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ohmytyong · 1 year

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spin the bottle

part of @rrxnjun 's "the crush chronicles" collab

PAIRING: childhood friend!donghyuck x female!reader (side pairing: friend!yangyang x friend!karina)

GENRE: college au, childhood friends to lovers, fluff, slightly angsty, coming-of-age, mc and hyuck grow apart and then become friends (or lovers!!) again, best friend!yangyang, best friend!karina, xiaojun and giselle are mentioned a couple times

WARNINGS: mentions of food, explicit language, alcohol consumption, mentions and use of drugs, smoking, vomiting, use of pet names (barely lol), probably a bit too fluffy at the end, the side couple is lowkey more interesting than the main couple (oops), super cliché plot line, not proofread (please let me know if i missed anything)

WC: 21,2 k (oops lol)

‣[PLAYLIST]: amusement park by baekhyun, can i call you tonight? by dayglow, on the way by nct dream, fallingforyou by the 1975

SUMMARY: you knew you loved lee donghyuck ever since you met him, when the two of you were little kids. you had become best friends and were practically inseparable. until one day, donghyuck had to leave town and he also had to leave you. however, your feelings for him only grew stronger and stronger and you knew you had to confess to him when you met him again in college. but all this time, you kept suppressing them and you were always left wondering one thing; if he ever loved you back.

A/N: wow i can't believe it's finally here!! i've spent months working on this fic and i can say i'm very proud for actually finishing it. thank you everyone for being excited for it and especially thanks to @rrxnjun and the collab call for giving me the basis for developing this idea <3 enjoy reading this fic and don't forget to give me feedback, it helps me a lot<33

read on wattpad / ao3

You were five years old when you first fell in love. Or at least you thought you did. You could never know what falling in love meant at such a young age. But that’s how you want to describe it. Because your feelings for him could not be compared to how you felt about other boys. He could not be compared to other boys. That’s why you fell in love with him. But he didn’t fall in love with you. Or if he did, he never showed it.

Loud cheerful screams were the sound echoing in your ears, mixed with the soothing dreamy music coming from the merry-go-round ahead of you. The gate in front of you seemed ginormous in comparison to your small body. Rainbow fairy lights were climbing up the sides of the gate, confetti glued in between each one of them. White balloons were tied to the top and bottom corners of the pillars, leading up to the bright red and gold sign at the top which read ‘Welcome to Dreamland’.

Your eyes were roaming around the place, looking up to the sky and then left and right to the amusement park your mum took you. Soft awes and chuckles left your lips every time you spotted something new. Everything seemed magical in your eyes, the music and the colors transporting your little brain to different dimensions; this was indeed dreamland.

You stopped in front of the merry-go-round and inspected it. The blue, gold and white horses were moving up and down to the rhythm of the music, kids were riding them with cheerful smiles on their faces. You wanted to go there too. You looked at your mother to ask her to get on the merry-go-round. You opened your mouth when-

“Y/n! Y/n!” a cheery voice was calling your name. You stopped to look towards the direction of the sound, only to spot your best friend. “Yangyang!”

You let go of your mother’s hand and sprinted towards him, capturing him into a tight hug. “Wanna go to the horses?” you asked him eagerly.

“Yes! Let’s go” he agreed and your mothers helped you get on the merry-go-round. After all, it was your favorite.

You and Yangyang went on almost every ride of the amusement park. You loved bumper cars, you went on the ferris wheel with your mothers and went on almost twenty rounds on the kids’ roller coaster. You even tried to catch a teddy bear at the claw machines, but you couldn’t get the chance to do so.

After hours of trying all of the amusement park rides, your little stomach started growling and the smell of food everywhere around you only triggered your hunger more. You passed by the food canteens, smelling and taking in all the delicious scents. "What should I choose?" you thought. Just then, you spotted a stand with something strange looking; it was multi-colored fluff on sticks. Cotton candy. You had never seen it before, so you had to try it.

“Mum! I want to try this! It looks like clouds! I want the pink one!”

Your mum agreed and bought you and Yangyang one stick of cotton candy each, while his mum bought you drinks.

You went over to the tables to sit and eat your cotton candy. You sat down on a chair and took a bite. You didn’t know what to expect, but the sugary flavor definitely met those expectations.

“Wow, it tastes so pink! And it feels like the clouds! It's so fluffy!” your mother laughed at your excitement and agreed.

Yangyang was eating his cotton candy too, but he suddenly grabbed your hand and dragged you down the chair. “Let’s go for a walk. Mum, can we go for a walk?” he turned to ask his mother.

His mum shrugged. “Okay, but not too far from here, I want to see you” she said and we left, grinning.

Obviously, you didn’t listen to her. You liked the freedom you had at that moment, so you went strolling through the entire amusement park.

You and Yangyang were holding each other’s hand so that neither of you run away and got lost. Your other hands were holding the cotton candy. You felt so small among the other people and the huge amusement park rides, but you liked it. You felt at ease.

Yangyang let go of your hand and started skipped in front of you. “In the count of three I’ll start running and you will chase after me to catch me!” he said leaving you still.

“No! Yangyang, I can’t run fast!”

Yangyang didn’t listen to you. He smirked instead and started counting. “One, Two. Three!”

“Wait!” you yelled, but he had already run away.

You sighed and started running through the crowd too. You could still spot him in between other people, but you couldn’t run that fast and stumbled when taking longer steps.

Yangyang stopped and turned back to look at you. He smiled and yelled. “Come on, you’re almost there!” and resumed running.

You were breathing heavily, your feet were feeling sore, and you couldn’t move with ease through the crowd. You took a deep breath and gathered all your energy to run as fast as you could. Your only focus was to catch your friend Yangyang, who was now walking backwards looking at you with a smug expression. You had blocked out your surroundings entirely and didn’t notice that another boy was running too. And he was running towards your direction.

Yangyang was now standing, waiting for you to catch him. “I got you!” you shouted before you let out a scream and fell on the ground. The other boy was running fast too, which ended in him bumping into you. Both of you and the other boy fell down on your butts, the cotton candy you were holding was now smashed and dropped on the ground too.

“No! My fluff!” you frowned, tears already forming in the corners of your eyes.

Yangyang was shocked to see you fall. He came over to you to help you get up, smoothening your dress. “Are you okay Y/n? I’m sorry, I didn’t want to get you hurt” he was the one that sounded more hurt.

“It’s okay Yangyang” you reassured him. “But my fluff fell too! I wanted to eat it!” you whined.

Yangyang hugged you. “Don’t worry, we’ll buy a new one."

The other boy steadily stood up by himself. “I’m sorry, I was running too. I didn’t see you.” The boy said, his head lowered.

Neither you or Yangyang responded, so he lifted his head slowly to look at you. “I can buy you cotton candy if you’d like. Sorry” he apologized again.

But you couldn’t speak now either. He looked at you with sorrow eyes, plump lips forming a pout. You took a moment to really look at him. His skin was darker than yours, he was slightly taller than you, his bowl-cut covered his eyebrows, moles on his cheek and neck.

You didn’t know why, but you felt your stomach clench. You cleared your throat and spoke. “Don’t be sorry, I was running too.”

The boy nodded. “My name is Donghyuck. What’s yours?” he asked.

“I’m Y/n and this is my friend Yangyang” you pointed at your friend beside you and he flashed a bright smile to the other boy, Donghyuck.

Donghyuck smiled too and you felt your stomach clench again. “Do you guys want to be friends?” he asked and both you and Yangyang nodded. “Yes let’s be friends! Do you wanna go ride the bumper cars?” Yangyang said and grabbed both yours and Donghyuck's hands.

That’s the first memory you had of him. The first time you saw him, and the first time you've ever felt this weird clenching feeling in your stomach. This was a memory you would always cherish and always remember dearly. But you weren't really sure if he held this memory as close to his heart as you did.

Beep. Pause. Beep

Why isn’t he picking up the phone? You had called Yangyang three times already. Where is he?

You put your phone in your pocket and grabbed the books you needed for your next class from your locker. As you locked it, an arm linked with yours and dragged you to the corridor.

“Are you ready for this new semester? I heard new students transferred to our department, they might be hot” your best friend Jimin was smirking, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Yeah they might be, but I have a class now and Yangyang isn’t here, I can’t cover up for him on the first day!” you complained.

“Oh come on Y/n, you know how he is. He probably slept in, he’ll be here, don’t worry” she said and you nodded.

You were walking towards your class, greeting a few of your old colleagues on the way. It was your third year of college already, but it still felt like your first day.

You and Jimin parted ways and went to your respective classes. You agreed to meet up later for coffee and lunch, after classes ended.

The amphitheater was almost full; you managed to spot an empty seat at the back of the room and hurried to sit there before someone else took that seat.

You sat down and placed the books on top of the desk. You checked your phone again and saw that Yangyang had now texted you.

[Yangles]

slept in. don’t save me a seat

ttyl :)

Typical Yangyang. You sighed and put your phone aside as the lecture was about to start.

For the next two hours, you couldn’t concentrate on the lecture because of the group of friends chatting behind you. If you were honest, their conversation was a lot more interesting than the lecture.

The girls behind you kept talking about the new students at the computer engineering department. You heard comments such as “oh he is so hot” and “they looked at me and winked”. Oh Jimin is gonna love the tea.

The lecture finally ended and you headed towards the coffee shop in which Jimin asked you to meet her. You sent her a text to let her know you’re on your way. As you were typing the text, suddenly an arm slung around your shoulder. So you let out a loud-ass scream.

“Guess who’s here!” Yangyang exclaimed, a wide grin plastered across his face, eyes bright, his loud voice a bit too close to your ear. If you ever become deaf, it’s all his fault.

“Oh good morning to you too Yangyang, I’m fine thanks and you?” you said ironically and he rolled his eyes at your comment.

“Cut the ironies bestie, I met Donghyuck earlier” he said and your feet froze and stayed glued right where you were standing.

But you haven’t seen him in years. He moved out of town when you were fifteen, right before high school, because his parents found a better job. He had promised both you and Yangyang that he would call and maybe even visit you whenever he could. And he kept his promise for a while, but after things got tougher with school, his phone calls and occasional visits stopped.

Your stomach clenched. You gulped and removed Yangyang’s arm from your shoulder. “what do you mean Donghyuck is here?”

“I mean that Donghyuck is here” he said, rolling his eyes again, but his tone was serious. “He transferred to the computer engineering department. I came across him on campus and met his friends too. Real cool guys. He asked me about you too.”

“He did?” you regret speaking, because you didn’t expect your voice to come out that shaky.

“Um yeah, why wouldn’t he? He wants us to meet and hang out, just like the good old days. Are you free now?”

“No, I’m actually meeting Jimin for coffee now. I was texting her before you scared the shit out of me” you said.

Yangyang laughed. “Okay, I’ll see you later then. I’ll tell Hyuck you said hi” he squeezed your cheek and left.

But you were still standing frozen, trying to comprehend what Yangyang just told you. Donghyuck is back. He is back and you couldn’t wait to see him again. So he does remember you. There must be a reason why he didn’t contact you all these years. People’s lives change, right? Does he still look as pretty as he did back then? Does he still care about you as he did back then? All these questions started forming one after the other in your head, but you couldn’t distract yourself from the clenching feeling in your stomach. In fact, these exact questions were to blame for causing you this feeling.

You were ten years old when you fell in love again. Not that you ever fell out of love. But at least now you were sure about your feelings. It wasn’t something you had made up; it was rather a confirmation that you had loved him ever since the day you saw him.

You had went to the park with Yangyang and Donghyuck. The three of you decided to do sports in the park; Yangyang took his skateboard with him and Yangyang took his bike. You, however, didn’t take anything with you; you didn’t know how to skate and you certainly didn’t know how to ride a bike. You just wanted to tag along because you had fun spending time with your friends.

But Donghyuck had offered to help you learn how to ride a bike. Yangyang bursted out laughing so hard when Donghyuck said that. “I tried to teach her how to skate once and let me tell you, I wouldn’t even think about teaching her how to ride a bike” Yangyang said.

Yangyang always found his way to make fun of you. He didn’t do it in order to be mean; it was anything but that. He liked teasing you because you would get annoyed and then he would apologize because he felt bad. “I didn’t mean it Y/n” he would say. “I know” you always responded.

But that day Donghyuck was present in this conversation. What you didn’t expect was for him to stand up for you. “Well, in her defense Yangyang” he started “skating is too hard. It needs patience both by the skater and the student. The bike is a bit easier to handle. I think Y/n can do it”.

Every time Donghyuck spoke about you, your stomach clenched. You didn’t know what it was about him that made you feel this way. Was it his eyes? His smile? His honey skin? His soft voice? His kindness and humor? The way he treated you? You didn’t know.

Yangyang agreed with Donghyuck. “You’re right, I didn’t mean what I said. Just so you know. I think you can do this Y/n” he said, his smile fading.

“Don’t apologize Yangles, I know you didn’t mean it” you said and his signature grin appeared on his face again.

You eventually learned how to ride a bike. Donghyuck helped you every time; he taught you how to keep your balance, held you every time you were about to fall and did it every day until you were finally able to do it on your own.

One day he asked you to go to the park to ride your bikes together. Yangyang said he couldn’t come because he felt sick. So it was just you and Donghyuck.

You always felt such comfort with him. He reminded you of a warm summer day in nature. His pure gaze felt like the sun rays hitting your skin, his plump lips seemed to be as soft as the cotton fields, his laugh livelier than the chirping birds. He was comfort himself.

That day the two of you went biking, you couldn’t help but smile at the way you felt. You felt free, independent, powerful. The world surrounding you was in a haze, the only sight you could see was him, the only sound you could hear was his voice.

But sometimes it felt nice not hearing his voice. It meant that he was at peace, and you were too. You had left your bikes standing against a tree and the two of you sat down on the grassy ground to just stare at the sunset. You both loved the sunset.

Donghyuck’s arm was resting on your lower back, his head leaning towards yours, which was resting on his shoulder. Sometimes, when you sat in a position like this, you would try to match your breathing with his. If you were to be honest, you would admit that it was quite hard.

Donghyuck’s gaze was set on the colorful sea of clouds ahead of him, You did the same. He didn’t turn to look at you when he spoke up. “You know, Y/n, at moments like this, I realise how much I enjoy spending time with you. You are truly the best friend I could ever have. I would never leave you, okay?”

The words he uttered at this exact moment confirmed that you sure loved him. More than just a friend. But you could never open up to him about this. He could never know. Not when he wasn’t feeling the same. Not when he didn’t keep his promise.

Jimin was sitting at a coffee table near the window, sipping from a white plastic cup while texting on her phone. You skipped towards her and sat down on the chair opposite from hers. “Donghyuck is here”.

She put down both her cup and her phone and looked at you with furrowed eyebrows. “What? Don’t tell me he’s one of the transfer students” she said.

“Well, apparently he is” you said. “Yangyang told me. They’ve already met. Plus, he asked about me”.

Jimin’s bottom lip dropped down to her jaw. “What?” she said again. “Okay, when are we meeting him? I need to have a word with him”.

You laughed at her reaction. “Stop it Jimin, I’m over him now. It’s been years since I had a crush on him.” you said.

“I don’t believe you. You can’t trick me with that. I won’t fall for it.” she said, her tone serious. “I know you dated and all, but you always compared everyone to Donghyuck. You expect me to believe that you moved on?”

You rolled your eyes and sighed. “Whatever” you said.

The two of you paused for a moment before Jimin spoke up. “Do you think he got even hotter?”

You laughed at her comment and playfully slapped her forearm. “Stop it Jimin!”. She was now laughing too. “I don’t know, okay? He might be.” you said.

“Do you want to see him?” Jimin asked you and your eyes shifted down to your lap.

You seriously didn’t know. A part of you wanted to see him, talk to him, hug him and feel him again, ask him about his life and interests, spend time with him. But a part of you was scared; scared that if you saw him, you would fall in love with him again.

“My guess is that you do. Come on, I missed him a bit too” Jimin said and you chuckled. “Now, how about we get you some coffee and you tell me about your day, hm?” Jimin asked and you nodded in agreement.

The next day Yangyang insisted on picking you up from your dorm and driving you to your classes. He felt bad he missed the first day of the semester so he decided to make up for standing you up by driving you to class. You grabbed your phone to text him and let him know that you were ready but he beat you to it. He was already parked outside the dorm complex waiting for you in his car.

You opened the door from the passenger’s side and got inside the car. “Hey” you greeted him and he did the same, flashing you his signature wide grin.

“Don’t make plans for later. We’re going out tonight. You, me and Donghyuck” he said after he turned on the engine.

The mention of this specific name took you aback. You muttered a small “okay” and you hoped he heard you the first time so you wouldn’t have to repeat it. “Should I tell Jimin to tag along? She said she would like to hang out all together too” you asked.

Yangyang shrugged. “Yeah sure, I haven’t seen her in a while. Hyuck would love to see her too” he said.

You thanked him for agreeing to invite Jimin and smiled at him. But you couldn’t ignore the clenching feeling that appeared again in your stomach.

Your thoughts carried you away and you didn’t realize you had already arrived at campus. Yangyang parked the car and both of you exited it. You exchanged a short conversation of “see you later” and “text me for any news” and went to your respective classes.

The day went by in a flash. It was already afternoon and you were in your dorm with Jimin, your closet wide open, clothes scattered all over the bed.

You let out a frustrated sigh. “I officially don’t have any clothes” you whined.

“No, you do,” Jimin said, “you’re just nervous. And I don’t even know the reason why, I thought you were over Donghyuck, right?”

“Jimin please, you’re making this even harder!” you whined again.

Jimin got up from the chair and stood in front of your closet. She searched through the racks and the drawers for a while until she stopped and put an outfit on your bed. “Here,” she said, “get dressed. And do it quickly. We’re gonna be late”.

You complied and took the clothes to get dressed. It’s just a meet up with old friends. Nothing to be stressed about. You didn’t have a crush on Donghyuck anymore either. You were probably nervous, or rather excited, because you hadn’t seen him in a long time. Yeah, that’s probably why.

You were supposed to meet Yangyang and Donghyuck at the local diner. Yangyang promised to be there earlier so that you and Jimin wouldn’t have to be the ones to wait for them. You weren’t sure whether you should believe him or not; every time he promises to be early, there’s only gonna appear something on his way to make him late.

Jimin offered to drive the two of you to the diner that you were supposed to meet your friends at. You’ve been to this diner before, you’re going out with your best friends, just a normal night out. But why is your heart beating so hard? Why does it feel like it’s about to rip your chest apart and fly out of your body?

Jimin parked the car in the diner’s parking lot. You spotted Yangyang’s car in the parking lot too, two figures standing beside it. It must be them. It must be him.

“Hello? Are you listening to me?” Jimin waved her hand in front of your face and you quickly snapped out of your thoughts. “I see them, let’s go” she said and exited the car.

You imitate her movements and get out of the car too. Jimin noticed your uneasiness, so she linked her arm with yours and walked with you towards the boys.

Yangyang and Donghyuck seemed to have a conversation about something and didn’t realize you were right there, standing in front of them. “We’re here” Jimin spoke up and the two boys turned their bodies to look at us.

Your gaze immediately fell on the boy that made your heart beat and break at the same time. Black leather jacket hanging from his shoulders, black skinny jeans and boots covering his long legs, comma-styled black hair exposing his forehead. You locked eyes with him, his chocolate ones piercing through yours, plump lips sliding upwards to a wide smile. You swear you saw sparkles in his eyes for a second. Only your heart knew the answer.

“Y/n” Donghyuck breathed out and you returned his smile, before you threw yourself on him and embraced him tightly.

He started laughing. “I missed you so much” he said in your ear and you were thankful he wasn’t able to see your face because your cheeks were almost on fire. “Cute, but I wish I could say the same bitch-ass” you laughed too.

“Oh shut up, you haven’t seen me in years and this is the treatment I get?”.Of course he clapped back. Typical Donghyuck. And right there and then, it felt as if not a single day had passed.

You hugged him tightly. You forgot how comfortable he felt. He had rested his chin in the crook of your neck and you stood on the tips of your toes to do the same. He had definitely grown a bit taller since the last time you saw him. You took a moment to remember his scent, to feel his touch, to hear his voice. And then the clenching feeling was there again.

Yangyang cleared his throat. “Um, we’re here too, you know” he trailed off. You and Donghyuck broke the hug and Donghyuck motioned Yangyang and Jimin to join you in a group hug. Your cheekbones hurt because you were smiling so hard. Your heart fluttered. You were happy.

Yangyang was the first one to break off the hug because he started whining and said he was hungry, so he went inside the diner and invited us in. Donghyuck followed shortly after him, leaving you and Jimin behind. Jimin turned at you and mouthed “girl he’s so hot” and went inside the diner. Typical Jimin, you thought.

Time seemed to have stopped and felt like you were trapped in a loop. Spending time with your favorite people, laughing, talking, reminiscing about the past while making plans for the future. You only stopped the conversations when you had to take a bite from your food or take a sip from your drink. Yangyang didn’t seem to be bothered by that though.

“So,” Donghyuck started and you shifted your gaze to your drink “are you still dating that guy Y/n?”

Oh he was talking to you. You looked up at him, confused. “Who? Dejun? Well, no, we broke up, like, so long ago” you said.

“Yeah he yeeted his way out to be a model in China or something, honestly who even cares? I almost forgot about him” Yangyang said after he emptied his glass of beer.

Donghyuck chuckled at Yangyang’s remark and went back to eating his food. Jimin kicked you under the table and when you looked at her side, she was smirking.

“Well Yangyang, how about you tell us about your relationship, hm?” you asked him and he choked on his food. He started coughing and Donghyuck patted him on his back to help him breathe.

“Let's not talk about it bestie, okay? I know I fucked up” he said after he caught his breath.

“Why what happened? Donghyuck asked, intrigued.

Jimin was the one who spoke this time. “He's supposed to be dating this girl but he never texts her, calls her or takes her out. Basically he never wants to spend time with her. I seriously don’t know why she hasn’t broken up with him yet”.

Yangyang lowered his eyes. “It’s not like I don’t wanna see her,” he muttered, “but I may or may not have lost feelings and I kinda don’t know how to tell her”.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a coward you would confront her and stop playing with her. It’s that easy you know. Whether you love or don’t love someone anymore, you should tell them before it’s too late” you told him.

“Sounds brave coming from you, Y/n” his response caught you off guard. You threw a piercing glare at him and before you opened your mouth to speak, Jimin spoke over you. “Maybe we should change the topic, what do you think?” she said.

You and Yangyang exchanged a look and focused your attention on your food. Donghyuck chuckled at the interaction between you and your best friend, but he didn’t say anything.

The rest of the night went on smoothly and you soon forgot about the tension between you and Yangyang from earlier. He was right though. You should consider your own advice sometimes. Why can’t you tell Donghyuck you like him? Why didn’t you tell him when you had the chance to do so? Your feelings for him began to resurface and it was just the first time you saw him after years. You couldn’t let yourself make the same mistake again.

The entire night you and Donghyuck kept throwing hidden glances at each other. You caught him staring at you multiple times and if you were honest with yourself, you did stare at him too. You couldn’t ignore the fact that he looked beautiful. He had always been beautiful.

Your mind, however, was focused on something else, something you wanted to have an answer to. Why did he stop reaching out for you when he left? You needed to know the reason why. He must have had a reason. You tried to push this thought aside and allowed yourself to have a good time. I’ll ask him another time, you thought.

You were fifteen years old when you had your first kiss. And it was none other than Lee Donghyuck himself who stole it from you. Part of you believed that the reason you were so attached to him even now was because of that day; he gave you your first kiss. But a part of you knew that the kiss was the incident that tied everything together.

Donghyuck announced one day that the company his parents worked in was moving their main offices to a different town, so they had to move away from this place. The same day, you announced to your friend Jimin that you had your first heartbreak. Of course you were going to miss him. A lot. Yangyang was sad too that day. Jimin didn’t know him well enough, but she still felt sad when Donghyuck told you all.

The day before Donghyuck and his family would move away, Yangyang had an idea; to throw a goodbye party for Donghyuck. Donghyuck disagreed and said that a normal hangout with all of us would be just fine, but Yangyang insisted on throwing a party at his place. It will still be just the four of us but a little bit fancier, he had said.

So eventually everyone agreed. The previous day, you and Yangyang went to the shops to buy snacks and some decorations. You were walking around the convenience store aisles when Yangyang finally admitted to his ulterior motives.

“So, Y/n, here’s what we’re gonna do. For the party. I think we should play games but in a more adult way, if you know what I mean” he smirked and wiggled his eyebrows.

You looked at him confused and urged him to continue. “So we’ll play spin the bottle. And before you protest, no we’re not gonna drink anything with alcohol in it because we’re gonna get caught, but it’s gonna be a good excuse for me to kiss Jimin and for you to kiss Donghyuck”.

You stopped walking with a bag of chips in your hands and turned to him. “Are you out of your mind? This cannot happen, ever!” you whisper-shouted at him.

“Oh come on Y/n, don’t be such a party pooper. We both win in the end so what’s the matter?” he whined.

You thought for a few seconds. “They might be uncomfortable and turn down your offer. We want to have fun, remember? Plus, I don’t think Jimin likes you back and Donghyuck certainly doesn’t like me back either” you said and put that bag of chips you were holding into the shopping cart.

“Okay, Jimin might not like me back but I am completely, utterly, absolutely sure that Hyuck likes you” Yangyang said but you ignored him.

As if the odds were against you that day, Jimin and Donghyuck agreed on Yangyang’s suggestion. Jimin wasn’t that fond of the idea of playing spin the bottle at first, but eventually the boys convinced her and she said yes. You had no other choice but to agree too.

You wanted to kiss Donghyuck. You really did. But not in a forced scenario and definitely not in front of Yangyang. You wouldn’t bear his annoying ass teasing you about it for the rest of your life. But this could be my chance to finally confess to him, you thought. But even if you did, nothing would change. He would still leave town the next morning.

Yangyang grabbed the glass of cola you emptied earlier and put it on the ground. You gathered up sitting on the ground too. You looked at Jimin and she smiled at you. “Don’t think about it too much Y/n, it’s just a game”. It wasn’t just a game to you.

Yangyang was the first one to spin the bottle. The empty cola bottle spun for a few seconds, four sets of eyes staring at it with laser rays coming out of them. The bottle started gradually spinning less quickly, until it took three, two, one seconds before it stopped and became still; the top part of the bottle was pointing at Jimin and the bottom part was at Yangyang’s side. “Oh my god Jimin has to kiss you bro” Donghyuck said, smiling.

“This game is bullshit, I don’t wanna do it” Jimin said and crossed her arms. Jimin’s words made Yangyang’s lips drop down to a frown.

“Come on Jimin, it’s just a game, you said it yourself” Donghyuck said. Jimin sighed and leaned towards Yangyang. “Fine, come here then you bitch” she said before she grabbed Yangyan’s jaw and kissed him on the lips. You and Donghyuck stayed still, watching them. Jimin only went in to peck Yangyang, but he went all the way in and kissed her properly. Jimin was quick to react and pulled away from him.. “Ew, don’t do that! We agreed on just a kiss not a full on makeout session. Jeez Yangyang” she said and sat back down at her side.

Yangyang tried to hide the sulk on his face. “I tried to taste your chapstick more, you bitch, but it turns out it tastes awful. What the fuck is this taste?” Yangyang said and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“It's vanilla” Jimin said. Yangyang loved vanilla.

The game continued for a couple of rounds and every single time, as if it was its fate, the bottle landed on Jimin and Yangyang. Jimin had already had enough with kissing Yangyang just once, so she suggested that they avoid the kissing part and just hug instead. This went on and on and on until the bottle spun again, going round and round and round until it stopped in three, two, one. But this time, the bottle’s ends were pointing towards two different directions. The bottom part on you, the top part on Donghyuck.

You gulped and looked at him. He seemed calm, relaxed. For him, it was just a game. Sitting there at that moment, looking right into his deep brown eyes, you regretted agreeing to play this game. And you made a mental note to slap Yangyang after all of this was over.

“Now this is getting interesting” Yangyang whispered just loud enough for you to hear him and went over to Jimin's side to sit beside her and watch.

Donghyuck licked his lips and leaned over towards you. You hoped he wouldn't be able to listen to the drumming sounds of your heart or see the embarrassingly vibrant red color on your cheeks. You just went along with it. It’s just a game, right?

Donghyuck was standing a bit too close to you, probably the closest the two of you have been physically. Or rather, the most intimate you’ve been together. He lowered his head to meet your eye level, and came closer to your face just enough so that his lips were grazing over your ear. “Don’t be nervous, it’s just for fun” he whispered to you. Suddenly, this wasn’t just fun anymore.

Donghyuck pulled away from your ear and was now staring deep into your eyes, his face almost attached to yours. He looked at you for a couple of seconds before he gave you a reassuring nod. You didn’t have the energy to say anything, so you gave him a nod too, signaling him that you were fine.

Before you could even process what was about to happen, Donghyuck leaned in and kissed you. Plump lips captured yours in a soft dancing motion, their taste perfectly resembling a mix of the pizza and cola he had earlier. Shock waves run throughout your entire body, as he moved his hand to the back of your neck to support you.

You allowed yourself to fall entirely into him, eyes closed and lips moving along the rhythm he created. A few seconds felt like hours, his homely yet unfamiliar touch making your stomach clench and your face heat up in love.

And then he stopped. Donghyuck pulled back and flashed the brightest smile you had ever seen painted on his beautiful face. He licked his lips and you laughed awkwardly, looking down at your lap to avoid his piercing gaze. Your heart was still beating rapidly. You could taste his lips on your lips, you could feel the touch of his hand in the back of your neck, you could hear the sound of his beating heart, you could sense his cool breath fanning your burning face. Donghyuck had stopped kissing you, but the sensation of his kiss was still present in your entire body. You just had your first kiss, and at the same time, you had your first kiss with Donghyuck.

“Gosh you were kissing for ages. Like, get a room, or something” Yangyang said and went back to sit on the side of the room he was previously sitting in. Jimin threw you a playful wink secretly from the boys. You knew what it meant. We need to talk later type of wink.

It was getting late and Donghyuck’s parents called him to go back home. He needed to leave sooner than the rest of you because he still hadn’t packed all of his things. You greeted him one last time before he walked out the door to leave.

As the door closed, you felt your heart sink down the deepest ocean, a piece of it shattering, tears welling up in the corners of your eyes, dryness in your throat. You missed him already. It had been just a couple of seconds since he walked out the door and your heart to go out that door with him too.

A tear streamed down your cheek.So this was it. A second tear followed shortly after the first one. Then another one. And another one. Soon enough a pool of tears was running down your face and it hadn’t occurred to you that you were going to miss him that much.

But as if a lightning bolt struck you, you quickly wiped your tears with the palm of your hands, stormed out the door and ran after Donghyuck.

“Donghyuck!” you yelled and he stopped to look back at you. You were lucky he heard your voice, he hadn’t walked that far though, you were quick to react and follow after him, just so you could spend some more time with him. You and him. “Do you mind if I walk you home?” you asked him and he nodded.

You skipped a bit so that you could walk beside him. You started walking alongside Donghyuck, taking a few seconds to catch your breath until it came back to its normal rate. “So, when are we gonna see you again?” you asked him. He left a low chuckle and shook his head.

“I honestly don’t know, Y/n” he said. Another piece of your heart shattered.

Donghyuck noticed your saddened expression and took your hand in his. "Hey, look at me” he said. You stopped and turned towards him, taking in the details of his face. His chocolate eyes were gleaming under the moonlight, the moles on his dark cheek reminded you of the stars in the night sky.

“I will not forget you. Ever. Always remember that. I will try my best to call you as much as I can, all of you. You guys are my best friends, I could never leave you. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, it won’t be that easy for me to visit you often. but I promise to make up for all the time that we will lose. Especially for you. But I can’t be sure when that will be.”

A tear slipped down your cheek again and he wiped it away with his thumb. Why is he being like this all of a sudden?

Your voice wasn’t strong enough at that moment for you to speak, so you opened your arms to embrace him instead. And he hugged you back so tightly you thought your body would be merged with his. He buried his head at the crook of your neck and you stayed there for a while, feeling the presence of your bodies on each other. Not a single word was said, yet you felt so comfortable and safe in his arms.

That night you had helped him pack his things. You stayed in his room afterwards, talking, laughing, crying. God you were going to miss him. That day, you thought for the first time ever that maybe your feelings were reciprocated. But he said nothing about it. So you didn’t say anything either.

But you wanted to. It felt like all the words were stuck in your throat and there was something blocking them from coming out. I like you Donghyuck, I like you a lot. It was that easy. But for some reason, you couldn’t say it out loud. Maybe you didn’t want to. Maybe you were too scared of rejection. Or maybe you were afraid of losing a friend.

You and Donghyuck were sitting at the stairs of his porch, next to each other, facing the stars of the night sky. You didn’t want to go home. You couldn’t. You wanted to stay there longer, kiss him again, talk to him about anything and then kiss him again.

When you stood up to leave, he hugged you one last time, stroking your hair lightly. He spoke in a low voice in your ear. “I’ll be back. Don’t forget me”.

How could I ever forget you Donghyuck?

The day after you met Donghyuck at the diner, he texted you and asked to hang out later after your classes. You would be lying to yourself if you said that you didn’t screech like a schoolgirl the moment you saw his text message on your phone when you woke up.

Of course you agreed to meet him. At that moment, you didn’t feel nervous, at all, but as time passed your stomach was clenching more and more.

Jimin wouldn’t stop nudging you about it the entire day. She wanted to meet up for lunch because she was dying to talk about this ever since you came back home last night. “The first thing he did in the morning was to ask you to hang out later? Yeah, sounds like a date to me” she said.

You rolled your eyes at her. “It's not a date, drop it. He just wants us to hang out, that’s it” you said.

“Are you sure that you want to just hang out though?” she asked you.

You thought for a second. “Well, no, but I won't try to do anything more than that” you said.

“Whatever,” Jimin said “you have to tell him sometime though, you know that right? And you also have to admit to yourself that you never really got over him, so now that he’s here you have to make your move. You had your chance once and you lost it. So don’t lose it again now”.

You sighed. “What if he doesn’t feel the same” you said.

“Who gives a fuck?” Jimin said “If he doesn’t feel the same, you will close this chapter and begin a new one. There are other fish in the sea too, you know”

Yeah but it’s not the same, you whispered to yourself. Jimin didn’t hear you.

As soon as you came back to your dorm, you went straight to searching through your closet for an outfit to wear later, when your phone chimed.

[Hyuck]

meet me at the park in about hour

[Hyuck]

bring your bike too

You were staring at your phone screen until it turned off. Oh he’s such a little bitch, you thought.

You put on comfortable clothes and running shoes, and decided to ride your bike on the way to the park. The sun was beginning to set; orange and pink hues painted the sky, a light chilly breeze combing through your hair. The park was still lively, little kids were playing with each other, old couples were going for walks, some students were studying under the trees.

You hadn’t been to the park since the day Donghyuck left. Yangyang wanted to go skating there from time to time, but every time he asked you to keep him company, you turned down his offer. Then, he started filling his time with dating girls and you started spending more time with Jimin, so the park wasn’t your go-to place to hang out anymore.

You saw Donghyuck leaning against a tree, foot resting on top of the bike’s pedal, same black leather jacket as the day before, a bucket hat hiding his pretty features. He was scrolling through his phone as you approached him.

“Hey” you said and his head shot up, turning off his phone and placing it in his pocket. “Y/n, hi” he said and smiled. You smiled back at him. He looked beautiful when he smiled.

“So, you still like the park, I see” you said. He nodded and hopped on his bike. “I do. So come on, let’s go for a ride. I think we have to catch up on a lot of things. And I promised to make up for all the time we lost. So, let’s go” he said and started riding his bike.

You followed shortly after him until you were now biking beside him. So he does remember his promise, you thought. You smiled to yourself and pushed your thoughts to the back of your mind. You wanted to enjoy your time with him, just like the old times.

You spent hours biking and talking about anything. Donghyuck told you stories from his high school years, the friends he met on the way, how he changed his college major and decided to come back here to study computer engineering.

“A part of me wanted this change because I missed this town, you know? I have so many memories here, I was kinda attached to this place. All I needed was a valid reason to come back, and I found one, so here I am.” he said.

You couldn’t help but bring the same questions to your mind, so you gathered all of your strength and asked him. “Then why didn’t you visit us at all? Or even call us back? You did at first and then you stopped. Why?”

Donghyuck pulled the breaks of his bike and rested his feet on the ground to stop the bike from moving. You mimicked his actions and stood there searching his features for an answer. He cleared his throat and turned to look at you. You couldn’t see his face clearly because the bucket hat was casting a shadow over his features.

“Honestly, I don’t really know. I didn’t want to stop contacting you, but I don’t know why I did it.” He paused for a few moments. He drew in a breath and started again. “You know what, I think I know, but I can’t tell you now. Maybe some other time, okay?” he said.

You were left confused, but decided not to question him any further. Instead, you nodded and smiled at him. He would tell you when he was ready to do so.

The sky was getting darker and darker and both your stomachs growled in hunger. Donghyuck suggested that you buy takeout and sit under at the park to stargaze. You left your bikes leaning against a random tree and put your jackets on the ground to sit on them.

The sky looked beautiful. The stars and the moon were shining brightly, contrasting with the pitch black background of the sky. Donghyuck was staring at the sky when he spoke up “I remember how much you liked watching the sky when you were younger. You were always watching the stars closely and we made bets on which one would fall first.”

You chuckled at the memory. “And you always lost. Every. Single. Time. Seriously, you have no intuition at all. You had won one time and bragged about it forever” you said and he laughed.

He turned his head to face you. He had taken off his hat too, his black hair was falling over his eyes. “You were just lucky all the other times. Don’t flatter yourself” he said.

You sat there and ate your food in silence. Comfortable silence. The only sound that was heard was the singing of the cicadas in the trees and occasionally your munching on the food.

Everything felt at ease again. You and Donghyuck, sitting beside each other, enjoying each other’s company, not having to utter a single word. You were smiling at yourself, it really felt as if not a single day had passed.

Donghyuck looked back at the sky and took a sip from his drink before he addressed you. “You really improved. Biking, I mean. I remember you were still struggling when I left” he said.

“Thanks, I still rode my bike to school so that I could get used to it more. Thank you for teaching me by the way. I don’t think I ever thanked you properly” you said.

“It's no problem” he said and sipped from his drink again.

He opened his mouth to speak again, changing the subject now. “So, why did you break up with that guy? Dejun, was it?” he asked.

Why is he so curious about that? “Oh, there were many reasons actually. He wasn’t a bad guy, he was really cool and I liked him a lot. It’s just that we got kinda bored of each other, I guess? And he also graduated from high school a year earlier than me so then he had to go back to China for college.”

Donghyuck nodded. “I see” he paused and asked again. “How was he like?”

“Why do you even bother so much? He is old news now, anyway” you said. But now you were curious about Donghyuck too. “Tell me about you, did you date anyone in high school?”

You don’t know why but you got anxious waiting for his answer. He shrugged. “Yeah but nothing serious. Just casual things, you know?” he said and you hummed in agreement.

The night went on and you talked more. You and Donghyuck agreed to hang out at the park every day after your classes, like you used to. That’s what he suggested. You couldn’t say no; of course you wanted to spend time with him.

And that’s what you did. You grew closer again, maybe even closer than you used to be. You enjoyed biking and stargazing in the park a lot. It had become your thing; an activity that the two of you shared with each other, an excuse to get away from everyone and everything and make up for all the memories you could have had.

There were quite a few moments when you wanted to look Donghyuck in the eyes and tell him I like you dumbass. But every single time you backed away from doing it. You were too scared that these harmless words would end up destroying everything you had built with him.

So you waited. You waited for the right time to bring it up. You were having the time of your life alongside a dear person that you’ve loved and appreciated your entire life. You were not ready to take the risk and possibly lose him. So you never said a word. Because he didn’t say any words either.

“Why does Donghyuck keep asking me about Dejun? What is so interesting about him? If he wants to find out more about him, he should be the one to date him” the frustration in your voice made a couple of people turn their heads from the tables next to yours.

Jimin took a fork bite of her carrot cake. “Girl, you must be joking” she said, munching on the piece of cake. “He asks about him because, guess what, he is jealous! J-e-a-l-o-u-s. Got it? Why are you so stupid, gosh! The man has clearly fallen for you and you are so oblivious of it!”.

“I mean why would he be jealous? Dejun and I broke up so long ago” you muttered to yourself.

Jimin heard that and, obviously, she wouldn’t leave it at that. “This is what happens when you like someone. Donghyuck keeps asking you about your ex boyfriend because he wants to make sure he’s in the clear to make a move.”

You sighed. “Is this why you keep asking Yangyang if he broke up with his girlfriend? Look, Jimin, I love you, but I don’t think Hyuck likes me. As a friend, yes. But nothing more than that.”

Jimin gulped down a glass full of water. “Okay, whatever floats your boat, Y/n” she said and took another fork bite of her cake. “So, did Yangyang tell you? A frat guy he knows is hosting a party this weekend, wanna go?” she asked you.

“Come on Jiminie, you know I don’t really do parties” you whined.

Jimin rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t expecting a different answer. But we’re definitely going. There’s gonna be hot boys, good music and lots of alcohol. I heard Donghyuck is going too”.

“Well, he didn’t mention any party” you defended him. “He didn’t mention any party yet” Jimin corrected you. “He's gonna bring it up any second. I bet you can’t say no to him, you care too much about his feelings but you never care about mine” Jimin sulked.

You mentally slapped her only because you couldn’t bear to slap her for real. “I will go to the party because you want us to go, not because Donghyuck will supposedly be there. You know I always come along with you in everything. We come as a package, remember? Now, don’t sulk and eat your cake, we have to think about our outfits” you said. She was your best friend after all, it was the least you could do.

Jimin’s face lit up and her lips curved upwards, stretching all the way to her ears. Before she could open her mouth to speak, you cut her off. “But you have to promise me that you won’t get drunk, okay?” you said and lifted your pinky.

She linked her pinky finger with yours and nodded in agreement. “I don’t exactly promise it, but I’ll try my best” she said.

Donghyuck indeed mentioned the party later that day when you went out at the park with him. “I don’t really wanna go either Y/n, but all my friends are gonna be there. And now that you’re gonna be there too, I can’t be the only one missing out from all the fun” he said.

Donghyuck has had his fun share with parties during high school. He told you so one night at the park. He would sneak out the house and go to parties during weekends, but one night, or rather morning, he went home super drunk and threw up all over the front door rug. He claimed that this happened because of a dare his friends made him do and that he didn’t intend to drink as much as he did. After that, he avoided parties like the plague. It’s not that his parents never allowed him to go again; he could easily sneak out his window. He was smart enough to realize that parties were simply not good for him.

“I wanted to fit in with them, you know?” Donghyuck said “I got used to it eventually and I actually kinda liked it, but now I don’t really enjoy such things”.

That’s one of the many reasons you liked Donghyuck so much. His honesty. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind about things that bothered him, or simply voice out his thoughts. So why wasn’t he doing it with his feelings too? Was it so hard for him too? Did he actually like you, like Jimin said? Or maybe you just wanted to believe that he did. If he really did, he would probably have said it by now.

But his actions spoke louder than his words. You couldn’t help but think about the way he looked at you under the night sky when you were staring at the stars but he was staring back at you. Or when he wiped your strawberry milk stains from the corners of your lips and his fingers stayed there brushing your lips a little longer than they should be. Or when he held you close to him among big crowds so that he wouldn’t lose you from his sight. Or when he would let you rest your head on his chest while he was stroking your hair so that you could fall asleep faster.

You swear you had heard him whisper something to you once, but when you asked him to repeat it he waved it off. Were you that desperate for his attention? Maybe. But maybe both of you were fools, afraid to let their heart be free because of the painful possibility that it might break.

You and Jimin were standing in front of the frat house door, the loud music blasting through the speakers behind the wall created a throbbing base sound in your ears, your heart beat in sync with the beat of the song that was playing from inside that house.

“Do we knock or...” Jimin trailed off before the door slid wide open and a tipsy young man stood by it. “Welcome ladies, come on in” he said. You and Jimin looked at each other for confirmation before hesitantly taking a step forward. The young man stepped aside so that you could get through the door.

The place was dark, the only source of light being the neon special effects lighting coming from the DJ set. The rooms were packed with people, some of them already drunk, some of them dancing all over each other, the mixed odor of sweat, alcohol and weed making you dizzy. At that exact moment you reminded yourself that this was why you didn’t like parties.

You and Jimin stood there, eyes wandering all over the room, trying to take in the scenery in front of you. “Damn, this is so cool” Jimin breathed out.

The guy who opened the door a few seconds ago was nowhere to be seen. A girl was walking with her sunglasses on, when she bumped into Jimin and spilled a bit of her drink on the ground, a drop of it landing on Jimin’s shoe. A “sorry” was barely audible on top of the loud music and Jimin stood there looking at her shoe in disgust.

“I guess it’s not that cool” she said and grabbed your hand. “Let’s go get ourselves some drinks.”

You walked towards the kitchen which was a bit brighter compared to the other rooms. Bottles of different types of alcohol were lined up on the kitchen counter. Juice boxes, ice and plastic red cups were placed on the kitchen table. A group of boys were refilling their cups with their alcohol of choice, while a couple was making out up against the wall next to the fridge.

Jimin’s disgusted expression from earlier appeared again. You decided to ignore your surroundings and went over to the kitchen counter to grab a drink for you and Jimin.

“Where’s Yangyang?” Jimin asked

“I honestly have no idea. He said he’d text me once he gets here, but I’m a bit surprised he didn’t arrive earlier than us. He doesn’t miss on such things” you said and Jimin nodded.

“And Donghyuck?” she asked again

You put the bottle of alcohol down and grabbed a box of grapefruit juice. You shrugged. “ No idea either.”

Jimin smirked at your answer, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she took her cup and guided you out of the kitchen towards the living room. “Come on, let’s dance” she said.

The music was blasting into your eardrums and your body caught the rhythm of the music, adjusting its muscles to move along to it. It wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be. Your body was swaying to the fast-paced song that the DJ was playing when you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket.

[Hyuck]

where are you?

[Hyuck]

can’t see you

You lifted your head to look around the crowded living room in hopes of finding Donghyuck. It didn’t take you long before you could spot him among the crowd, though. You could never miss him anywhere, he always stood out in your eyes. Your gaze caught his, and his lips curved a bit when he saw you.

He tried to squeeze between the people dancing in the living room in order to get to your place. “What are you looking at?” Jimin asked you when she noticed that something bothered you.

You didn’t have time to answer her, because Donghyuck grabbed your arm to smoothly turn your body around and shift your attention to him. You felt a lump in your throat, your breath trapped inside your lungs. There he stood, messy hair falling onto his eyes, black graphic shirt and jeans, a Cuban link around his neck and matching rings on his fingers contrasting with the dark colors of his outfit. He looked gorgeous.

He flashed you a smile, raising his voice so that you could hear him. “Hi” he said. He simply said hi. Yet a group of butterflies started dancing in your stomach. You said it back.

Jimin got the message and leaned in your ear. “I think I saw some girls I know from one of my classes. I’d better leave you two” she said and turned on her heel to leave.

Donghyuck waved Jimin off and grabbed your hand. He then bent a bit lower and leaned in your ear. “Should we go somewhere quieter?” he asked you, his low voice vibrating in your ear. You could only nod.

Donghyuck walked in the front and you followed behind him, still holding his hand. He led you outside the house, towards the back yard. Plastic cups were scattered all over the grassy ground, two girls passed out beside some bushes, a guy sipping alcohol from a glass bottle and dancing on his own. Yeah, parties were weird.

You felt weirded out and uncomfortable at the sight and Donghyuck sensed it. He squeezed your hand and you looked up at him. He nodded to the large swing beside the barbecue stand and motioned you to go and sit there.

You sat down on the swing and Donghyuck copied your movement. He leaned his body towards the back so that it touched the back of the swing and with a swift motion, he pushed his feet on the ground and the swing started moving. You lifted your feet off the ground and let Donghyuck rock the swing smoothly.

You sat in silence for a moment, that comfortable silence that only existed when you were with Donghyuck, which was interrupted by his honey voice. “I don’t like parties” he simply said.

You turned to look at him but he was staring into the void in front of him. “ I have bad memories when it comes to parties” he said.

You didn’t speak. You didn’t want to. You always let him open up to you without interrupting his stream of thoughts.

Donghyuck drew in a sharp breath. “Remember that story I told you about that party? That one when I went home the next day and threw up all over the door? Yeah that one. I couldn’t bear going to something like this again when the last time I did, I didn’t even do it for myself. Did you know that I started drinking so that kids at my new school thought I was cool? That’s how I ended up spilling my guts all over my mother’s rug.”

He turned to look at you. “Pretty disgusting, huh?” he chuckled.

You chuckled too. You lowered your gaze to your feet. “Then why did you come here tonight?” you asked him.

“I don’t know” he said without even thinking about his answer. “I guess I came for my friends again.“ He paused for a second and spoke again “And I guess I also came to see you, mostly” he trailed off.

You stilled at his words and you thanked yourself for staring at your shoes and not looking at him, because he would be able to see the embarrassingly bright red color of your cheeks.

“But you see me everyday. We hang out all the time” you said.

“I know” he said. That’s all he said. What was that even supposed to mean?

Before you could speak, Donghyuck got up from the swing and extended his arm in front of you. “Come on, let's get out of here. This party sucks, we both hate it, so why waste our time? Let’s leave. Me and you.” he said.

You looked up at him. “Hyuck,” you trailed off “as much as I hate this party and as much as I want to leave with you, I promised Jimin to keep her company” you really hated that you had to say this.

“Jimin has found other people to hang out with, she’ll be fine, I know it.” Donghyuck said, a glimpse of hope in the tone of his voice.

That glimpse vanished when you rejected his offer for the second time, the corners of his mouth dropping to a frown. “I’m sorry Hyuck, I can’t” you said.

Donghyuck nodded to himself and put his hands inside his pockets. He cleared his throat but his voice still came out a bit raspy and low. “It’s okay, I get it.”

Your heart shuttered upon seeing him like this. You really didn’t want to make him feel bad, but you had also promised Jimin to be there for her since she wanted this so much. And you couldn’t let yourself break that promise, even though it was actually a bit trivial. Because in all honesty, Jimin would really be fine.

But also a small part of you was too flustered to spend time alone with Donghyuck at that moment. You felt as if you weren’t capable of controlling your emotions; your feelings kept growing stronger and stronger, and his presence alone was enough to make you feel overwhelmed with love.

The back door opened and someone came running through it. “Donghyuck, dude!” a guy you didn’t quite recognize yelled and came to grab Donghyuck by his arm. “You’re missing out on all the fuuuun my dude, come in back insideeee we’re gonna get fucking wasted!” the guy was yelling and patting Donghyuck on the back of his neck while dragging him inside the frat house.

Donghyuck said something you didn’t quite catch, and he tried to let go of the guy’s hold on him, but he failed to do so. The guy had already taken him to the back door and inside the house.

The door closed shut behind them and you left sitting on the swing by yourself, rocking it slightly with your feet. You shivered under the cool evening breeze and wrapped your arms around your body to shield yourself from the cold.

You didn’t want to go back inside. You promised Jimin to keep her company, but a frat party was the last place you wanted to be at, at that time. You grabbed your phone and, speaking of the devil, a few texts from Jimin appeared on your screen.

[Jiminie]

spotted yangyang. pretty sure he took a girl to a room

[Jiminie]

doesn’t he a gf?

You sighed reading Jimin’s texts. You really had to have a talk with Yangyang. And Jimin, for that matter. At least you knew that he was safe and that you probably won’t have to take care of him like a baby after you leave the party.

[you]

let him be, we’ll kick his ass tomorrow

[you]

where are you?

The text you wrote was delivered for the next 15 minutes. Jimin hadn’t read your message. All of a sudden, your hands became sweaty and your chest felt heavy as if a rock had fallen onto it.

Why didn’t she text me back?

Worry started welling up inside you and you rushed inside the house looking for your best friend. The music had got louder, the crowd was bigger, the smell of alcohol and weed more prominent. You went running up and down the stairs, kicking open every single door you found on your way.

Still, Jimin was nowhere to be found.

You stood at the edge of the stairway for a second to catch your breath. You opened your phone to call her and started walking towards the bathroom, the last room you didn’t check.

The phone was beeping in your ear, but Jimin didn’t pick up. You exhaled sharply and opened the bathroom door, still holding the phone in your ear. The sweat on your palms and the rock on your chest magically disappeared when you saw Jimin kneeling in front of the toilet with an arm holding her hair back out of her face.

A sigh of relief escaped your lips and you stopped the phone call. “Thank god you’re safe. I was so freaked out you bitch” you said and crouched down beside her. “Are you okay?” you asked her.

Jimin nodded and let her hair fall down her shoulders. She wiped her lips with the back of her palm before she spoke. “I’m okay. I had a bit too much alcohol and I threw up. But I feel better now. Sorry for making you worried” she said.

You opened your arms and she fell into your embrace. You stroked her head lightly, as you could feel her warm tears wetting the fabric of your shirt on your shoulder. She promised not to drink too much, but your gut somehow knew you’d better stay there at the party because something like this would be inevitable. “It's okay Jiminie, I was the one who left you alone, I promised to keep you company” you said.

She pulled back from the hug. “I guess we both broke each other’s promise” she chuckled and you did the same.

Jimin sniffled and wiped her already dry tears. “Why are you alone? Where is Donghyuck?” she asked you.

“We were sitting outside but then a random guy came and dragged him back inside. He seemed pretty wasted” you replied.

Jimin’s eyes widened and she stood up abruptly. “Oh no, oh no no no” she said.

You stood up too. “What? Jimin, what's wrong?” you asked her curiously.

“If it's the guy I think it is, then Donghyuck might be stupid drunk right now, or even worse, under the influence. We need to find him. Now” she said and ran out the bathroom and down the stairs, skipping a couple of steps while doing so.

You followed right after her, the rock falling on your chest again. You hated parties. This was final. Things like this are unavoidable in parties, and you hated the fact that your friends had to go through shit every single time.

The music wasn’t as loud as earlier and the living room didn’t feel as crowded. Most of the people were gathered outside in the backyard, or were already passed out on the beds or the floors of the bedrooms.

You and Jimin spotted a group of people gathered in a circle in the middle of the living room. Everybody was sitting on the carpeted floor, bottles of alcohol scattered everywhere around them. You noticed that a guy was holding a blunt and kept rotating it to every person gathered in that circle. Oh no.

Their voices were mixed in with the music coming from the DJ set, so all you could see was their mouths moving without saying anything meaningful. The smoke of the blunt made the living room foggy and your lungs were struggling to work properly in between the crowded room.

The stinging sensation in your eyes caused by the smoke and flashing lights made your eyes watery and you could not tell apart any face in the crowd, except for Jimin who was standing next to you.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” Jimin whispered.

You rubbed your eyes in order to clear your vision without even caring if this would ruin your makeup. The faces on the people sitting on the floor became clearer, and it didn’t take you long before you spotted the familiar chocolate eyes looking drowsy, honey fingers placing the blunt in between soft plump lips.

A girl passed Donghyuck the blunt and he took a long and slow drag from it, exhaling the smoke into the thick air creating smoke rings. He then gave the blunt to the person next to him and he leaned back supporting his body with his elbows.

Donghyuck was wasted. Whatever that guy did to him in such a little time got to him immediately. His chocolate eyes were drowned in a pool of red, his hair looking messier than before and his clothes were all wrinkled.

You stood there frozen looking at him. If you had tried to keep him away from that guy, he wouldn’t have ended up in this situation. He had told you that he was pressured by other people to do stuff he didn’t want to do, but was he that naive to let this happen to himself once again? How many times has that even happened before?

Your thoughts had carried you away, your vision was blurry again and your ears had blocked away all the sounds. An arm slung around your shoulders and you jolted up at the sudden touch.

“Where have you been bestie? You came rrright at the perfect time. We’re playing spin the bottle” Yangnyang said drowsily, his eyes painted in the same red shade as Donghyuck’s.

“Oh you’re here too, come on, sit down” he said to Jimin and dragged us both to the circle on the floor. He used both his arms and his full force to sit us down next to each other, and then he got up to sit across from us where he was previously sitting.

The girl to your left offered you the blunt but you rejected it without a second thought. Everyone was either stupid high or stupid drunk, some of them were both. You were suffocating. You felt like a total stranger there, even the existence of your own body was making you anxious.

You turned to Jimin on your right. “We need to go home” you mouthed and she kept nodding to herself constantly.

Your eyes roamed around the small circle, trying to find a way to get up and leave. But before you could do that, the chocolate pair of eyes that was now drowned in deep red, locked in with yours. A sense of déjà vu ran through your entire body, shivering under his gaze. This cannot happen again.

Jimin took your hand in hers and squeezed it tightly. She was uncomfortable and so were you. You tried to get up and leave, but the girl next to you dragged you back down.

A guy gulped down an entire bottle of alcohol before he put it down in the middle of the circle. You didn’t even bother to look at what type of alcohol it was.

Yangyang moved in closer to the middle and grabbed the bottle. “Alright, I'll go first!” he shouted and with a swift motion, he spun the bottle fast.

The bottle was spinning at a rapid speed until it came to a stop, its two ends pointing on two people you didn’t know. Apparently, you were the only one who didn’t know them because everyone else was super excited for their kiss. Or at least they were too high to understand what they were doing.

The bottle spun again. And again. And again. You lost count of how many rounds you were in, the same way your eyes were lost in Donghyuck’s. You kept him under your gaze, watching his every move and trying to justify the way he was acting. You had never seen him like this, so out of himself. What happened to the boy you saw a couple hours ago? The boy you knew ever since you were five? It felt as if he had almost lost whatever it was that made him different from the others. Right now, he looked like every other frat boy in that house.

But he didn’t really look at you. In fact, his mind seemed to be roaming around, not really paying attention to any of his surroundings except for when someone would pass him the blunt.

The bottle kept spinning and almost everyone had kissed someone else at this point. Yangyang took his fair share of the game as he kept on kissing a different girl in almost every single round.

Jimin squeezed your hand again and you realized how uncomfortable she might have felt. This time, you wouldn’t let any of the others stop you from leaving. Your friend wasn’t feeling well, but so were you. So you let go of Jimin’s hand and stood up, ready to leave.

As if fate was against you, you heard a burst of cheers and whistles coming from everyone gathered in the room. You regretted not leaving sooner, because the one end of the bottle was pointing at your side. And the other end was pointing at Donghyuck.

Cold sweat ran down your temples and a tight knot appeared in your stomach. This can’t be. You froze there standing still, staring at the bottle on your feet. You lifted your gaze from your feet to meet Donghyuck’s, who was staring back at you with a smug expression painting his face. From the corner of your eye, you could spot Yangyang grinning like a madman, his entire dentition on full display.

As if he did it on purpose, Donghyuck took a long drag of the blunt before standing up too so that his eyes leveled yours. The smugness on his face never left his features, his drowsy red eyes pouring into yours.

He slowly walked towards you, stopping right in front of your standing figure. His face was now way too close to yours. You could smell the alcohol and God knows what else on his breath, the heat of his body radiating to yours.

Donghyuck parted his lips and your breath got caught in your throat. His body somehow got even closer to yours. He tilted his head to the side and leaned against your ear. His hot breath was fanning over your ear, his lips softly grazing your skin. With a voice hoarse and low, he spoke loud enough for you to barely hear him. “Don’t worry sweetheart, we’ve done this before.”

You hadn’t even noticed which end of the bottle was pointing at you, but Donghyuck took the initiative himself and smacked his plump lips onto yours. His touch caught you off guard. You were standing there doing nothing, while Donghyuck placed both of his hands on the sides of your neck, his lips moving aggressively yet smoothly on top of yours.

You waited for him to pull away so that you could leave the party as soon as possible, but his intentions seemed to be different. He bit on your bottom lip in an attempt to part your lips so that you could kiss him back. You hated to admit it to yourself but it definitely worked. You parted your mouth just enough and moved your lips in sync with his smooth plump ones, the taste of alcohol from his lips transfering to yours.

The knot on your stomach kept on tightening more and more with each second passing. Your pulse rate had reached an infinite number of beats per minute and you were sure that your legs would not be able to hold you for much longer.

As if Donghyuck read your mind, he pulled away after leaving a last soft peck on your lips, removing his hands from the sides of your neck. He pulled back smirking at you as you were still standing frozen, your lips still feeling numb and swollen..

You had blocked away everyone else that was around you. You couldn’t hear anything of what they were saying. Your brain was still trying to comprehend what had just happened.

With a quick snap back to reality, you grabbed Jimin’s hand and turned your back to everyone else, storming off through the door of the frat house.

The night of the party you slept over at Jimin’s dorm. As soon as you exited the frat house, you went straight to Jimin’s car and you offered to drive since Jimin wasn’t in the right place to drive. She was still feeling unwell after she threw up all the alcohol she had consumed previously the same night, so you wanted to make sure she would be fine. But honestly, you weren’t feeling well either, and it wasn’t because you had drank.

Your mind kept replaying the moment Donghyuck kissed you like a video on loop. You were suddenly fifteen again, playing a silly game of spin the bottle with your friends where you happened to kiss your silly little crush. But now it happened again. And it wasn’t a silly game or a silly crush anymore.

Why was Donghyuck so complicating? All those times you hung out together, you never noticed him having any romantic intentions towards you. Everything he did or said was purely in the terms of friendship. But the way he approached you, touched you and kissed you at the party told you otherwise. Were you that blind not to notice his intentions?

You tried to excuse his behavior, saying that he was high or drunk and didn’t know what he was doing. Which is not necessarily a lie. It wasn’t his fault that he got peer pressured into drinking and behaving like one of the frat boys. He is the complete opposite of a troublemaker and ill-intended person; no wonder people found it so easy to talk him into things.

Plus, it was only just a game. He sure didn’t think of it as something much of a big deal, so why would you give it so much importance?

You mentally slapped yourself for thinking like this, because Jimin, who was already fast asleep, would yell at you for excusing Donghyuck’s behavior. He’s not a kid, he’s a grown-up, he knows what he’s doing, she would say. You had to wait until the morning to hear her scolding. The thing is, she wouldn’t be completely wrong about this.

During the thunderstorm of thoughts pouring inside your brain, a bold lightning struck in between. What if you confessed to him? Your heart couldn’t bear hiding what it felt for any longer. At that moment, you didn’t care if it would ruin your relationship with Donghyuck. He has acted recklessly enough quite a few times now, so you were allowed to be reckless for once too. He had to know how you felt, because this is what would make you feel at ease with yourself. He can’t find it so easy to kiss you in a drunk game and not feel anything either. After the spark that lit up with the touch of your lips and the butterflies that danced around the knot in your stomach, you knew you had to tell him. But the problem was that you didn’t know how to do it.

For the meantime, you had curled up in Jimin’s bed hugging yourself tightly, crying your eyes out until sweet sleep brushed over them and closed them shut.

The morning of the next day you and Jimin went out to grab breakfast together. She was still feeling a bit weird because of last night’s events, but she said that a plate of chocolate chip pancakes would cure her hangover.

You were fiddling with your fork, scraping it at the surface of the plate, a screeching noise coming from it. Jimin visibly shivered at the sound and you stopped it.

“So,” Jimin began, swallowing a big piece of the pancakes, “wanna talk about last night?” she asked.

You put your fork down and sat back, crossing your arms. “I don’t think there’s anything to talk about. Everything is so confusing” you answered.

“Um, that’s exactly why we need to talk about it” Jimin said. She drank a full glass of water and then set it down on the table with a thud. It was so loud, you thought that the table might have broken.

“Donghyuck literally kissed you and we’re gonna completely ignore that? Come on Y/n, we cannot pretend it didn’t happen. Well, at least you cannot pretend it didn’t happen” Jimin said.

“Drop it Jimin, he was drunk, or high, or whatever.”

“No he was not. Well he was, but not that much. He knew what he was doing. Look, Y/n, Donghyuck has been a great friend to you and I know how much you love him for that. But when it comes to the romantic part of your relationship, he’s been nothing but an ass.”

You sighed and didn’t say anything in return. Jimin was right. He really was an ass when it came to romantic relationships. But you couldn’t ignore your feelings. You knew the way you felt when he touched you, when he leaned close to your ear and whispered to you, when his lips danced with yours.

The question is, did he feel the same?

You broke the silence by speaking up. “I think I’m gonna confess to him” you said.

Jimin almost choked on her food. She started coughing and you immediately got up and patted her on her back to prevent any accidents. You filled in her glass with water and helped her drink a bit.

“You what?!” Jimin practically screamed and you were thankful that the restaurant was not full that morning.

“I thought about it last night and I can’t keep suppressing my feelings, But I don’t know how to do it and I still think that Donghyuck might not like me back, hell, he only sees my as a friend, but at the same time I felt it when he kissed me, it felt different than the first time he did it back at that goodbye party before high school and God I hate parties becau-“

“Hey hey hey! Calm down bestie” Jimin interrupted you. You were panting, trying to catch your breath. You didn’t realize you went on an auto-rant mode until after Jimin spoke.

“It’s okay, I know it’s hard to do it. But if you finally feel confident enough to tell him, you should do it. We’ll think of a way to do that, together.” Jimin reassured you and you nodded to yourself.

Speaking of the devil, your phone screen lit up and a ting sound echoed in the room. You picked it up, only to see a text from Donghyuck.

[Hyuck]

see you at the park later?

You sighed again and made a mental note to text him back in a minute when you would have calmed down from your previous outbreak.

You really had to tell him, and you had to do it soon.

Despite your initial denial, you agreed to meet Donghyuck later that day at the park, at your usual spot. You were contemplating whether to meet him or not, because even though you wanted to confess, your anxiety and fear of a bad outcome got the best of you.

You didn’t mind if you got rejected. You really didn’t care at all. At that moment, you just wanted to get it out of your chest. A few weeks ago, you would be dreading the possibility of Donghyuck rejecting your feelings and ruining your friendship. But right now you had none of that in mind.

You rode your bike on the way to the park in order to clear your mind with some fresh air. The sun had almost set and the park was becoming emptier. You spotted Donghyuck sitting on the ground with his back resting on a tree trunk. He had rode there on his bike too.

You went up to him and he only noticed your presence until after you sat down beside him. He turned his head to your side and he flushed you one of his precious bright smiles, the one that always made your heart skip a bit.

You didn’t want to lie to yourself, but your confidence from earlier magically vanished the moment you saw his face.

“How have you been? It was a mess last night” you spoke first and his smile dropped at the sound of your voice, his plump lips forming a soft frown, eyes falling down to his lap.

“Don’t remind me of that” Donghyuck said. He paused for a second before he spoke again. “I actually wanted to apologize for that. For whatever happened. I clearly didn’t mean anything I did or said, so if I did anything bad or weird, don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know. I promised myself I wouldn’t get carried away, but guess what! I did nothing but that. I’m sorry.”

You waited for him to finish with what he wanted to say before you said anything else. You went closer to him and rubbed his back in sympathy.

It took you a while to take in everything he said. What did he mean by “I didn’t mean anything I said or did”? Did he regret kissing you? Didn’t he feel the same spark, the same tingle, the same knot in his stomach?

You tried to push these thoughts away and focus on your feelings. It was time you put your feelings first, or rather, yourself. Your heart was beating out of your chest, blood rushing into your cheeks, as you gathered all your confidence and courage before you spoke up.

“Donghyuck?” you said in a soft, quiet voice, barely above a whisper. Donghyuck lifted his head, his chocolate eyes diving deep into yours, his skin glimmering under the moonlight like frozen honey.

That’s when your voice got stuck in your throat, and you stood there staring at him and he was staring back at you. “Wanna go on a ride with our bikes? To clear our minds?” you said.

He nodded and his plump lips curved upwards, his eyes creasing a bit on the sides. This is not what you wanted to say, but at least you said something.

You wanted to say so much more. So many things occupied the back of your head, you wanted to scream at him for giving you all these mixed signals, you wanted to scold him for acting so immature, you wanted to hug him and tell him that he’s too good for this world, you wanted to feel his touch and warmth on your body. But you did nothing for it.

You had to think of a way to confess to him without having to say any words. Otherwise, you would fuck up. Or you wouldn’t be able to do it at all, and you would be left with the burden upon your chest.

In the meantime, you were reminded how beautiful you felt every time you were with him. You relaxed, you laughed, you cried, you smiled, you frowned, you were stressed and then you were not. There was only one boy in all the world that could wake up every single emotion inside you and that boy was none other than Lee Donghyuck.

You still quite couldn’t put your finger on what it was that made him so different from the other boys. Maybe the fact that he was just a guy, like everyone else, but he seemed so gorgeous in your eyes. Maybe it was because you knew him in a way no one else did. That’s why you felt the need to share your feelings with him, because no matter what, you somehow knew that he would always love you back, even as just a friend.

You were still mad at him for acting this way. But you could not completely ignore the person you knew because of one reckless incident. You knew Donghyuck very well, and you knew that he was better than this. You weren’t in the right mood to confront him after seeing how bad he felt with himself, so you chose to put whatever happened at the party towards the back of your head for a while and enjoy your time with him.

There is always the right time for everything.

“Aeri broke up with me” Yangyang announced, with a frown on his face that could reach the floor.

“She did? Yeah, I’m not surprised. You shouldn’t be either” you said.

“But why?” Yangyang whined.

“Are you serious right now?” Jimin spoke up “You literally hook up with every other girl, plus, you never gave her any attention! And you have the audacity to cry about it.”

You were walking on campus, heading towards your respective classes. It had been two days since the frat party, and Yangyang’s girlfriend found out about his doings and she finally snapped.

Donghyuck caught up to you and joined the conversation. “Oof, I found you guys, I was looking for you everywhere. Wait what happened?” he asked as soon as he noticed Yangyang’s frown in his expression.

“Aeri happened” you said.

“Who's Aeri?” Donghyuck asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

Jimin was the one to speak up this time. “Yangyang’s girlfriend. Well, now ex-girlfriend. It took her a bit long to come to her senses but I’m happy she finally did.” She turned to Yangyang and slapped him in the back of his head. “See, you never even mentioned her name, you idiot! You’re gross, honestly” Jimin said with a disgusted expression.

Donghyuck smiled slightly at Jimin’s comment, but none of them saw him but you. Was it just your idea or did he look extra fine today?

Jimin walked to your side and linked her arm with yours. “Now if you will excuse us boys, we have to talk about girl things, mhm?” Jimin said and dragged you away from them, leaving them walking behind you.

“So, I thought of the perfect idea” Jimin whispered, lowering her head.

“About what?” you asked.

“You will make a quiz and send it to him” Jimin said. You stopped at your track to take in what she just said. “What?”

“You want to confess to Donghyuck, right? So I did some research and came across this quiz that you supposedly send to your crush and then they have to respond and send it back to you I guess. What do you think?” Jimin said.

“It sounds childish. Yeah I don’t think it will work” you said.

“But why? Let’s give it a try. Please” Jimin whined and you couldn’t do anything but agree with her. “Okay, listen. I’ll see what I’ll do. If I feel confident enough to send it to him then we’re good, otherwise we’ll have to think of something else” you said.

Jimin screeched and hugged you tightly. “Thank you thank you thank you! Oh my god, I really think it will work. Plus, it’s not gonna be a face to face confession so don’t be nervous about it. You got this. I’ll meet you later after classes to work on it. Love you bestie!” Jimin said and ran off to her class, leaving you walking on your own in the campus.

Maybe her idea wasn’t that bad after all. This couldn’t go too wrong, right?

Later that day you met Jimin at your favorite café. You found her sitting at your usual table, scrolling on her phone.

Yangyang decided to tag along this time too. You bumped into him on your way out of campus and invited him for coffee too. You didn’t tell Jimin about it, but you were sure she wouldn’t mind.

You sat down next to her, and Yangyang went for the seat on the other side of the table, taking out his phone.

“Let’s start, take out your laptop” Jimin said and you did so. You opened an empty form sheet and stared at the cursor appearing and disappearing on the screen. “Well, how do I start?” you asked.

Jimin took the lead and turned the laptop to her side so that she could type on the keyboard easier. “So, we'll start with his name. Write something like, ‘Hi Donghyuck, if you’re receiving this it’s because I have a big fat crush on you and I don’t know how to tell you-‘”

“Shhhh,” you interrupted her “don’t say his name” you whisper shouted.

Yangyang raised his head from his phone screen and joined the conversation. “Don’t worry about it bestie, it’s not as if we don’t know about it. It’s so obvious that you like Hyuck to the point it hurts my eyes every time I see you looking at him. Can’t you be more discreet about it? What the fuck are you two even doing by the way?”

You were left speechless and kept blinking, staring at Yangyang. Of course he would figure it out, he’s been your best friend since you were literally babies. You shouldn’t be surprised by this.

“We’re making a confession quiz to help Y/n tell Donghyuck that she likes him. I saw it online and apparently it works wonders” Jimin said.

Yangyang stayed silent for a few seconds before he started laughing hysterically. You and Jimin looked at each other and then back at Yangyang, waiting for him to stop with his laughing outburst.

You waited until he finally caught his breath, wiping a tear that slipped from the corner of his eye with his finger. “You guys are seriously so funny” he said.

“What's so funny about it, Yangyang? Hm?” Jimin asked him.

“I just find it such a stupid idea. Don’t you think it’s a bit childish? It won’t work” he said.

“That's what I thought too, but I’m gonna give it a try” you said.

“Okay, whatever” Yangyang said and went back to scrolling on his phone.

“Don’t give him any notice, Y/n. Let’s move on” Jimin said and started typing on the keyboard.

“So, we'll start with questions such as ‘Did you know that I liked you?’ and ‘If yes, then how did you know?’ and then ‘Do you like me back?’ and stuff” Jimin spoke while typing at the same time.

“Wait Jimin, don’t you think these are a bit too straightforward?” you asked. Jimin stopped typing and looked at you dead in the eye. “Are you kidding me? This is how a confession works, hello?” Jimin answered, full of irony. Through the corner of your eye, you saw Yangyang scoffing.

“Okay so next,” Jimin started typing again “you need to ask him the important stuff, which is what he thinks of you. And that includes what his first impression of you was, how attractive he finds you and how much he likes your personality.”

“How about we ask him something like ‘Is this awkward?’ because trust me, it probably is” you were the one who suggested a question this time.

Jimin wasn’t entirely sure if you were joking or not, be she agreed and typed it after the previous one. “Now, let’s end it with a precious moment between the two of you. One that he remembers, it might be anything” Jimin said.

She typed fast, her fingers running on top of the keyboard. Her eyes never left the screen, following the letters without even peaking at the keyboard to see what she was typing. She then pressed the enter key with all her strength and sat back on her chair. “And we’re done. It’s sent” she said.

The moment she said that the quiz was sent, you started trembling. You didn’t feel nervous up until that point. What if everything went downhill after this? It’s just a stupid quiz, you thought. Sure, the quiz was stupid, but your crush wasn’t. You were worried that once Dongyuck sees the quiz, he’ll start seeing you differently. You were only hoping that this differently didn’t mean negative, because if it did, your entire relationship with him would change. And you didn’t want to lose such an important person in your life over a not-so-stupid crush.

You didn’t see Donghyuck on campus the next day. You were sure about it because ever since Jimin sent him the confession quiz, he hasn’t left your mind. You kept looking for him everywhere but not because you wanted to see him. It was rather the opposite. You knew that if you saw his face after knowing that you had confessed to him, you wouldn’t be able to utter a single word. You avoided him.

You had to thank him, though, for making your job easier. Not a single sight of him on campus for the entire day. Good news.

But the bad news was that he didn’t text you throughout the day at all, which was odd. He would usually ask to meet at the park, or just text you about not anything of importance. But there was no sign of him that day.

A lot of thoughts formed in your mind at the same time. In the worst case scenario, there was something wrong with him. In the best case scenario, he felt way too awkward because of the confession quiz and he didn’t want to do anything with you. You couldn’t explain how this was the best case scenario, but you were worried sick about him. So you hoped for the latter.

You didn’t want to text him or call him though. You wanted to avoid him, right? Your current behavior didn’t match the confidence you had a couple days ago. It felt like you were more intimate with him now, you had exposed a piece of your inner self and you were scared that your actions would make him feel uncomfortable.

Yet, you decided to give him time. You wanted to wait for his response. Whatever it would be. You thought that your confession would help you ease your mind, but you’ve been thinking about him even more now. What if he didn’t feel the same? Of course, you would respect his feelings. You can’t force people to like you, or love you. But deep down, you knew it would hurt. You would still continue to love him even if he didn’t love you back. You cannot turn on and off feelings like a light switch. Loving him took a long time and getting over him would take even longer. You didn’t want to get over him. You probably couldn’t. So you wanted to keep loving him and hoped that maybe, there was a slight chance that he would love you back.

However, you didn’t see Donghyuck on campus the day after that either. But this time, you didn’t know if it was because you were avoiding him or because he just didn’t come to any of his classes.

Worry washed over you when neither Yangyang or Jimin had heard of him. “I thought he would be talking with you” Yangyang told you. Yeah, you thought the same thing.

After your classes ended for the day, you decided to go by his dorm and see him in person. You still felt like avoiding him but you didn’t have another choice at this point. You wanted to see him.

You put on your earphones and let the music keep you company while walking. Your heart rate was slowly increasing with each step you took, but you couldn’t explain if it was because you felt anxious or because your heart followed the beat of the music.

After listening to a couple of songs, you found yourself standing right outside Donghyuck’s dorm door. Taking off your earphones, you stood there still, waiting. You raised your arm hesitantly, knuckles touching the wooden surface of the door. You slightly pulled your hand away from the door and then your knuckles touched the door again.

Knock. Knock.

You drew a step back, arm falling to your side. And you waited.

One, two, three, four, five, si-

Donghyuck appeared behind the door, wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a t-shirt, hair messy and eyes droopy.

“Hi, um, sorry d-did I wake you up?” you said.

“Um, no it’s fine, uh, is there something wrong?” Donghyuck said, rubbing his eye with his fingers.

And then you noticed the flush color painting his cheeks and the way he kept his eyes on the ground, not trying to maintain eye contact.

“I was just worried, you know? We haven’t seen you in two days and I just wanted to see if you-“

“I’m fine Y/n, there’s nothing to worry about, now please, I was in the middle of something so, uh, I’ll see you later, bye” Donghyuck interrupted you and closed the door right in your face, without even sparing you a glance.

What was this all about? Why was he acting like this?

You blinked away the tears that were forming in the corners of your eyes and walked away.

“Girl, you’re not the one avoiding him, he’s the one avoiding you!” Jimin said, munching on a cheeseburger.

She swallowed her bite and spoke again. “What I think is, he’s in love with you too, but he’s an even bigger coward than I thought he was. I believe he got so flustered by the quiz we sent him, but don’t worry, he’ll come to his senses sooner or later.”

You rested your head on your palm and sighed heavily. “I don’t know Jiminie, his behavior is so confusing lately. I kinda regret sending him that quiz”.

“Uh oh, don’t say that again. You confessed and well done for that, so now it’s up to him to decide how the relationship between you two will go. Don’t blame yourself for how a man thinks. You never know what goes on inside those pea sized brains of theirs” Jimin said.

“So you say that he’s ignoring me because he likes me back?” you asked, a question which was addressed more to yourself.

“That's exactly what I’m saying,” Jimin said. “I mean, he couldn’t even look at you and his cheeks were all blushy and stuff? Girl, do we see the same things? Because this clearly shows he has lost his shit over you.”

You remained silent for a while, leaving Jimin to eat her cheeseburger in peace and allowing yourself to sort all of your thoughts that were scrambled inside your mind. Maybe she was right. Again. Her intuition regarding people’s feelings and behaviors is remarkable. She always left you wondering how she could be so good at reading other people.

You thought you were good at it too, until this boy named Lee Donghyuck came into your life. It wasn't that hard to understand him as a little boy, but now that you’re all adults, it seems like he has built walls around his heart and it’s not easy to read him anymore. The problem was that you didn’t know why he did this. He used to allow himself to be open and vulnerable with you. At least you thought so.

Now you are left wondering what’s in his mind and what is it that makes him act this way. Was the quiz that awkward? Did he see you in a different way now?

Questions like this kept messing with you and you wished you could unsend that quiz if it were to prevent this outcome. But you decided to give him a little bit more time. You were friends after all, right? Friends always come back to each other, no matter what. Right?

The next couple of days Donghyuck had been ignoring you still. Jimin said there was no point in feeling sad about it and that he would just snap one moment and realize what an asshole he was.

You hadn’t told Yangyang about any of that. He had mentioned the quiz once, asking you something like how you made it and what you wrote exactly, but nothing more specific about Donghyuck. So you decided to let it go, he wouldn’t understand anyway.

You were sitting at the park alone, leaning against a tree while watching the sun slowly hiding behind the hill, waiting for the moon to rise and take its place in the sky. The cheerful screams of little kids were gradually fading away and the park was becoming quieter, the only sound interrupting the silence from time to time was the barking of dogs.

You felt peaceful. You found a moment in time to have for yourself, a small escape from all of last week’s dramatic events. You breathed in the fresh air, you let your body relax and your mind roam around the scenery of nature in front of you.

This inner serenity didn’t last long though. Your phone chimed in your pocket and the screen lit up, the intense brightness hurting your eyes due to the contrast with the now darker sky.

You lowered the brightness in order to take a better look at the text on your screen. You squinted your eyes a bit further, this time not because of the brightness.

[Hyuck]

i really need to talk to you

it’s important

you know where to find me

i’m at your favorite place

You kept rereading Donghyuck’s texts over and over. So he ignores me for days and now all of a sudden he wants us to meet and he puzzles me with a riddle? What the hell?

You turned off your phone and stared blankly in front of you, trying to think of what place Donghyuck was talking about. You didn’t even care about what he wanted to tell you. You had to find him first.

The gears inside your brain got to work, spinning quickly and digging through your memories to help you find the answer. But you were already in your favorite place. The park. At least it was your favorite at the moment. So if he were at the park, where could he be? You would be able to see him by now.

The gears in your brain suddenly stopped moving and the light bulb shone brightly above your head. You knew exactly where he was. And it wasn’t the park. You grabbed your things quickly and rushed out of the park, heading towards the place you could never imagine that you’ll ever see again.

You had been walking for only ten minutes and your legs were hurting and started feeling wobbly. The one time you actually needed your bike, you didn’t have it. A sigh left your lips and you continued walking, looking at your phone from time to time in case Donghyuck texted you something else or called you.

You could tell that you were almost there by the red and gold lighting attacking your eyes, contrasting with the darkness of your surroundings. You squinted your eyes as a reaction to the sudden appearance of light, walking towards the source of red and gold. The smell of butter popcorn lured you in and that’s how you knew you were at the exact place you needed to be.

You stood under the bright sign, the same white balloons climbing up the pillars on each side of the gate, confetti sprinkled and glued in between them, fairy lights trailing upwards to the glowing sign. ‘Welcome to Dreamland’.

You stood in awe. You never thought you would visit this place again. It's been years since the last time you visited the amusement park and it felt strange yet so familiar sitting there, looking at the place that felt like your childhood home.

Your eyes were roaming around and you just stood still, not moving a single step further. For a moment, you had forgotten the reason why you were there in the first place.

The scent of the familiar cologne was roaming in the air, snapping you out of your thoughts. Donghyuck cleared his throat and you turned around to face him.

He looked beautiful. The lights of the amusement park were reflecting in his eyes, his hair fell softly covering his forehead, his plump lips curved upwards to a smile.

You noticed that he held his arms behind his back, but you didn’t question it. You just stared right into his eyes, just like he stared into yours. “Hi” he said, his voice blurred among the music and random screams from little kids running around the amusement park.

“Hi” you greeted him back, and then both of you remained silent, looking at each other. Your eyes started stinging from keeping them open for a long time, so you lowered your gaze to your feet.

Donghyuck sensed the awkwardness and cleared his throat again before he spoke up. “I’m sorry, Y/n” he said.

Your head jolted up at the sound of his honey voice and your gaze locked in with his. You parted your lips to speak, but he beat you to it. “I’m sorry. I know my behavior was shit. I was an asshole. I was ignoring you when I shouldn’t. I’m surprised that you came to see me after the way I treated you. So thank you" he said.

You didn’t want to speak. You didn’t have the courage to do so, but you also didn’t know what to tell him. Instead, you waited for him to continue talking.

Donghyuck’s gaze shifted from your eyes to other places around him and he pursed his lips. “You know, I received that quiz you sent me” he trailed off.

You gulped at the mention of the quiz and suddenly your heartbeat picked up a pace so fast that was probably beyond human.

“I didn’t-” Donghyuck started, “I didn’t send it back to you because I wanted to answer it now, with you here” he said.

You found yourself incapable of speaking at that moment. You simply nodded and diverted your gaze back to your feet.

“Please look at me Y/n” Donghyuck said and you froze, slowly lifting your head to see him looking directly at you. You could tell he was nervous by the way he inhaled sharply and the soft red color that painted his cheeks.

“I didn’t know you felt this way about me,” he started, “so when I saw that quiz I was so troubled. Maybe you were obvious with it, maybe not, but what’s certain is that I was too nervous around you to even notice anything.”

You tried to process his words and come to a conclusion. Everything that came out of his mouth didn’t make sense to you. Why would he be nervous around me?

Donghyuck gulped and continued. “Do you remember how we met?” he asked, but the question was mostly addressed to himself rather than you. You smiled at the memory. How could you forget such a pretty boy?

“It was here, this exact place. We were both running, we bumped into each other, fell down and then dropped your cotton candy” he said and started laughing. You did the same.

“And then we became friends. Inseparable friends. You have always been the sweetest friend I’ve ever had. You are kind, funny, you make me feel comfortable, you’re always there for me even though I behave so shitty sometimes” he said.

“And you’re so beautiful. I find myself staring at you when you’re looking away and I just ask myself how can a person be this beautiful” he said, his voice getting gradually quieter, just a little bit louder than a whisper.

“Do you know why I stopped contacting you when I left?” Donghyuck asked, this time the question addressed to you.

You cleared your throat before speaking, voice barely audible. “No.” It was the first time you spoke after greeting him.

Donghyuck shifted a bit, balancing his weight on one leg. “Because I liked you so much I couldn’t bear talking to you, knowing that I wasn’t able to see you, touch you and tell you how much I missed you” he said. “I thought that maybe, if I didn’t talk to you again, maybe it would hurt less than it did.”

You felt your lips drying, eyes widening upon hearing these words. This can’t be real. Yes, you wanted him to like you back, but you never expected it to be true. Even if you believed in a slight chance that he might like you back, it never occurred to you that it might actually be true.

“Hyuck, what are you talking about?” you asked him, not believing a single word he was saying.

“I’m talking about how much I like you, Y/n. Fuck, I might even be in love with you. I don’t know, I always get this weird feeling around you and I can’t get it to stop! I keep thinking about you and how I want to be able to kiss you without finding excuses with these stupid spin the bottle games! I like you so fucking much Y/n, I don’t know how to act.”

You stood still, frozen. So this is really happening, you thought. All this time you were worried about your feelings for Donghyuck when he was feeling the exact same way towards you. Your heart fluttered to the sound of his confession and you felt like smiling so hard until your cheeks hurt.

“Please say something Y/n” Donghyuck whispered. You didn’t say anything though. You didn’t have to. Instead, you took a couple steps further and stood right in front of him, placing your hands on each side of his neck, smacking your lips onto his.

He responded immediately, parting his lips slightly to kiss you back. He removed one arm from behind his back to cup your cheek with his hand and he kissed you gently and genuinely.

The knot in your stomach was untied, releasing the butterflies it had been holding in for so long. Donghyuck’s plump lips moved in sync with yours, his soft touch on your cheek sending streaks of warmth down your entire body.

You slowly pulled back to catch your breath, looking at him in his eyes, both of you smiling as hard as ever. “Of course I like you too, dumbass. I’ve liked you ever since I met you.” You said and Donghyuck smiled even harder than before, if it was even possible.

You removed your hands from his neck, dropping them to your side. “What is behind your back?” you asked him eagerly.

Donghyuck dropped his hand from your cheek too and brought his other arm from behind his back, only to reveal a stick of fluffy pink cotton candy.

Your eyes widened at the sight. It was the last thing you expected to see.

“You know, I promised to buy you one because I had dropped it when we bumped into each other, but I never had the chance to do that, so...” Dongyuck said and you slammed your body into his arms, grinning hard and laughing.

You squeezed him tightly and he returned your embrace, wrapping his arms around your waist, his head finding its way to rest in the crook of your neck.

“I think I love you, Donghyuck” you softly said in his ear.

Donghyuck’s grip on you tightened more and he breathed in. “Y/n, I know I love you” he said, just loud enough so that you and only you could hear him.

Donghyuck pulled back slightly so that he could see your face. He was still holding you tightly, as if he physically couldn’t let you go. As you were lost in the pool of honey in his eyes, he spoke with a low voice. “Do you think you’ll finally be able to beat me in bumper cars?” he said.

You laughed at his question and his smile grew wider to the sound. “No, you’re too slow. I actually pity you” you said.

Donghyuck poked the inside on his cheek with his tongue and raised his eyebrow at your answer. “Oh yeah? Let’s find out, bitchass” he said and linked his fingers with yours to guide you to the amusement park.

Just like that, your heart was full. It was right at the place it needed to be from the very beginning. It was finally home.

The doorbell chimed behind you and a chill breeze entered the inside of the diner for a brief second. You didn’t have to turn your head to realize that a group of high school kids entered the diner, their voices were too loud and annoying. You rolled your eyes and popped a french fry into your mouth.

It’s been about two weeks since you and Donghyuck made it official. You agreed to start a relationship that very night you confessed to each other outside the amusement park. Donghyuck only agreed to go out with you if he won three consecutive races at the bumper cars ride. Turns out you ended up crashing his car in every single round, but Donghyuck kept on saying that he didn’t really mean what he said and kissed you into agreeing to go on another date with him.

You were happy. Ever since you started dating, you found yourself enjoying the time you spent with Donghyuck even more than you did before. It’s not that many things changed, it was mostly the same things you used to do. The only difference was that neither of you was afraid to express their true feelings anymore.

You and Donghyuck were sitting next to each other at the diner booth. Donghyuck had his arm wrapped around your shoulder, while he used his other arm to grab french fries from the bowl on your table. You agreed to buy just one bowl of french fries to ease your appetite before you ordered your actual meals.

Donghyuck was talking to you about the drive-in cinema that will start working again next week. He said that they would be playing one of his favorite movies, so he practically begged you to go with him and treat it as a date as well.

“What are you guys talking about?” you heard Jimin’s voice and you looked up to see that she had just arrived with Yangyang standing there next to her.

“Oh hey guys, we didn’t hear you entering. I was telling Y/n about the drive-in, it’ll be open again next week. Wanna go-wait-” Donghyuck started saying, but he cut himself off when he noticed that Yangyang was holding Jimin’s hand.

“Dude what?” Donghyuck asked again and you sat there staring at your friends with eyes wide open. Jimin and Yangyang were grinning at your and Donghyuck’s reactions, before they went to sit on the booth opposite of yours.

“Yup, it is exactly what you think it is. Now, what were you saying about the drive-in?” Yangyang casually joined in the conversation without addressing the matter that clearly needed to be addressed.

“Jimin, why didn’t you tell me about this? How long have you guys been going out?” you said smiling at your friends.

“Not that long, just a few days after you guys. See, I was going to tell you about it Y/n, but Yangyang thought it would be funnier if we just showed up one random day like this and let you guys figure it out on your own” Jimin said and Yangyang kissed her forehead before wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

“Yeah, turns out that stupid quiz you girls thought of works wonders” Yangyang said and popped one french fry that he stole from the bowl.

“Wait, Yangyang, you were the one to send Jimin the quiz? Oh how the tables turn” you said and he waved you off.

You weren’t even the slightest bit surprised that Yangyang and Jimin were dating now. Honestly, it was quite obvious that there was something going on between them, but both of them were way too stubborn to admit it. Was it that way with you and Donghyuck too?

The four of you spent time at the diner that night. The feeling of being carefree and relaxed around your friends reminded you of the time you used to spend all together back in high school. It really felt as if you never lost touch with one another, everything was back to normal. Except this time, your heart felt at ease too.

It was getting quite late and the diner was almost empty now. The four of you didn’t really have the heart to check the time and make a move to get up and leave, you were having way too much time to just call it a night.

You had now ordered a second round of drinks, non-alcoholic though because none of you was really that good at staying sober. Instead, you just stuck with fizzy drinks and sodas.

Yangyang emptied out his second bottle of coke before he slammed it on the table. He licked his lips and sighed. “Wow, this was a good one” he said. But this wasn’t the only thing he had in mind. You could tell by the smugness of his expression.

Yangyang smirked and then lifted his head to flash one of his signature wide grins. “I don’t wanna go home yet, guys. So, who’s up for a game of spin the bottle?” he asked.

Jimin kicked his leg under the table, Donghyuck sat up and smacked him in the head and you stretched your arm to pinch his nose. The four of you burst out laughing, thinking about how things would have turned out if it wasn’t for Yangyang’s stupid ideas.

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 2 months

Text

Can I Stay? (A Baekhyun Story) Part 20.

Pairing: You x Baekhyun

Rating: M (Mature)

Word Count: 13.5k

Warnings: Slight angst. Alcohol.

Tag List: @his-mochi-cheeks

Links: Can I Stay: Masterlist

You looked like a jewel.

You’d been to the salon for hair and makeup; had been to the spa for a waxing and skin treatment. You’d had everything that could be plucked and everything that could be massaged, filed, shaped and painted and the moment you pulled up the sparkly flesh colored, curve hugging, mini dress up over you hips, slipped the nude colored straps over your shoulders and reached just behind you to zip up the hidden zipper and turned to look over your own surprising reflection in your floor length mirror you gave yourself a tiny spin in place.

The dress sparkled like facets of a diamond even in your sparsely lit bedroom. The slight sparkling fringe moved when you moved and where the delicate pattern of the sparkles stopped, the dress gave the illusion of showing a lot more skin than it did; thanks to the fact that it seemed to blend in with your skin tone perfectly. There were some places in which the illusion broke; such as the high slit that crept up so high on your smooth bare thigh or on either side of your breasts where whatever bits of covering fabric simply stopped existing and the slightest glimpse of skin outlined the curves of your body.

The dress was sexy. It looked good on you and you felt beautiful, desirable, and powerful in it.

You bought it a few months ago. You’d happened upon this particular number in a boutique and hadn’t ever planned on spending this much on a dress at the time but when you’d held the dress up to yourself; shrugged and thought what’s the worst that could happen if you just tried it on, well…

Turns out, the worst that could happen was if it you as if it were made exclusively for you and you fell absolutely in love with every sparkly bit that curved over your hips, and hugged tightly around your waist; despite the fact that it was actually much more money than you’d ever wanted to spend on a single garment for one night; and was actually much sexier of a look than you thought you had a right to pull off at the time. What with being single and alone and undesired and the last thing you wanted was the purely animalistic looks you’d recognize in many of the men’s eyes; muted only by the scrutiny of the women around you who leaned toward bitchy and jealous when presented with a woman who wore such a sexy look with confidence and power around them.

You were beyond giving a damn anymore. At least when it comes to anyone who might have anything negative to say about you.

You left your neck bare; the dress was distracting and the cut away sides that gave just enough side boob with the way it landed below your arms and the delicately low cut neckline, you didn’t think you needed to draw any more attention below your neck. Instead you opted only to wear some delicate dangly earrings that might occasionally distract the occasional wandering eyes should they find themselves so inclined to look.

One item though; one very distracting and obvious item had you second guessing.

The diamond engagement ring.

Should you wear it? Something so obvious in its meaning in a place filled with so many people who both had no business knowing the truth and who really shouldn’t know at this point in the game.

You vacillated. Putting it on and taking it off at least three times before you let out the longest sigh and simply moved the ring to your right hand. Maybe you’d get the nerve to move it back when you saw him tonight. Maybe you’d change your mind when his eyes fell down to the empty ring finger of your left hand, then slipped over to catch the sparks that flew and caught his eyes from your right hand and looked back up into your own with whatever flash of disappointment in his eyes hidden so quickly you would question whether you’d seen anything at all.

He would understand. This was work. This was your career. These were your coworkers and this was your professional reputation. Sure, the truth would have to come out eventually, but you were desperate to put a little bit of distance between you being his direct supervisor and him being your soon to be husband.

The ring felt foreign and wrong on your right hand.

You did your best to push the feeling deep down inside of your belly where you could safely ignore it for now.

You hoped for a few things tonight.

That you wouldn’t collapse into a heap of love-sickness when you saw him.

That you could manage to keep yourself from drinking too much alcohol in some weak plan to keep yourself from collapsing into a heap of love-sickness when you saw him.

That Baekhyun would … that he might perhaps, by-chance, maybe you kind of, sort of, you hoped that Baekhyun would fall into a heap of love-sickness when he saw you.

You slinked closer to your front door; making the briefest stop at the entryway table that you kept at the door for one final touch. Something you knew he would very well struggle against when he leaned in close for a harmless and chaste touch of his soft cheek against yours; a hand that might linger on your waist when he came in close for a greeting he would smell the fragrance you sprayed against your neck. He would smell it here when he leaned close to whisper into your ear to ask you something harmless like ‘Would you like another drink, Miss Manager? This is already your second one, will you be okay?’, ‘Did you order the chicken or the fish, Miss Manager?’ or ‘Would you like to dance with me, Miss Manager?’

You felt giddy with anticipation.

All of your team members would be mingling with the other department team members; all of whom had worked tirelessly on this project from the very start. There would even be speeches and acknowledgments of a job well done. Another successful project completed. High ratings would be teased at. The liquor and the beer would flow in a grateful celebration as the wallets of the biggest, fattest cats got bigger and fatter.

Upper level producers, directors, and project executives would likely be on their second or third drinks by now and would start to set their wandering eyes on some of the younger, fresher girls as the alcohol gave them just enough of a push for a flirtatious compliment. Tucked away somewhere within the grand ballroom, one might even catch a glimpse of blond hair adoring a handsome face atop of a pair or strong, broad shoulders that would fill out a designer suit in a way that would surely take anyone’s breath away.

The taxi driver took a turn and you lifted a hand to grab a hold of the grip above the window and your nose caught the scent of your perfume. You were always careful not to overdo it. He might not even notice it until his face came in close to you. Maybe while you were both dancing. Maybe while he sat beside you at the table and leaned down to pick up your napkin that had slipped to the floor by your feet; reaching down at the same moment that you did, your heads nearly colliding.

You had to watch yourself tonight. Maybe three drinks maximum. Maybe three dances maximum. Any more than that was simply too dangerous.

Of course deep down inside you hoped his secret whispered questions wouldn’t all be so very appropriate. In your mind, his questions shifted as you sat in the backseat of the taxi to the hotel where the party was surely well underway by now. You didn’t mind being a bit late to these things. You’d spent the entirety of the year being obsessively dependable and chronically punctual but this was the end. This was the celebration. You could afford to relax now.

The first few times you’d attended, the idea of letting go on a weekday evening felt somewhat forbidden. But this was how they usually scheduled them for the sake of stretching out whatever was left of the budget. The rates were better on a week-night party and you knew the studio could even splurge on an open bar if they planned it well enough. You’d been to enough of these parties to know how they worked. Glitz and glamor, plenty of alcohol, lots of dancing, even more schmoozing. You giggled to yourself recalling the wild rumors and gossip that quickly spread through the last wrap party. It seems that a pair of particularly drunk party goers were caught making out in a darkened corner. It seemed that something scandalous had taken place in a hidden stairwell. Some drunken debauchery led to another pair waking up in the same bed together and at least two walk-of-shames had allegedly been witnessed by some particularly gossip loving members of the group chat that blew up your phone the next morning.

You really, really needed to watch yourself tonight. Absolutely no more than four drinks. A firm and immovable limit you would under no circumstances bend under. Four drinks and spread out thin. Maybe five if they seemed particularly watered down, but that was it. The most, the absolute most dances you would allow with him would be five. And the majority would be fast songs; not all of them slow dances. Not all of them touching each other lightly and carefully as not to sink fingertips too deep into any flesh; in the dimly lit crowded space that felt much more intimate than it had any right to. At least you should keep from staring for too long into the dark brown irises of his eyes. Two, or three, slow dances, max. You would not lose yourself in the embrace of his arms. You would not lean your head over his shoulder as his arms wrapped around your waist and the lyrics grew more romantic over the top of your heads. You would not hold your breath as you strained to listen to the sound of his heart beating inside of his chest over the sound of the music up ahead.

Your imagination quickly ran away from you and you ignored the fact that none of your math seemed to be making any sense right now.

‘Oh really? Was she, Miss Manager? I didn’t notice.’

‘Honestly, I can’t seem to see anyone else but you tonight, Miss Manager.’

‘Miss Manager … I heard that some of the staff just book a room after these parties so they don't have to drive.’

‘Do you think any of them are seeing each other?’

‘Do you think any of them are obsessed with each other?’

‘Do you think any of them are desperate for each other?’

‘Do you think any of them are like us?’

‘Miss Manager …’

‘Noona …’

‘Baby…

‘Should we just go up and get a room?’

You were giggling all alone in the back seat of this taxi. You’d forgotten yourself for long enough for a genuine snort of giggles to escape and you quickly laid a palm over your mouth to somehow catch them and put them back in.

Instinctively your eyes looked toward the cab driver and you caught a split second of eye contact with the man in the rear view mirror before he looked away with an amused grin on his face.

The hotel lobby was opulent and fancy. This was a good one. You dared to guess it was nicer than the last one, but this had been a bigger project with a bigger price tag. You were certain you’d spot an occasional cast member mingling amongst the production staff tonight; doing their due diligence; securing their next big role.

It was a grand event. You could hear the exciting sounds of the crowd inside the moment you stepped up to the foyer doors that would lead to the grand ballroom.

You were so late that it seemed the first episode had already aired. You’d missed the grand unveiling and the credits rolling. You were sure the congratulatory speeches and awards had already been passed out. There were never any such accolades for any one in your field so you didn’t really feel too bad about missing that part. You had entered the open space where larger crowds lingered. Hotel staff passed by with trays of drinks and small bites or held doors for you as you passed through doorways from spaces where people dressed to the nines just as you were, mingled; drank; laughed loudly and freely.

The stress and incredible effort of the past few months was finally let go. Smiles all around were genuine. It felt as if the culmination of a career’s worth of effort had finally amounted to something quite tangible here. The project, like countless you’d worked on in the past, had been a success. Well received by critics, audiences, and sold well to streaming services. Whispers of the next season filtered to your ears and you smiled widely to person after person; all familiar and all just as relieved by the good news as you felt.

They were all familiar in a once or twice introduced or professional acquaintance sort of way. You had yet to come across the members of your team and with as cliquey as things tended to grow after suffering together for so long, you were sure you’d find them in close proximity to each other.

You were sure you’d find another sort of familiar face amongst them. You couldn’t help the drift of your eyes over the heads of the crowds as you searched for that familiar shade of blond hair.

There were a few false alarms. That one was too tall, this one wasn’t even a man.

You heard a gasp that called your focus to your right and you’d at last found some of your team.

“Miss Manager, you look incredible!” Marci covered her open mouth with a palm and her wide eyes drifted over the length of you, her startled reaction pulled your lips into an amused grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this.” She had a drink in her hands and her eyes had an excited glassiness to them. Already. You giggled when she gripped you tightly around the hand and shook it lightly and you were opening your mouth to refute her claims.

“Nah ~ I always dress up for these events.”

“Like a goddess!” She shouted over the music that had picked up in volume. She was joined by a few other team members and their eyes looked you up and down with the same sort of excited wonder.

“Sandi,” Marci shouted out over your shoulder and you turned your head toward the direction she was looking, “look at how pretty she looks tonight!” Sandi looked upon you with a quiet smile and a knowing expression behind her eyes and before long, Sandi and Marci were soon joined by some of the other girls in your team and you were quickly surrounded by a chorus of oohs and aahs. It seemed you had been just a bit later than you had expected because it was becoming evident that the drinking had been going on for quite some time already. Someone pushed a drink into your hand declaring that you needed to catch up. You were quickly caught up in the excitement and to quiet their noisy cries you raised what you knew was some sort of shot of alcohol and quickly downed it. It burned and tasted bad and someone else shoved a quarter of a lime between your lips. Tequila.

You needed to be more careful. Of all of the liquors that took your rational mind and tossed it quickly out the window, tequila was one of the most dangerous ones.

It was useless though. Everyone was too worked up and much too excited to listen to your polite declinations. This is a party, they all shouted. You’d had another shot of something else; influenced by the excitement that buzzed through them like a flu, spreading from them to you; you were too caught up. Two. You could still keep your wits about you with just two drinks.

Let’s go dance together, someone else urged. You grinned and you pushed your hands forward, promising them that you would join them as soon as you were able to. Just as soon as you made your rounds and said your greetings to your superiors. They gave small groans of disappointment that was quickly forgotten as soon as the next songs began playing in the speakers over their heads. It was a fun and popular pop song and the small group jumped up and down excitedly, abandoning you and your self proclaimed very important managerial duties that still called your name.

And you certainly would greet whoever you happened to run into. Producers and managers from other teams. You nodded politely, shook their hands and gave your sweetest smiles to some of your favorites.

Sophie Choi grabbed you tightly around the shoulders and pulled you in for a warm hug and over her shoulders your eyes scanned the room for any shades of hair that were anything other than black. You’d begun to feel just a little bit desperate the longer you looked and came up empty.

As your eyes searched they met with a pair of eyes that were indeed familiar. You pushed a smile on your lips, making absolutely certain that your expression showed not even a hint of the disappointment you were beginning to feel the longer you searched through in this place and did not find the person you were really looking for.

Ben from the marketing department gave you an almost undetectable double take and his eyes drifted over the length of you before the ultra polite professional smile quickly took over whatever look you might have imagined seeing in his eyes. Perhaps his team had pressured him into having a few more drinks that he had intended to as well. Perhaps that was the reason for the way his focus seemed to linger in places other than your shrewd, business-like eyes and co-worker-appropriate placid smile.

Ben leaned into you with his greeting, a warm hand landing just over your back as he did it. His words spoke into the space where he leaned near your ear. The music was loud, of course, he had to speak up a bit. Despite the unusually close proximity between the two of you and the warm palm that still sat quite high up on your bare shoulder, a part of you marveled at just how little thought you actually gave to anything other than the words coming from his mouth.

He was talking about work. Asking you about this new co-worker who you had sent him. This mystery man who would soon be joining his Marketing Communication team as his newest Marcom Specialist; an impressive sounding title for sure. You gave yourself the smallest internal pat on the back for pulling the necessary strings to sell Ben on such a move for your former assistant. Although it wasn’t as if Baekhyun was any stranger to blatant favoritism in this company, you still felt pretty green when it came to nepotism. Not that it was even needed. The second Ben found out who Baekhyun was, he would have agreed straight away. This man was basically guaranteed to be everyone’s boss one day.

Still, urged by your own guilt, you’d made the deal with plenty of back-end promises to owe Ben big time for this, and knowing the man, he would cash in on those favors as soon as he was met with even the slightest bit of resistance from some of the other managers. After this quick chat with Ben, you felt good about this change.

Ben was now giggling and asking about special treatment the President's son might require; his eyes not even trying to conceal the apprehension that broke through the nervous laughter that he was obviously feeling for agreeing to play host to such a high profile guest. You were quick to refute any such ideas. Your former assistant would be a valuable addition and an asset to his team. At no point in your working with Baekhyun had he ever given any sort of impression that he was even capable of using his birth as a professional advantage. Ben was lucky to have such a talented person working at his side and this was not a decision he would regret.

“I’ll admit I’m still a little bit suspicious of my new charge. But I’ll trust you for now,” he smiled genuinely with his eyes, sated for now.

Ben had always been kind. He had been great in the few instances as you’d had to work with him and he was not unattractive. Although the deeper parts of your brain tended to describe his good looks in rather clinical terms. He looked clean. He looked symmetrical. Conventionally attractive. A safe bet. Perhaps even a little boringly so. The kind of attractive looks that one might have with the occasional medical and orthodontic intervention courtesy of a pair of well-off parents who were probably still securely married to this day.

You couldn’t help the way your mind wandered. You also did very little to stop it. It was probably the alcohol's fault. You had somehow finished another drink. Looking into Ben’s harmless and clean smile you heard a judgemental whisper deep within your subconscious. Comparing this man to the other man who had a death grip on your heart and your soul and your lady parts for good measure. Ben was nice but also felt extremely sterile. Curious judgements of the man slipped in. A man like this, and you’d known a few through the years, but, a man like Ben in the bedroom would not always be a disappointment. But he would not be a triumph either.

With a man like this, a woman might even be satisfied and perhaps thirty percent of the time she might even orgasm. As long as she managed that before fifteen minutes were up of course. A man like this definitely had a time limit.

This was definitely the alcohol speaking.

“Sophie!” A familiar voice interrupted your mind's silly wandering and brought a dark shadow along with it.

You heard his loud abrasive laugh. It sounded fake and forced. The owner of that familiar voice calling for Sophia Choi was lingering close by. It was Sophie’s 1st. The very same man you’d promised your boyfriend you wouldn’t allow yourself an opportunity to spend time alone with. The man who looked you up and down with an unfiltered, animalistic look in his drunken eyes and wagged perfectly manicured eyebrows up and down as his lips pulled into something in between a sneer and a delighted grin.

Chet.

Your eyes rolled and you exhaled a slow breath.

You weren’t too much of a drinker. Occasionally and only in social settings; you rarely let loose too often outside of that. Alcohol wasn’t your first medicine of choice and in situations when others might want to drown their sorrows in something to make the mind far far away from reality; you usually made other self detrimental choices like not eating for a week until you got so dizzy you had to force down a bowl of oatmeal, or on the opposite spectrum downing a quart of ice cream until you felt so full and bloated you had no choice but to wallow in your own self curated misery.

“Chet.” Ben nodded his head, and a single eyebrow danced above his eye, “enjoying the party, I see.” Something in Ben’s tone told you that he didn’t have a very high opinion of the man either.

Chet pulled his eyes up from his blatant and obvious examination of your chest and gave Ben a two second glance with a curt nod before his focus was back on you; thankfully on your face now instead of wherever his lustful eyes had been looking.

“Miss Manager,” you heard Chet tack your name onto the end of your title and the sounds of his words had the sort of inflection that told you he had very much intended to keep talking. “That’s quite a dress. You look … very pretty tonight.”

“Doesn’t she look so pretty, Ben? Like a pretty little princess.” Chet’s words were on the surface directed at Ben but his eyes did not leave you. Although they had drifted from your face again.

“So… I was wondering, Miss Princess—” Chet’s eyes moved slowly back up into your face and the excessive way he drew out the S sounds made his words slither like a snake up the back of your spine.

Ben’s body language had changed with the off-putting new nickname and weirdly confrontational tone Chet somehow felt was appropriate to use with you.

“Whoa. Hey—” Ben had noticeably stiffened and his face pulled into a frown as he lifted a hand, palm facing outward about chest level, calling the other man out audibly for the disrespect.

“Maybe you should slow down on the drinks tonight, Man.” Like any rational person might, Ben attributed Chet’s bad behavior to an alcohol induced slip up. It was an easier conclusion to accept than the realization that maybe Chet was just an asshole who didn’t see women as real people and only showed them basic human decency when delusioned by the chance to fuck them.

Once you’d taken that off the table, Chet no longer had any reason to fake it. This was the real Chet.

His intentions toward you had taken on more transparent and obvious meaning. Had you been completely in your right mind, you might have even sensed a little danger in the darkness you saw in those eyes of his.

But as you stood now, you cared too little about this person. He was insignificant in your life. Let him throw his fit. You were simply not interested in whatever it was he felt he had to say to you and so you allowed your eyes to drift away from both of these men, giving almost no acknowledgement at all to Chet or to his greeting or to whatever the hell he was wondering about. You didn’t even give him the satisfaction of acting offended.

You could blame the loud music for not hearing him. You could blame the alcohol for giving you the nerve to turn your back and walk away from him the way you did. He could blame you for being a cold bitch for all you cared. You’d been clear with him in the past when you told him he wasn’t to speak to you unless absolutely necessary and only for work.

It wasn’t that you liked to hold grudges. It was just that you had seen his true colors already and you simply could not unsee them now.

As you left the two men behind you heard Ben’s attempts at being a rational adult. Their bickering voices quickly faded though when the crowds moved and you saw the familiar shape of a man in a deep blue suit. A man with broad shoulders so significant that you felt a warmth surge deep within your belly when your eyes landed on his back. The effect was instantaneous. It was the sudden blast of a warm shower after being caught in the cold rain. It was the warmth of the summer sunshine hitting your face as the dark clouds parted and heat penetrated every layer of your skin. He was life and happiness and joy and love and the sudden shift within your body nearly gave you whiplash with how complete and instant this transformation that happened inside of you was.

It was him. It was Baekhyun. You knew him in an instant. You’d found him.

He was standing next to your team. You saw Marci, Sandi, Ju Won, Sera, and even Sunny — your newest Assistant. He was laughing with a hand over his mouth; you heard his genuine delight and loud guffaws pierce through the crowds. His back was to you and you dropped your hand that held your empty glass hanging it down by your thigh and you simply took in the sight of him. For just a moment you allowed those feelings to fill you completely. You knew you had to be staring. You knew if someone was paying any attention to you right now they’d know without a doubt how very in love you were with this man.

The suit was fitted. Cinched at the waist and it looked designer, of course and very expensive. He filled it out very well. You could make out the strength in his back, the biceps in his arms. The plushness of his thighs below where the jacket ended. The knowledge that this man was yours bubbled up inside of your chest and you had to lift your fingertips to lightly touch over the heat you felt in your face, begging some of the flushness you felt to dissipate.

Earlier as you wandered around this busy place, greeting people you knew on a surface level it all felt very performative. You would push up your smile wide and believable. You would use your kindest and sweetest voice to speak out many compliments and it felt like work.

This though — standing here and looking at this man. The smile you felt was real. I took no effort. It took more effort to blank out your face and pretend like you weren’t looking at your person; the one that felt like home to you.

Only something was very different. The hair. His hair. No wonder you couldn’t find him earlier; you’d been searching for blond hair. He had done something new.

His hair was brown now. It looked like rich honey or dark caramel in this lighting. It was coiffed and styled up by an expert’s hand and when he turned you caught the sight of his profile. The contrast between the dark hair and his light skin, the slight pink of his cheeks and his pouty lips as he spoke; the dark eyebrows and pretty black of his eyelashes and the specks of the tiny moles on his lovely face — all of it; all of him — you were reeling. You felt frozen. You hadn't been prepared for such a drastic change. He should have told you first. He should have sent you a picture so you could get your reaction ready.

He hadn’t told you that he was going to change his hair color. Although he seemed to change it so often you really should have prepared yourself for the possibility of such a thing but everything about this felt so different.

Still the suddenness of this; the impact of how shockingly beautiful he looked with this particular up-style in this particular shade of caramel; your mind was spinning and you were having a moment in the middle of this crowded party too stunned to take another step.

You caught the moment when Sandi noticed you and she reached out a hand to touch lightly on Baekhyun’s forearm; catching his attention easily, her eyes bounced pointedly to where you stood like a statue glued to the floor behind him.

Baekhyun followed. First with his eyes and then he turned his head before he spun halfway around and he looked into your face; his eyes landing first into your own stunned ones.

The smile he had from the lively chat sank, flattened and vanished when he saw you. His eyes had a drift to them. Those deep brown irises took you in. It was an achingly slow journey from your face where his brown eyes had first sunk in with a splash. But their flighty focus slid down to the bare skin of your neck and your chest. They took their time at the deep plunge of the neckline and the peek of cleavage this dress displayed; no doubt triggering flashes of memories of his mouth and the bite marks he’d left all over your breasts that the sheer swirls of this fabric concealed. The drift of him moved again; lower and lower until you felt thoroughly consumed and had by him. He absorbed you — all of you. He did it slowly and he savored it.

This look from him, this reaction left you dumbfounded; even more so than seeing him standing there looking exactly as he should on your wedding day complete with the hair, the slight eye makeup his stylist had put on him that accentuated his beauty, the expertly fit suit in the exact shade of navy blue satin that complimented him so well and made him stand out like a goddamned god amongst mortals. That he could so affect you in absolute silence; without a word, without a single touch, with only the look in his eyes, was a wonder.

In addition to the new and sudden warmth that built up under the surface of your skin you also felt a rush of power. You very much enjoyed this feeling. This dress in all of its sparkly, curve hugging and teasingly enticing glory from the beginning to where it abruptly ended, so high up on your thighs, it just might have been worth the hefty price tag afterall. Just for this reaction from him.

You wondered at that moment if he’d dressed up for you just as you had done for him.

His eyes had made it down. His gaze was faltering and he was pushing through it. Halfway through the journey back up to once again meet your waiting eyes and now, victorious smile, his parted lips tensed and he snapped his jaw up tight with a visible clench of the muscles on his face and his chest rose with the sudden intake of air through his nose. Then he bit down on his bottom lip, furrowed his eyebrows and he pushed his eyes forcefully away from you; he looked off somewhere else; anywhere else; eyes completely devoid of any focus as he exhaled a purposefully stunted and restrained breath through his parted lips.

You knew you had to do the same. You had to blank out your expression and get rid of the lustful look in your eyes. You had to put on the falsely confident, bright as sunshine smile that did not betray any of your true feelings.

It took some doing. It took a deep breath, quite similar to the one he’d drawn into his lungs just now and you also had to look at something that was not him.

You chose the floor right in front of your feet. You shook your head a tiny bit to rid yourself of whatever leftover bits of haze might still be floating around inside of there and you forced your feet to move.

It was only two or three steps to join the group and you slipped into an empty space between Sunny and Baekhyun, looking at the other friendly faces first before you dared to look head-on into his face from this close.

There were greetings of course. Your eyes danced around the small circle quite quickly and by the time you had taken as many deep and steadying breaths of air you were going to get, you looked up into his face with an absolutely passive and non-sexually charged smile on your face.

“Assistant Byun,” you said with a tick of your face in his direction. He hadn’t been looking at you either. When you spoke his name, you saw him lick his lips, close his eyes tightly once and quickly replace the tension in his jaw with a small smile before he turned his attention to you. Your words were light and you let the surprise out of your voice as casually as you could, “you changed your hair?”

“Or I guess it’s Specialist Byun now, isn’t it?” A single eyebrow danced over one of your eyes and you ticked your head a tiny bit. His focus shifted down and as he caught the movement a look of alarm flew across his face. Those pink pouty lips parted. You watched from up close, the tiny gasp he took the moment you lifted a hand and rolled several strands of this new hair of his between your fingertips and your thumb; resisting the urge to sink your hand in deep and run your fingers through his hair; scraping the warmth of his scalp lightly with your fingernails; eliciting that low throaty moan that you knew would escape from deep within his chest when you did it.

Instead you just smiled wider, dropped your hand without even letting the pads of your fingers run down the smooth warmth of his pretty face, you just dropped your hand down, gripping the stem of this empty wine glass instead of touching any other part of his body.

“I love it like this,” you said softly with affection written all over your voice, “looks so good on you—” you added with a sudden halt at the end of your words as you realized you’d just said all of that with honey dripping off of your tongue, directing genuine compliments toward the man in the presence of at least half of your entire team. The effects of your sudden, easy, and completely out-of-character declarations left him as shell-shocked as you felt on the inside.

“Miss Manager … I’ve never seen you like this. You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?” Sandi interjected loudly from the other side of where Baekhyun stood frozen; an amused smile on her face and her eyes wide with a purposeful look that went deeper than others could catch on to.

“I also went to the salon, don’t you love my hair too?” Her lips pulled into a dramatic pout and you smiled wider, understanding that she was saving your ass right now. You leaned into it. Feeling every bit of the warmth of those alcohol shots coursing through your veins you closed the distance between you and this wonderful woman as you gripped both sides of her head with your hands and leaned in closely with a wide smile. You leaned your forehead into hers, unspoken messages of thanks written all over your eyes.

“You look so beautiful. I love it! It’s absolutely stunning!” You declared and the delighted giggles left your chest mingled and mixed with the cadence of the rest of the group's laughter. “And I am, maybe, a tiny bit drunk right now.”

“Oh she has been drinking,” you heard several relieved voices justifying your odd behavior just now. “Well — yeah, it is a party.”

“I thought he was going to faint just now.”

“I know, right. She doesn’t know the power she has over him. Poor guy didn't know what to do.” Their words were whispered in hushed asides between casual members of this small group, but you still caught them. Perhaps Baekhyun’s crush on you had only ever been a secret to you. You must have been the blindest, dimmest, worst work-aholic ever.

Marci was your next target. She was already laughing when you poked an index finger into her cheek, calling her cute as a button. Your hand was off of Sandi and you wrapped one around each of the girls shoulders and declared them both to be the most beautiful women in the room as you urged them both to join you on the dance floor. The music had picked up and more and more people had ventured out to get lost in the crowds and move their bodies to the beat of the music.

You danced and danced. Song after song played and you found yourself completely lost in this unfiltered joy; with so many of your favorite people cheering and laughing and dancing along with you. There was more alcohol that simply appeared and try as you might, you were no match for this kind of pressure.

You’d lost count.

Oh no.

You’d lost count of them.

Still, somehow you could always feel the warm arm of your Sandi by your side. She was strong, but you’d found your way to the edge of the dance floor, peering out toward the tables where a handsome man in a navy blue suit was giggling and laughing with some other men. That same handsome man was throwing back a shot of something, he was making a face and pulling a green lime out from in between his teeth and licking his lips and oh, his eyes, his eyes were darting from the faces of his friends into your own eyes again and again. He was pulling you into him.

“I’m going to dance with him,” you said abruptly to the group of women beside you. Several faces leaned in, unable to hear you over the loud music and you repeated with an evident slur in your voice, “Him. I want to dance with him. Bring him to me. I want him.” You pointed a finger toward Baekhyun and the women were all giggling. One of them was off, rushing toward where he leaned against his table resting his hands joined together over his thighs and she was leaning in close, her hand shielding her mouth as she whispered something into his ear.

His smile was wide and breathtaking. He was grinning. You’d never experienced Baekhyun in any state of intoxication before but his cheeks were pink and he was giggling as he stood up straight, pulled his suit jacket down and smoothed it over with the palms of his hands and allowed himself to be dragged by the sleeve for several feet until he was standing before you within touching distance.

You felt the palm of his hand land over your waist and you smelled the deliciousness of his cologne before you felt the heat of his cheek land over yours. He whispered into your ear.

“I heard — —- —?” A particularly loud song started. This took more than a whisper. You reached a hand up and gripped around the back of his neck, pulling his head down so you could speak loudly into his ear.

“What?” Was all you said. Less than classy and less than romantic. It had him laughing and he closed his eyes tighter as he did it. A small head shake from him preceded the tightening of his arm’s grip around your waist and he gave a rough tug. You stumbled into him and with his other hand, he reached for your face.

You felt unprepared for this. His touch. His touch here, in this place. All of these people. The stiffness you felt all over his body and the way he smelled. How much could you get away with blaming on the alcohol? That hand that touched your face reached for you, slipping around to the back of your neck, he dipped into you. With the entire length of your bodies touching you felt the hot breath from his mouth fan out over your ear and you heard the low rumble from his throat as he growled out the words for you to hear.

“You. Want. Me.”

What was he saying?

What was he doing to you in front of all of these people by saying such a thing to you in the way that he said it?

“To dance,” you shouted over the music, quite loudly, not just for him but for anyone else who might have been watching you.

Baekhyun was laughing again. Loudly. It shook his entire body and you along with it.

“That’s what I meant, silly girl.” He was pushing you deeper into the dance floor with his hands still around your waist, he simply walked forward and you were forced to step back; stumbling a few times without knowing where you were going until the tightness with which he held you around the waist grew stronger and stiffer and his body heat built as his muscles flexed. You were no longer relying on your own feet. You were being carried by these strong arms. He lifted you as he moved. The room was spinning and oh no, what if someone saw?

What if someone noticed the obvious ease and intimate familiarity with which this man handled your body?

You were deposited. The song had changed again. It was, thankfully, another lively quick tempoed pop song; one you liked quite a lot. You found the rhythm easily with his arms around you. He led you around, his eyes boring deep within yours, pushing you out with strong arms and pulling you back.

You followed where he sent you and you found yourself finally giving in. Giggling and squealing when you were spun around in a dizzying circle before you were once again caught in those arms and then, much to your absolute terror, dipped down, frighteningly fast, you were looking straight up into the strings of lights that decorated the ceiling and clawing into the fabric over his strong shoulders; holding on for dear life. Before you were dropped flat on your back in an embarrassing heap, you found the gravity had changed very suddenly and you were back on your feet with this man biting down very hard on his own lip to keep from doing something stupid like leaning in to kiss the red hot embarrassment from the surface of your cheeks.

Baekhyun was a good dancer. He made your dancing seem that much better by comparison, but really, you were simply being dragged around by someone who seemed to know exactly what he was doing. You weren’t awful. You had the basics down and easily found your footing; moving easily to the beat again and again whenever he relinquished a little bit of control over to you. You were lost in this. You never, ever wanted this to end. Devastatingly though, it did.

You were genuinely surprised and even pouting quite visibly when the song ended. It was too quick. If dancing with him was your excuse to touch him and to be held by him tonight then you wanted to dance with him for the rest of the evening.

The song had ended and you stood with both of his arms wrapped around your waist and the rhythm of his heavy breathing matched yours perfectly. You found yourself staring at his parted lips, watching the movement in them as he breathed; glimpsing the tip of his tongue that lightly touched the underside of his front teeth.

“I told you —” you heard the softest whisper from him. The words from him, desperate and careful, piled up slowly one by one inside of your head, “I might not behave myself if you looked too pretty—”

He squeezed his eyes shut and you recognized that the tightness in his arms did not let up.

“How dare you show up in this dress — how dare you — ohh, I’ve been drinking…what do — what do I do?”

His jaw snapped shut and his eyes stayed closed.

“I want to kiss you. You fit so perfectly in my arms.”

His grip was still so tight and the music had changed. The song was slow and lovely and romantic with a soft and delicate melody. Around you, the crowds began to thin as friendly coworkers who had no intention of turning into lovers began to drift away from the dance floor; back to their tables for another drink, or over to the bathrooms, or over to mingle and chat in one of the lounge areas.

“Push me away — please.” His words came as a plea through clenched teeth, “unless you want me to kiss you in front of all of these people, please push me and go. Leave me here.” He was serious. He had enough of his mind still intact to ask for help.

His words and the shift in the air had brought you out of the spell and one glance around had you making eye contact with the occasional curious observer. People were slow with it, but every now and then you would catch someone’s eyes. Why were the two of you still in such a tight embrace? What are they doing? They aren’t even moving anymore. The song ended, shouldn’t they go back to the table?

So you lifted a hand to place over his chest, giving a very light tap atop of his beating heart.

You left your hand to rest there and noticed he didn’t move. It took a slightly firmer hand, you tapped again and pushed, also taking a step back away from him.

The arms loosened and his eyes were opening. You stepped out of his embrace. He was not looking at you, but down at the empty space between his hands where you’d once occupied.

“I’ll go to the bathroom,” you offered, hanging your head slightly as you stepped quickly off the dance floor. You resisted the urge to look back until you were safely at the hallways that led to the restrooms. When you finally did turn and look back, he was nowhere to be found.

The bathrooms were impeccably clean and well lit. You spared yourself a quick glance in the mirror just to be sure that nothing was out of place and you were pleasantly surprised by what you saw. While the reflection staring back at you did take a few moments to stop looking blurry and dizzy, your professional salon makeup job hadn’t seemed to budge and your hair and dress still looked perfect. Furthermore, the soft pink glow in your cheeks and sparkle you saw shining back in your eyes seemed to make you look even better. It was the alcohol, of course.

This was it. You wouldn’t drink any more alcohol tonight. You had plenty to still feel good and you could still reasonably think well enough to avoid making any disastrous mistakes.

When you were satisfied that the danger for such mistakes had passed, you left the sanctity of that private calm space for the darkened hallway just outside. The contrast between the well lit bathrooms and the darkened hallway on the other side of the door had you struggling for your eyes to focus and with the second step you felt the telltale bump of your shoulder against a warm body.

You were quick to step aside and drop your face, uttering a quiet apology for bumping into someone but there was no response that came immediately. It only took a half a second more for you to recognize who this person was.

You smelled it first. It was kind of an acrid alcohol scent and a distinct fragrance from one of those drugstore deodorant sprays, the kinds that prepubescent teen boys spray way too much of as they wander through their high school hallways. You’d always smelled it when he demanded his greeting hugs and you smelled it now.

The realization made you exhale a low breath of irritation and you turned to leave this place and walk away from this conversation before it began.

“Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?”

Chet’s words slurred even more than that had earlier in the evening.

You already felt exhausted by this. “Chet, you are drunk. We are not having this conversation.”

“You avoid me now. You blocked me.” His words were filled with vitriol and his big body moved to block you off from the exit. All you cared about at this point was removing yourself from this darkened hallway and getting back into the spaces where more people congregated. “You used to be cool but now, now you’re just like … this—”

“If you have any actual, substantial complaints about working with me,” you cut him off. You didn’t want him to say something he was going to regret when he sobered up, “please feel free to contact HR in the morning and we will follow the proper channels to get this resolved. I don’t want you to speak to me outside of work — not alone.”

“Do you know how many times I bought you lunch? Only for you to blow me off like this?”

Was he serious? Was he really saying you owed him more than what you had initially thought was friendship; what you later learned was what he hoped would be something physical just because he used the company card to pay for your lunches sometimes?

His arguments were so stupid you had a physical reaction. You had been trying your best not to react to any of the idiotic things he said but this simply had you overcome. You rolled your eyes hard, crossed your arms over your chest and scoffed out loud.

“Please. Please send me a bill for your itty bitty sandwiches, Chet. I would gladly pay anything to be done with you.” Your voice dripped with sarcasm. You had perhaps gone a bit far. You should have known a man like him had plenty to be insecure about. It was too late. You were already mad and the alcohol didn’t help you hold your tongue at all.

“We are done here.”

You’d had all you could stand. How dare this big oaf of a man try and ruin your fun night out. You caught a small gap between him and the wall and you ducked through the space, moving fast so he wouldn’t have a chance to react.

You'd made it four steps before you felt the sting of a strong hand grabbing hard around your wrist and yanking you backward in a fluid motion.

All of your forward momentum shifted in one instant and you spun around, yelping out loud from the sudden shock of being pulled back and also from the genuine pain you felt around your wrist. His hold didn’t let go when your motion stopped; instead he squeezed harder and the stinging pain turned into an ache as the bones in your wrist seemed to flex under the strength of his hold. You wondered how much they could take. You could hear the racing of your own heartbeat echoing loudly inside your ears and the frantic thumping made your already fuzzy mind begin to feel dizzy and unstable. The darkness in this hallway felt suffocating as the fear surged through you; taking your breath and making it shallow and ineffective and you cried out from the terror of this.

“Chet. You’re hurting me.” Your voice sounded so small to your own ears. It sounded helpless and like pleading. It scared you to hear yourself sound this way.

There was a new sound. A shuffling and a grunting sound and your eyes caught a swift blur of motion; someone else was here now. Someone was here.

Someone in blue; someone familiar. You felt a new set of hands on you, around your wrist there was a shove and Chet let go from the surprise of being interrupted. You grabbed at your own wrist and held it up to your chest watching the commotion unfold before you. If you hadn’t known him so well you might not even have known who this was. You could smell him. You could hear the cadence of his breathing and you could make out that specific shade of blue that he wore tonight.

Baekhyun moved quickly, reaching behind the man in one swift motion he grabbed for Chet’s suit jacket and pulled it up over the man’s face, blocking out whatever light he might have been able to see and disorienting him completely. Chet grunted and hollered like a stuck pig. If you hadn’t been so surprised by this you might have even laughed. You saw Baekhyun shoving hard at the man’s back as Chet tried to untangle himself from beneath the coat as he struggled to breathe, struggled to identify his attacker, struggled to free himself of his own coat, it soon became clear why your boyfriend chose this route to come to your rescue.

Chet had no way of knowing who was doing this. Baekhyun didn’t say a single word despite what you knew had to be a deep ache inside of himself to tell this rat bastard to get his filthy hands off his woman and possible go fuck himself while he was at it.

Instead he merely gave one very hard final shove at the man’s back and sent him flying through the doorway of the ladies bathroom. As the door parted you briefly got a glimpse of the chaos that ensued inside that room. A drunken tangle of a man toppled to the floor surrounded by surprised and screeching women who lifted hand bags and swatted at the unwelcome intruder as they all screamed for help. A pervert, one of them cried. The moment he broke free from the coat long enough to open his eyes into the blinding brightly lit room of the ladies bathroom he was swiftly greeted by a rough smack of a heavy purse to the face.

Gravity pulled the door closed and the shouts and shrieks grew muffled behind that door.

You felt too stunned to move. Your hands hung limply by your side and you flinched hard when you felt his warm hands reach out to grab one of them. He held you tightly by the wrist, the same one that was still sore.

“He’s done.” Baekhyun growled. “You’ll never see him or hear from him again. He is blacklisted here and everywhere else. He can shovel shit in Kabul for all I care, that’s the choice he made by putting his fucking hands on you.”

There was a grave seriousness to his voice that you had never, ever heard from him before; in your entire history of knowing him you’ve never witnessed this kind of a reaction from him.

“Baek, I,” you lightly pulled back against his arm. He was walking faster to exit the darkened hallway and put some distance between you and what had just happened back there.

“I told you. I begged you not to be alone with him. Don’t you think I know men? I know a fucking piece of shit when I see one.”

He was worked up. He was angry and cursing and he didn’t seem to hear you call his name or feel you pull against the hold he had on your arm. From the left turn he took it seemed like he was headed for one of the far off lounges where the loud music from the grand ballroom was a distant thumping echo and someone might be able to sit and talk in peace for a while in a somewhat private space.

“Baek,” you called him again a little louder. You were still being dragged and you pulled back again; a little bit harder against him. It wasn’t that you weren’t grateful for him being there and intervening when he did. It wasn’t even that he was here dragging you around this place, where anyone who might not yet be drunk enough to pay attention, might see. It wasn’t even that he had a firm grip around the very same wrist that had been wrangled by Chet and it was honestly feeling just a little too sore from all the rough handling, but the part that you really began to feel was unfair, the part that had you stop your legs in their tracks and pull your hand roughly out of his hands, an action so unexpected from him that he turned around to look at you with wide surprised eyes, halfway through, and standing right in the middle of lounge that he’d brought you to; that part, that was what did it to you and made you move. Unfair. This was unfair.

You held your wrist up to your chest and covered it lightly with the other hand, took your eyes away from his questioning ones and looked around the room. There were some people. In the far left corner in the dark a couple sat with their drinks in their hands and their heads close enough for quiet whispers. On the other end, a woman sat with her cell phone in her hands as she frantically typed away on the screen.

You weren’t alone with him here.

Your wrist hurt.

Your feelings hurt.

The alcohol was making everything dizzy and fuzzy and your mood was quickly plummeting.

You didn’t like the wild anger you’d heard coming from him, and while, yes, it was justified — Chet had acted like an asshole and had definitely crossed a line, something in Baekhyun’s words had irked you. Something in the way he turned the situation around and seemed to imply that the responsibility for what happened was on you.

I told you.

I told you not to be alone with him.

I told you so.

He was right and you were… wrong?

What had you done wrong?

You felt it. It was in the burning inside of your eyes. A hot tingling that made you inhale a sharp breath and avert your eyes quickly from him.

“Do you believe that I did something wrong?” Your words came out as a barely inaudible whisper. You caught the motion of Baekhyun’s feet, you saw him take a step into you and you felt the light touch of his fingertips on your forearm.

There was a sharp intake of breath from him. You could heard it even with you looking down at the floor like this. You could hear the breath he took and the way it stuttered and shook. You heard the exhale that came after that and the small groan that came from deep inside him.

You couldn't do this here. There were people here. The last thing you needed was a breakdown. You had to close your eyes to stop it. Stupid alcohol. You knew it was making these bad feelings so much worse.

“No, no.” You heard him whisper under his breath. His fingertips were touching your skin, “shit — I didn’t —”

“I wasn’t … looking for him … I just came out of the bathroom and he was there.” Your bottom lip felt heavy. It trembled under its own weight. You pulled it in between your teeth and bit down, willing yourself to behave, willing your emotions to calm down.

“No. I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry I said that.”

You were on the edge right now. Every single bit of your weak and vulnerable humanity had bubbled up right to the very rim and was threatening to crest. You were being tested and the careful control you always maintained, always begged and pleaded to keep under wraps was at its limit. You could feel it abating. You could feel yourself beginning to get on top of it the longer you stood here with your eyes closed; not saying anything to anybody and not touching anything but yourself. Not being touched by anything but the very very tips of his fingers, you could hardly even stand that much.

“I know it wasn’t anything you did.”

He needed to just wait.

“You didn’t do anything. It was him. I’m just…I’m just mad at him.”

This would pass if you just waited it out, it would pass. You wouldn't cry. You wouldn't break down here, at this party filled to the absolute brim with nearly every single person you know in your professional career.

“I’m sorry, baby. I made a mistake. I didn’t mean it about you. I don't think that about you. I don't believe that. I’m so sorry.”

You lifted a single finger and you held it suspended, begging for him to stop speaking for the sake of your own careful control. Your closed eyes were trembling and they were fighting to open; to look into his pretty face and to see the softness in those eyes that you know you heard in his voice.

Your hands were fighting too. You longed to feel the warmth of his chest against your own. You longed to slip inside his suit jacket and wrap yourself around him. But you knew, you knew you weren’t alone with him here. You knew such a thing would be too much; would push you over the edge; would destroy whatever carefully crafted self-soothing emotional control you’d been just on the verge of.

You lost the feeling of his fingertips. The shift pulled your eyes open and you looked down at his feet that hadn’t moved at all. He didn’t leave but he’d taken his touch off of you.

He was too quiet. You had to look.

You started slowly, pulling your stinging eyes up to look at his face. You could see his lips, silently waiting and closed. Motionless. Not demanding; not accusing; not judging.

You looked up into his brown eyes and he was watching your face so closely. His body stood as physically close as he thought you might allow right now and within his eyes sat a deep seated worry. The moment you looked at him, looked into his face and looked into his eyes he inhaled a breath through his nose and you caught the slight motion in his throat as he swallowed.

“Can I touch your shoulder? I won’t grab your wrist, I’m sorry — I wasn’t thinking. I’m just — we can go somewhere private — if you want me to come.” His words were so stifled and unsure you felt a fresh wave of emotions bubbling up inside of your chest. The surge must have been visible in your face somehow because he took the smallest step back and he leaned away from you, changing his plan with one sentence, “or you can just follow me,” he said in a single breath, with a tick of his face and a lift of his eyebrows.

On his mouth, in his lips, manifested the saddest nervous smile you’d ever witnessed.

You were filled with regrets for having seen it.

“Baek,” you whispered and you let your lips frown dramatically.

This was a terrible feeling. This was awful. You wanted to hold him. You wanted him to hold you.

Instead you lifted a hand, palm up and motioned vaguely beyond where he stood; sighing in defeat and lifting your eyebrows with a small shake of your head.

He silently turned around and walked further into the lounge, through a doorway that led to what looked like a sliding glass door. The wall here was lined with curtains and you figured this had to be some outside patio. You wondered how this might possibly be a private space with as many guests of this party just wandering around this area non-stop, but you kept your mouth shut when he reached inside his coat pocket, pulled out his wallet and peered inside. You saw his fingertips leafing through several business card shaped items and after a few false alarms he pulled out a small flat white card; which he held up to a spot above the door.

It beeped and the door clicked as a lock disengaged and he turned the handle and pushed the door open.

Outside was exactly as you had thought. A tiny guest patio with a single two person sized lounge chair.

You stood out here with your arms hung at your side watching him busy himself with dusting off the cushion of the seat and after he was sure it was clean enough he stood up straight and looked at you, one hand still holding the white card and the other hand motioning toward the seat; instructing you to sit down.

“What’s that?” You asked without moving your hands.

“A key,” he said flatly.

“Why does it open that door?”

“Master key.”

“Baek,” your head dipped and you blinked in his direction. He wasn’t giving you whole answers. Instead of speaking though, he opened his jaw and bit down on his bottom lip, breathing in a deep breath with a deep squint forming on his eyes as he looked off in the distance. After a few seconds he slowly exhaled the breath and he gave up on standing; lowering himself onto the seat.

“My key,” he said softly with his jaw hung upon after the final syllable. He inhaled again, “my hotel.”

You watched his face for signs of truth. You did not think it was possible for him to continue to surprise you with these bombshells again and again, but here he was sitting before you, a genuine member of some royal family you hadn’t even realized existed. It was too much. Just like the mansion and the staff that followed his every order, it was entirely too much.

You closed your eyes up and felt the remnants of wetness drip down your face. From the upset feeling from earlier, apparently.

You wiped the stray wetness with your fingertips and looked back down for any signs of the color black, or maybe evidence that all of your makeup had been ruined by these unsanctioned tears.

When you looked at him again he was watching you; holding his tongue well as you sniffled whatever bits of the emotions away and blotted at your face again with the back of your hand.

“Do I look like a mess?” You asked through the sniffles.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said without even giving your question a chance to settle. He answered without thinking about the questions or considering the answer, he answered on instinct and the rapid fire response brought out the smallest chuckle from deep inside your lungs. He couldn't even see your face. It was dark out here.

“I spent four hours at the salon. Hair and makeup and waxing and plucking — and I’m crying now. It’s all ruined.” Your low-down mood had lifted some with the sudden compliment. You knew he couldn't even really see you and yet, hearing him say it still had such a strong effect on you.

“Nothing is ruined. You’re so fucking beautiful.”

”I just wanted to look pretty,” you added with a slight whine in your voice now. It was the alcohol for sure. It was the fact that you hadn’t seen him all day and when you did, you had been surrounded by people who shouldn’t ever know this true side of you. It was the way he was looking at you with the smallest smile building on his lips, looking like the most gorgeous man you’d ever seen in his suit and tie, with his super shiny shoes on his feet and the hair, my God, the hair.

“You do look very pretty.”

You gripped at the bottom of your sparkly dress, looking down at it and marveling at how even with the limited lighting out here, it managed to grab a hold of a few far off distant lights from the city skyline and shoot them back at you when you moved just right.

“Did you see my dress? Isn’t my dress pretty too?”

You were playing now. He knew it too. It seems that the crisis had passed and getting this alone time with him had been the best medicine for your rotten mood from earlier. After you asked this final question he looked at you with another tiny smile playing on his lips. He didn’t speak right away and just blinked his eyes at you as you swayed just a little so the sparks in the dress could catch his eye the right way.

“I feel like you didn’t really see it,” you said softly mostly to yourself and you lifted a hand to showcase the many beautiful features of it for him.

His smile was growing.

“See,” you pointed with a fingertip to the high slit that showcased your upper thigh; then you spun halfway and lifted an arm, pointing to the spot on the side of your ribs just below your breast where just a bit of side boob was visible.

His jaw parted and you saw the tip of his tongue brush over the surface of his bottom teeth and his eyes rolled with the wider smile that broke through on his face. He looked away, across the empty view and seemed to focus on the other floors of the building next door.

“Oh and this,” you motioned with both hands behind yourself, just above your ass where the small of your back was visible thanks to the low cut of the back of the dress.

“You’re right, I didn’t really get to see it up close.” He was still seated on the chair, possibly for survival. His hands were fisted tightly together in his own lap and he didn’t reach for you or even try and touch the fabric of the dress.

You could feel it though, the way he gave into you; humored you. The way he let you play this little game you were playing. You smiled and took the three steps needed to reach him and he leaned back casually in his seat with a finger lifted to his face as his eyes took you in from up close.

“Look,” you went through the motions again. Starting up high on your thigh, running your fingertip up the entire inside length of the slit, and even making a few strands of jewels sparkle as you did it.

“Mhmm,” he said with his fingers still covering his mouth in deep consideration. His self control even while a little bit drunk was admirable.

“And here,” you spun, showing off the cut-out in the side. His head was nodding and his blinking slowed down a little. He pursed his lips out and he did a good impression of someone who looked thoroughly impressed by your little show.

“I..” he leaned forward just a little, cleared his throat before he continued — “ahh…I don't umm… don’t think I see a bra strap.”

You clapped your hands in excitement.

“Actually!” He flinched.

While on the surface this was an excellent observation from a man who was probably fishing for a sneak peak of your undergarments or lack thereof, but you were wearing something new and you were quite excited about it.

You leaned to the side, and slipped the dress open just a tiny bit. Baekhyun’s eyes widened and he peered his head to see around the side of the fabric.

“I have these little … stickers,” you said it with pride, “for my nipples,” as if you’d accomplished something fantastic tonight with the pasties that covered your nipples so that nobody got a glimpse of anything too noteworthy from this dress tonight.

His eyes were wide and his lips were open. It took him a minute to move. He leaned back again and ran his open palm down the length of his face as his eyes pulled off of you and all of your sparkles and your bare thighs and your nipple stickers and he stared across at the building next door again.

You followed his eyes and the longer you looked the more you focused on each individual window; each space; each tiny world.

You could see the occasional room that was lit up. These were homes. You could clearly see a few of the residents watching tv; sitting at a kitchen table, reading books. You could see details. You could see plenty.

A sudden realization dawned and you gasped lightly.

“Those apartments are all full of people.”

Baekhyun hummed a response and he nodded his head, closing his eyes through the nod. “Yep,” he said. There was a sense of misery you could pick up in the delivery of that single word.

“I can see them.”

”Mhmm,” he hummed. “And they can see us.” He added with a sharp inhale after speaking.

You suddenly understood his standoff-ish reaction to you giving him the grand tour of this dress and your body below it. You understood how he could possibly keep his hands from touching any bit of you.

“We need to go back to the party. We’ve been gone for too long.” You said the words so easily but you didn’t actually move one bit. You stood still, looking down at the man who was fighting his own internal battle; sitting with his hands secured firmly in his own lap and staring blankly ahead of himself into the black of the night.

He blinked but did not respond to you. You kicked your feet just a little, reaching a sparkly high-heeled foot forward you lightly kicked at the sole of his dress shoe.

“I’m leaving now,” you threatened.

Baekhyun closed his eyes.

“You’re just going to let me go, huh?”

You counted inside of your head; completely fine with the idea of blaming this behavior on the alcohol. Even though you knew this was unfair to him. He was your only savior tonight, again and again. The voice of reason in spite of yourself.

You spun on your heels, ready to go and you’d taken the first step away from him when you felt the warmth of his hand wrap securely around your wrist and he pulled you down hard.

You stumbled and you fell and you landed with a yelp and a huff securely on top of his lap, rather clumsy and side-saddle for sure, but definitely within touching and kissing distance.

You turned your face to look at him, not quite expecting the darkness that sat deep inside his eyes to hit you straight in the chest with as much force as it did, but hit you it did. You had to open your lips to breathe through it; you had to reach out a hand to touch his lips lightly and you had to blame the alcohol, you had to. There was no other excuse you could cling to; no other reason for your leaning in and capturing his lips in between your own and touching his cheek with your wandering hands. You had no excuses you could find for why you shifted your weight on top of his lap and straddled his thighs, throwing your head back when his lips moved to bite down hard on the bare skin of your neck and lower.

He moved lower. His mouth sucked and bit and he pushed fabric aside to pull lightly at those damn stickers that covered your nipples with his teeth. You felt the sting as the glue pulled at your skin. They didn't budge much. You were suddenly even more impressed by them.

“Not my stickers,” you whispered “I only have the two,” and you wanted to blame the alcohol for the snort of laughter that escaped your chest to hear yourself utter such an absurd thing in the middle of this kind of a moment but the stifled shaking giggles you heard from the man who sat below you only made your own laughter that much worse.

”Not my precious stickers,” he whispered through the giggles that were barely audible through the fabric he was buried beneath.

When he came up for air the smile you saw on his face was breathtakingly real and when you leaned down to kiss him again you bumped against his teeth when you were taken by the giggles again, mid-kiss.

It took a while for you to recover and after the laughter finally settled you leaned down for one more sweet kiss on his pretty lips.

“I feel like I can make it back to the party now,” you said. His wide smile slowly but completely flattened out in front of your eyes. You pushed up against him, leaving behind the full effect you’d had on him right there for him to come to terms with and he stared at you with a look of utter shock.

“We can’t do that here, Baek,” you pointed toward the rows of homes across the way and his wide eyes looked where you pointed without seeing anything at all.

“You—,” he began, a full tone of attitude on his voice that he quickly interrupted by cutting off his own words.

“You.” He repeated again. You could see it happening. Dreams being crushed. Egos being put to bed. Justice not being served and revenge being planned. He shook his head and threw himself back into that chair with a force and crossed his arms squarely over his chest.

You were already at the door, pulling it open after straightening your dress back out and smoothing your hair.

“I’m getting those stickers later!” He shouted behind your back and you laughed once and threw your hand up into the air before the door closed shut behind you.

[To be continued]

Links: Can I Stay?: Masterlist

#exo #exo fanfiction #exo smut #baekhyun #exo fic #exo scenario #baekhyun smut #baekhyun fanfic #exo story

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jongbross · 4 months

Note

Hiiiiiiii 👋

Can you write a Baekhyun fic? I'm not exactly sure what I want, but... While listening to Demi Lovato's song, something came to mind...

But you make me wanna act like a girl

Paint my nails and wear high heels

Yes, you make me so nervous that I just can't hold your hand

I don't like school fics so maybe a best friend au.

She and Baekhyun are best friends, and the reader thinks she's far from his ideal type. She's been in love with him for years but she's insecure and either Baekhyun is too blind to see her feelings or the reader is a good actor.

She's a great girl, but she struggles to see her own potential... Baekhyun is everything to her, and she to him. Baekhyun had noticed her jealous behavior for a while and became suspicious. He even caught her crying once. When he put the pieces together, he understood everything. After faced her, the reader tried to run away from him, but Baek was fast enough to catch her immediately.

pairing: byun baekhyun x reader word count: 1256 genre: fluffy but also angst? warnings: swearing, jealousy, reader getting on beakhyun's nerves a/n: i'm back at writing requests!! thank you so much for your patience, i hope you enjoy this <3

"i think she's flirting with you", you told baekhyun, looking at the waitress that just walked by the two of you and shot baekhyun the prettiest smile she could manage.

"she's not", he denied, not even bothering to look back. "she's working on christmas eve, so i bet she's just trying to get a nice tip."

it was a tradition, at this point. you and baekhyun had spent the last four christmas together, as a sign of how strong your bond with each other was - either it was at bucheon with his family, abroad with your family, or just the two of you, like that moment.

for this one, sick and tired of being single (in baekhyun's words), he decided to take you too for dinner on the night before christmas. 'i won't be able to go to bucheon this year, so we should have a date night, and then sulk and eat leftovers while we open our presents at my house the next day', he had said, a month previous.

and of course you accepted. not only was baekhyun your best friend, but also the one you loved; like, actually loved.

there wasn't much you could do about it, to be honest. baekhyun had always seen you as a sibling, and that alone was enough to end any hope you could possibly have. on top of that, came the fact that he was just so... ethereal; baekhyun was the definition of a keeper, and any person who could have him was literally the luckiest person in the entire world.

"you can possibly think that every single person that smiles at you is just being polite, baek", you chuckled. "that's why you're single again..."

"does it bother you that i'm single?"

you tried your best not to choke on your drink as your brain screamed 'no, i actually love it' as an answer.

"i mean, i can call her over and ask her out...", he said, teasingly. "but you would spend christmas alone."

you just rolled your eyes at him, going back to your food and pretending like you weren't holding back a smile.

baekhyun kept the conversation going, as well. he told you about his family, how sad his mom was that she wouldn't see you that christmas; you told him about your plans for the next year, what you wanted to achieve.

cause, you see, talking to baekhyun was so easy, feeling seen was the biggest problem here. he could repeat every single word you had just said for the last hour, but could he see that you were wearing a new dress just for him? could he see that you got your nails done in his favorite color just for him? could he see that you were there, dying for him to love you back?

over your third glass of wine, the waitress came back to your table, the same pretty smile on her face.

"would the couple like to order some dessert?"

"we're not a couple", you instantly said, facing your glass.

taken aback by your answer, the waitress hesitated to turn to baekhyun, only to see him as surprised as her.

"um... no, not for now", he politely said. "can we get some water though, please?"

she hummed in response, before turning around to leave.

"wow, that was quite harsh", baekhyun faked a chuckle. "are you okay?"

"sure."

"are you really sure?"

"yes, baekhyun", you rolled you eyes. "she was just trying to check if you're single so she can keep flirting with you. all i did was give her the answer she was looking for."

baekhyun frowned, leaning into the table to take a good look at you.

"are you drunk already?", he laughed. "i mean, she just wondered if we were a couple, it's not that deep, y/n. we're together on christmas eve, it's-"

"no one would mistake us for a couple."

"what? why not?"

"because!", you exclaimed. at the corner of your eyes, you saw the said waitress coming again with a jar of water. she placed it on the table in front of baekhyun, and then proceeded to smile at him again before walking away. defeated, you sighed. "i am me, and you are you. nobody could ever think about us as a couple, so... i don't know, you can just give in and ask her out if you want to."

baekhyun scoffed at you, watching you as you took another big gulp from your wine. he silently took in your moves, the way you poured yourself some water and avoided his gaze.

"why are you jealous?", he finally asked after a minute or two of silence.

"i'm not jealous", you defended yourself.

"then look at me", baekhyun waited for you to finally look him in the eyes. "now tell me you're not jealous."

it was your turn to scoff, grabbing your glass of water and drinking a bit of it.

"this is stupid."

"yes, it is stupid", baekhyun agreed. "i think it's so stupid that even at christmas eve you won't admit why you're being jealous, that you'll only be petty and try to push me onto other girls. i don't want them."

you looked at him, damning him mentally for the way he was sitting at his chair, for the way his angry eyes made your heart flutter.

"i'm giving you the chance to be true to both of us, y/n. please, take it, and tell me why you are so jealous. i need to hear you say it."

"why?"

"because it's christmas eve, i'm at this beautiful restaurant with the most beautiful girl. you're wearing a new dress, wearing my favorite perfume, and you did your nails yesterday thinking about me, didn't you? don't think i didn't notice", he sighed, leaning into the table once again. "if we can't confess to each other right now, right here... then i truly don't think we ever will."

you kept staring at him, trying your hardest to keep your tears at bay so they wouldn't ruin your makeup. you felt like you were glowing, like your chest was now swallowing you deep into an ocean of something that you couldn't quite describe what it was, but if you had to take a shot, you would call it love.

"how long did you know?", you whispered to him.

"since your birthday", baekhyun replied. "but you're a good actress, i'll give you that."

you chuckled, shaking your head in disbelief.

"i'm sorry...", you told him. "i'm so sorry. i'm pathetic."

"yeah, kind of", baekhyun joked, making you both laugh. "i'm just kidding. you don't have to sorry, if anything i should be the one apologizing. i've known for so long now, but my pride didn't let me say shit. i just kept pushing away every girl that came around, and praying that you would do the same to anyone who got close to you, waiting for you to confess. everyday felt like i was gonna have a heart attack."

you rolled your eyes. "who's pathetic now?"

he laughed out loud, eyes turning into big heart emojis as you looked at him. just as you were ready to speak, the waitress came up again, smiling at baekhyun.

"do you guys need anything?", she asked.

"yeah, um... could you bring me some chocolate ice cream, please? and for my girl...", baekhyun looked at you. the waitress followed his gaze, smiling at you just the same and, maybe, baekhyun was right all along - she wasn't flirting. "anything she wants, please."

#byun baekhyun x reader #byun baekhyun x you #byun baekhyun imagines #byun baekhyun fanfic #baekhyun x reader #baekhyun x you #baekhyun imagines #baekhyun fanfic #exo x reader #exo x you #exo imagines #exo scenarios #exo fanfic #exo baekhyun #exo #byun baekhyun #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #kpop fanfic

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starillusion13 · 10 months

Text

Bambi

Pairing: Baekhyun x f! reader

Genre: Angst, Yandere, Dark Fantasy

Warnings: Stalking, possessiveness, restraining acts with chains, knife and blood, obsessive behaviors.

W.C: 3.1k

Note: Thanks for joining the event. thanks to the ones enjoying my works and your reviews are always appreciated and feel free to interact with me.

Network: @cultofdionysusnet @k-vanity

Request from @anyamaris

Taglist: @mymoodwriting @justhere4kpop @vvshere @yeoobin

⛓️

*under the cut*

“I will be home soon.” Walking through the streets late at night is a relief to you to get some peace and air of comfort. The bell sounds brings your attention towards a house and suddenly a train moves past through the tracks alongside the road. You got startled and your wide eyes looks around to see if anybody noticed you in that situation.

No one is around you, you sigh in relief and went towards your home, putting the phone in your pocket.

A smile appears in shadows. A gloved hand adjusted the hat on top of head to hide the face properly. The shadowed figure whispered,

“My Bambi.”

▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️

“Uh….”

Waking up in a dark room filled with the scents of different flowers; all of your favourite. The essence of these variety flowers is making your drowsy state more helpless. You can’t remember what happened to you before being in such a state.

“Help me…”

Rubbing your eyes, you realized that the room has dim light sources from the only candles placed on various light stands all around the room. You tried to sit up when you found yourself on a floor which is so shiny as if you are laying on a mirror because it can perfectly reflect your presence on it. Leaning sideways and balancing your weight on two hands, your attempt to sit on the floor is a success. Lifting up one of your hands to remove the hairs falling over your face to tug them behind your ears earned a groan of pain from you. Your hands feeling so heavy that caused your wrist to ache and then you found the cause for the happening. Hands are tied up in chains connected to the chains tying up your leg, the other end of the chain is getting dispersed into the dark corner of the room.

“Why am I tied with chains? Who even tied me up?”

Thinking hard to remember what happened to you in last moments.

Several memories popped up starting from morning when you found a letter and a bouquet at the front door like everyday. You were giggling to the sweet words and the praises written all over the letter, the sender ended the letter with a signature which can be read as BAMBI. You were sure it is from your boyfriend, the boy you are dating for last six months. Oh! He is such a sweetheart, his love for you is more than you have ever wanted from someone.

The memories flash forward to the evening when you were returning from a long day of work to your apartment to finally take rest. You were on a call with someone maybe your boyfriend when a figure with all in black came up to you suddenly. You didn’t hear anyone coming in that lonely road then how come this person is suddenly standing before you. Face was hidden due to the black panama hat and the extended hand towards you was covered with tight black leather gloves. The person was in all black attire maybe that was only possible for you to recognise because in that dark street with insufficient light to distinguish colors that was only how you could recognise it.

“What?....”

your head is aching with all these memories flashing on. Now the worst part is that you can’t remember what happen after that scene. You are trying hard to think, the headache causing you to close your eyes in pain. Your breathing is heavy and your whole body is paining. Your hands are not enough strong to keep your balance for any longer. No. You have to be strong, you need to figure out how to escape this place wherever you are and then you can think later about what could have possibly happened to you.

After three times of breathing practices, your panic settles down. Being in somewhat a little bit stable state, you looked around the place. The room is really dark, only the places where the candle lights can reach to is lit and visible, where the rest are mysteriously dark. You can feel that you are situated in the middle of a room, to your front there is a black curtain hanging from the ceiling covering the whole wall only leaving the sides for two very old vintage closets on either side to be palced. On your two sides, the walls have different kinds of hanging candle holders and various shelves and tables with things decorated on top of them which are barely visible. Turning your head to take a look of your back, its too dark that side and your chains are ending to that side.

You pulled the chains to see if the other end is fixed or not and to your dismay the action made loud jiggling sounds of the chains which echoed in the dark room.

“Haha…ha ha ha…” a laugh followed the sound of chains. Your eyes flash fear and a shiver run down your body on realizing that there is one more presence inside the room. So, all your actions till now were observed by someone and you didn’t know of it. This made you feel cautious and your hands automatically braced yourself and you pulled your knees inwards to your chest, sitting now facing the direction of the voice. The chains moving in a rhythm as if someone on the other side is playing with them. Heavy footsteps approaching you which made you close your eyes for not having the courage to face what is coming next.

Again, the person laughed, totally mocking your current state. You can hear a lot of chain sounds and ‘click’, something gets locked. The person’s voice is now much closer than before and so in the effect, your heart is racing too fast that it might burst out and cause an explosion then and there.

“Open your eyes my love.”

He is near you. Wait. He is totally in front of you, you can hear the footsteps stopped near you. The voice belongs to a man and your ears are blessed to hear such a smooth and honey like voice, even calling out for you. Slowly you parted your eyelids, revealing your glossy eyes to the man.

Is this real? Is this man real? The smile is so heavenly, no doubt that voice came out from these pretty lips. Oh no wait. This attire and the hat, your eyes scanning all over the figure in front of you and on realization you tried to scoot back. The chains didn’t help your attempt.

“Who are you?”

The man chuckled. Why is everything funny to this man? He has now sitter himself on his folded knees and one hand checking whether the chains are tied tightly or not, your eyes followed the chain and there is the other end locked in a hook on the wall. The other hand on his side seems like he is holding something.

“Why am I here?”

You are getting impatient to hear his explanation to keep you here like this even in this condition. He scoots near to you when his other hand revealed holding a shiny object. No no no. That’s a knife. Is he going to kill you?

“Are you going to kill me?” your voice is cracking in fear.

“My baby is so impatient.” He chuckled. The voice is so sweet and it can really hipnotis someone including you.

“I’m not your baby.”

He is literally keeping you like an animal who needs to be tamed and then also calling you with nicknames.

“You are being a bad girl again love.” Your eyes falling where he is playing with the knife, candle lights falling on the knife reflecting your fear in the room of mysterious dark.

“Stop with your names. Tell me who are you. Why am I here even tied up like this?” You are literally shouting at this point. Tears coming out in a flow and you are jerking your hands and legs to atleast get rid of those restraints.

“Oh. We can go slowly. One question at a time.”

He stands up in his position and now you are getting his overall look. He is wearing a black fedora coat with matching pant and a white shirt inside with a black tie visible perfectly in middle. His face is still hidden, if only it was not hidden then you could have tried to recognize this person.

Suddenly, the chandelier above you lit up and now the room is a bit more visible to you except the man’s face.

“Can you guess my name love?” He is smiling at you. Walking over to his previous place near you.

Glancing at the knife in his hand, you gulped and replied “……no”.

“Oh!” he pouts at you. “I am Baekhyun but you can call me candy.” He laughed at his own words.

“Baek-baekhyun?” you are trying to think if you have heard this name before or even have encountered someone who goes by this name.

“Thanks love. I like the short name. Call me Baek if you want.” You glared at him. In one of the corners situated a small brown couch, he walked with quiet footsteps over there and sat down with cross legs.

“What am I doing here?”

“You are safe here.”

“I don’t need any safety when I was already safe in first place.”

“No. Bad people are all out there. They will take you away from me.”

“What are you even saying?”

He suddenly stood up. Slow steps nearing your weak frame on the floor. Looking around for any object to throw at him which can at least hurt him and prevent him to approach you. In his way, he took off his hat and placed it on top of the table at the side of the couch. Revealing his beautiful face with jet black hairs and flawless baby face. His look is ethereal to belong to a criminal like him. His eyes seem like holding two diamonds in each hole with his precious smile resting on his face.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“You are keeping me tied up here without any particular reason and you are telling me not to fear you. Also, holding a damn knife in your hand.” Your teary eyes looking up at his face.

You pleaded, “Please let me go.”

“Bambi……my only Bambi…… my love.” He is getting lost in your eyes, in your glossy eyes which seems like the brightest star to him right now. Always.

Bambi? This. You have heard this before. Oh wait! Those flowers. Those letters. Those Candies.

“You…you…he…letters….” He grins widely when you mentioned about letters.

“Did you like them? Oh yes of course. The way you always giggle when reading them and one hand busy eating those candies. Thanks for always decorating those flowers at the places I like them the most.”

You are shocked to know this truth. All this time you thought that those are all given by your boyfriend and he didn’t ever mention it because maybe he wants to keep it like that. But you were totally wrong, that was him, the man standing before you.

“How do you know?”

“I can’t miss to see you even when you are home.”

“What the……”

“Hell? I am from there. Thank you. Fuck? Well maybe we can but later.” He is scooting near to you to come face to face with you.

“Go away. Let me go. Don’t come near to me.”

“I can’t do that when you are my favorite person.” His hands tracing your face, eyes admiring your face. Brushing your hairs away to take a better look at your beauty. His other hand brings up the knife and traced over your cheeks which cuts you a bit.

“I don’t want to be your favorite person. You are a psycho.” You shouted at him.

“You are so precious baby even your shouts sound like a melody to me.”

Jerking your body so much causing pain to shoot over to your hands and legs, this effects to cause deep purple marks over the skin near the tied-up places.

Blood flowing down your cheek and the cold knife placed on your other cheek cutting similarly as before. He is still smiling while looking at you. You are silently sobbing with eyes shut tightly and hoping someone to rescue you from here.

“The day I locked my eyes with you at the café. I knew, I have to keep this bambi eyes all to myself. The owner of these starry eyes should be kept in a safe place.” Blood oozing out of the cut is getting mixed with the tears falling from your eyes. Wiping the blood with one finger, he brings it near his eyes and admires it.

“Doesn’t this look like a melted Ruby. The stars falling from your eyes and the red velvety liquid from your skin mixing together to form this ruby.” Your eyes slowly open to respond him. Your cheeks are burning and your nails are digging on the shiny floor.

“Please, it hurts.”

“It hurts me too.” He stopped smiling and put the knife aside. “It hurts me too when I see you smiling without me, when I am not the cause of your precious smile. It hurts when you are laughing at something when I can give more things which can be funnier. It hurts me when you are holding hands with someone and that’s not me. IT HURTS EVERYTIME WHEN THE THINGS WHICH ARE KEEPING YOU HAPPY IS NOT ME.” He shouts in the end of the sentence.

Your sobs become audible on the impact of the shout and noticing it, he pulls you in a hug and caressing your back and hairs. The smell of his cologne is so soothing and it’s giving you comfort but this is literally wrong, it should not be so comforting when coming from a criminal, moreover a psycho.

“it’s okay love. I will not shout at you. It’s okay, don’t cry.” These words causing you to cry more because you are missing your boyfriend.

“I want to go home. Please……”

“But this is your home.” He said softly, placing a kiss on your head.

“No……. I want to go back to my own life where I can be all by myself and with him.”

“Him?” He holds you tighter before releasing to grip your forearms to make you face him.

“There is no him. You are my Bambi, my one and only precious Bambi and you love candies the most so I am your Candy.” He is having an evil glint in his eyes but quickly returns back to his soft appearance.

“No, I’m Y/N. I’m not your Bambi.”

“You are so funny my love.” He puts a hand inside the pocket of his coat to bring out a handkerchief and wipes your tears and blood. He gives you his little smile and put away the hanky aside. Again, repeating the previous action but now took out some different kinds of your favorite candies and chocolates. Your lost eyes and confused mind staring at him as to why out of so many other girls, he chose you when you just look like an ordinary girl beside other girls who are way more beautiful.

“Why me? I’m not that special.”

He chuckles at you while looking down at the candies. Bringing up the hand to pat your cheeks, he leans forward to kiss your forehead. He sits on the floor before you facing the curtained wall and pulls you on his lap with your back leaning to his chest. Held in an unknown man’s embrace, who is also the one keeping you captive makes you stiff in your place.

“You know, why have I kept the room dark?” silently and slowly you move your head side to side.

“Look at your reflection on the floor because of the candle lights. Its looking so nice. The bright lights will not allow me to admire your beauty like the way these candle lights with dim effects reflecting your beauty. I want your beauty to be the brightest light in this room and your eyes “, holding chin, he makes you face him. He is bending a bit forward, he smiles at you, “Your eyes to be the brightest star.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“To keep you safe of course. Trust me I can be the best person to you forever.”

“I don’t even know you and also you don’t know me then how can you expect me to trust you?”

“Oh love, I know you a lot more than you can ever imagine.” His other hand sliding up and down your forearms and side frames. This giving you chills all over your body.

Hand holding your chin moves to his other pocket to bring out a small remote and when he clicks it. The curtains covering the wall move aside and you look over there. Your eyes go wide in shock when realizing what’s on that wall.

Your pictures, every picture showing all types of your emotions. Pictures including of you practicing a dance cover of your favorite group, slipping on the floor, crying on the sofa while watching a drama to the ones where you are wearing your favorite dress and going to work, eating ice cream, going to date with your boyfriend but only you in the frame. There is countless of pictues which you yourself can’t even recall from where they are. You felt a kiss on top of your head.

“Do you like it?”

“How? This can’t be real.”

He chuckles, “This is very real.”

“No……..”

He turns your face towards him to take a look of your shocked eyes. He waited a bit before speaking up, “You know why you are my Bambi?”

“……”

“A deer when comes near to a car in front of the headlights, their eyes, those Bambi eyes look the brightest gem under the dark sky.”

Cupping your face in his hands, he places a soft kiss on your quivering lips, “You look exactly like that deer. Every night when I had followed you in shadows, under those street lights whenever you were afraid, those Bambi eyes looked the brightest star. They looked like mine to keep safe.”

He placed a candy inside your mouth. On realization, you wanted to throw it but he closed your mouth with pressing his palm over your lips tightly. Your eyes looked in fear towards him. He kissed your head and smiling adorably at you. Your heavy eyes slowly closing while staring at his smiling lips, the first thing of this man you noticed back then.

“Sleep my love, My Bambi.”

[Expected something horny? Nah nah nah. Let it be like this.]

111 notes · View notes

icequeenbae · 2 years

Text

Snapshot (m) | BBH

Pairing: photographer!Baekhyun x idol!Reader

Sequel: Shot Though the Heart (m)

Photographer AU, PWP, angsty, smut

Warnings: explicit content, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected sex, some unrequited feelings, fuckboy!Baek(?)

Word Count: ~3k

Summary: You and Baekhyun are left alone in the private pool area at a fancy hotel for a steamy photoshoot. It ends up getting even steamier when he realizes your white swimsuit is actually lingerie.

Author’s note: It’s been a crazy few months, sweethearts, but Ri is back! And since my b-day is in a few days and it's yay time I come bearing gifts^^ As usual, I thank my lovely @baekshoney for keeping up with me and reading all of my relentless writing! This is something I produced a while ago, and I have no idea why I suddenly wanted to write something about photographer!Baek… But I hope it was worth the wait for you~

Btw, you didn’t hear it from me(!) but also may or may not be the first of X installments if you enjoy it, so don’t forget to comment/ reblog!

Tags: @exo-writers-net @bbh-net @superm-net

‘The lights are fine like this,’ Baekhyun nodded at the staff just as you walked onto the set.

It smelled like chlorine, and perfume, and also sweat – the latter most likely coming off of the workers, who were still busy organizing the space. But mostly chlorine, just like any other swimming pool.

‘Is everything ready?’ Your manager asked, glancing at the personnel finishing up the preparations.

‘Yes,’ Baekhyun responded, giving your robe a brief, almost indifferent onceover before greeting you with a short. ‘Y/N.’

‘Baekhyun.’ You acknowledged him, looking away to examine the area absentmindedly.

The concept of this photoshoot was somewhat new to you. What you did with your group was vastly different to what you were doing solo, and you were the one in favor of making the distinction. Acting all cute with the girls was fun, but you were getting older and, frankly, tired of such antics. With your solo work, you preferred to tap into your darker side.

And this time you were planning to make it almost obscenely sexy.

The photoshoot was for one of the top fashion magazines in Korea, and they were dedicating several full spreads to your new album and long-term shiny partnerships with luxurious brands. You were going all in for this, and it was a wonder that you even got the concept approved. This was going to be way hotter than anything you’d done before.

Baekhyun spoke to your manager, and then addressed the entire room.

‘Alright, everything seems to be in order. Please empty the space now, thank you!’

Everyone scurried away, and in a minute, there was just you, your manager, and Baekhyun left.

‘You too,’ the photographer motioned at the door. ‘I don’t think she can relax with you watching from the sidelines like a creep.’

‘And she can in front of you?’ The other man tsked. ‘I’m staying.’

Before this escalated any further (with men being men), you intervened.

‘It’s fine, wait for me in the lobby. It would be easier if we’re alone.’

Baekhyun’s mouth twisted in a smirk, you swore you saw it before he turned away to tend to his camera. Feigning indifference, how cool of him.

‘But-’

‘We’ve worked together before. It’s fine. It’ll be more comfortable if only the necessary people are present.’

‘Alright.’ Your manager agreed, expression tentative. ‘But I’m one call away.’

You nodded. As if you’d call him in case Baekhyun actually did something inappropriate.

He was quick to leave, closing the door quietly behind him, probably somewhat happy to have a break with how busy your schedule was getting lately.

The silence was loud now that it was just the two of you. You tried focusing on the gentle sounds of stirring water, but there was no one in the pool, hence the water was almost still. It looked pretty, light blue — a color that reminded you of the glamorous Maldives beaches. Like most people, you’d much rather have a photoshoot there. There’s always next time…

‘Do you need help getting undressed?’ A voice in your ear startled you out of your thoughts.

Baekhyun stood close, only minimal distance between you, and you barely collected yourself before a visible shiver could take over your body. Instead, you retorted with a cheeky comment.

‘You seem eager.’

The photographer chuckled, brushing the strands away from your ear before leaning even closer.

‘You know I am.’

With that, you could only hope that he couldn’t see the goosebumps on your skin. The swiftness and irrevocability of your reactions to him were discomfiting.

‘Keep it in your pants, Byun.’ You said, trying to sound cold.

It was only semi-successful.

‘For now,’ he responded playfully, stepping away to watch you shake off your robe from a better angle. ‘I’ll never get tired of watching you strip.’

You rolled your eyes. Strip. Of course, that would be his word of choice.

‘Let’s get down to business.’

Turning around, you caught him staring shamelessly at your butt. He licked his lips before his eyes traveled to yours, and smiled, pleased to make a pun out of your words.

‘Let’s. Get down.’

It wasn’t easy for you to stay neutral. The set was quite intimate, and you were barely wearing anything, all while he was fully clothed. You were thankful to see him change his usual attire to something a bit more relaxed and well-suited for the setting. He wore shorts instead of oversized pants, and his feet were bare by the time you were ready to begin.

His hair was very different too. Last time you saw him, he had a mess of dark locks on his head. This time, however, he was blonde, with temples trimmed neatly. Somehow, this style sharpened his features, yet softened his look in general.

A few times in the course of the shoot you caught yourself staring, while he was flipping through the pics or adjusting the settings. You weren’t supposed to give him the pleasure, you made this promise to yourself prior to this shoot.

But it was getting so much more complex as the work progressed. You were now getting into water, first dipping your feet into it, then stretching out on the underwater stair-step.

Baekhyun was attentive and great at commanding you whenever you worked together. The results were always perfect, and your agency kept requesting him for more and more of their artists. He was a big name in the industry, not the best reputation, however. This man was the definition of a fuckboy, yet he somehow managed to miss the focal point of today’s event. Or your today’s outfit, to be precise.

It wasn’t your stylist who chose your clothing for today, it was you. And you knew exactly what you were doing, wearing a thin top and high-waist bottoms in white.

‘Good girl,’ he murmured in his usual fashion, looking through the last few shots. ‘Go deeper and get your tits wet. It’ll look good when you lean forward on deck.’

His suggestion made you smirk internally. Oh yes, it’d make you look pretty damn good. There was no doubt about that.

Doing as you were told, you swam to the spot where the depth of the pool was most suitable for your getting-out maneuver. It was rather shallow, and the level only reached your waist.

‘I’m going in from the side,’ Baekhyun announced, getting in the water with you. ‘Try to do it slowly, I’ll get a few angles.’

You nodded curtly.

‘Go ahead.’ He signaled for you to start, and you leaned forward, chest rising from the water.

It wasn’t visible because of your arms in front of you, but as you pulled yourself out of the water slowly, your chest opened fully to the outside world.

‘Yeah, that’s good, that’s g-’ The abrupt end of his casual phrase sent giddy excitement through you. ‘Y/N.’

‘Hm?’ You hummed as you climbed out and sat down at the edge of the pool, legs still half-submerged in water.

His eyes were on you now, scanning your body with covetous inquiry in real-time.

‘What the hell is this, honey?’

The pet names. You both hated and loved when he used them on you. The former because they were fake, and the latter… because they meant he was getting aroused.

Looking down innocently, you splashed the water with your foot.

‘What?’

He placed the camera away from the damp area before stepping closer to you and catching you by the ankle.

‘Don’t ‘what’ me. You know exactly what I’m talking about.’

Yes, you did know. He was talking about your see-through top. White tended to get half-transparent when you got in the water, and you wore unpadded lingerie instead of a proper swimsuit for a reason. To drive him crazy.

‘Didn’t you say that you wanted it to be professional?’ He reminded, getting even closer and circling the well-rounded areola with his thumb through the dank fabric while his other hand rested right by your thigh.

Yesterday.

That was the text you sent him when he told you he couldn’t wait to see you again. Maybe you even meant it at the time… You weren’t sure. Still, that wasn’t something you would care to admit to his face.

‘Where’s the fun in that?’ You smirk, finally looking him in the eye.

It took him a second to assess your response. And then he surged forward, pressing his lips to yours. You allowed him entrance into your mouth, and ran your fingers through his hair. They felt a bit crisper than they did last time, and you belatedly realized that he styled them ardently for today.

He broke the kiss first, telling you to move up.

‘Actually, get on the lounger. I wanna see everything.’

You chuckled, plopping onto one right as he got out of the pool. His shirt was sticking to his body, and his shorts looked like there was something going on in them. Too early to call it a boner, but you were satisfied with how things progressed.

‘Spread.’

His instructions were laconic, and you licked your lips in building anticipation.

Opening your legs, you observed as he tongued his cheek in frustration… of a pleasant kind.

‘It’s like you’re naked while you aren’t.’ He kneeled between your legs, looking right at your center. ‘Intriguing…’

His middle finger rubbed between your labia, pressing the moist fabric to your delicate skin. You knew he could very well see everything, yet having the thin layer between your skin and his felt like that final frontier. However easy it was to tear it down.

‘But I much prefer you genuinely naked.’

You lifted your butt eagerly to help him rid you of your panties. The skin underneath was damp, even more so than the rest of your body, and the direct contact with the air made you shiver.

‘Getting cold, baby?’ He asked in a sugary tone, lifting your leg up to place over his shoulder. ‘I can keep you warm.’

His tongue was scorching on your skin, and you gasped as he licked a quick stripe up. You looked down, meeting his eyes while his mouth explored your folds. His gaze was sinful. And so was his tongue, flattening out and rubbing fervently against your clit.

‘Baekhyun…’ You whispered, lost in the sensation too quickly.

He was way too good at this. And you knew that. He went down on you almost every time you’d had sex before. And every time you surveyed his face between your legs, he looked like he was exactly where he belonged. Humming in content as you squealed and shook in his hands, desperately gasping for air as he ate you out. He was noisy about it, too. No decency whatsoever.

‘Fuck-’ He swore before planting a kiss right below your most sensitive spot. ‘I could do this for hours. I’m so addicted to your pussy.’

‘We don’t have hours,’ you nudged him breathlessly. ‘Just shove your dick inside me.’

Baekhyun snickered, palming himself on autopilot.

‘I like the way you think, love.’

Before you came up with a snappy response, he tugged his shorts down and gave himself a few determined pumps. You gulped, watching his delicate hand flex, veins becoming more prominent as he moved it up and down his thick flesh.

‘Lie back down. No need to give me those greedy eyes of yours.’

You wanted to argue, but the press of his tip to your clit was simply too overwhelming. Moving down slightly to accommodate him, you lay flat on your back. The incline of the sunbed was perfect for Baekhyun’s position in front of you, so he leaned in, penetrating you slowly. Only as he sheathed himself fully inside, you realized how much you’d missed feeling him like this. You’d only ever met on occasion, and each time… you were simply too weak for him. Although you knew you’d walk away with an unpleasant throbbing in your chest, and this encounter would be on your mind for weeks to come.

Every time you found yourself merely thinking about his proximity, you knew you wouldn’t be able to resist. He had you wrapped around his finger, and you had no idea how to escape his charm. The magnetic pull, the power he had over you that you couldn’t battle. Even while knowing what he was like.

You felt sick afterwards, thinking that once again you became ‘another model’ in his list. It was obvious he didn’t think of this nearly as much as you did, and while you always played it cool with him, making it look like you were the one using him as your boytoy… In reality, it was you who craved at least fleeting contact with him.

Yet the price was incredibly high.

Your heart broke a little with every rendezvous. And despite his passionate thrusts driving you to your high with unfailing consistency, the moment you go your separate ways it’d feel like your soul was torn out of you again.

Did you have one anymore?

‘Y/N…’ Baekhyun’s pant ripped you out of the vacuum of your mind. ‘You feel even better than I remember. I wish I’d get to fuck you somewhere you could be loud at…’

That had never happened before. During all of your previous hookups you had to sneak around and keep it down. Those were mostly in hotels and… your dressing room. You’d learned to control your sound, because getting found out wasn’t an option. The kind of mess that would’ve followed had someone busted you… that you weren’t even willing to imagine.

‘Fuck,’ your lover grunted again before looking you in the eye. ‘You already close?’

‘Yes.’ The answer was short but filled with anticipation.

The sleek sounds your pussy produced as he continued moving his thighs were a clear indication of how ready you were to come. He made sure you did. Sometimes more than once. But you usually had very limited time together, so it wasn’t always on the table.

‘Good girl,’ he hummed, keeping a rough, steady rhythm. ‘Shit, I’m gonna come as soon as you do…’

He groaned this last part into your lips before giving you a deep kiss. Like always, he knew exactly when your orgasm was about to hit you. The muffled sounds you produced echoed off the tall walls of the area, and he held your mouth hostage for another minute before letting you take a breath.

The sudden desire to taste more of him overpowered your rational mind, so you blurted out the only thing that floated in your mind right now.

‘Don’t soil me.’ You barely managed to say that out loud before he grunted in initiating release.

He still pulled out, and you slid onto the floor quicker than he could even realize what was going on. Taking over, you jerked him off yourself, leaning down to catch each drop of his come in your mouth. Getting carried away, you didn’t even take note of his fingers in your hair. Sucking on his tip diligently as he choked up a groan, you made sure that you had all of his cum before giving him a couple concluding licks.

Wiping your mouth clean, you sat back down on the lounger. Baekhyun was still on his knees in front of you, breathless and dazed by your sudden leap, and you picked up your wet underwear to put it back on. As soon as you reclined, you heard a click.

He snapped a picture of you.

‘The heck?’ You frowned, caught off guard.

‘The sight is too mesmerizing to not perpetuate,’ he said, getting poetic out of the blue. ‘You’re beautiful, Y/N.’

Your heart fluttered at his words, and you instantly became defensive, sneering pettily in an unsuccessful attempt to cover it up.

‘Is that what you tell every model you fuck?’

He gave you a mischievous grin that only made you feel worse.

‘I definitely have it for the pretty ones. But you’re my favorite.’

Swallowing the bitterness in your mouth, you only hummed in response.

You could very well tell that you were. From what you’d heard before, he wasn’t the type to have sex with the same girl twice to avoid attachment. But it wasn’t the first time that you’d had sex with him. In fact, he’d had you sprawled underneath him on numerous occasions after (or during) some other photoshoots and events, where you’d crossed paths before.

But it was just that. Some brief fucking before your ways parted again for months. And as much as you wanted to put an end to the disconcerting dynamics between you two, you couldn’t. He was just too good at luring you in, and you were wandering into his trap willingly.

‘My offer still stands, honey. I’d date the hell out of you if you said yes.’

This wasn’t the first time he offered and you kept declining.

You truly wanted to put an end to your endless ‘get-togethers’, so actually agreeing to officially date him wasn’t part of your plan. Even though he was the one suggesting that, you knew it wouldn’t be long until you heard about him and a random young actress, or some other model that he fucked casually after a shoot. You had no intention of going through that. What you had right now wasn’t healthy, yet it was safer. For your emotional state.

Pushing your real feelings deeper down, you gave him a wry smile.

‘Don’t get greedy. Too much of a good thing is good for nothing.’ You got up and put your robe back on, giving him an almost flirty glance over one shoulder. ‘I hope you got some good shots. See you around, Baekhyun.’

He didn’t respond to that, only watching you walk away from him. You could feel his eyes boring into your back as you reached the door.

Baekhyun didn’t need to know that your feet were heavy as lead with every step you took away from him.

Unpacking the fresh copy of the magazine issue a few weeks later, you found out that the last picture he snapped of you ended up on the cover. A snapshot of your illicit passion’s aftermath.

Shot Though the Heart (m)

Masterlist

A/N: Thank you for reading~ I hope you liked their chem! More of these two crossing paths, anyone? Don't forget authornim over here loves writing sequels and mini-series. But she also cannot read your minds, if you know what I mean hehe

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peachysooxo · 29 days

Note

Hi there! I really love your work! Thank you for working so hard to create an amazing fanfic for us 🫶🏻. I have a request for you. Since I'm a typical person who finds comfort in angst stories, could you please write an angst story about Kyungsoo based on his song 'The View'? Thank you very much!

Answer: when I got this request I literally SCREAMED. Thank you @sooadorable for the request! I have been writing a series and wondered how I could introduce it, and this is the best way because it lines up with the story perfectly! The series is entitled “Romantic Universe”, which contains 4 standalone intertwined stories featuring Kyungsoo, Chanyeol, Jongin and Baekhyun. I have been writing Kyungsoo’s for over a year and this is the product. I hope you enjoy this, thank you so much for the request and all of your support! Dividers by @saradika-graphics

The View

genre: angst, drama, Kyungsoo!AU, EXO!AU, romance

word count: 2,011

theme: marriage in trouble, lovers to enemies, separation, impending divorce, broken heart

warnings: use of alcohol, cursing, mentions of self harm, implied smut, sad kyungsoo, depressed kyungsoo

summary: Kyungsoo is separated from his wife and finds comfort in a bottle of Tennessee Whiskey and old home movies as he tries to figure out what to do with the divorce papers he was served. Based off of his song, “The View”.

I stare out into the vast open sky from my living room floor, the sunset paints beautiful colors that canvas the atmosphere above the rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean. I can get lost in moments like this, the times where my head is completely clear and I take in everything around me.

Slowly, effortlessly, the yellows become the golden flecks in her gorgeous eyes. The wind is her touch, soft and sends chills down my spine. The reds are her lips when she gets ready for date nights, putting on lipstick just for me. Even though she didn’t need it, she looked so spectacular in that shade of red. The waves are the promises we made, consistently rolling back to me to remind me that I failed to keep so many. Being here in this kind of scene just isn’t the same without her.

I watched my wife, Mila, walk out of the door and never turn back due to my own stupidity. I haven’t slept well since she left. I haven’t been able to eat on some days. Nothing in my life feels right anymore.

Our vacation home in Malibu looks out onto the shore, for the times we needed to get away from it all and spend time together. Tonight is my last night here before I have to fly back to New York to finish my album and I wish I could stay here longer. It’s the closest thing that I have to being with her.

Everywhere I turn, there’s pieces of Mila in every single thing. She’s in the clouds, the wind, the moon that grows brighter and brighter by the second. The last six months have been hell without her.

Watching old videos of us together has to be a form of self harm, but this is the only way I can see her smile. My eyes are glued to the screen as memories play out from different points in our relationship. From moving in to our first apartment together after we got married. From traveling to Korea to see my family. Waking up in Spain on our European tour together to staying up late in the studio to our honeymoon. I’ve replayed the honeymoon videos over and over, mesmerized as the events play out on screen. We were so young, Mila was 20 and I was 22. I need to be honest with myself, it wasn’t a honeymoon… It was our elopement at Mila’s grandparent’s ranch in Mexico. We stayed in the guest house on the ranch, and it was the happiest we’d ever been.

"Come here." My voice whines from the TV.

"No! Why are you recording us? It’s so weird!" Mila giggles. I grab the phone and the focus is Mila sitting with her leg tucked under her with cheeks tinted pink.

"Look at you, Angel." I breathe, calling her by her nickname. “You’re so gorgeous and you just woke up.”

“Soo!” Mila blushes. She tries to cover her face but I won’t let her.

“Don’t hide your gorgeous face from me.”

The engagement ring and wedding band on her left hand glimmers on screen. The rays of morning light filter into the room and it can’t even compare to her smile. She didn’t need to try at all, she just naturally glowed. I love it when she’s this way, no makeup, hair down and only wearing my t shirt.

I pull Mila by her waist into the frame and kiss her, my arm protectively still around her. I tease her by tracing her lips with mine and smile between kisses, placing her into my lap. I lean and prop the phone on the bedside table and we're in full view on the bed. Mila’s hands run through my hair, something she did when we’d be intimate like this. Her smile fades as she wraps her arms around my neck.

“Soo… I’m worried. I’m scared that us running off and getting married is going to make things worse with my father and brother.” Mila expresses. I press my forehead against hers, holding her tight in my arms.

"Listen to me. No matter what happens, my heart is yours. Angel, we’re married. Nothing can separate us. Not Sungho, not Chanyeol, no one. I know that we both took a risk when we didn’t tell Chanyeol that we were just dating. He’s your brother and my best friend. I can’t imagine how hard it was for you to keep that from your brother. You’re everything to me, my best friend, my life. All I care about is that you’re happy with this decision. They’ll come around, we just have to give it time.” I say lowly.

Mila nods her head, her hands glide down my shoulder to my forearms.

“I hope Chanyeol will come around, him and I are close and I never expected he’d react in the way he did. With my father… He may take longer but it’ll be okay. I’m beyond happy. This feels so right, yeobo.” Mila smiles again, and it’s a personal victory that she’s glowing again. “I just… Don’t know how I feel about you filming us in bed. It’s kind of…”

“Jagiya, stop. This is for our memories. This is our honeymoon. I had to document just how gorgeous you are when you wake up in the morning. You make the world around you envious.” I whisper, caressing her face.

"This is like a dream. I don’t want to go back to reality.” Our eye contact is strong, it never deviates from one another. I run my fingers through her hair and cup her face in my hands.

We fall into a deep kiss, molding ourselves to each other. We break slowly and a fire is ablaze in her eyes, full of want. She pushes me down onto the bed, I roll over until I’m on top of her.

“Look at me, Angel.” I straighten her gaze back to me by guiding her jaw back to face me. I lean down and kiss her velvety soft lips, my hand slides down to her throat. Her soft whimpers fill the room as my lips roam her jaw and down her neck. I stop at her shoulder and smirk into the camera.

“Mila, you’ll never forget this.” I say into the camera and nip her collarbone. She shrieks and holds onto me tighter. Before we go further, Mila grabs the phone and laughs.

“Nice try, Mr. Doh.”

We laugh and she cuddles into me, stopping the recording. I turn the TV off. Seeing my wife smile like that is something I haven’t seen in a long time. Tears threaten my eyes as the moon glows brighter. I can’t even remember when I started drinking or how I got halfway done with my bottle of Tennessee Whiskey. Now there’s nothing left but reminders that she’s not mine anymore. I shouldn’t have been working so much, prioritizing everything else over her, or even worse… I shouldn’t have been such a jealous monster. Being young and stupid, I’d bubble over with jealousy if a man just as much as gazed at her.

To be fair, Mila is a beautiful woman inside and out. She’s so selfless, humble and never afraid to be herself. Mila is known around the world for her music, to say she’s talented is an understatement. Watching her onstage is like a dream, she bursts to life when she performs. The entire world gets to see the woman that I am so proud to call her my wife.

Her physical beauty is just a bonus. Her sun kissed skin seems to glow, her plump lips framed her adorable smile perfectly, I could lose myself in her gorgeous eyes if I could. Her body is a gift from God, effortless curves that would hypnotize me the moment she’d walk into a room. She came right out of my dreams, everything about her is perfect.

It was never a secret that men pined over her and how gorgeous she is. I never checked my jealousy, something she never deserved.

I was certain every man she came across fantasized about her and wanted her the way I wanted her. I was so certain that it made me crazy. It was so bad that we started to fight all of the time and she finally had enough.

I open the sliding glass door to listen to the waves. The warmth from the whiskey offsets the cold night air, I wait for Mila’s arms to hug me into her embrace and when it doesn’t come, my heart splinters. I handled winter and spring without her, but summer reminded me how much worse it is that we’re separated. How she takes shape in the view.

“Mila… I miss you…” I whisper into the night air. The stars and moon start to sway and my vision clouds over. I rub my temples and turn my back to the ocean, glancing over at the divorce papers on the counter. I wrecked my brain relentlessly over what made Mila want a divorce. I didn’t cheat on her, I didn’t ever lay a hand on her and I didn’t lie to her or kept anything from her.

We could work on our problems easily, if she’d just allow it. Our last fight was the worst one, I can’t even remember what words were exchanged but that didn’t matter. What haunted me was that I made her cry. Something I swore I’d never do. I wanted to fix it and Mila wanted nothing to do with me.

Divorce papers.

This is not how I expected our relationship to end. I didn’t want it to end at all. I have to prove it to her that I’m going to change… Once the room stops spinning…

I stumble back and collapse onto the couch, closing my eyes to continue the memory the week we spent together on the ranch when we got married. Mila and I were in bed, cuddled up during one of our late nights. Mila’s fingers dance across my chest, her eyes heavy with fatigue.

“Promise me something, Soo.” She whispers.

“Yes, Angel?”

“Promise me that no matter what happens, we’ll never give up. We’ll never separate. Even if times get difficult, I don’t want to give up.” Mila pleads with her eyes.

“I promise you, Mila. I’ll never give up on you or us. If we somehow get lost or strained… We’ll fix it. I’ll fight for you until the very end, that’s my promise to you.” I reply, kissing her forehead.

“I’ll fight for you too. I’ll fight for us. This is different… Marriage is so different from just dating. You and I are in this together for life. I know I’m stubborn. I know I’m difficult to deal with, I’ll do better.” Mila smirks. I laugh and pin her under me, my forearms are on either side of her head.

“Your attitude is very easy to deal with. You’re a brat sometimes but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” I laugh, kissing her slowly. “But you’re mine, whether you like it or not.”

“I love it. I love you.” Mila smiles. “Our promise is sealed with a kiss, isn’t it?”

I kiss her mouth and cheeks, nodding. “Of course it is, Angel.”

The memory fades from my head. Everything she said that night resounds in my head. I can’t sit her and feel sorry for myself and drink myself to death anymore. She made me promise her that I’d fight for her, and that we’d never separate. It’s my fault she pushed away, it’s my fault she doesn’t want to be near me. I have to fight for her, I have to keep my promise.

The first thing I decided to do is not sign the papers. If Mila wants a fight, that’s what she’s going to get. I can’t take her just being a memory that I can see in the world around me. She has to see that she is my world. She’s my view.

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sugar-petals · 4 months

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Hi!! I loved your post about personal color analysis!! It was just so fascinating and interesting, I was able to learn a lot (I tried to understand it but it was always so difficult but your explanations and examples were very clear!)

So I wanted to ask if you could share some summer Kpop idols (in your opinion ofc), more specifically cool summer and I was curious if there is someone in stray kids that is a summer~ thanks in advance, love and light <3

thank you! key, taemin, jimin, hwasa, baekhyun — they're all beautiful summer palettes.

taemin is the contrasted, cool subtype. there's a reason why he does better with mature blue-based stylings rather than bubblegum concepts which are notoriously warm + bright. see the difference?

cool seasons are easy to type since fiery warm color splashes are misplaced on them.

meanwhile, taemin can walk around with blue hair like it's nobody's biz.

stray kids are heavy on the warm undertones and winter seasons so no summers in sight afaik. that's why you can put them in beige tones (=warm) and they eat it up in one go. especially hyunjin who's an autumn, love this on him.

#cub mail 🐆#seasonal color analysis #skz #taemin #personal color

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synthetickitsune · 1 year

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hii for the prompt request, can i get angst 11 & 25 with baekhyun please? and if its not too much can write it in his pov? thank youu 🫶

Of course, I hope this is alright! Thanks for requesting ♡

Baekhyun (EXO) | Jealousy & "Come back to me if he hurts you." angst | 0.7k

He knows that everything he’s feeling right now is wrong. He knows he has no right to feel the way he does, but knowing doesn’t make the feelings go away. He’s not sure anything could, so he tries to hide the way his jaw clenches behind a smile.

It’s not that hard, your thoughts are all over the place so you don’t pay as much attention to his body language as you usually do, and his smile is genuine. You look gorgeous, and your excitement is infectious.

If only there was a different reason for it.

Baekhyun will be the first one to admit he’s not the most rational guy out there at the best of times, but right now it’s so hard not to give in to the emotions wrecking through his body. It feels like they’re shaking him violently, trying to push him to do something so stupid it’d ruin both of your lives. In reality he’s just sitting on your bed and smiles at you as you come out of the bathroom in another outfit.

“This color suits you really well,” he praises, and he hopes you see how honest he’s being. And that you notice he doesn’t make any suggestive comments, that he respects your deal.

If friendship is all he can get, he sure as hell isn’t going to ruin it.

“Thank you,” you say, biting your lip before you can say more.

Not that you need to, he knows very well what you wanted to say. The same thing you’ve always told him when he complimented you when you wore this color. He knows that this is going to be the outfit you’ll pick with the same certainty as he knows you’ve chosen this color because he always says you look the best in it.

And now you’re going to wear it for a date that’s not him.

Sometimes he swears fate hates him.

So Baekhyun’s not going to give in to the suffering bestowed upon him and he’s not going to think about whether the man you’re seeing tonight makes you laugh as much as he does. Or wonder whether he’ll ever remember your go-to order at any of the places you frequent.

And he’s definitely not going to think about whether your date will kiss you goodnight when he drops you off - Baekhyun hopes he’ll drop you off or he’s hunting the asshole down - or if there’ll ever come a time hands of someone who’s not him will caress your skin and worship your body the way you deserve.

He’s not going to think about it. So he laughs and acts surprised when you come out again, this time all done, and you’re wearing the outfit. You smack his shoulder playfully and he really shouldn’t linger on the fact you’ve touched him for as long as he does.

“Alright, I’m ready I guess, so…” you say, awkwardly, now that what you’re doing has set in. He wishes he didn’t envy you that you only just now realized.

“Yeah, I’ll get going,” he clears his throat, standing up from your bed, “I’m really glad I could help. Even if we both knew which one you’ll pick.”

Teasing is good. Teasing is safe, and it makes both of you feel like the old times. Like it’s still the time before the conversation, the deal, this whole torture.

He knows it protects you both from getting hurt, but maybe he likes a little pain. Maybe he could be selfish enough to hurt you. But for now, he’ll grit his teeth and endure it.

You walk him to the door and thank him again for coming. There’s apology in your eyes, and it stays there, never leaving your lips. Baekhyun can read it anyways.

It’s right in the gray zone of what you’ve agreed on, but you hug him before he can step through the open door. He hugs you back, squeezing perhaps a bit too tight.

“Come back to me if he hurts you,” he can’t help but whisper into your ear. You nod, and you both pretend you’re not about to cry.

As he leaves, you both pretend you’re fine with this.

#exo #baekhyun #exo reactions #exo scenarios #exo imagines #exo x reader #drabble #angst #requested

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dreamylittlesugarcube · 2 years

Text

The Trench Coat

Genre: EXO AU, Baekhyun AU

Characters: Baekhyun x Reader

Warnings: Slightly suggestive, discussion of nudity, implied smut

Word Count: 1.5k

Summary: It’s your boyfriend’s army discharge day and you’re ready to spend the day together–that is, until your boyfriend’s friends show up unannounced for a surprise welcome party. When your boyfriend arrives, he’s got other things on his mind, mainly what you’ve got underneath that trench coat of yours!

A/N: This was a request for a Baekhyun discharge story, so I hope you like it! Please re-blog if you liked it so that others can find it easier <3

*Please note: I do not own the pictures above, so credit should be given to the original owner(s)*

~*~

You opened the drawer, running your hands over the multi-colored garments within. It had been a long time since these particular clothing items had seen the light of day. You surveyed your options: red lace, pale pink satin, green chiffon, and purple silk. You pondered long and hard, wondering which ensemble would be most pleasing to your man– it was his welcome home party today, afterall, and you wanted to welcome him in style.

Sometime later, you stood in front of the mirror, modeling a red lace teddy and analyzing its effect. Unsatisfied, you removed it, dropping it onto the floor in frustration. Nothing seemed quite right and you had no time to go out and buy something else, with your boyfriend being due in–

You jumped at the sound of the doorbell.

You frowned, looking over at the clock. Baekhyun wasn’t supposed to arrive home for another two hours and you definitely weren’t expecting anyone. Hurrying to your closet, you threw on a tan trench coat, making sure the thick fabric covered all the important bits.

Walking barefoot to the front door, you checked the video feed, surprised to see the faces of your boyfriend’s best friends–Chanyeol, Jongdae, Minseok, Junmyeon, and Kyungsoo, and Yixing, carrying an assortment of party decorations and snacks. You had no idea what they were doing here–sure, they knew Baekhyun was coming home today, but he’d been very clear that he wanted the first night to be with you and you alone.

Chanyeol’s voice booms through the speaker: “Y/N-ah, we’re here!”

You cracked the door open part-way. “Hey, guys”, you greeted lamely. “I–uh–wasn’t expecting you…what are you doing here?”

“We’re here for the surprise welcome home party for Baekhyun, of course!” Minseok fist pumped the air, clearly jazzed for a celebration.

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. At no point did you recall having a conversation about a party of any kind. “Right…the surprise party…for Baekhyun…”, you laughed nervously, struggling to play along.

Junmyeon’s smile faded. “Yeah…the one that Chanyeol asked you about last week…right?”

When you gave no response, Junmyeon looked to Chanyeol, who had suddenly gone very quiet, for an answer. “Right, Chanyeol?”

Chanyeol handed the balloons off to Minseok. “Hyung, I definitely texted Y/N about this last week,” he said, confident at first. He scrolled through his phone to locate the afore-mentioned texts. Gradually, his shoulders slumped, as he tried and failed to find what he was looking for. “Sorry,” he said, looking abashed.

“So, let me get this straight…Y/N had no idea we were coming and we just showed up here, out of the blue?” Junmyeon looked ready to give the taller, yet younger man a stern scolding.

You intervened, hoping to ward off a fight and avoid making a scene in the hallway. It’s fine–really,” you said, lying through your teeth. “I’m sure Baekhyun will be excited to see you.” You held the door open and waited as they filed through, returning Kyungsoo’s small smile of sympathy as he passed by.

~*~

You were overwhelmed. No, that was an understatement. You were really overwhelmed. What you’d hoped to be a quiet night with just you and your lover had turned into nothing short of a circus. You watched in a daze as Chanyeol hung the piñata filled with sour candies. In the kitchen, Kyungsoo grilled meats, rolled kimbaps, and seasoned side dishes. Minseok was setting up the bar area and Jongdae was getting a song playlist going. When Chanyeol started vetoing most of his song choices, Jongdae could be heard loudly exclaiming, “Ahhh waeee?!”

Looking for a bit of peace, you quietly slipped out the door. You made your way to the stairwell, still clothed only in your tan trench coat, having been unable to change due the boys’ presence in every room of your apartment. With a sigh, you plopped down on the top step. Nothing’s going according to plan, you thought miserably. You’d wanted nothing more than to have Baekhyun all to yourself, to touch him and hold him as much as you wanted. To fall asleep in his arms, his familiar scent on your pillow.

You hid your face in your lap, tears burning in your eyes and slipping traitorously down your cheeks. You didn’t want to be sad, not when the day you’d been waiting for had finally come.

“Y/N?”

You looked up, struggling to see through your tears. But, you didn’t need to see to know he was there. You’d recognize his voice anywhere. It was your Baekhyun, coming home to you at last.

Dropping his pack, he came to you immediately. “What’s the matter, baby?” He held your face in his hands and tenderly wiped the tears away.

You threw your arms around him, holding him close, remembering what it felt like to be held. More tears came and went, soaking into Baekhyun’s coat, as the events from today melded with the long, lonely nights of waiting. How long you stood there, you didn’t know–seconds, minutes, years, it didn’t matter, time stood still.

“Y/N, why were you sitting in the stairwell crying? Did something happen?” Baekhyun ran his hand rhythmically over your hair, making it hard for you to concentrate.

You hummed into his chest. “It’s a long story, Baek,” you said quietly.

“Yeah? Well, let’s go inside and you can tell me all about it.” Baekhyun bent to gather his pack in one arm, keeping the other tightly wound around you, clearly wanting as little space as possible between you. He led you out of the stairwell and down the hallway.

“Baek, before we go in, there’s something I need to–”

Before you could finish your sentence, the door opened and you and Baekhyun were pulled through. Confetti poppers exploded around you as the boys swarmed Baekhyun for hugs and enthusiastic back pats.

Looking over Jongdae’s shoulder, Baekhyun mouthed, “What?”, confusion obvious on his face.

Resigned, you simply shrugged, not wanting to ruin all the hard work the boys had put into everything. Kyungsoo offered you a drink and you accepted, noticeably parched after your waterworks episode earlier.

As the swarm thinned and the boys went to grab food or drinks, Baekhyun made his way back over to you. “So this is what you were trying to tell me about, babe?”

You nodded your head affirmatively, learning towards Baekhyun so the other boys wouldn’t hear. “Yeah, they showed up about two hours ago…unannounced,” you admitted.

“Chanyeol?” he asked, clearly understanding of the score.

“Who else?” you asked rhetorically, a small smile in your voice.

Baekhyun sighed, gathering both your hands in his. “I know this isn’t what either of us were envisioning for tonight, but soon they’ll be out of here and then it’ll just be the two of us. And then the real fun begins,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

That definitely sounded good to you.

“That coat looks kind of warm, Y/N. Do you want to take it off?” Baekhyun moved to undo the belt at your waist.

You assured him you were fine, skillfully moving out of reach before you happened to flash anyone at the party.

Undeterred, Baekhyun continued: You don’t need a coat in here, Y/N, you’ll get overheated–”

“Baekhyun, stop,” you hissed. Lowering your voice so you were sure no one would hear, you added: I’m. Not. Wearing. Any. Clothes. Under Here.”

Baekhyun’s pupils dilated and he released the breath he’d been holding in a loud whoosh. He slid his arms around your waist, pulling you close till his lips rested at your ear. “You’re naked under there?”

His voice had taken on a strained quality, spurring electrical pulses in your belly.

Baekhyun turned abruptly to address the guests in the room. “Everybody out.”

The room stopped and all eyes turned to you and him. It was Chanyeol who spoke first.

“But hyung, we planned this whole part for you, we can’t just–”

Kyungsoo grabbed Chanyeol and pulled him to the door, muttering that he should “be quiet” and “read the room”. The others took their cues, emptying the place in record time, with Junmeyon assuring you they’d be back tomorrow to clean up.

Finally alone.

Before you could blink, Baekhyun pulled you in for a mind-numbing kiss, pointedly fingering belt on your coat. “Now, let’s see the present that my baby got for me,” he whispered, a wicked smile on his face. “And look, she was so kind as to wrap it up.”

You squealed as Baekhyun hoisted you over his shoulder and carried you into the bedroom.

After depositing you on the bed, Baekhyun slowly loosened the ties at your waist, his hands shaking with anticipation after so long.

Watching as Baekhyun took in the sight of you, you were reminded of one of the most basic tenets of fashion: sometimes simple is better. And as far as this outfit went, you were very inclined to agree.

~*~

Thank you so much for reading, The Trench Coat! If you liked what you read, I would so appreciate it if you re-blogged this so that others can find it easier and enjoy it too! I love hearing from people, so feel free to leave a comment or send an ask with feedback or reactions :)

XOXO,

Emmy

#baekhyun #baekhyun fanfic #baekhyun fic #exo baekhyun #baekhyun x reader #baekhyun x oc #baekhyun x you #baekhyun x y/n #baekhyun fanfiction #baekhyun request #exo #exo fic #exo fanfic #exo fanfiction #exo fanfics

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nctdreamcokr · 2 years

Text

friendships outside the group:

➺ WITHIN SM:

eunhyuk, donghae & heechul

- although respectful to everyone in the company, yanna can easily consider these three seniors her friends. or more like older brothers if we’re being honest.

- eunhyuk enjoys telling stories about yanna as a kid, because he would always bump into her crying during her trainee days.

- until now, he still tries her best to guide her when in a show together and always compliments her dancing.

- donghae also enjoys talking about yanna as a kid but specifically about her and jeno.

- teases her a lot and pats her head randomly when he sees her like a whole uncle. she actually calls him “uncle” jokingly sometimes.

- heechul seeing new generation girl group idols and suddenly mumbling he misses yanna, a whole saga.

- he reveals so much stuff about her on his shows and she’s at home watching it like “???”.

yeri

- although admittedly close to red velvet as a whole, yeri’s someone she can actually call for hang outs.

- yeri even said in an interview that yanna would simply go “unnie, what’re you doing today?” in a cute voice and the next thing she knows is they’re eating pizza at a theme park.

- they do so much random ig lives together and it always ends with them being sleepy and adruptly turning it off to get some sleep.

kai

- kai: she only likes me now because baekhyun-hyung isn’t around.

- they recently started to realize that their energy matches well and it was because of them dancing “vanilla” together for her dance cover.

- not as friendly as her and yeri, because she’s afraid of dating rumors being spread about them, but definitely friends.

ningning

- bear hugs whenever she meets her unexpectedly.

- they’re often seen shopping together and having the same stuff, just in different colors.

- everytime ningning tries a new hair style, she says that yanna suggested it and she figured it’d be pretty.

➺ OUTSIDE SM

somi

- her bestfriend. her best girl. both of them(even renjun) label somi as yanna’s girlfriend at times.

- supporting and promoting each other 24/7, but also exposing each other a lot of times.

- somi: yanna gets jealous when i hang with other people.

- then yanna ends up exposing that somi gets sulky when she comes to her place and renjun’s there.

- girlfriends, i tell you.

lai guanlin

- still a good friend of hers and they talk on the phone a lot.

- guanlin always gets asked who he wants to work with next on a drama and he often says he wants to work with yanna again because he was comfortable with her.

- funnier thing, even guanlin’s close with renjun now so no worries about her and yanna being friends despite his old crush on her.

- their conversations consist of yanna asking him to visit her in korea and guanlin asking her to visit him in china. in the end, no one wins.

seventeen

- this definitely started off only with jun and minghao being close to nct’s china line. but meeting them multiple times made seungkwan approach yanna and befriend her. which then, was a bridge for her to get to know all of them.

- it’s a known fact that seventeen is the only non-sm group allowed in “ae-cha’s corner” and fans don’t know what kind of terms and condition yanna made hybe and sm agree on but they’re taking it anyday.

- they’re all pretty much like old brothers who tease her a lot, but the difference is she either teases them back, sulks or just smiles politely yet sarcastically. only three reactions depending on which member it is.

- teases them back: wonwoo, dino, vernon, dk.

- sulks to: minghao, junhui, jeonghan, joshua.

- smiles politely yet sarcastically at: seungkwan, hoshi, seungcheol, mingyu.

- she doesn’t talk to woozi much because she gets flustered and has a huge admiration for him and his compositions.

#huang yanna #nct yanna #yanna huang #nct 24th member #nct dream 8th member #nct female addition #kpop female oc #kpop oc #nct addition #kpop female addition

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 9 months

Text

Can I Stay? (A Baekhyun Story) Part 8.

Pairing: You x Baekhyun

Rating: M (SMUT - Mature Content) (Don't read this at work or in public or at church or in class)

Word Count: 6.6k

Warnings: Here today for your consideration is some graphic smut. Idk anymore. Agonizing smut. Edging. Power Play. PWP. We don't need to live like this, but this is how this chapter happened, someone told me to make it long so here we fuckin are guys. Anyway don't forget to drink water and clench as you read this.

A romance between two adults with an unspecified age difference between them, an English story that uses the word Noona for lack of another word in English that carries the same feeling, if you don’t like this, then don’t read this story.

Author‘s note: remember all those years ago I said I’d write a Baekhyun x Noona fic? This is that fic.

Inspired by the Ray LaMontagne songs Can I Stay

Thank you @his-mochi-cheeks for making the story poster featuring Baekhyun’s outfit in this chapter. Additional Tag for @andimoon

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

‘When can I see you again?’

‘I need to see you again”

With a slow and deliberate agonizing pull of his dark eyes, he ran them up the entire length of your body before setting them down devastatingly deep inside of your eyes and there was no longer any breath left in your body that could fight the dizziness you felt under his gaze.

Inside of his eyes a flame was ablaze and you, and you, and every single bit of you, was burning.

Baekhyun was at your doorway with a hand in his pocket; looking absolutely nothing like your prim and proper Personal Assistant usually did. Gone was the professional suit and tie and here he stood in front of you looking more casual than you had ever seen him. This was day-off Byun Baekhyun. He leaned against the doorframe with colorful sneakers on his feet and on his lower half wearing a pair of well fitted jeans with what had to be very trendy holes ripped right through the knees. The holes were large and dramatic. You could make out the soft flesh of his inner knee and on the right leg, you even saw some of his soft upper thigh. What were these jeans?

Your eyes seemed to act on their own accord as you took him in, pausing your journey just about thigh level to let out an appreciative exhale because of simply how good this man’s thighs looked in these jeans. On his broad chest he wore a soft and well-worn red hoodie. He looked younger like this. His face was already very youthful for his age but dressed like this? He could pass for a college student in this sweater and in these jeans.

You tried. You really tried not to let your eyes linger for too long over the middle zipper section of him. But the man was wearing a belt — the accent in the middle kind of caught your eyes and despite all of your mental gymnastics to get your eyes to move up into his face right now, you knew that the belt was black. You knew that he had the buckle fastened through the third hole in the leather and you knew that the buckle was silver and had a brushed metal texture to it. You had lingered here for too long. My god, you could identify it in a police lineup if you had to. The belt as well as the bulge of fabric; the well filled out denim below the belt. The parts of him that occupied far more of your mind than you’d ever admit outloud to anyone. You had intimate knowledge of the power he held over you. You’d slept with him exactly twice; both times in the well concealed darkness of your bedroom and still, still knew the man and every single but of him was gorgeous.

You were positive that you were ogling him for too long but if he had any thoughts about the way you took him in he certainly wasn’t speaking on it.

When you finally made it through, when the breath that seemed to be stuck halfway through your windpipe finally made its way out and your eyes finally touched on the edges of his face enough for you to catch the tip of his tongue that moistened his bottom lip a half second before his teeth bit down on that wet lip. It was such a brief action but your mind flashed a memory of those teeth biting down hard on to the soft skin of your neck. Those teeth that brought just a bit of pain and that mouth that sucked hard enough to bruise your flesh.

This mark remained on you at this very moment and it took every bit of strength left inside of you not to lift a hand and touch the spot with your fingertips.

You shouldn’t do such a thing. You were being watched.

His eyes watched you. You’d made it this far. You’d reached his eyes and when you pulled your own into his there was a shift in his pupils to finally have your focus, to finally be looking into his face instead of feasting all over his crotch like you had been doing.

Were you caught?

He had a smile on his face and you could see a narrowing of his eyelids, a microscopic tick of a single eyebrow over one of his eyes and his smile pulled just a tiny bit wider.

You probably should do something.

“Hi,” you managed weakly and his smile pulled brighter, showing his teeth for a moment.

“Hi,” his lips parted with his whispered response. His head tilted toward the door frame he was leaning on. That one word; just a repetition of your own inadequate greeting but somehow in his voice and said so softly it seemed to jostle every bit of the fondness you had for him and it sent a burst of sweet bubbles to your surface. The sweet feelings and tiny gestures and the delicate kisses and the sleepy whispers, they all floated up and one by one each made a tiny pop, pop, pop, breaking whatever excuse for surface tension you had tricked yourself into believing you could still hold on to.

What did normal people do when they had a visitor?

You stepped aside; your legs teetering just a little unsteadily, holding the door open for him to enter and also for your own balance and at last his weight shifted off of the doorframe and he took a quiet step inside.

You could breathe at last. He was finally aiming his eyes at something other than you as he looked down at his feet to push his shoes off.

You could feel the newness of this making your nerves misbehave.

Your brand new out-of-the-box boyfriend had suddenly stopped by your house and it was getting dark outside. As far as you knew he was supposed to have been busy all day. The boys’ music class and then dinner with his parents and then… he would have been tired after his day. He would maybe want to go home and rest.

Your mind reached back to his text message. You’d been longing for his company again back when you read it but now your nerves had a hold of you and his messages’ crystal clear meaning from before his arrival was beginning to cloud over just a bit. What if you had been wrong?

What if he actually had some other reason why he had to see you.

What if something had changed or what if something happened with the dinner with his parents? What if that dinner had turned into a business discussion about his future in the company and how he couldn’t waste away his precious days working as your assistant. What if this was a farewell visit; or worse a break up visit?

Were you jumping to conclusions about the reason for his sudden visit and assuming he wanted what you also wanted? What you knew for a fact right now is that you were definitely overthinking this.

The uncertainty had you crossing your arms over your chest and looking down the length of your bare legs. You pointed a freshly painted toe nail forward and absentmindedly tapped against the kitchen island beside the entryway of your home.

“So what did you need to see me about?” The question sounded innocent enough in your head but when it came out of your own mouth you could hear the confrontational tone. It made you wince. You hadn’t meant to sound this way. Out of habit, to recover just a little bit of your own pride, you straightened your shoulders and lifted your chin. It was an act of self preservation. You were a mess of a mix between a hopeful girlfriend and a nagging team manager and something told you the later one was not what you were supposed to be acting like right now.

Your stupid question was out though and there was no putting it back in. You held your breath and you braced for the answer.

Baekhyun had been making his way into your kitchen and his forward progress stalled when he heard your question. Did he feel your nerves through your words or had your business-like tone taken front and center stage?

He didn’t answer quickly and instead took a few more steps past where you stood your ground and you saw the tiny head shake as he looked back at you with his lips parted.

“Oh, uhh...” his voice began to speak but he stopped again, “I uhhh…” The man didn’t usually struggle with his words. Had you somehow infected him with your nerves? Was it the crossed arms and the manager’s tone of voice? You felt a flash of guilt for it.

Baekhyun exhaled and his eyes closed up.

“I sat outside for thirty minutes and I couldn’t come up with an excuse for being here.” His lips pulled into a wince and he peaked one eye open to look at you.

“I should be at home right now, but my car seemed to drive me here.” Your own smile betrayed you and when he saw it his other eye pulled open. He was adorable. His quiet confession made your heart leap.

“Nothing? No ‘My cell service is out and I had to deliver this important message’ or ‘We have this important client meeting tomorrow and you need to be aware of this detail that only I know.’ You couldn't come up with one little thing?” You simply could not help the teasing now. This was just too much fun. He was adorable.

You hadn’t read his messages wrong. All at once you felt the nerves burst and vanish and he smiled wider as he shook his head.

“I am definitely not here for work, Noona.” He stood just out of reach in that bright red hoodie wearing those jeans and he slipped a hand into his front pocket again, fidgeting with his keys or his phone or whatever it was he did when he was just a little bit anxious.

“So what are you here for then, Baekhyun?” You’d long since dropped your arms and they hung at your side.

His easy smile flattened out, vanishing from his face and he looked into your eyes, watching the shift in your face and recognizing the change in your tone easily.

Something different was brewing inside of your chest that had replaced the silly anxiousness you felt earlier. It had you taking the smallest step closer to him when you asked your brazen question.

This new feeling, a mirror of that which fueled your fingers to text him to tell him to come over, it had you lifting your eyes up from his lips where you’d just watched the nervous way his tongue darted out, your eyebrow bounced over your eye to see it, and when you’d pulled your eyes back up you did it slowly enough that there was zero doubt between the two of you that he had seen it.

This man, this beautiful, glorious, amazingly competent-in-all-ways man, was watching your face with his lips parted and with his words caught up inside his mouth. This man looked nervous right now, inside your home with you looking into his eyes waiting very patiently for his explanations for why he had to see you so urgently tonight.

So far he had none that he dared speak out loud.

You knew this might not be completely fair but it sure was fun watching the man who always had something to say about everything ever, finally at a loss for words.

What would it take to pull those words out of him.

You reached for the top button of the shirt you wore. It was a loose and flowy top and you knew it would only take one button for the shoulder to fall off. You knew the bruise he’d made with his mouth would be visible. You knew the lacy bra you wore would also not be very well concealed and just one more button would bring the view of the soft mounds of your breasts before him. You were on a roll with one button and you were unstoppable with the second button.

Of course his eyes touched below your neck, of course he saw the mark and of course his eyes looked down to the glimpse of your exposed bra. With his eyes having a look he bit down in his lip and you heard the rough exhale through his nose.

And he was in motion. His hand lifted to rub through his hair and another hand lifted to rub over his face and he physically reeled standing right here just out of your reach and with about as much pent up energy inside of his body as you felt inside of your own.

“You,” he lifted a lazy hand in your general direction, waving his slim fingers at you, “I — did not only come here for that. I also wanted to make sure you were okay after yesterday, I swear.”

He spilled the words out quickly and pulled his lips in between his teeth as he lifted an oh so innocent hand to lay over his chest as he did his very best to convince you of his noble intentions for coming here tonight. It made you grin. You couldn’t stop it.

The smile on your face was knowing. While you appreciated his concern you were very clearly just fine. And that wasn’t the part you wanted to get to the bottom of. You raised an eyebrow and dropped your voice an octave and you slowly asked your next question.

“You didn’t only come here for what, Baekhyun?”

You whispered in response, needing him to use the words himself out loud before you exploded right here in the space between your entryway and your kitchen. You wanted him to speak openly and honestly with you. You needed to know if he wanted to use you tonight as badly as you wanted to use him tonight.

His eyes were steady on you and you looked at him, mustering all of your experience from your most intense professional negotiations. You steeled your mouth shut and lifted your eyebrows in his direction with a tiny raise of your chin.

He watched your face. His breathing seemed to grow heavier and he seemed to war with himself inside his own head for a few breaths if it.

After a moment his head ticked upward and the look in his eyes grew darker.

“Okay,” he said and his lips hung open after the word came out. A decision it seemed had been reached.

“Okay, fine.” He took a step, it was a big one and you miraculously stood your ground as he moved in.

You did have to close your eyes for a second as he closed in on you. You’d asked for this. And when you felt the warmth of his breath against your face he was so close to you now that even with your eyes open, the pretty features of his face were a blur.

More than his hot breath on you, his hands had come too, those slim fingers ran a path along your neck, slipping his slow moving fingertips over the bruise. You knew his eyes would be feasting on the sight of where he had marked you as his own.

“You want to know why I came?” His hand moved now and you gasped to feel that hand slip around your chin and grip your face tightly. He pulled, making your face turn away from his so that his lips touched up against your ear. He held your face with a surprising strength and your breaths raged in and out, unable to conceal how affected you felt for him to be touching you this roughly.

You felt his soft lips at your ear a moment before you heard the lowly growled words that came from deep within his chest.

”l came because I want to fuck you.” You closed your eyes and your mouth was open as short breaths pushed out of your lungs. You had asked for this but had nowhere prepared for the impact of it. Oh this felt better than you had expected.

“Is this what you want to hear, My Love” You felt overwhelmed by his words, by his hands, by the way he pressed his firm body up against you and the way the edge of the hard countertop dug into your back. The pain of it made you feel somehow still connected to your body right now despite the otherworldly arousal that coursed through you.

“I came because you feel so hot and so wet and so good around my dick that all I can think about is fucking you over and over again.”

His hand moved your chin to face him again and he pulled his face back just enough for you to be able to make out the dark brown of his eyes. His pupils were so dark and all consuming they looked like black holes ready to devour you completely.

“You have no idea how desperate I am for you. If you asked me to get on my knees and beg, I would drop — I would drop to my knees, again, for you.”

“But what you have no fucking idea about, is how It goes so much deeper than that.” Your mind was too jumbled to make sense of what he meant. You did not have any space to translate — deeper than what?

His thumb moved then and you felt pressure as he pressed over it your bottom lip, his wild eyes watching the way your mouth opened slightly as he did it.

Every bit of resistance you may have had in you was gone. You easily molded under his hands, feeling the effects of him in more than just your mouth, the heat spread all over your body, dropping into your stomach, pooling in between your legs.

“More,” he said darkly as if this one word had punctuated the shift into a very different Baekhyun and you let your lips fall open more. His thumb pushed in, hooked around your bottom teeth and pulled you forward into his open mouth. You felt the hot wetness of his tongue when he pushed it inside of your mouth. This darkness in his voice sounded familiar; like the same Baekhyun that bit you. This must be him, when he’d lost the carefully curated control, this was him.

You felt inundated. Blindsided by the way your body reacted to it. You sucked on his tongue that he’d pushed into your mouth and you heard a low throaty groan from him as he slowly pulled it back out, leaving you shaking and trembling to watch his face twist into pleasure. His eyes had rolled closed and with him pressed up against your body this way you could feel the rigid heat between his legs pressed up against you.

His hands were trembling and he took them off of your face. He was retreating. It took you a few seconds to realize this and you missed his hands touching you when he’d pulled them away. He stumbled back, landing on one of your kitchen stools.

You watched him breathe through it all the while desperately trying to catch your own breath. When he spoke next he sounded worked up and agitated.

“I am fucking wrecked by you. I feel insane. I feel completely destroyed,” When his eyes pulled open he was back; whispering softly through parted lips and trembling hands that he fisted at his waist.

“But, I also know how lopsided this is. I know that I’m the one who fell too hard — too fast. I think you know it too — teasing me like that. Making me lose control, making me want to lose control —”

You’d done something awful. You’d introduced some doubt inside of his mind and you felt the need to undo all of that this very instant. Was that really why? Did he really have so much confusion about your intentions?

“You must know that I would do anything. I know I should hold back — I need to hold back with you, but…”

You took a step into him, leaned forward and pulled his bottom lip in between your lips and you kissed him, interrupting his false beliefs about how much you felt for him with a kiss.

He responded to your kiss right away with a need and incredible want. That he didn’t know the signs — that he didn’t recognize just how strong of a hold he had on you was a failure on your part — this couldn’t be the only reason. You wondered if it was something you’d missed.

His lips kissed you with such an intensity that you had to place both of your hands on his cheeks to pull him back, just so you could breathe, just so you could speak to the truth of how you felt about him; how you had been feeling about him all day. You had things to say to him.

”I worship you —” Your labored exhale painted over his wet lips, “Baekhyun.” Your chest constricted when you heard your own voice utter those scary words. You’d never before told someone something like this and still deep inside your chest you knew how true it was.

With your small declaration you saw his eyes roll and he bit down on his bottom lip. He inhaled through his nose, his teeth bit down hard on that lip. A small whimper came from the back of his throat.

But you weren’t done. You had so much to tell him and you mustered up the courage to speak.

“You occupy my mind and my heart so completely. I even considered going to bed early tonight just so I could hurry up and see you tomorrow morning.

“If I’ve given you any impression that I don’t want you, that I didn’t want you here; I am sorry. And I’m sorry about the way I greeted you earlier. I was — just nervous. I don’t want you to hold back with me.”

His face ticked back and forth, you felt it happen within your hands.

“I’ve never seen you nervous.” Baekhyun said matter of factly with his pink lips hung open after he spoke.

“I am very good at hiding it.” You let go of his face, trusting that he might stay put and you waved both of your hands over your own chest. “It happens all on the inside. My stomach is a wreck.”

“But you, texting me like that, and standing there at my door looking like this…” you waved a hand over the length of him and his eyes followed your waving fingers to look down at himself with a slowly growing smile that he tried to conceal on his face. His fingertips reached out and he touched your shirt, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and index finger.

“You make me very nervous. I thought for sure I was the one who liked you more.” Your confessions had been tumbling out of you quite freely now. It seemed you’d cleared the clog. “I think we have a lot to learn about each other.”

He watched your face as you spoke. You said all you could think of to say and the small tugs he made on your shirt were distracting, they made you lose whatever else you might have had to say. You reached a hand forward to tug at one of the red strings that hung out of his hood.

His fingers released the bit of your shirt he was holding. He’d been absent minded with it but when he reached out again he lightly gripped the next closed button on your top. There were only two left that held this thing together. His focus was light on that button he held between his index finger and his thumb and you felt a small tug as a third finger came into play, pushing the button through the hole; exposing more of your skin.

He was making you dizzy again. You felt his light touch along your stomach just below the front clasp of your bra and your own small gasps were the only sound in this quiet space when he lightly traced the lace edge of your bra, his fingertip running up the soft flesh of your breast. He followed up the strap and you felt him rub the pad of his fingertip on your shoulder, over the bruise there.

Baekhyun leaned. You felt the movement in him moments before you felt his hair tickling lightly over your skin. You felt the puff of breath from his mouth moments before you felt his soft lips on you and when his lips landed over that same exact spot you had to place your hands on his shoulders to keep yourself from falling over. You braced for it, you could feel it coming when you felt the parting of his lips, the wetness of his tongue and the hardness of his teeth and he bit you again, harder this time in the exact same spot as before. It took your breath away and you had to open your mouth; a small hiss and a quiet moan.

“Do I really make you nervous?” He asked in a low whisper into the space beside your neck. You felt goosebumps all over your skin. His hands were moving and you felt a tiny click. He had figured out the front clasp of your bra. You felt his mouth on you again, this time his lips and his tongue all over. You might have nodded your head. You weren't very much in control of your body anymore.

But his hands, those hands, they were moving again. His slim fingertips had slipped into the space between your goosebumped skin and the waistband of your shorts and he pushed with his hands, leaving only your lace underwear behind. He was undressing you. In the kitchen with all of your lights on and your hands rubbed over the soft red hoodie he still wore, lamenting over the lack of warm skin you felt. He was still completely clothed when gravity took your shorts.

“Do you really want me to not hold back?” His next question was spoken into your open mouth. You gasped, inhaling the sweet smelling air from inside his lungs when his hands reached around and gripped your ass and you were being lifted, with his mouth still connected to your own and his eyes wide open as he looked into your face between the kisses.

He had so many clothes on. You felt the roughness of the denim through the thin lace panties that you still wore and against the bare skin of your thighs that wrapped around his thin waist. You felt your own wetness that soaked the fabric press against you as you were lifted and you were carried; he was moving now.

You were in a different room. You inhaled a shocked breath when you were tossed, your back meeting a soft bed and you were entirely too naked for how many clothes he wore as he climbed over you on the bed, his bare knee and its warm skin a stark contrast to the scratchy jeans, you felt him push that knee roughly against your legs, making you open tor him.

“Baek — clothes,” you managed only a few nouns. He understood and you heard a quiet chuckle from the back of his throat, only it didn’t quite sound like humor. It sounded like something else. A little boy playing roughly and carelessly with a toy, perhaps.

He caged you in with his arms pinning you down on either side and his bare knee pressed up high between your parted legs. You were certain he could feel your wetness on his knee.

“I’ll keep them on for now, because you like them.” His balance shifted then and he moved, propping up on one elbow so he could trace down the curve of your body with his fingertips. He was moving very slowly and you squirmed below the uncomfortable tickle you felt when he reached your hip bones. He was moving lower and his knee was gone, replaced by his wandering hand.

“God, you are wet. I can feel you worshiping me, right here,” his fingertips pressed over your panties and the purposeful drag of his fingers over your swollen center had you gasping. He did it again and again and you responded desperately with every touch and when he pushed the fabric aside and slipped two slim fingers inside of your wetness you could feel yourself losing this game he was playing.

Just with the build up before you got into this room, you were already in bad shape, but now with his fingers touching; you felt yourself too close. He was guiding you there. You knew he could tell too. His movements were deliberate and he was watching your face closely as he did it. You could feel on the edge of it, you were so close to it, your breathing was ragged and desperate and he watched with a quiet and calm expression on his face as he brought you there. You squirmed below him, you touched just along the edge of it with a whimper when all at once he pulled his hand away abruptly, slipping well outside of your wetness and far away from the release you had been so close to. That hand, that hand was gone, his fingers and the feeling all of it was gone. The denial felt like a splash of cold water against your hot skin.

“Do want me to fuck you, Miss Manager?” He spoke out your work title in a hushed whisper and the surprise of hearing that title — right here with you in the state you were in, it pulled your eyes open to look into his face. When he caught your attention you saw a slight narrowing of his dark eyes. It was a challenge. You wondered right then about the fantasies this man must have had at work. You wondered how you would be able to move forward tomorrow knowing what you now knew from his one question he had just asked you.

“You know you just have to ask me nicely,” he said with a shrug of his face. He lifted his hand, still wet from you, up to his lips and you watched his lips part and the tip of his tongue emerged to lick up the wetness before he stuck both of his fingers inside of his mouth, pulling them out of his mouth slowly as he looked into your eyes.

This was too much. You hadn’t been prepared for this kind of behavior from him and the most shocking thing was just how much you were turned on by every single thing he did to you.

Yes, you did want him to fuck you. You were feeling entirely too desperate for it and he was completely and utterly in control of every single thought you had coursing through your brain.

“B-Baek—take off your clothes—”

“Uh-uh,” he interrupted firmly when you had started to speak. “I don’t think that’s the proper way to ask your assistant for a favor. Really, you are more professional than that. At least say please.” This was definitely a game he was playing now.

You felt all of it, all at once. The sting of being so close to a finish and being denied it. The sting of him denying you even for a few seconds what you had so clearly wanted from him. You felt the arousal still overtaking every single one of your senses and still so very affected by his goddamned audacity to be so clearly having so much fun with you right now.

It made you feel insane. All of it was too much.

You weren't speaking right away for sheer loss of words. You felt like you’d lost them along with your sanity and all you could do was reach your hand out and tug lightly at his red sweater. You were greeted with a small slap at the back of your hand for that and he was inhaling to speak again with about as much mischief in his eyes as you had ever seen.

“Répète après moi,” he began in French for no reason you could make any sense of, not that you could make any sense of anything that was happening to you right now.

He spoke clearly and slowly as if you were a naughty student in need of reprimanding — with a finger pointed at his mouth, touching on his bottom lip. This was the finger that had just been inside of you.

“Assistant Byun…will you please” he said with a pointed pause and he watched you and he waited.

It was your turn to repeat after him.

“Assistant Byun, will you please take off your clothes and fuck me?” It was always best to rip the bandaid off, you said it in a single breath. The seconds after the words came out of your lips though, you felt their massive impact.

Every single day, and all day long at work, you started dozens of sentences to him exactly like this. This was the most dangerous game you could have played with him.

His eyes were watching you darkly as you said it and you caught the slow roll of his eyes into the back of his head as he threw his face back and away from you, feeling the very real impact of that sentence you had just said to him.

No doubt, committing it to memory so that every single time you started with those words at work, this very moment would return to his mind — and to yours as well.

He didn't respond right away with words but he was moving before you heard him whisper the quiet, “Yes ma’am,” that he always used as a response at the office.

He quickly pulled the red sweater up over his head and tossed it onto the floor behind him. He’d grabbed the white shirt along with the sweater, removing everything at once. You saw the clear firmness of his skin at last. You could smell the clean, expensive fragrance that he wore. You felt the bed move and you heard the telltale sounds of a belt buckle, a zipper, the swish of jeans and he was back to you all heat and skin and the overwhelmingly amazing way he smelled and he was back; he was back.

You felt ready to snap. You felt wound so tight; the anticipation alone might have done you in, but he was back. You’d abandoned the panties. They were soaked anyway.

He was above you; coating you entirely. The heavy weight of his body covered you, you felt restricted in your breathing and he was here. He was yours; you had him at last. He was in between your legs, he was on top of you and his arms wrapped below your shoulders as he pulled your body into his own, a tangle here without any distance at all between the skin of your bodies and between your faces. You felt him there too, right between your legs, so perfectly lined up. You’d wrapped your tense legs around his waist to pull him in closer to you.

He was looking into your eyes and when he pushed inside it was all at once; in one fluid motion. Your mouth opened to gasp and his mouth opened over your mouth, pushing his tongue between your lips and biting down with his teeth with a matching rhythm; the same motion that his hips moved inside of you, until the gasping from his own lungs grew to be too much for him to take.

You touched him everywhere, needing to feel that smooth skin from his abdomen to his chest to his neck to his face and as you passed your fingers over his lips you gasped when turned his head, catching a finger between his teeth and biting down hard. You wondered how many marks he had made on you now.

You were dizzy. You were overcome. He was sitting up and watching the space where your bodies connected; where he disappeared inside of you again and again and you were lost.

You were lost. His pace was affected by the feeling of your tremors, by the tightening of all of your muscles and you were lost. You heard the growling curses that flew from his lips and the whining sounds that came from his mouth.

His actions were a blur. You were too consumed by this man. You know that you came undone before he did, you felt his strong grip as his hand dug hard into your inner thigh and you felt the slight pain as he pushed inside of you roughly. It brought a sound to your lips and you cried out again when his thumb between your bodies colliding did-you-in again and he was shaking. He was trembling on top of you with a noisy grunt in your ear and a shuttering that you could feel inside of you he was shaking.

The comedown was lengthy. A thousand thoughts came rushing into your mind the second it cleared enough to allow for any little bit of rational thinking. This man…this man was surprising in every single way he could be. He was a marathon and a marvel. He was a hurricane and a deluge and you felt almost too spent to even move, but you knew you must. You reached for something on the bed, finding the panties and deeming them good enough for this mess and his breathing had finally settled enough for a small moan to come from his chest.

Despite the relief you felt, despite the sex being what you needed from him you still longed to touch him. You were sore and you were spent and still you reached for his warmth as if you would never be free of this desire for him. You found him easily. He wrapped himself around you and you only half paid attention to any of those thoughts racing through your mind. Concerns and worries for how you might resist him at work, now that you had these ideas presented in such a tempting way. Worries for what the future with him might actually hold. Worries about how deeply you had fallen for him and how desperately you felt this desire to be with him all of the time.

“Where did you park?” You finally spoke after a long spell of silent breathing.

“Secure lot,” he said over your head and he tightened the grip of his arms around your shoulders and laid a heavy leg over your hip.

You saw him arrive at your home empty handed and he definitely didn’t bring a suit for work tomorrow hidden in his pockets, but the hold he had on you was tight and it was warm and his breathing was beginning to even out as the sounds of nighttime insects began to chirp outside of your closed window and you decided that all of those pesky little details and worries and concerns could wait definitely until tomorrow.

[To be Continued]

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

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