted. “I even got blocked out of the Executive calendars for the month.”

“Ms. Kwon just came and got us,” Jaemin said. “Though, word had already spread.”

“Are you sure you want to be seen with me?” You double-checked, looking around despite being in a rather empty corner of the building. “I don’t know what people have being saying, but based on the less-than-warm-welcome we got at reception, it doesn’t seem like it’s been good.”

“Do we want to be seen with our friend?” Renjun poked the right side of your head.

“Duh.” Jaemin poked the left side of your head.

“Yeah, I didn’t miss that.” You scowled at them.

“It’s so weird seeing you in normal clothes,” Jaemin commented, making you really look between their jumpsuits and your blouse and pants.

“It’s still a bit weird being in normal clothes,” you sighed.

“So… you going to introduce us?” Renjun nodded to where Sungchan was still standing awkwardly by himself in the waiting area.

“Yeah, come on!” You grabbed them by the arms to drag them over. Sungchan looked up from where he had been busying himself with a loose thread on his dress shirt, eyes landing expectantly on you. You let go of your friends to loop your arm with his. “Sungchan, this is Jaemin and Renjun, we used to work together. Jaemin’s desk was next to mine out in the bullpen, and Renjun was a few desks down from us. Guys, this is Jung Sungchan, my soulmate.”

You could hear your voice pitch up with giddiness as you introduced Sungchan in that way, and watched as his face relaxed into a smile as soon as you had called him your soulmate. He offered his free hand out to the other two.

“Nice to meet you guys,” he said sincerely. “I’ve heard good things from Y/N.”

“Then she must’ve been talking about a different Jaemin,” Renjun snorted.

“And a different Renjun,” Jaemin agreed.

“So, what are the wild theories about how I did it?” You asked. “Not the official one, I know you two don’t know that. But the breakroom gossip, the water cooler chat, the cereal death match chatter.”

“Rumor has it…” Jaemin lowered his voice and leaned in conspiratorially. “You were desperate to reunite with a long-lost childhood love and that’s why you applied to be a matchmaker.”

You snorted. “Cheesy.”

“I heard one about Ms. Kwon being in on it because you’re her secret daughter,” Renjun grinned.

“Ooh, that one’s good.”

“With someone with a string.”

You mock gasped. “Scandalous.”

Jaemin added, “I heard a version sort of like that, but you were Ms. Kwon and the Director’s secret daughter, which is obviously how you had enough pull to get it to happen.”

“Then how did I end up with my parents? Did they pay them off to adopt me?” You frowned, trying to figure out this bonkers drama plot of your fake life.

“Get this…” Jaemin paused for dramatic effect. “Your dad is the Director’s secret brother. So your parents are actually your aunt and your uncle.”

“I should’ve thought of that!” You shook your head, laughing.

“A lot of people don’t think you did anything, though,” Renjun assured you. “Seriously, most of the stuff I’m hearing is people being surprised that it hasn’t happened before.”

“That’s good to know.”

“PR is going to have a hell of a time,” Jaemin chuckled.

“Sucks to be Mark Lee right now, huh?” You grinned.

“Oh, I know that man has been sleeping under his desk for the past two weeks.”

You wrinkled your nose. “God, the seventh floor has got to be fucking rank by now. Please tell me Jeno and Donghyuck have at least been making him go home to shower.”

“Chenle did.” Your friends said in unison, making you burst into laughter at the mental image.

“God, I would’ve paid money to see that.” You chuckled. As much as you loved seeing your friends again, this wasn’t where you belonged anymore, and you had skipped lunch in that unnecessarily long interview. So with a sigh, you announced, “Anyway, it was so good to see you guys again, but we need to get going, and I’m sure you have work to finish up.”

“Unfortunately,” Renjun sighed.

“We’ll get drinks—dinner and drinks, the usual place—all four of us,” Jaemin declared as he went in to hug you goodbye. “Okay?”

“For sure,” you agreed with a grin. “You still need to give me my fucking book back, Na Jaemin.”

“He’s just a fucking thief!” Renjun complained as he went to hug you as well. “Bye, Y/N. See you again soon.”

The guys all exchanged a final wave and ‘nice to meet you,’ before your former coworkers headed back. You looked up at Sungchan, about to ask if he was ready to go, and saw him already gazing down at you thoughtfully.

“What?” You asked instead, furrowing your brow.

“Now I get how you could stand working here for five years.” He rubbed your back. “It wasn’t the Factory itself; it was the people you found here.”

“W-Well yeah. I liked my coworkers. But I also liked my job.”

“Yeah, but I like my job too, and I work alone at my studio. I like that. I prefer that. If I had to make small talk with a bunch of different people all day on top of doing my job, I think I’d start biting people,” he explained. “You didn’t just make small talk, you made friends.”

“I guess I’m a people person,” you shrugged, never really thinking about something that was so normal to you. “Is that weird?”

“No, it’s good. Just want to make sure you have people around that you like at your new job too.” He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close to him. “Now come on, if your lunch in there was anything like mine out here, then it was approximately four saltine crackers and some water.”

“Where are we going to eat?” You asked as the two of you headed towards the stairs.

“I live nearby. I want to talk about whatever the fuck that skeeze did in there for seven hours.” His voice was tense again at the mention of the interview. After a beat, he tacked on almost nervously, “If that’s okay. We can go somewhere else if you want.”

You encircled an arm around his waist as the two of emerged into the empty courtyard. “Your place works for me. I agree, we shouldn’t talk about that out in the open.”

Despite Sungchan both picking you up and walking you home from seeing each other many times over the past couple weeks, you had yet to actually be in each other’s homes before. You hadn’t even seen the outside of his place. You knew the general area of where he lived, as he had mentioned it while giving context for some stories he’d told you. The two of you also hadn’t been this… touchy before. Whenever you saw him, it always felt sort of like you were hanging out with a friend, if you ignored the string. You didn’t hug hello or goodbye, didn’t hold hands, nothing other than the little teasing elbow digs. It never occurred to you to really bring it up to him before, that technically, according to Bureau statistics, you two were taking it slow, because that would be a fucking weird thing to say—and also, you didn’t mind. You didn’t mind doing this at whatever pace it happened at.

But now, all of this all at once, it was making you a bit dizzy. In a good way, if that was possible, but still off-kilter.

Sungchan stopped in front of the door to a townhouse in a long row of townhouses, each one with a different, colorfully painted door. His was pistachio green. When he finally opened it up and pulled you in by the hand, you immediately started looking around with eager eyes. He said he hated people looking at his art and making assumptions about him, but he said nothing about his home.

“Kitchen, living room, and laundry room are on the first floor, bedroom and bathroom are on the second,” he told you over his shoulder, taking you through a narrow entryway before emerging into the connected living room and kitchen area. You already knew his studio was at a different location from his home due to the sheer scale of the pieces he made.

His walls were all filled with art, but you immediately figured it wasn’t his. They were drawings, paintings, doodles on napkins, anything and everything. It looked like dozens, maybe even hundreds of different artists in all sorts of styles. Some professional, but most clearly not.

“Everyone who comes to my place has to pay,” he explained. “They owe me a piece of art.” Walking over to the very first wall that your eyes would see upon entering, he pointed to a piece of copy paper with random crayon scribbles on it that was displayed dead in the center. He grinned. “Not even babies are exempt. My nephew.”

“What happens when you fill up your walls?” You asked curiously, following him into the kitchen, which had even more art.

“Guess I’ll have to find a bigger place with bigger walls.” He seemed to be searching for a specific piece, then pointed to a small napkin drawing of seven cartoon heads grinning. “Sohee. Guy said he couldn’t draw then busted that out after some soju. With a pen! I know you haven’t met the other guys, but it looks just like us. Guess which one’s me.”

You hummed thoughtfully, then pointed to a face in the top left.

“Yep!” He beamed proudly, as if it had been his own drawing. He started naming all the other guys in the drawing. “Shotaro, Wonbin, Sohee, Seunghan, Anton, and Eunseok.” Then, he drew your attention to what looked like an invoice for air conditioning repair services, with a pencil sketch of an older woman in the corner of it. “A/C repair guy. Just pulled that out of nowhere. It’s his wife, they met when he went up to her in public saying she was so beautiful he had to draw her. That was before they had their strings. He said he just knew, would’ve known without the string anyway. His art didn’t take off, hence why he was my A/C repair guy.”

“So is it a piece of art every time a person comes over, or just one piece of art, and that’s the toll paid forever?”

“One piece of art per person, debt is cleared forever,” he clarified, opening his fridge to root around in it. “I’ve had some artist friends defer their pieces for future visits because they wanted to make a proper, good piece. You know, put real time into it.”

“It’s good, Sungchan,” you grinned, still looking around at more of the art on the walls. “I love it all.”

“I know, now I don’t have to worry about my furniture matching my décor.”

“Yeah, but it’s also…” You breathed in happily as you tried to figure out how to say it. “You called me a people person earlier. You are too, just in a different way.”

He looked around doubtfully. “You think so? I literally said I would bite people if I had to talk to them. I don’t know if my people skills are really up to par for being labelled a people person.”

“Your entire house is wallpapered in art from just ordinary people that you’ve met. Your friends and family, an A/C repair guy. Call me crazy, but I think you like people.”

“Huh. Never thought of it like that.” He grabbed a few more things from the fridge, then the pantry. “Anton just calls it a weird powerplay, and one time Eunseok said he thought I like ‘asserting my dominance.’”

You laughed, “Maybe you’ve just got weird friends if they think you asking them to make you art is you trying to dominate them.”

“Not going to argue with you there.”

“Can I defer my art to another visit?” You requested. “I mean… I’ll probably be over more than once, right?”

He smiled softly. “Probably. And sure, you can defer. But you’re not getting out of it just because you’re my soulmate. If anything, I think that means you definitely owe me something I can point to when people come over and say, ‘my soulmate made that one.’”

After getting a quick and simple lunch together, you and Sungchan took it to his living room to eat, as he didn’t have a dining table. You sat with your back against the arm of the couch, facing Sungchan as your legs were criss-crossed under you.

You started, “So, what did AD Yang—” “Who?”

“The guy who interviewed us? The man with Ms. Kwon?”

“Oh, the skeeze.”

“Yeah. So what did Mr. Yang—” “Who?”

You rolled your eyes, fighting to keep the amused smile off your lips. “So what did the skeeze ask you? I want to know that first, before we talk about mine. Because like, when I think about the amount of time it took Jeno to walk you up there, introductions, goodbyes, then for Jeno to take you to the waiting room, then come get me… I mean, that whole time was like fifteen minutes. So you probably only talked to them for a few minutes, right?”

“Yeah, I mean, it was just a bunch of stuff they probably already knew.” He shrugged. “When did I realize I had the string? When did you and I meet? Did I know that you worked at the Factory when we met? When did I learn that you worked at the Factory? Did I know you before the string? Did I know anybody else at the Factory who could have manipulated the match for me? Then… that was it.”

“Makes sense. You didn’t have any ties to the Factory other than me.”

“So what the fuck happened in there that the skeeze thought he needed to take seven fucking hours?”

“I don’t think it would have taken that long, except…” You scratched your head awkwardly. “I’m the one who read our match and submitted the match report.”

Sungchan’s eyes widened. “Wait, really? But how did you not— Don’t you look that stuff up?”

“Reading the matches, and looking up the profiles, it’s all anonymous. It’s not like I saw it and my brain read it as ‘Jung Sungchan and Y/L/N Y/N.’ It was just… sort of like, the impression of profile numbers, I guess? It was like any other match to me, there was nothing special about it to me.” You screwed your face up as you desperately tried to both explain the matchmaking process to someone who had never been near the process at all, and as you tried to recall anything about that specific match at all, which you of course couldn’t. “And the profile numbers when I looked them up, it didn’t show me names or pictures, or any sort of identifying data when I would do that. It’s all completely anonymous, for good reason.” When you opened your eyes again, Sungchan was still staring at you, and your stomach dropped as you realized what you had just said. “Sungchan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not that you’re not special, of course you are, but when I would be matching, you’re sort of not yourself and—”

“Woah, woah, sorry, I didn’t mean to zone out and make you worry like that,” he apologized, setting his bowl aside and turning to fully face you. “I was just thinking… How many people get to say that their soulmate was the one who gave them their own red string? Like, that’s so cool.”

“Uh… nobody? We’re probably the only ones.”

“Exactly. It doesn’t matter if it felt special to you in that moment or not. Because it still was. I mean, did it feel special when you decided to stop and look at that book at the bookstore? In the split-second that you made the decision?”

You shook your head. “No, I just, wanted to look at the book.”

“And me running after the Frisbee when Anton missed for like the sixth time that morning didn’t feel special in that second. But both of those things were, because it took both of them happening at the same time for us to meet.”

You chewed on your bottom lip, looking down at your food, then up at Sungchan. Setting your bowl aside as well, you then asked, “Is that what a soulmate is, then?”

“What? A Frisbee nearly hitting you in the face?”

“No,” you chuckled. “I mean—Jaemin, Renjun, and I were talking one night, and we were debating about what a soulmate really was. I was in an existential spiral over our red string, they were having a fun little philosophical discussion. They didn’t know about the string yet. We couldn’t decide if a soulmate was just the best that you do, or somebody who would make you better, or infinite second chances.”

“So what do you think a soulmate is now?”

“Someone that makes all the nooks and crannies in your life special, even if they wouldn’t usually be. Just by being there.”

Sungchan absolutely beamed, nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah, yeah. I… like that.”

“What do you think a soulmate is?”

“I’ve always figured every pair of soulmates needs something different from each other,” he replied. “And I think you figured out what we need from each other. To make all the nooks and crannies of our lives special just by being there.”

“Okay…” You agreed softly, a fond smile coming to your lips as he offered his hand out, palm out. You set your hand atop his, your chest squeezing your heart at the same time Sungchan squeezed your hand.

“Now… tell me everything that fucking skeeze said. Everything you can remember.”

“Oh my god, Sungchan.”

“You were in there for seven hours, Y/N!”

“He asked me the same one and a half hours of questions like five times. I was going to start biting people by hour three.”

[sungchan: omw :) ]

[you: okey!]

[sungchan: :( ]

[you: okey! :) ]

[sungchan: :) ]

Laughing to yourself at Sungchan’s attachment to emoticons in texts, you grabbed the last few things that you’d need for your date today. It was the last week that his exhibit was available at the museum, and between your hectic schedule of interviews, and phone interviews, and callback interviews for jobs, in addition to his own schedule, this was finally the day that you two had been able to arrange to go together. A few minutes later, your phone lit up again.

[sungchan: outside :) ]

[you: omw down <3 ]

You saw him start typing, but then he stopped, presumably figuring that he’d be able to tell you whatever it was to your face in thirty seconds. Rushing down, you threw open the front door already with a smile that only grew tenfold as you looked up at Sungchan.

“Hi!” You greeted him, locking up behind you before giving him a hug.

“Good morning.” He readjusted your jacket, pulling it more snugly around your collar for you. “You going to be warm enough in that?”

A cold snap had come through last night, dropping the temperature and forcing you to get your fall wardrobe out early. You raised an eyebrow, looping your arm with his to pull him over to the bus stop to wait. “The museum is heated inside, isn’t it?”

“Well yeah…”

“Then I think my biggest problem would be having to carry a heavy jacket around the museum the whole time.”

When the bus arrived, you were just a bit disoriented by there being completely different passengers—after all, it was a different time of day than your previous daily commute, and you and Sungchan went to sit in a different row. You took the window seat, always loving to watch the passing scenery, and to give Sungchan the extra leg room of the aisle. As the bus took off, you squinted, unable to see much through the fogged-up glass. Sungchan reached a hand past you, and you watched with interest as he drew a heart in the condensation on the window. You giggled and took your own pointer finger to the empty space in the heart, carefully tracing out JSC, then your initials, then a plus in the middle, feeling very much like a preteen doodling on your math homework.

When you looked back at him, you saw that his ears were pink, and you weren’t sure if it was from the cold or not, but he grabbed your right hand with his left, both of your index fingers still a bit chilly from drawing on the window. He rested your linked hands on your lap, and though you couldn’t quite see it from this angle, you knew that the string that connected your pinkies was complete. You leaned your head on his shoulder to look out the window, through the lines made with your little heart.

At the art museum, you excitedly stuck your visitor sticker to your shirt before pulling Sungchan in further by the hand. You looked up at the huge skylight in the main atrium, providing an abundance of natural light on a large abstract sculpture in a bold orange color. “It’s beautiful in here.”

“Have you ever been to this museum?” Sungchan asked curiously as you stopped to watch a cloud pass over the skylight.

“No, I haven’t,” you replied quietly, turning your gaze down to the sculpture in front of you. “I’ve lived here my whole life and it’s one of those places that I’ve always been meaning to go to but, I don’t know, I just haven’t yet.”

“Yeah, I’ve got some places like that,” he said in understanding. “Let’s make a list, both of us. And we’ll cross them off together.”

“Okay, yeah.” You smiled at him, squeezing his hand. “Together.”

Sungchan’s exhibit was in the first gallery past the lobby atrium, and you two had gone at a pretty perfect time for it to be empty of everybody except the docents. You came to a stop as soon as you entered, unsure of where to put your eyes first. When you heard large-scale mixed media collages, you weren’t sure if you had really processed how large ‘large-scale’ was. The gallery was probably fifty meters across, the longest wall being taken up entirely by one single piece. There were only five pieces total in the gallery, one on each wall and one suspended in the middle of the room. You were sure that you could spend hours just looking at one of them.

You decided to start at the one closest to you, and work your way towards the back, where the entrance to the next gallery was. There was a plaque with information about the piece and the artist on it, which you entirely discarded. You commented on things you liked or found interesting as if you were just talking to yourself, not expecting Sungchan to respond at all. And truly, you were just talking to yourself, mostly gasping and muttering all of these things under your breath with delight—after all, you were in a museum, you had to use your inside voice. He’d sometimes chuckle or hum with interest, but that was the extent of him engaging with your commentary, just following you as you slowly trailed down the pieces, then sometimes jumped back to a place that you had already looked over as you made a connection, then went down again. Until you finally made it to the behemoth piece.

Despite being the largest, it had the most fine detail, the smallest individual parts making it up. And that almost felt intentional. Part of you wanted to ask Sungchan that, but you bit your tongue. Instead, you raked your eyes over every square centimeter, drinking in as much as you possibly could. The docent who was standing in the corner switched out while you were looking over that piece, and for a brief second, you wondered if any of the employees had recognized Sungchan. It had never occurred to you that random people on the street would, but in the art museum where he quite literally has an exhibit displaying his art, under his real name… If they did, nobody had made any indication as to such.

Then your attention was sucked back in by the collage in front of you. By the time you were finished, you weren’t sure how much time had passed, only that your feet hurt. You didn’t say anything to Sungchan, only gave his exhibit one more proud look before turning the corner into the next gallery. This one had a dark, heavy curtain dividing it from the rest of the museum, and you immediately knew why. There was a sign at the beginning, the letters lit up so you could read it: ‘The Beauty of Light’

The building’s main overhead lights were completely out, so that the only light provided was from a few along the floor so you could see your step, and the exhibit itself. There were mirrors, glass panes, and colorful lights set up all around the room, refracting all sorts of seemingly impossibly arrays of colors and designs along the surfaces.

“Woah…” You breathed out, reaching out to catch a rainbow on your palm, immediately laughing with wonder.

“It’s interactive,” Sungchan informed you, adjusting the equipment making the rainbow so that there was a whole starburst of rainbows all across you.

“Okay, that’s really fucking cool.” You could feel the huge grin on your face.

“I really didn’t want to see you reacting to my art, actually. I usually hate seeing people looking at my works.”

You looked up at him, confused. “Then why did you want to come with me?”

“I knew they had this exhibit here, and I knew I had to be there when you saw it.” He moved the glass just a bit more, and you weren’t sure where the rainbows had ended up now, but he seemed satisfied as a tender smile came to his lips. “Beautiful.”

“It’s incredible,” you gushed, looking around the room at more of the cool effects being done with lights, then back to Sungchan. You held your hand out towards him, and he walked out from behind the equipment, taking your hand again. Now that he was next to you, some of the rainbows were sticking to his skin and clothes, and you couldn’t help but smile as one caught on his nose.

“Thank you for bearing through the horror of seeing somebody see your art to experience this with me,” you half-teased, swinging your linked hands. Though your words were exaggerated, your sentiment was sincere.

“I said I usually hate seeing people look at my works, but I liked watching you in the exhibit. It didn’t feel like you were performing for me,” he said with a grin. “I could probably watch you watch paint dry.”

“You’re being hyperbolic,” you scoffed.

“I’ve got some paint at my place, want to find out?”

“As thrilling as that sounds, maybe later,” you snorted. “I’m not done with the beauty of light.”

“Hey, no complaints here.” Sungchan ran his thumb over your cheek, still looking down at you with an unbelievable tenderness in his gaze. “Hm…”

“What?” You whispered, your voices suddenly sounding too loud in the empty gallery. The docent had stepped out, and another hadn’t come back in. It was just you and Sungchan in this room.

“Tried to wipe the rainbow off your cheek…”

“Let me guess, didn’t work?”

“Well, it did, kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“Moved to your mouth.” He traced the bottom line of your bottom lip with the very tip of his thumb, and you felt like you weren’t breathing, waiting for him to do something, anything.

“Sounds like a problem.” You put your hand over his, pushing it to your face so he was cradling your cheek.

Sungchan was smiling as he kissed you, you could feel it in the sweet press of his lips to yours, the soft tilting of your chin up to meet his. You squeezed the hand down by your side even tighter. He broke the kiss as gently as he had started it, still smiling down at you. You suddenly shot up to your tiptoes and wrapped your hand around his neck to pull his head down so you could peck the bridge of his nose, giggling when you had released him and he stood back up with a confused but affectionate look on his face.

“And what was that for?” He asked with a chuckle.

“You had a rainbow on your nose.” You told him very seriously. “We’ve established that you have to kiss them off, obviously.”

“Well in that case—” He proceeded to kiss your forehead, cheek, hair, and mouth again in quick succession.

You were laughing, your entire body buzzing from head to toe as you leaned against him both in a bid just be closer, and also because you felt like your knees might just give out. When you heard footsteps enter the gallery again, you bit your lip to stop your giggles, and Sungchan left you with one more fleeting peck to your temple before standing up straight and bringing you over to the next area of the exhibit.

Groaning and sleepily rolling over onto your back, you were vaguely aware of the fact that you had rolled directly back into someone’s chest, and contentedly snuggled further into your position. An arm snaked around your waist, pulling your hips flush to theirs, and you smiled to yourself as you started drifting back off to sleep.

“Y/N?” Came a low rumble of your name from behind you.

You were nearly asleep again, and decided to just pretend you didn’t hear him.

“Baby?” He whispered, a little louder.

“Shh, Sungie,” you hummed. “Still sleeping.”

“Y/N…”

“Sungchan, my love, shut the fuck up and let me sleep.”

Deciding your discussion was finished, you rolled onto your front again and pushed your face into your pillow. He just followed you to that side of the bed, and you felt the pillow dip as he rested his head on it as well. Sungchan ran a hand up and down your spine, the covers dropping lower with his movements.

Realizing that he wasn’t going to be letting you sleep in today, you lifted your face out of your pillow and propped yourself up on your elbows to glare at him. “What is so important that I can’t sleep in on a Saturday when I don’t have to open?”

“You said you wanted to go to that breakfast place, and it closes in an hour,” he informed you quietly, face reminding you very much of a guilty puppy in that moment.

You looked at the time on his bedside clock, and flopped back down with a groan. “Well it’s too fucking late now. Next week.”

“Sorry, baby.” He squeezed your shoulder. “I would’ve woken you up sooner, but usually you’re the one who wakes me up for this kind of stuff. I just woke up a couple minutes ago.”

“Mm, it’s okay, Sungie,” you sighed and turned onto your back, offering him a sleepy smile to let him know that you weren’t mad at him at all. Now in a particularly lovely and warm patch of sunlight, you couldn’t imagine even getting up to go to the bathroom, much less a restaurant. “I think my sleep schedule from working at the Factory is finally gone. My body isn’t used to getting up for a nine to five anymore.”

“Oh, hold on.” He reached for his phone off the nightstand, and you immediately knew what was coming based on his change in demeanor. With a half-resigned, half-endeared sigh, you threw an arm over your face to hide it as he stood up to start taking pictures of you. He called for you with a slight whine in his voice, “Baby…”

“I have bedhead and morning breath, Sungie.”

“You can’t tell if you have morning breath in a picture.”

“And the bedhead?”

“So? Prettiest bedhead I’ve ever seen.”

“Subject gets to decide if you see her bedhead.”

He was quiet, but his pout was deafening as he continued taking pictures of you laying in the morning sunlight.

“Actually…” There was a curl of a smile in his tone as he plopped back down on the mattress. “I like it. Reminds me of those Baroque statues of Greek goddesses.”

You dropped your arm from your face and shuffled closer to be able to peer at his screen. The similarity of the pose was uncanny, but it also reminded you of something else.

“Or Ophelia…” You snorted.

“She doesn’t have an arm over her face.”

“Yeah but like, the general vibe, you know?”

He laughed, sinking into the pillows to make a few minor edits to the color toning. You settled your head on his chest to mindlessly watch him work, knowing that at least one of these photos would be printed out and added to the wall.

When you had admitted to him one night that you felt a lot of pressure over what piece of art to make him to put on his walls as part of his house rule, he suggested that the two of you make one together. So far all of his guests’ art had been relegated to the first floor, so the walls of his bedroom were entirely blank. Starting in the middle of the largest wall, above the long side of his bed, you two had begun a collage. Adding pictures that you two took of each other, pictures other people took of you two, pictures you took of places that you went on dates together, and any miscellaneous thing from your time that had acquired fond memories and Sungchan could figure out a way to stick to the wall. It had slowly started growing, and sometimes you liked to just lay in bed and look at it. One time you’d asked Sungchan what he was going to do when he moved out of this place, and he’d said cut out that section of wall and take it with him. At the time, you had laughed, but now you weren’t so sure it was a joke. Honestly, they could just put more wall in, right?

“There,” Sungchan murmured with finality, and you heard his portable photo film printer start whirring to life from his desk in the corner.

“Put it up later,” you requested, wrapping an arm around his middle and burying your face in his neck. “Don’t want you get up…”

“Fine by me.” He hugged you to him tightly, readjusting you so you were practically on top of him. “Are you on the afternoon shift or the closing shift?”

“Ahrin had her sister’s wedding today, so I’m doing afternoon and closing.”

“God, nobody else could take her shift?”

“I needed the money,” you shrugged. “Severance pay is gone and amazingly, part-time bookstore clerk doesn’t pay as well as full-time matchmaker at the Factory did.”

You’d been having a difficult time finding a job since quitting the Factory. Despite companies and organizations seemingly tripping over themselves to want to interview you, it was crickets when it came time to actually follow through after that. Even with your immaculate letter of recommendation from Ms. Kwon. At most of the interviews, you got the distinct impression that they just wanted a chance to meet the Factory employee who “rigged it,” and not actually interview you. After all, who would want such a dishonest and untrustworthy employee at their company. The only place that had offered you a job was your favorite bookstore by the park, which you were more than grateful for.

“I told you, you can live here,” Sungchan reminded you gently.

“I already practically do,” you retorted. “But I still have a lease on my place, and have to pay whether I’m here seven days a week or not.”

“Then why don’t you cut your lease? Isn’t there an early leave payment or something? That has to be cheaper than continuing to pay for the next however many months when you don’t even live there.”

“I—” You swallowed thickly, your voice getting smaller. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I mean that.”

“Me actually moving in?”

“Yes, you actually moving in.”

“Okay.” You beamed into his shirt. “I’ll look into the early leave payment.”

“Send your lease to Jihun to look over,” he suggested, referencing his sister’s husband.

“He’s not a lawyer.”

“No, but he’s got a couple. And he’s good with contracts and haggling. Bet he can get that fee payment cut in half.” You lifted your head, about to argue with asking for favors like that, when Sungchan cupped your jaw and tilted your chin so you were looking right at him. His red string hung in the air just in the corner of your eye. He held your gaze steadily. “It’s what family does, Y/N.”

“Okay,” you murmured, nodding against his hand. “Yeah, family.”

He pulled you forward and up to crash your lips together, his fingers tangling in your hair, and your hands flew to his chest to keep yourself upright. You felt your love for him filling every nook and cranny of your body, and you knew it was something special, because it was yours.

➥ masterlist

#sr #bc idk im thinking abt artist sungie tn <33

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