#kind of inspired by a fic i read the other day | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

asahicore · 8 months

Text

real me, real you - psh

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader (ft. jay... sorry)

synopsis. You’re your school’s popular pretty smart girl, but with a twist - you lead a completely different life at home, where you are messy, lazy and foul-mouthed. Only your family and best friend Sumin know about this, until Park Sunghoon, of all people, finds out. The resident cold and arrogant heartbreaker of your school decides to blackmail you into doing his biddings - but you can’t say no, not even when he asks you to be his fake girlfriend, otherwise he’ll ruin your reputation. But as you and Sunghoon get closer, you realize that maybe he’s not so bad after all, and you may be more similar than you'd originally though - all while your old childhood friend Jay watches from the sidelines.

genre. fake dating, high school au, very slight love triangle action, fluff and angst

warnings. this is the first thing i ever wrote so there may be slightly cringe and awkward things but i didn't wanna change anything lol, hoon is a meanie at some point and everything is dramatic and very fanfic-y, mild childhood trauma for both of them <3

word count. 22.9k

author's note. @end-hyphen genie this one is for you... i hope you still like this fic after all this time lol ! as i said in the warnings i only changed a few typos and punctuation from the original but i decided to not make any major changes bc i think it's nice to see what my writing was like when i had just started out!! hopefully i've improved lol, also this was not inspired by true beauty!! i've never seen the show nor read the webtoon. i was inspired by two mangas called switch girl and kare kano (or his and her circumstances) which have this plot of a girl being two different people at school and at home. anyways hope u guys enjoy this and if u do pls lmk <333

Nobody was supposed to find out.

You were the most popular girl in school, known for your looks, good grades, and kind personality. You had a nice group of friends and the whole school at your feet, students and staff alike. As the student representative, you had an image to keep up and needed everyone to think you were perfect; and they did. So you always wore a smile on your face, kept your head up and made sure your uniform was creaseless, all while maintaining the highest scores in your year. Always being friendly to your peers and helping them out prevented anyone from thinking you were a stuck-up goody-two-shoes. You made high school look like a breeze.

But such a life didn’t exist. Who was happy waking up at 6 a.m. every day and dedicating all of their time to schoolwork and student life? You certainly weren’t. What you thrived off of was having everyone think you were. Hearing whispers in the corridor of, “She’s so pulled together!” or “I wish I had her life”, now, those skyrocketed you to heaven. The cherry on top was a nod of approval from a teacher or an “outstanding job again, Y/N” as they handed you back your graded paper. Your favorite color had become the red of the pens your teachers used to write A+ at the top of the page.

You’d always been academically gifted, but as you heard those words more and more, you’d started craving them and doing everything to hear them again until they started controlling you instead of the other way around. Everything you did needed to be perfect. And that was how you had created this persona of the perfect girl who had it all together at the ripe age of 17. But that’s exactly what it was; a persona.

As soon as you stepped off the bus and waved goodbye to your friends, you became another person. Or more accurately, you reverted back to your natural self. You weren’t an evil person by any means; it wasn’t your intention to actively deceive everyone at school, it was more of a side effect of keeping up appearances. Only your family and your closest friend Sumin knew what you were truly like: greedy, messy, short-tempered, self-centered, and sometimes downright insufferable. Your younger siblings, Sunoo and Yeeun, liked to joke that you had a button you switched on and off whenever you left the house. When on, you were the sweetest girl ever, but when off, all your vices crept up and let themselves known to the world, or rather to your family. You didn’t mean to make them suffer, but after a long day of being perfect, you needed to blow off some steam; if they had to be your metaphorical punching bag, so be it.

When Sunoo entered high school, you made him swear he wouldn’t say a thing to anyone. You trusted him and knew he wouldn’t let your secret out - it was too entertaining for him to see you act perfect at school and reveal your true self at home. There was no risk of anyone finding out - you were so intent on keeping the act up that nothing ever slipped you. It had been that way since middle school, and your senior year of high school was going to be no different.

Nobody was supposed to find out, so what was Park Sunghoon doing right in front of you in the frozen aisle of the corner convenience store, just when you happened to be bare-faced, with thick glasses on and a pimple bright red from just having been popped, in your comfiest pajamas, and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s in hand?

“Kim Y/N? Y/N, is that you?”

You froze in place, not knowing how to react. There was no way this, your worst nightmare, was actually happening.

When you regained your senses, flight seemed the best way out of this. You avoided Sunghoon’s curious gaze and curtly replied, “No, sorry, I don’t know who that is,” before walking away, iron grip on the ice cream.

But the boy was quicker than you and grabbed you by the wrist, forcing you to turn around. “It is you! Come on, Y/N, aren’t we friends? Do you not recognize me or something?”

If it wasn’t for the panic coursing through your veins at that moment, you might’ve laughed at his question. How could you not recognize the Park Sunghoon? Along with Park Jongseong and Sim Jaeyun, or Jay and Jake as they liked to be called, he was only the most popular guy in your year - hell, in the whole school. The three of them had gained attention from freshman year as the three handsome soccer players. Jake and Sunghoon had been attached at the hip since kindergarten, Jay joining them sometime in middle school when he came back from his year abroad in Seattle.

Your parents and Jay’s had been college best friends and you two had therefore grown up together, and even used to be quite close. You’d grown apart when he joined Jake and Sunghoon’s friend group, and although you still got on well, there was always a bit of an awkward atmosphere when you caught up with each other.

The three friends had quite different personalities but their complicity and shared history made them stick together. Jake was known for his academic achievements, rivaling yours, and his friendly personality; Jay, for his surprisingly funny antics once you got past the somewhat menacing appearance (which he blames on his resting bitch face). Sunghoon, on the other hand, was as cold as ice, so much that he’d earned the nickname of ice prince, but girls continued to swoon over him due to his incredibly handsome features. When turning down girls, Jake and Jay always tried to let them down gently, but Sunghoon wasn’t one to hold back: he’d laugh in their face or straight up say no, staring them right in the eyes. Most confessions ended in tears (not his, obviously), but girls kept on testing their luck, thinking they might be the one to melt the ice prince’s cold, dead heart.

Clearly, you weren’t Sunghoon’s biggest fan.

His behavior had always made you wonder why Jay and Jake were friends with a person like him. They went back a long time, but how did Sunghoon not become a nice and approachable person like his two best friends? They both seemed so genuine, but he looked like he was hiding something. This was what had made you weary of him; you knew all too well how easily an image that was the opposite of reality could be created. So on one hand, you sort of felt for him, thinking he might be in a similar situation as you. But on the other hand, you couldn’t help but feel some kind of jealousy: if you acted the way he did, you wouldn’t receive half the admiration you did. Hell, you’d probably be hated for it - no one likes a girl that’s both successful and bitchy about it.

One thing was sure, though, and that was that you wouldn’t call the two of you friends, as he just had.

“Y/N? You okay?”

The pure panic in your eyes must’ve made Sunghoon realize something was wrong. He released you and looked you up and down, trying to take your appearance in. The Y/N he was seeing right then was worlds away from the one he was accustomed to at school.

You realized there was no ignoring him, so you collected yourself and faced Sunghoon. “Uh, yeah, hi, Sunghoon. Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting to see anyone I knew here.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, no wonder. You look quite… different from what you usually do,” he said, voice laced with sarcasm.

This whole situation got you dumbfounded. You usually knew exactly what to retort when somebody messed with you, your friend or a classmate, but this time, you were completely speechless. You just wanted to escape.

“Well, it was nice seeing you Sunghoon, but I need to get home.” You pivoted on your heels and started walking again, but Sunghoon had other plans.

“Aw, come on, so quickly? We barely got to chat!” He followed you through the aisles as you picked up the remaining ingredients on the list your mother had given you as quickly as you could.

“I didn’t know you needed glasses. Do you wear lenses at school?”

“Yes. I need them to see.”

“I figured.” You could hear the smirk in his voice, and your shock was slowly morphing into anger. Were teenage girls so blind that they’d have a crush on someone with such an abominable personality, no matter how angelic his face was?

“I really like your outfit, by the way. Looks super comfy.” And as if your embarrassment couldn’t grow any bigger, he added: “Too bad you got a stain on the shirt.”

You looked down at yourself and noticed a huge grease stain on the collar of your shirt. Admittedly, you didn’t always have the best table manners.

You swore under your breath. It was quiet for a couple minutes as you arrived at the register and paid for your items, Sunghoon still on your tail. He had apparently given up his purchases to focus solely on tormenting you. When you walked out of the store, you thought he might finally be done. But of course, he wasn’t.

“You know, my sister has this really effective pimple cream she uses. Do you want me to ask her what brand it is?”

That was it. You sighed deeply. “Alright, Park. What do you want?”

When you turned to face him fully, arms crossing over your chest and an obviously tired expression on your face, the mischievous glint in his eyes made you realize something. That idiot was enjoying this.

Indeed, he beamed down at you. You had probably never seen him smiling so widely. “Wow, Y/N, didn’t know you could have such an attitude.”

You stayed silent and continued staring at him, waiting for an answer. He mirrored your pose, out of instinct or to irritate you, you weren’t sure.

“You know, when I moved to this neighborhood before the start of school, I was definitely not expecting to see Perfect Miss Y/N out in her pajamas buying ice cream. I thought you were more into, I don’t know, rescuing puppies from fires or something. That sounds like something you’d do in your free time.”

“Well, is there anything wrong with what I’m doing?”

“Oh, absolutely not! Just a surprising sight. Makes me wonder what the rest of the school would say…” He looked intently at you, clearly waiting for a reaction. You weren’t about to give him one, though.

You chuckled and rolled your eyes, shifting your weight on your right foot. “Yeah, like anyone would believe you if you said you saw me looking anything else other than perfect.” It might’ve sounded arrogant, but that was the image people had of you. Even your friends asked you how you did it - if only they knew the truth.

At that, his smile got even brighter. “Don’t worry about that, I won’t need to tell anyone. I’ll just show them!” He pulled out his phone, showing you a picture of you in your god-awful pajamas searching for your favorite flavor of ice cream.

He watched as your face fell, taking your silence as an opportunity to go on. “You were so engrossed in the tubs of ice cream that you didn’t notice a dashingly handsome and tall young man very obviously taking pictures of you.”

This put you into panic mode again. It might have seemed foolish, but you hadn’t worked for years to create a perfect version of yourself only for a stupid boy to destroy it all with one picture.

You sighed and lowered your head, taking a moment to think. You didn’t know Sunghoon that well, but you didn’t put it past him to send that picture to everyone and ruin your image in the process. You opted for honesty instead of bluff. You took your glasses off and looked back up at him; even if you couldn’t see him as well without them, maybe he’d see the despair in your eyes better.

“Park. I mean, Sunghoon. You can’t show that picture to anyone, okay? You have no idea how bad I need to keep up appearances. It’s really important to me, so just delete the picture and let’s never talk about this again, yeah?”

You tried smiling at him, but his expression infuriated you. You could tell he had something else up his sleeve. “Now, Y/N, why would I do that? If I’m gonna do something for you, you should do something for me.”

You weren’t sure if you wanted to hear the rest of his thoughts, but you needed to know. Eyeing him suspiciously, you told him to go on.

“Well, I can’t think of anything right now, but I’ll let you know when I do, okay? I’ll see you around, Y/N.” He flashed another one of his smiles, patted your head, and walked away, just like that, leaving you standing outside the convenience store on your own, a melting tub of ice cream in your plastic bag. At least for now, you were safe.

Right?

—

“You saw Park Sunghoon? As in, the Park Sunghoon?” your little sister Yeeun asked, looking at you with huge eyes. You two and Sunoo were sitting on your bed, sharing the ice cream by eating it directly from the tub.

“Yes, that’s literally what I’ve been saying this whole time. How do you know him anyway? You’re still in middle school…”

“Are you crazy? He’s famous in our whole school district! I wish we had cute boys in my school as well,” she sulked, pouting.

“That’s not the point, Yeeun,” Sunoo chimed in, then turned to you. “Well, this is either bad news or the start of a beautiful romance.”

“Sunoo! Take this seriously! I’m in a huge dilemma right now.”

Your siblings shared a knowing glance and snickered.

“Hey! I’m right here. I’m not overreacting, you know. If he does send those pictures around, I’m done for.”

“Oh, come on, Y/N, you’d be so much better off if you could be yourself at school. I see you there almost everyday, and the way you laugh always sounds so fake. Nobody would care if you forgot to put makeup on one day or had a crease in your shirt. If anything, it’d make you look more human.”

You could see where Sunoo was coming from, but you chose to ignore it. You sighed deeply. “You guys just don’t get it. They all see me as this perfect, put-together girl. If I showed them even a glimpse of the truth, everything would shatter. It’s too late to go back now.” You ignored their pitying looks and took another big spoonful of ice cream.

It was their turn to sigh. As always, it was impossible to reason with you. Deep in your thoughts, you added: “You know, there was something really off about him today. I’d never seen him act that way before.”

Your siblings looked at you questioningly. “He’s always so cold and distant towards everyone. I’ve only seen him smile when he’s laughing with Jake and Jay or when he makes fun of someone. But just now, he kept smiling at me like he was having fun. He even patted my head when he left.”

At that, Yeeun swooned dramatically, hands over her heart. You looked over at her and said, “I’d be swooning too if it was any other guy than Park Sunghoon. I’m more confused than anything right now, he was a completely different person from when I see him at school.”

They exchanged another look. “You guys stop doing that!”

“Well, it’s just that that sounds an awful lot like someone I know,” Sunoo replied. Realization hit you and you scoffed, mildly offended. At least you were nice to others at school and didn’t act like an asshole with a superiority complex.

“Anyway,” he continued, “what will you do about Sunghoon?”

“I’m not too sure. I guess all I can do is wait and see whatever it is he could want from me.”

“Yeah, do that, and then date him, please. If I can’t have him as my boyfriend, then I’ll have him as my brother-in-law,” Yeeun joked. You didn’t have it in you to retort anything back and started laughing along with her.

If everything did shatter, at least you’d have your siblings to make you laugh.

—

The next day, you made your way to the bus stop after your daily morning routine: jogging, showering, eating a filling breakfast, choosing the perfect accessories for your school uniform, applying just the right amount of makeup and going over your subjects and tasks of the day. As always, efficiency is the key. You had become so used to this routine that your body did it on its own, which let your mind wander wherever it pleased. Usually, you’d use this time to prepare yourself for the day ahead, but today, the only thing on your mind was Park Sunghoon. What was that boy up to? Was he up to anything, or did you completely imagine his mischievousness yesterday? In any case, you hoped it would all be over soon.

You got on the bus and sat down next to Sumin. Your close friend group at school consisted of her, Park Sieun, Lee Heeseung and Choi Jiung, but she was the only one who knew about your secret. You had been friends for so long that you hadn’t even been able to hide it: she’d seen you from all angles, both before, during and after your transformation to who you were now. It was nice having someone else than your siblings to rely on and tell everything to.

“Minie, you’ll never guess what happened yesterday. I ran into Park Sunghoon at the convenience store next to our apartment unit.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, but her reaction wasn’t as big as you thought it’d be. She smiled and said, “Huh! I knew he’d moved to our neighborhood, but I wouldn’t have thought he’d live so close to you that you’d even shop at the same place.”

She registered your confused expression and continued. “Didn’t you hear? He moved out of his parents’ house at the end of summer. Something about a huge fight with them that made him move out. But there are always so many rumors about him and his group that I don’t know what to believe.”

“Oh,” you mumbled, unsure what to say. Now that you thought about it, Sunghoon had mentioned moving in your conversation yesterday, but you were so preoccupied with him seeing you in your wild state that you hadn’t paid much attention to his comment.

“Wait, did he do something? Your face is telling me he did something.”

You got closer to her face and gestured for her to do the same. With lowered heads and in hushed tones, you said, “He saw me on off-mode.”

She gasped and jolted back in surprise, eyes wide and eyebrows shooting straight up. “What?”

You shushed her and pulled her in by her shoulders. “He even took pictures.” Your grip tight, you held her from jumping again. “That’s not even it. You know how he's always really cold and distant?”

“You mean how he’s always being a douchebag?” She scoffed. “Yeah, I know.”

You remembered that Sumin had been one of the first of many girls who shot their shot with Park Sunghoon, only to get rejected. You both grimaced at the memory that always left a bad taste in your mouth.

“He was completely different yesterday. Kept following me around the store and, I’m not sure, teasing me? Like trying to get a reaction out of me? In a weird half-friendly half-bully way.”

“Hm, you’re right, that doesn’t sound like him,” she mused. “It does sound like a stupid teenage boy though, which I guess he is, no matter how hard he tries to pretend he’s not.”

This is what you loved about Sumin. She could see right through people, and never hesitated to say what she thought of them, especially when they acted the way Sunghoon did. Sure, there were some personal feelings attached there, but she had quickly gotten over them when she realized how much of a douche he was towards everyone else.

When the bus stopped to pick up some more students, Heeseung hopped on. You quickly told Sumin to keep it a secret, at which she smiled and made a motion as if zipping her lips and throwing the key. If you told your friends about Sunghoon, you’d have to tell them the truth about how he had dirt on you, but you wanted to keep your friendship clean. You chatted the rest of the bus ride away and tried not to worry over Park Sunghoon too much.

When you finally got to school, you, Heeseung, and Sumin made your way to your classroom to join Jiung and Sieun. Before you could get there, however, Jungwon, an underclassman you had talked to a couple times for student council meetings, called out your name. You told your friends to go on without you and turned to the younger boy.

“Jungwon! Hi, what’s up?”

He seemed flattered that you had remembered his name but quickly got on with his business. “Um, I’m not sure why, but Sunghoon told me to come and get you? I’ve never talked to him, I think he just picked me randomly and assigned me a task…”

You sighed. Park Sunghoon truly was something. “Thanks for telling me, Jungwon. I’ll make sure he gets an earful for this, he has no right to boss students around like that.”

Jungwon’s eyes doubled in size as he frantically waved his hands in dismissal. “No! No need to do that, I don’t want to get in trouble with him. I’m just here to relay the message.” At that, he scurried off, and you headed towards Sunghoon’s homeroom.

When you walked in, a few people were in the room, some girls gossiping with each other, a couple students doing some last-minute revision for a test. You found Sunghoon sitting at his desk, snickering with Jay and Jake and hoped that the subject of their laughter wasn’t you. They noticed you approaching and the two decent boys greeted you; the other one eyed you, that mischievous glint back in his eyes. What could he possibly have in mind?

“Hi, guys.” You smiled at Jay and Jake and reflexively stood closer to Jay. “Sunghoon, Jungwon said you wanted to see me?” you asked, trying to keep your impatience at bay.

“Oh, was that his name? Well, thank heavens for him, ‘cause I forgot my lunch at home. Would you be a sweetheart and go buy me something at the cafeteria? You know how everything runs out as soon as lunch period starts, and I get really cranky when I’m hungry.”

You stared at him, wide-eyed. His two friends’ reaction wasn’t very different from yours. Go buy him lunch? That’s what he wanted you to do?

“What? You don’t want to? That’s too bad, cause there’s a picture I think everybo-”

You cut him off before he could finish. “No! Of course I’ll do it! Can’t have our star player go hungry, now can we?” You cringed at your own words and Jay eyed you suspiciously. Sunghoon beamed, and Jake’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of you in pure confusion. “Um, any preferences?”

His smile got wider. “A tuna mayo would be amazing. Thanks, Y/N! You’re the best!”

“Sure…” you mumbled and quickly walked away, more bemused than ever. You checked your watch. You had 10 minutes before the first bell rang, and you could not be late for class, which meant you needed to hurry.

You got back to Sunghoon’s classroom just a minute before the first bell. To your dismay, the class was almost full, and girls had gathered around him, trying to get his attention, but he seemed unbothered by their presence. You braced yourself and walked towards him. As your presence rarely went by unnoticed, most eyes were on you and Sunghoon. Not only were you two some of the most popular kids in school, you also happened to be handing him his lunch, a never-seen-before sight between the two of you.

“I also got you banana milk, for good measure…”

What had seemed like a great idea a few minutes ago, something to appease the devil in him, now felt like the biggest mistake of your life. The girls around him started whispering left and right and you weren’t sure whether they felt bad for you, sensing an incoming rejection, or wanted to tear you to shreds for even trying.

The whispers grew even louder when Sunghoon took the sandwich and milk from your hands, thanking you with a smile. You’d be lying if you said your heart hadn’t done a small jump in your chest at that moment. As much as you hated to admit it, if looks were the sole factor for popularity, then you could definitely understand why Park Sunghoon was so loved. His face looked like it had been carved by the gods themselves. When his eyebrows weren’t turned in a frown, his eyes looked almost sweet, especially when he laughed. His two moles gave him so much charm, the curve of his nose was so delicate and his pink lips looked so, so soft…

You cleared your throat and smiled back at him before turning around to walk to your own classroom.

“Wait, Y/N!”

You turned back around, all eyes on you. You could feel Jay’s eyes burning holes into you. Sunghoon was still smiling. You thought you’d seen him smile more in the past two days than you had in all the years you’d known him.

“I’ll see you later.”

—

And indeed see him later you did. You always hung back a bit after classes ended to get homework done or work out student council issues. Being in an empty classroom brought you some peace and quiet, very different from the busyness and noise of your home. You couldn’t even focus in your own room, your siblings or parents always barging in to disturb you. The after-school janitors now knew you by name and saved cleaning the classroom you were sitting in for last.

You had been barely sitting there for 5 minutes, nose buried in a math problem, when Park Sunghoon graciously strode in, swung the chair in front of you around and sat on it, arms crossed over its back as he peered at you. You didn’t even bother to look up at him as you spoke. “What, Park?”

“Oh no, back to last name basis already?” he joked. You didn’t laugh. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Wow, tough crowd. Anyways, thanks for the sandwich today.”

This made you look at him. Or rather, shoot daggers at him. “Yeah, what the hell was that all about? Did you have to pull that little stunt in front of everybody? You know what our school is like! Rumors are gonna start spreading like wildfire.”

“I already told you,” he said with a defensive tone. “Forgot my lunch, everything was gonna run out, didn’t want to get hungry later,” he said as he shrugged, completely ignoring the latter part of your complaint.

“And you couldn’t have gone and gotten it yourself?”

He beamed. If it wasn’t so damn beautiful, you probably would have started getting tired of his stupid smile already. “Why would I do that when I could get you to do it?”

You sighed. “I knew you weren’t the nicest guy, but I didn’t know you could be such an asshole, Park.”

If you hadn’t been staring him down so intently, you might not have noticed the falter in his smile, so quick it was.

“Oh, come on, Y/N. If anything, I’m doing you a favor by not sending out to everyone that picture you so desperately want to keep secret. Thing is, doing that wouldn’t benefit me in any way, except for getting the satisfaction of seeing everybody realize you’re not as perfect as they think you are. Whereas holding it over your head allows me to do basically anything I want with you. And that, that is just so much fun,” he beams, lowering his voice into a whisper for the last sentence.

What a psycho, you thought. You just sighed once more and returned to your textbook, too weirded out to say anything back. You hoped the silence would make Sunghoon realize how creepy what he had just said was.

It was quiet in the room, only the sound of your pencil scratching your notebook could be heard. Sunghoon sat in the same position and watched you working. He often saw you like this, focused and benched over a desk, in the library or walking past your classroom. But it was always in passing, and looking at you so closely made all the world’s difference. He could see how you scrunched your nose when the problem got particularly difficult, or how your smirk as you solved another one made your left dimple appear. He also liked the annoyed looks you gave him every once in a while, as if his presence was disturbing your focus. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something about seeing someone who always went about their way with such purpose sitting in such silence.

He decided to break that silence. “You know, Jay was asking about you earlier.”

You kept your eyes trained on your notebook but abruptly stopped writing, your pencil leaving a small scratch on the paper. This didn’t go unnoticed by Sunghoon. “Did he?” you said, trying to sound as uninterested as possible, although you couldn’t help but be curious. Ever since Jay and you had grown apart, there was always a part of you wondering what he was up to, how he was doing, if he thought of you once in a while or reminisced about the good old times as you sometimes did.

“Yeah. I mean, everyone did, but I didn’t really care,” he answers simply, and even though you’re itching to push him to say more, you stay quiet. “You’re right, by the way, I do know the people in our school. The rumors have already started spreading. Up to you whether you wanna deny them or not, though,” he said with a smirk.

“Don’t even think about it, Park. There’s not a chance in hell I’ll let them think we have a thing going on. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.”

He chuckled. “Trust me, I know. Anyway, he wanted to know why you did that for me. Guess he was jealous you didn’t do it for him, too.”

“Why would he be?” you asked, trying to make the question sound as innocent as possible.

“Well, you two go a long way back, right?” he asked tentatively, as if testing the waters.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Then it was probably weird for him to see his childhood best friend and his best bro interacting out of nowhere, even though we’ve both seen each other around a lot and nothing has ever come out of that. Don’t you think?”

A beat passed as you thought about it. “Yeah, I guess that’d look weird to him,” you replied, trying to keep the disappointment out of your voice.

You quickly wrote down your last answer, packed up your things, and stood up. “Well, I’m off now. I’ll see you around, unfortunately.”

Sunghoon, surprised at your quick departure, scrambled to get off his chair and chased after you. “Do you want me to drop you off? I’ve got a car, you know. Much more glamorous than the bus.”

You turned around and looked at him. “I’d rather get hit by said bus than get in your car, Park.”

He stood there, watching you walk away with a smirk on his face as your ponytail swayed from side to side. This was going to be a challenge. You were going to be a challenge.

Thing is, he loved a good challenge.

—

Back home, you flopped down on your bed and buried your face in your pillow. You laid there for a few minutes, taking some time to gather your thoughts and try to understand Sunghoon’s actions. It was of no use; you weren’t a mind-reader, and he seemed impossible to figure out. He could make you do basically whatever he wanted to, and he decided to make you get him lunch, creating rumors along the way? What could he possibly get out of that?

Your reflexions were quickly interrupted, however, by a flurry of incoming messages on your phone. Someone had posted a photo of you handing his banana milk to Sunghoon on your school’s Instagram account - because apparently, your school was so obsessed with gossip that they had created an Instagram page just for it. The photo had blown up among your peers and it made you wonder if people really were that bored with their lives.

People you barely knew but that felt entitled to knowing your relationship status were DMing you, asking about today’s events. You quickly got tired of it, so you texted your worried and confused friends that you didn’t feel like talking tonight and would catch up with them tomorrow. You opened your textbook, deciding that studying would be the best and most efficient distraction.

When your parents called you and your siblings for dinner, you still weren’t feeling great. Your family quickly registered your annoyed expression and could only hope for the best. You already weren’t the easiest to live with, but when you were tired, you just got a hundred times worse.

“So, how was everyone’s day?” your mom asked cheerily.

Yeeun’s eyes lit up instantly. “Mine was great! I met a really cute boy. His name is Nishimura Riki and he just transferred from Japan.”

“Oh, that’s nice!”

“You’re too young to be thinking about boys, Yeeun.”

Your mom and dad had replied at the same time, then gave each other a stern look.

“I’m not thinking about him, Dad, just looking,” your sister replied, earning a chuckle from your concerned father.

“Mine was alright. I guess the start-of-a-new-year excitement has already worn off. After a week,” Sunoo said with a sigh.

Your mom turned to you. “What about you, Y/N?”

“It was fine.”

The sharpness of your tone changed the atmosphere in the room at once. You ignored the looks your family exchanged and continued eating your food, eyes not leaving your plate.

For some reason, Sunoo thought it’d be a great idea to chime in. “She’s not happy because she had to buy Park Sunghoon his lunch and everybody went crazy over it.”

“Sunoo!” you protested. Your parents didn’t need to know about this sort of stuff.

“Park Sunghoon? Is that someone we’re supposed to know?” your dad questioned.

Yeeun scoffed. “Uh, he’s only the most popular and handsome guy at Y/N and Sunoo’s school, dad. Duh.”

“Right. Duh,” your dad said, imitating your sister’s tone.

“And why did you have to buy his lunch, Y/N?” your mom asked.

“Because he saw what she looks like when she’s not at school,” Sunoo said, not even giving you the chance to reply yourself.

“Sunoo!” you scolded again.

“And now I guess he’s using that against her to get her to do what he wants? Right, Y/N?”

You glared at your brother and let a beat pass. “Right,” you reluctantly admitted.

“Lucky…” your sister mused, expression like she was daydreaming about being Sunghoon’s personal assistant.

Your dad ignored your sister and looked straight at you. “That’s inadmissible, Y/N. You can’t let him do that.”

“Your father’s right, sweetie. It’s not right,” your mom added when you stayed silent.

With everybody’s eyes on you, you felt obligated to reply. “It’s fine. It’s not like he asked me to do anything crazy. I’m sure he’ll stop soon enough.”

“You know, boys that age, they’ll do anything to get a girl’s attention,” your dad warned. “Just ignore him and he’ll go away.”

“If she ignores him, he’ll tell everyone what she’s really like,” your brother explained.

“And what’s so bad about that? I’m sure it’d be easier if you stopped lying to everyone.”

Everyone suddenly stopped in their motions, wondering why your mom would say something so true yet so controversial. You looked up at her. “What’s so bad about that? What’s so bad? I don’t know, maybe the fact that I’ve worked so hard all these years for everybody to like me and look up to me only for a stupid picture taken by a stupid boy to ruin everything,” you said all in one breath, voice coming out harsh. You were tired of having to explain the same thing over and over again - your parents just didn’t understand why you did what you did.

Your mom opened and closed her mouth again, knowing it was useless trying to talk sense into you. It never ended well when you had this conversation.

“Who put mushrooms in this anyway? You know I hate mushrooms,” you said before filling up your bowl and taking it to eat in your room, making sure you’d slammed your door behind you.

—

On the bus the next day, you tried to explain the events of the previous day to your friends.

“There’s nothing really to it. He just asked me to get him lunch so I did, and when I handed it to him, his whole class was there and saw everything.”

“I get that, but I just don’t understand why he made you do it in the first place, or why you agreed,” Heeseung said, “it’s so unlike the both of you to do something like that.”

You hadn’t even thought to come up with an excuse for your and Sunghoon’s yesterday - your friends were definitely super confused, but you didn’t want to tell them the truth, so you had to quickly find something to say that was somewhat believable, and change the subject.

“I have no idea why he did what he did, but I didn’t want to cause a scene so I just agreed. I don’t really care, to be honest, I just wish it didn’t have such consequences. People seem to think we’re characters on a stupid Netflix coming-of-age series or something, when we literally just go to their school.”

As soon as you’d turned your phone back on this morning, it started pinging with all the messages that had flown in since last night. People were talking about it everywhere: Kim Y/N, highly sought-after bachelorette, had offered Park Sunghoon, notorious rejecter of girls and breaker of hearts, a sandwich and a banana milk, and he had taken them. What’s more, he had been seen at lunch heartily eating them. This was serious.

You didn’t think things could get any worse until you got to school. You were used to random people coming up to you in the hallways or in class for help, except today they weren’t asking for help at all - they were asking what was up between you and Sunghoon, as though handing him a tuna mayo was like asking for his hand in marriage. Most of them were just curious, but some, especially his fanclub members, had an aggressive tone to their voice, which you weren’t used to. If people started liking you less because of Sunghoon, you were going to kill him.

But you had to hold onto that thought, because an all too familiar voice had suddenly called out to you on your way to class. You took a deep breath and turned around, watching him take long strides towards you. You immediately became aware of the amount of people in the hallway and realized you couldn’t talk to him like you had the previous day in front of everybody. You mustered the fakest smile you could and greeted him.

“Hi, Sunghoon. What can I help you with today?”

He smiled, obviously enjoying the fact that you had to be nice to him. “I’ve got my sports bag because of practice later tonight. Mind holding onto that for me for the day?”

Your fake smile turned a bit crazy as your eyes widened in disbelief. "Don’t you have a locker for that, Sunghoon?”

“Yeah, but it’s so much more fun if you’re the one to hold it.” And with that, he threw the bag in your direction, leaving approximately 0.5 seconds to catch it. “I’ll need that later today. Meet me in front of the locker rooms after school, yeah?”

He didn’t bother to wait for your answer and walked away, Jake and Jay following closely behind. Jay sent you a questioning look, to which you could only reply with a shrug. If it wasn’t for all the students in the hallway, you would’ve been yelling Sunghoon’s ear off at that point. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a possibility, so you just smiled to your friends who were looking more confused than ever.

“Let’s just go to class, guys.”

—

Throughout the whole day, you could feel people staring at you, then at the bag you were holding, then starting to whisper among themselves. You tried your best to concentrate in class so you could momentarily stop pondering over what Sunghoon’s evil master plan might be, but everyone seemed bent on making that usually simple feat impossible. When 3:30 p.m. finally came around, you bid your friends goodbye and headed to the boys’ locker room. Every boy walking in eyed you suspiciously, unsure as to what you could be doing there. Of course, Sunghoon had to take his sweet time to get there.

Staring at the opposite wall and planning Sunghoon’s murder in your head, you hadn’t noticed Jay and Jake arriving. Jay signaled for his friend to go inside the locker room and told him he’d join him in a minute. He waved his hand in front of you to get your attention, a smile on his face. You sighed in relief at the familiar sight of your friend.

“Hey, Jay. Sorry I didn’t see you.”

“You okay, Y/N? You look like you’re about to murder someone,” he said, slightly amused.

“If only you knew,” you mumbled.

He noticed the bag in your hand. “You waiting for Sunghoon?”

“Yeah. If only he could hurry up a little bit. I’ve got stuff to do.”

There was something about Jay that made it impossible to lie to him. Maybe it was the fact that you had known each other for so long, way before you’d turned into what you were now, that made you feel as though showing a side of you that gets annoyed and impatient and doesn’t smile all the time was okay.

Jay looked at his feet before looking back up at you. You were still staring at the wall but your murderous thoughts had somewhat calmed. “Mind telling me what this whole thing with Sunghoon is about?”

You turned to him and were about to fumble for an answer when someone interrupted you. “What whole thing with me?”

Whew. Saved by Sunghoon. You didn’t like that it was thanks to him that you could get out of answering Jay, but at least you didn’t have to come up with yet another stupid excuse.

Jay turned his attention to his friend and stood up straighter. “You know, making her get you lunch or hold your bag all day. There’s dozens of girls who’d be more than happy to do that for you, so why Y/N? She doesn’t have time for this stuff.”

You looked at Jay with surprise. Sure, you were friends, but you hadn’t thought he’d defend you like that in front of Sunghoon.

“Well, Y/N’s just such a nice, reliable person. No one better to ask to do those things.” What a reason, you thought. He turned to you and took the bag from your hands. “Thanks, Y/N. I’ll see you outside in a couple minutes.”

“Huh? What do you mean? I’m leaving,” you said, body already headed towards the other direction.

“What? You can’t leave before practice has even started. Go to the benches outside, we’ll be out in a few.”

You were about to open your mouth to protest, but he cut you off. “You don’t want to?” He started pulling out his phone. “That’s funny, because there’s a pict-”

“I’ll be on the benches! See you soon!” you quickly said, pushing the two boys inside the locker room, Sunghoon smirking, Jay looking at you in utter confusion.

Girls sat in a few different groups in the bleachers. You recognized the girls in one of those groups, so you decided to sit with them. As you approached, they quickly looked at each other and then back at you, expressions half-friendly, half-what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here.

“Hi guys! Mind if I join?”

“Hi Y/N! No, of course not, come sit,” Jake’s girlfriend, Yujin, said.

“Are you guys here to watch practice?”

“Yeah! I’m here on girlfriend duties for Jake. These two are just here for the eye candy and to keep me company,” Yujin explained.

“Yeah, but mostly for the eye candy,” added her friend Wonyoung.

“What about you, Y/N? I’ve never seen you here,” asked the last girl, Gaeul.

“Oh, um, Sunghoon asked me to come, actually.” You regretted your words as soon as you’d let them out. They all ooh-ed at your response, making you blush, which just egged them on. This was nothing to blush about, Y/N. You’d just made the rumors get a hundred times worse with one sentence.

“The whole school’s been talking about you two, you know. Anything you wanna share? Don’t worry, we can keep a secret,” said Wonyoung with a wink. You chuckled awkwardly.

“Oh my gosh, yes, tell us!”

“Guys, don’t make her uncomfortable,” Yujin chimed in, smiling at you. You returned her smile, grateful, once again, that you didn’t have to explain your new link to Sunghoon. “Look, practice is starting.”

You turned your head towards the field as the soccer players started doing laps as per the coach’s instructions. Your eyes immediately drifted towards Sunghoon without you even realizing it. His lean figure hypnotized you. The last time you had had PE with him was in freshman year, and puberty had hit him like a fine, fine truck. You couldn’t take your eyes off of him as he lightly jogged next to his friends, chatting like it was nothing. You weren’t being very subtle with your stare and he eventually noticed you, sending a wink your way. This made you snap out of your reverie and you scowled at him, as if he could make out your annoyed expression from such a distance. You turned back to the girls, who were giggling at you.

“Wow, those were some serious heart eyes you were giving him, Y/N,” Gaeul giggled.

You opened your mouth in mild shock. “Was not!”

“Sure, whatever you say,” she replied knowingly. “Well, look all you want. Warm-up is the best part. It gets boring when they actually start playing.”

“No way! Watching them play is my favorite part,” Yujin disagreed.

“Yeah, that’s cause you’ve got someone to root for,” retorted Wonyoung. She looked at you slyly. “Well, I guess Y/N does, too.”

You scoffed. “Believe me, I will not be rooting for him.”

You started staring at him again, this time with a glare in your eyes. From their silence, you deduced the girls must’ve judged it a better idea to not question you too much. After the boys were done with running exercises and stretching (which you had enjoyed watching a bit too much, if you spoke truthfully), they started playing. The coach split the boys into two teams, Jay leading one and Sunghoon the other. It was a very close game. You could never tell who was leading, although that might have been due to your extensive lack of knowledge in the sport. All you knew was that you desperately wanted to see Sunghoon lose; that might put him down a peg. What you told yourself, however, was that you wanted Jay to win. So when he scored a goal, you surprised the girls next to you, the boys on the field and yourself as you jumped up and down, cheering for him. Realizing what you were doing, you quickly sat down and sent him an awkward thumbs up.

Jay tried to hide it, but he was blushing. Hard. Truth be told, he had noticed your little eye contact moment with Sunghoon during warm-up and hadn’t particularly enjoyed it. So seeing you cheer for him like that made him swell with pride, which only grew when Sunghoon scored and you barely reacted.

When the game was over, you thought you might be able to finally go home and start studying. But Sunghoon had other plans for you, as always these past couple days. Heading towards the showers, he motioned for you to come down from the benches. As you did, Jay walked past, and you smiled at each other.

“Good game.”

“Thanks, Y/N.” He continued walking as Sunghoon reached you.

“What about me? I scored a goal, too.”

“Oh, did you? Didn’t even notice," you said, looking at your nails. The polish was starting to chip - you’d need to reapply a layer tonight.

“Whatever. Wait for me, yeah?”

“What? No! I gotta go home!” But your protests were in vain, as he completely ignored you.

You waited outside the school with Yujin, Wonyoung and Gaeul. After a little while, Jake, Jay and Sunghoon joined you guys, having successfully showered and not smelling of sweat and dirt, thank God. Yujin was dropping her boyfriend and her friends off, so they bid their goodbyes and headed towards her car. Sunghoon and Jay also started to walk towards the parking lot, leaving you standing alone, not sure what to do. Sunghoon turned around and looked at you with a frown.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know, what are you doing?”

“I’m dropping you and Jay off.”

“Oh,” you mumbled, taken aback. “Didn’t know I was just supposed to guess that.”

As soon as Sunghoon started to drive, you noticed the awkward air between the three of you. Luckily, after years of being a people-pleaser, you had become somewhat of an expert in making small talk, which helped prevent a silent ride. You don’t think you could’ve gone through that without a mental breakdown.

Because you and Sunghoon lived closer to each other (and we all know the consequences of that), Jay was dropped off before you. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow at school,” he said before giving you a last glance.

“Bye, Jay.”

“See you, bro.”

Thankfully, you only lived a couple minutes by car from Jay’s and hoped the rest of the car ride would be peaceful. Which was really stupid of you to hope for, because you were in the car with Park Sunghoon.

“So, Park Jongseong, huh?” he said, eyes trained on the road in front of him. Even though he was trying to keep his tone light, you thought you detected a slight harshness to his gaze.

“What about him?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“There’s nothing to say. We’ve just been friends for a long time.”

It was silent for about five seconds. “You really feasted your eyes during warm-up, huh?”

“Shut up, Park.”

“No, it’s alright, I get it. I’d do the same.” He laughed at his own joke that wasn’t really a joke. Why was he laughing, anyway?

You looked at him. His face was so different from all those times you’d seen it at school. His eyes, rid of the harshness you’d seen earlier, crinkled at the edges and had an amused glint in them. His smile dug pretty dimples into his cheeks and you let your gaze linger long enough to notice he had sharp, vampire-like canines, which were surprisingly cute. You didn’t know why he was showing you a side of him he never showed anyone, except for his close friends, you assumed. You weren’t sure what overcame you, but you chuckled with him.

“So, do you already know what task you’re gonna give me tomorrow?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“Hmm, haven’t really thought about it yet. I’d rather keep it a surprise, anyway. Keep you on your toes.”

“Pfft. What a great surprise.” He laughed again, and you couldn’t help but join him. He was unusually giddy that day, but you didn’t want to complain. This was a thousand times better than the arrogant Sunghoon with his I’m-better-than-all-of-you facade. What you didn’t know was that he, too, liked your snarky, no-nonsense side infinitely more than the model student, pretty girl persona you had created for yourself.

Finally at your house, you got out of the car and headed to your house after waving goodbye to Sunghoon. He rolled his window down and leaned out of it.

“Y/N?”

You turned around. “Yeah?”

“About your task tomorrow…”

“…Yeah?”

“I’m sure you’ll love it.” He gave you an umpteenth wink, rolled his window back up and drove off.

You weren’t so awful to your parents and siblings that evening.

—

The next day at school, you were wondering why Sunghoon had said you would love your task. Because you were, in fact, quite loathing it. He had found you studying during your free period after lunch and dragged you to the part of the library where it was okay to talk a bit over whisper level. You were currently going over a scene in The Tempest which you had seen in AP English Lit last year and clearly had no time for. But obviously, that wasn’t a problem to Sunghoon, who just wanted to get a passing grade on his English essay without putting in too much effort.

After twenty minutes of going over the same five lines, you were about to give up. “Look, Sunghoon, I don’t mind helping you. I’ve tutored dozens of students before so I’m used to it. But you’re not making any effort! If you want to get it, you need to at least try.”

“But it’s so boring,” he whined, not unlike a child. “How am I supposed to find any meaning in this? It’s just stupid people doing stupid stuff on a stupid island.” You cringed at his words and hoped Shakespeare wasn’t listening in on this conversation.

“It’s not stupid. It’s about power, and being punished for chasing it, and it’s a metaphor fo-”

“Ugh!” he groaned loudly. “You know what, I don’t care enough about this. Just write the essay for me, okay?” He got up and left, again not waiting for your answer. You wanted to protest, but you know what would happen if you said no to any of his requests, so you just quickly got to work.

Everyday over the next couple of weeks, Sunghoon would find something for you to do. Most days, he’d just get you to buy him lunch (although he thankfully had started paying you back) or carry his stuff around like the first two times. He didn’t ask you again to tutor him, however, so you had gotten used to sitting in an empty class together after class, you doing his homework for him and attempting (and failing) to explain it to him, and him alternating between playing on his phone and looking at you. Although it’d flustered you at first, not used to having someone stare at you while you were trying to concentrate, you’d grown somewhat okay with it - all of your complaints were ignored anyway. One time, he even got you to work on his science project with him, a weirdly-shaped volcano he needed to paint and decorate before actually putting the chemicals in. You’d be lying if you said it hadn’t been fun painting it together, occasionally ‘accidentally’ getting paint on the other’s hand or cheek instead of the volcano.

You went to see him at practice two to three times a week, although you weren’t sure what use that had for him. If anything, you were probably the one who enjoyed yourself more. Perhaps, after being forced to spend so much time with him, you had started to soften up to him. And, perhaps, that made you appreciate his good looks even more. You couldn’t deny the effect his damp hair, stuck to his forehead with sweat, had on you.

The rumors hadn’t died down, but people had started getting used to seeing the two of you together around, so they didn’t ogle their eyes at you everytime you and Sunghoon had some kind of interaction. Not liking that you couldn’t control people’s opinion of you anymore, you were still a bit bothered by them, but Sunghoon’s little posse of fangirls didn’t seem to be. They’d been the one to question you the most, and you got a few nasty looks in the hallway, but the gossip around school hadn’t stopped them from keeping on following him around, harassing him from morning to afternoon by going to his homeroom at breaks, sitting at a table near him at lunch, and going to see him at practice. Their group had dwindled down, though; most likely, some of them thought you two might be dating and had finally realized they didn’t stand a chance with the one and only Park Sunghoon. Thank God you had your friends and now sometimes Yujin, Wonyoung and Gaeul around you during those times, otherwise, you’d probably have been jumped. Spending so much time with him had kept you a couple times from your friends, which they’d complained about, but sensing that they couldn’t do much about it, they let you be, even though they hadn’t gotten a satisfactory explanation yet.

One person who didn’t want to, or rather couldn’t let it go, though, was Jay. He still couldn’t figure out why you’d started spending so much time with Sunghoon, seemingly overnight, and it created an unpleasant, sour pit in his stomach. Out of all the people you could’ve decided to form a new friendship with, why’d it have to be his best friend, meaning he saw you more often now than before, but not because he was the one you had come to see? Why did you never get him banana milk for lunch, and why’d you only start coming to soccer practice because Sunghoon had asked you to? He’d tried to ask both of you about it, but you always gave him half-assed excuses that didn’t make much sense.

He realized what he was feeling was jealousy the day you came into their homeroom before the first bell rang and asked Sunghoon how his science project had gone. You’d never asked him how his science project, or any of his projects or tests, for that matter, had gone. He recognized it as the same feeling he had harbored when he had come back from the US in middle school and saw you dating Choi Soobin, or when Lee Heeseung had joined your tight-knit group of friends in freshman year. You and Soobin had only dated for three weeks and a half because you had a relationship-terminating argument over mint chocolate ice cream, and you and Heeseung had never become more than friends, nor had the intention to. But Jay didn’t care about that; all he saw was that there were boys around you that weren’t him. He had never acted upon those feelings, dismissing them as over-protectiveness for someone he had known since forever, but seeing Sunghoon and you laughing together hit too close to home. He couldn’t ignore how he felt because he was reminded of it everyday, but he didn’t know what to do with these newfound emotions.

And what’s the best thing to do whenever you don’t know what to do? Talk to your friends. Or well, in this case, your friend. He didn’t wanna talk about you to Sunghoon. He was a firm believer of bro code, but he didn’t wanna bottle up his feelings like he had all these years. So he went to Jake and told him everything, from your childhood friendship to Soobin, Heeseung and now Sunghoon.

“I know it’s stupid. It’s this whole cliché of, you only realize what you have when you lose it.”

“Well, you haven’t really lost Y/N, you know. It’s not like Sunghoon and her are dating.”

“I guess not, but he clearly likes her. It’d be a dick move to go after her now that they’ve got something going on.”

Jake hesitated for a second, debating whether he should say what he was thinking, but ultimately deciding it might be better to do it. “You know, I’m not sure that he does. You know what Sunghoon’s like. He’s never very honest about his intentions. I don’t wanna bring the subject up with him, cause I don’t wanna cause any drama, but it’s so suspicious to me that he’s suddenly spending time with Y/N when he’s never mentioned her all those years and when he rejects all these girls all the time.”

“I think it’s weird, too,” agreed Jay. “I just can’t seem to figure it out. And I’m a bit scared for Y/N, to be honest. Remember that girl in freshman year? They’d gotten along really well when he suddenly dropped her. I still remember his cold-ass stare when he turned her down. It even chilled me, man.”

“God, yeah, I always forget about that. He may be a jackass to all those girls, but when you know what he’s really like like we do, it seems so unlikely that he’d do something like that.”

Jay sighed and looked out into the distance. “I just hope he doesn’t hurt Y/N.”

Jake looked at his friend, thinking how to phrase his next sentence. “Like I said, I don’t wanna cause any drama… but, man, if you don’t want him to hurt Y/N, just don’t let him. If you make a move on her, you might get to her before he does. Better to do that now than to have to pick up the pieces, don’t you think?”

Jay mentally thanked the heavens for gifting him with a friend like Sim Jaeyun. “Yes, that is much, much better.”

He was going to stop sitting on his feelings and finally let them see the light.

—

But before that, Sunghoon had another one of his requests for you. You were sitting together in an empty classroom after school as you often did these past weeks. For you, today was an ordinary day, but the boy in front of you had something else in mind. He wasn’t saying anything but you could feel his nervousness and it was starting to make you feel anxious as well.

You lifted your head from your notes and looked at Sunghoon who seemed lost in his thoughts. “What is it, Sunghoon?”

This made him snap out of his reverie. “Um, nothing.”

“Well, seeing how you’ve been tapping your foot at the speed of lightning ever since we got here, it doesn’t seem like nothing.” You crossed your arms over the table and looked at him more intently, eyes asking him to tell you what was on his mind.

He sighed, giving in. “I was just thinking… there’s something I wanna tell you.”

“Go on. “

“I need you to date me.”

Your breath caught in your throat. Park Sunghoon… needed you… to date him? Was he asking you out? The way he’d worded it was a bit odd, but you didn’t put it past him.

Taking in your silence and wide eyes, he quickly added: “Not in that way! I, um, need you to be my fake girlfriend.”

Oh.

So he wasn’t asking you out. You weren’t sure why that made you so upset, but you tried to keep the disappointment out of your eyes and voice.

“Right,” you said, tone a bit harsher than you’d meant it to, “and why would I do that?”

Sunghoon smirked lightly. “Well, first of all, you don’t have much of a choice.” You rolled your eyes at that. It’d been a few days since the reason why you had started hanging out in the first place had come up, and you didn’t like to be reminded of that god-forsaken picture.

“And second of all… I guess I should be completely honest with you.” This piqued your interest, and you leaned back on your chair to listen to him.

“When I saw you at the store and took pictures of you, I wasn’t really thinking of doing anything. Maybe just get a laugh or two and tease you about it. I even told you outside the store that I didn’t know what I was gonna do. To be honest, I didn’t really think there was anything you could do for me that I’d need to force you to do. So I thought about it all night. And I asked myself, what’s the thing that pisses me off the most at school that you could change?” he looked at you expectantly, as if you could figure it out. You just shrugged.

“It’s those girls that keep following me around. All these years, I’ve acted like a giant asshole with them and still they think they have a crush on me or whatever. And I’ve never liked any of them, they’re all so superficial and ask me out without having ever talked to me before. So I thought, hey, maybe if I have a girlfriend, they’ll leave me alone. Which is why I made you do all those things for me.”

“So that they’d think we were dating?” you asked, trying to take all this information in. You’d sort of known it this entire time, but Sunghoon blatantly admitting he’d been using you hurt nonetheless.

“Yeah. But obviously, you always denied the rumors, so it hasn’t worked as well as I thought it would. It still did a bit though. So I think, if we take it the next step, and actually pretend we’re dating, it should really work. But I need your full cooperation on this, okay?” He looked at you, hopeful eyes and hands in prayer.

You sighed. As he said, it wasn’t like you had much of a choice.

“Please, Y/N? I really want them off my back.”

“Fine, Park, I’ll do it. But this better be the last thing you make me do.” You couldn’t help but sound cold. This made you rethink these past few weeks’ events. Were you the only one actually enjoying spending time together?

“Thanks, Y/N. And yeah, of course. You won’t have to carry my bag or get my lunch anymore if you want. Maybe it’ll be more believable if I do that for you.”

You had focused your attention back to your homework, wanting this conversation to be over as soon as possible.

“I’ll also pick you up in the morning, so you don’t need to take the bus.”

You hummed in response.

“Um, and I’ll also drop you off after school and after practice…” Sunghoon trailed, troubled by your silence. You hadn’t been so cold since the first couple times you two had talked, and he hated the idea that that might be because of what he had just said. So he took a chance.

“You know, Y/N, this doesn’t change anything. I wouldn’t have made you do all those things if I didn’t like spending time with you. You’re really nice to be around,” he admitted shyly.

You were far too flustered to lift your head and let him see your face. You just grinned and murmured, “Whatever, Park.”

—

Sunghoon kept his promise and picked you up in the morning. He called you at exactly 7:55 a.m., saying he was waiting outside and you rushed out of your house, piece of toast still in your mouth. In the car, you two went over what being in a fake relationship would involve.

“We just need to be seen around together, right?” you proposed, hoping your lack of experience wasn’t showing.

Thankfully, Sunghoon had no idea what being in a relationship, fake or not, entailed either. “Yeah, I think. And maybe…” he hesitated.

“Maybe?” you prodded, hoping he wouldn’t (or actually would, but you’d never admit it) say what you thought he was about to say.

“I don’t know, like, hold hands, and… kiss.” The last part had barely been audible, but you’d still heard it.

“Kiss?” you echoed, voice almost a shriek. “I don’t think we need to go that far, Sunghoon.” A little voice in your head was saying that you’d really like to go that far but you made it shut up.

He was blushing profusely but didn’t want to drop the subject there. “At least on the cheek, or something. We do have to make it believable.”

And there it was. The little sentence, reminding you none of this was real. Seemed like that was a pattern in your life.

You looked out the window. Sunghoon glanced over at you, cursing himself for always saying the wrong thing. He was trying so hard to drown his blooming feelings for you that he kept on hurting you in the process. This whole fake-dating plan was the perfect excuse for him to spend more time with you without having to come to terms with his feelings.

“C’mon, Y/N, it’ll be fun. Promise.” He nudged your arm playfully, making you look at him. His smile was contagious; you could never help yourself but start grinning when you saw his face light up like that. Maybe he’s right, you thought. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

When you arrived at school, Sunghoon told you to wait for a second. He got out of the car and quickly walked around to your side, opening the door for you. You hated how your heart fluttered at the sweet gesture, reminding yourself it was just for show. The important part was that it fooled everyone else, and it did - as you took Sunghoon’s hand, letting him help you out of the car, and walked with him hand in hand towards the school gates, you could feel all eyes on you. You could hear whispers of see, I told you they were dating! and defeated no ways.

You realized you didn’t care about what anybody might be seeing, which was a first for you. You’d always made sure everybody saw you exactly the way you wanted to see them. As he was the most popular guy in school, dating Park Sunghoon at once helped your reputation and put you on many girls’ bad side. But holding his hand, you felt as though there was some kind of barrier protecting you. You’d never felt so exposed and so safe at the same time.

You noticed Jay standing next to the gates, looking particularly antsy. He’d texted you that morning, saying there was something he wanted to tell you. Usually, you’d have stayed up, overthinking what that could be, but what with today being the day you’d announce yourself to the world (your school) as Park Sunghoon’s (fake) girlfriend, you had had other things to worry about. You gestured at Sunghoon towards Jay. Your friend only saw you when you were calling his name, standing right in front of him.

“Oh, hi, Y/N! I-”

He immediately cut himself off when he saw yours and Sunghoon’s interlaced fingers. Embarrassed, you took your hand out of your fake boyfriend’s, opting for holding onto his pinky instead, not realizing that it was a much cuter action that made one boy’s heart flutter and the other’s fill up with sadness.

“There was something you wanted to tell me?” you asked with a small smile.

“Uh- yeah, but it’s not important, actually. We can talk about it later.”

“Oh, you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” He returned your smile, hoping to make the situation less awkward. It was very obvious he didn’t want to say whatever it was he needed to tell you in front of Sunghoon, which you had both understood.

Sunghoon spoke up. “Right, well I’ll see you in class, Jay. Y/N, I’ll walk you to yours.” And with that, he started walking, holding his friend’s gaze for a few steps. You turned back to look at Jay for a split second, trying to decipher what had just happened, but Sunghoon grabbed you by the waist, making you look up at him in surprise, and breaking Jay’s heart even further.

—

Once Sunghoon and you got to your class, you felt as though you were in one of those movies where the boy drops the girl off at her house after their first date. Except that this was in a crowded school hallway two minutes before the first bell rang. What you had in common with that girl from the movie, however, was that you were freaking out over what your boy was going to do next. In the car, you’d ended up agreeing to a kiss on the cheek, but you hadn’t realized it would be happening so soon.

As you two hovered around your classroom’s door, you looked at each other and giggled. Damn, you were selling this well. So well that if you could have ascended out of your body and looked at the scene as a third party, you’d probably have barfed all over yourself.

You were still holding his pinky. You could tell he was too hesitant to do anything now that you had reached the classroom, and so you mustered all of your courage, stood on your tippy toes and softly pressed your lips to his cheeks. (You were pretty sure you’d heard gasps around you.) Your courage went as fast as it came, and as realization hit you, you quickly squeaked “bye, Sunghoon” and practically ran to your seat. The boy stood there for another second or two, hand going to his cheek where you had just kissed him. He walked happily to his own classroom, completely oblivious to the stares he was receiving.

Heeseung, Jiung and Sieun were looking at you in disbelief as you approached them. Sumin, on the other hand, looked like she had paid no attention whatsoever to the scene.

“Y/N,” Sieun teased in a sing-song voice. “Care to explain what just happened?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually managed to make the oh-so-great Park Sunghoon fall for you?” Jiung asked jokingly.

You looked down in an attempt to hide your grin. You usually did that sort of stuff to appear humble when someone complimented you, but this time it was completely genuine. The mere thought of Sunghoon made you all giddy inside. “Um, yeah, he actually asked me to be his girlfriend last night.”

Your three friends gasped dramatically and Sieun pulled you into a hug, as if you’d just received an award of some kind. Heeseung and Jiung patted your shoulders, congratulating you.

“Sumin? Did you know about this?” Sieun enquired, turning to your friend.

“What? Oh, yeah, Y/N called me last night,” she answered, briefly looking at you before turning back to her phone. Sieun looked at you, surprised, not understanding Sumin’s reaction to what seemed like happy news.

You had indeed called Sumin the previous night, and the call had gone similarly to the way she was behaving this morning. Although you usually told her everything, this time, you didn’t want to share the fact that you and Sunghoon were only fake dating. You found yourself actually wanting it to be true - and you thought it’d be easier to believe it yourself if everyone, including your best friend, did too.

“Minie! I’ve got some news,” you’d said as soon as she picked out.

“Ooh! Hit me,” she’d replied with as much excitement in her voice as you.

“So…” you’d started, already giggling. “Sunghoon’s just asked me out. I haven’t told anyone else, I wanted you to be the first to know.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. After a while, you added, “Minie, you still there?”

“Huh? Yeah, um, that’s nice, Y/N, I’m happy for you,” she said, not sounding happy at all. There was no trace of excitement left in her voice.

“Yeah, thanks,” you replied, voice ten times smaller than a minute ago.

“I’m sorry Y/N, but I’ve got to go, my parents are calling me. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She hung up suddenly, giving you no time to say bye in return. You were completely confused. Was Sumin bothered by you and Sunghoon dating? Other than a reminder about his past behavior, she hadn’t said anything when you two were getting closer. So what was wrong? You’d hoped you’d find out the next day at school, but the way she was acting didn’t help at all.

You snapped out of your flashback when Heeseung nudged you, faking a pout. “Not fair! Why did she get to know before we did?”

You forced a smile and said you’d known you’d see them the next day and thought it was better to tell them in person, and that you had just wanted to rant to someone quickly. Your teacher came in as the bell rang and everyone went to their seat. During class, you tried getting her attention so you could ask her if she was okay but she kept her attention on the teacher the whole time.

After that, as time went by, you kept up your charade of being the perfect student as usual, adding to that of being the perfect girlfriend to Sunghoon. Time with him passed by so quickly: you hadn’t realized you were more than halfway through the semester until you needed to wear a thicker jacket outside and the leaves had started falling, covering school grounds in shades of brown. The plan had worked: he was finally left alone by his admirers. Sumin had stopped being weird after a few days, saying she had had some problems with her parents but hadn’t gone into more detail. Everything was as great as it had ever been: good grades, good friends and a good boyfriend. Well, fake boyfriend, which you needed to remind yourself a bit too often, on the days Sunghoon didn’t do it himself. You felt a pinch in your heart every time he said something like, “there’s my fake girlfriend!” when it was just the two of you, or “great job today, Y/N” after dropping you off.

One day as you arrived home, Yeeun was waiting outside your house, trying to catch you red-handed. She dragged him inside by the arm and you panicked, not wanting him to see how you lived. But your messy room and invasive siblings didn’t scare him off at all; on the contrary, he smiled one of the biggest smiles you’d ever seen on him, canines and dimples on display. Your mom made him stay over for dinner and it was probably the happiest dinner you’d ever had. The idea of bringing someone home and having them see your habits and odd family dynamics had terrified you for the longest time, but you felt so comfortable around Sunghoon that it felt as if he was part of your home as soon as he’d stepped foot inside. You didn’t feel the need to hide anything from him.

After dinner, he helped your parents clear up the table and even washed the dishes, even though they kept insisting he didn’t have to do anything. He had completely won them over. They sat at the table and watched you two laugh together in the kitchen. They looked at each other, knowing they were thinking the exact same thing: their daughter hadn’t looked this happy in a while.

When you were done cleaning up, you two headed to your room under the pretense of needing to study.

“Alright, but keep the door open!” your mom had yelled after you, making you groan and Sunghoon’s face turn crimson red.

You really had planned on studying - there was a big test coming up and you couldn’t afford to get a bad grade. When you got your physics textbook out, Sunghoon groaned in protest.

“What? You seriously want to study right now?”

You sighed. “I don’t necessarily want to, no, but I need to. And so do you, may I add.”

“We’re not even in the same physics class!”

“Yeah, but we both have Mr. Cho, so I know you’re gonna have a test as well.”

He rolled his eyes and dramatically flung himself on your bed. “Fine.”

When he didn’t move for a few minutes, you guessed what he had meant was that he’d let you study but wasn’t going to do it himself. But after ten minutes, he suddenly got up. “I’m bored to death, Y/N. The test isn’t in another week. Show me what you do for fun,” he said, on the verge of desperation. It had only been ten minutes, but you felt bad having him over and not entertaining him.

“Well, I do have a Switch…” Sunghoon’s eyes widened in awe. “I guess we can play Mario Kart.”

He almost squealed in joy at that. You just chuckled at him, not knowing he was such a fan of car video games.

“I’m gonna crush you, Kim. Get ready,” he said, already looking victorious.

You smirked, not wanting him to get his hopes up. “Oh, it’s on, Park.”

As expected of a pro player like you (on non-schooldays, you could stay up all night playing this game), you won every single round. Sure, he gave you a run for your money, but you always came on top. He took it surprisingly well, congratulating you each time. After your fourth win in a row, you wiggled your face in front of his with a devilish smile, as you couldn’t help but torment him a little. But he wasn’t smiling. At first, you’d thought he was finally getting mad he kept on losing; but then the proximity between you two hit you. You noticed his eyes flicker momentarily to your lips and had backed off immediately.

“Um, if we go for another round, I’ll go easy on-”

He cut you off by putting his hand on your cheek, making you turn to look at him. You’d daydreamed about this moment before, but you hadn’t imagined your heart beating this fast or the butterflies eating away at your stomach. He was now fully staring at your lips, and you couldn’t look at anything else but his either. Too scared to move an inch, you felt him get closer and closer, so close that his lips were almost on-

“Y/N, mom says it’s late and Sunghoon needs to- AH!”

Sunoo had walked in, eyes riveted on his phone until he looked up and saw you and Sunghoon suspiciously close to each other. Sunghoon practically leaped off of your bed in surprise and you flung a pillow over your face, not believing you had almost kissed Park Sunghoon but that your stupid little brother had ruined everything.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” the culprit squeaked before running away. You and Sunghoon looked at each other. It was awkward for two seconds, then you both erupted in laughter.

“Alright, guess I should get going then. Um, thank you so much for tonight. I haven’t had a family dinner in a while, and… Well, it was really nice,” he admitted shyly after you’d calmed down.

“Of course, Sunghoon. I’m sure my parents would love to have you over any time.”

You walked him to your front door, where you exchanged goodbyes and I’ll see you tomorrows. You watched him take a few steps, then turn back and jog towards you. He stood in front of you for a second, then leaned down and placed a kiss on your forehead.

“Bye, Y/N.”

You were too stunned to say it back.

—

After the almost-kiss, it felt as though something had changed between you and Sunghoon. The event had somewhat revealed your feelings: you both knew you wanted to kiss each other. But since those feelings hadn’t been acted upon, the transition from fake-dating to real dating couldn’t happen as smoothly. Well, it could, if you two stopped acting like idiots and told each other how you felt. But the author wanted to get a couple more thousand words in, so it had to wait.

You’d gotten used to Sunghoon’s little requests at school, but you definitely hadn’t anticipated a phone call at past 11pm on a Wednesday night.

“Sunghoon? Why are you calling me so late?” you asked, groggy voice because of sleep. Since you woke up so early to get ready in the morning, you always went to bed around 9:30 to 10 p.m. Sunghoon was making you lose precious minutes of slumber.

“Late? It’s barely midnight, Y/N.” You groaned. “Whatever, put on some clothes and come outside! I’m waiting for you.”

“You’re what?” you whisper-screamed, suddenly feeling very awake.

“I’m waiting for you! Hurry up!”

As always, he hung up without waiting for your reply. You couldn’t really turn him down anyway; although you were somewhat obligated, you had stopped seeing it that way and started doing things for him out of your own volition.

Not wanting to get out of your pajamas, you just threw on a warm sweater, a scarf, some socks, and headed down the hallway on your tiptoes. Your parents weren’t the strictest out there, but you still didn’t wanna get caught sneaking out, and with a boy, at that. After putting on your shoes, you left your house, closing the door behind you as quietly as you could.

The late October night was a bit chilly, but you had wrapped up warm enough. Sunghoon was indeed waiting for you outside, wearing a denim jacket over his gray sweatshirt and matching sweatpants.

God, he looked good.

“Finally! Took you long enough.”

“Quit it, Sunghoon. Just tell me why you wanted to see me.”

“There’s a place I wanna show you. Come on,” he said, taking you by the hand. You felt tingles in your palm and fingers wherever his hand touched yours. How could something feel so natural yet make your heart race so at the same time?

“Are we walking there?” you asked.

“Yep, it’s not too far. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

Those five minutes felt like five seconds walking with Sunghoon. You chatted and joked around the whole way, not letting go of each other’s hand. You hadn’t even noticed you had reached your destination until he stopped walking.

“Here we are,” he said, facing the building, which made you turn in the direction he was looking.

“The ice rink? What are we doing here?” you asked, confused. It was 11:30 pm; surely, the rink would be closed.

“You’ll see!” he said, heading towards the entrance. To your surprise, he pulled out a key from his pockets and opened the doors.

“What? Sunghoon! How do you have a key to the ice rink?”

“I’m chummy with the janitor. I just need to let him know when I’ll be coming and he doesn’t tell anyone,” he replied, an easy smile on his face, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. He led you first to the shoe rack, helping you find skates your size, and then to the benches next to the rink’s entrance. He knelt in front of you and helped you put on your shoes, doing the laces for you.

He looked up at you, a glint in his eyes. “I’ve never taken anyone here, Y/N. I know your secret, so I thought I’d show you mine.”

You didn’t know what to say, surprised at the sudden confession, so you just looked at him curiously as he took ice skates from his backpack and laced them up.

He stood up, turned to you and said, “Ready?”

You followed him to the doors leading to the ice. He stepped inside without a trace of hesitation, but you were much more doubtful about your ability to stand on the ice without falling instantly. He turned around and saw you looking helpless. He took your hand in his, helping you step onto the rink.

“Don’t worry, Y/N. As long as I’ve got you, you won’t fall.”

“Don’t let go of my hand, then,” you said pointedly.

Too focused on not slipping, you didn’t see his smile. “I wasn’t planning to.”

He helped you get your footing, skating backwards in front of you and holding both of your hands. After a few minutes on the ice, you got brave enough to skate on your own, and you miraculously managed to stay on your feet. However, after a while, your bravery turned to hubris, and you dared attempt a spin, resulting in you miserably falling on the ice, butt first. Sunghoon was worried for a second until he saw you laughing uncontrollably. You looked at him, wide-eyed, and said, “This is so much fun, Hoon.” You were so exhilarated that you hadn’t noticed the nickname slipping from your lips but the boy’s cheeks and ears turned redder than the bruise you had surely just earned yourself. Thankfully, if you commented on it, he could just blame it on the cold.

He helped you up, and you skated on as if nothing had happened. This went on for another thirty minutes, you skating hand in hand and occasionally falling together (but most of the time, just you falling on your own). Sunghoon had been so nervous before bringing you here; he was scared you’d think his hobby was unmanly or lame, as he’d been made to feel. But seeing you have the time of your life, all his worries dissipated. This place was like a second home to him, and bringing someone into your home was always nerve-wracking, but he thought you fit perfectly in it.

When you told him you were getting tired and wanted to sit for a while, you skated back together to the benches and he gave you some water from his bag. You sat in silence for a while, waiting for your breathing to come back to a normal pace.

You broke the silence first. “So, why’d you take me here? Not that I’m complaining.”

He hesitated a second before speaking. "I used to come here all the time as a kid.” He didn’t look at you when he answered, keeping his gaze on his hands. “My mom would take me. She left us for another man the summer before middle school started. She left me alone with my asshole father.”

You let out a small gasp, not expecting such a confession. You placed your hand on his back for comfort and said, “I’m sorry, Sunghoon.”

He quickly glanced at you, a half-smile on his face. “Don’t be. Anyways, he had to somewhat start taking care of me now that my mom wasn’t there to do it.” He chuckled darkly. “I guess his idea of taking care of his son was forbidding him from doing the one thing he loved. He thought it was a stupid sport for a boy. He stopped all of my lessons and made me sign up for soccer, even though I hadn’t ever said I wanted to do that. I still came here from time to time, but I didn’t wanna risk getting caught. God knows what he’d have done if he saw me here.”

You weren’t sure what to say. You felt as if no words would be enough to express how his story made you feel. “I- it’s awful, what he did to you. No parent should ever make their child feel as though their passion isn’t worth it. If it’s any comfort, even though you were mostly helping me, I thought you looked ten times better on that rink than scoring any goal. And that’s saying something.”

He finally looked at you and grinned. “Thanks, Y/N.” He seemed to be thinking for a few seconds, and then continued: “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and I think that’s why it’s hard for me to open up to people and make lots of friends. I only trust Jake because I’ve known him forever and I can’t really get rid of him now,” he said with a chuckle, “and Jay, well, Jake took to him instantly in middle school so I guess I didn’t have a choice there either, and he’s not so bad anyway. The more people I let in, the more likely I am to get hurt. It’s much easier pretending I don’t wanna have anything to do with anyone than try.

“I guess it’s also why I talked to you on that day. Sure, I ended up thinking you could help me with all those girls. But at first, when I saw someone like you, who looks like they have it all together, who’s actually the opposite in real life - no offense - it reminded me of myself. And I thought, maybe she’d understand. Which is why it was so easy to be myself around you.”

You took his hand in yours and pressed it slightly. “I’m glad you were.” You didn’t feel the need to say anything else, hoping it was enough.

“Now, your turn. What made you the person you are today?” he asked with a grin, trying to approach lightheartedly this heavy subject, which you appreciated.

“It’s all about making people think you’re someone else, isn’t it? Because, depending on who you are, they’ll treat you differently. I found that out as a kid, because I, too, have a tragic childhood backstory.” He gasped jokingly.

“It’s not as bad as yours, so sorry about that. Back in primary school, I already had this… attitude that I have today. I had quite the ego, and I didn’t want anyone doing better than me at school. I didn’t care about how I looked, if I was the prettiest girl in class or had the cutest shoes. I was the smarty-pants of the class, basically, and a lot of the kids teased me for that. But I also didn’t let myself get trampled over, and fought back, quite aggressively at that, so I was somehow the nerd and the troublemaker at the same time. I didn’t have the best reputation, but I did have a friend. Jay. Or Jongseong, at the time, before he got too cool for his real name,” you joked. “The thing is, I didn’t see him as a friend. Sure, I was only eight or nine, but I really liked him. And the day I was planning on confessing, I saw him hold hands with the prettiest girl in our class. So I never told him, and then he left for the US a few months later.

“During the time he was gone, I had a complete makeover and actually started caring about my appearance, especially when middle school started. So now I had academic validation from teachers, which I had craved since forever, and both female and male validation from all the girls telling me how pretty I was and all the guys liking me. The people who were in my primary school and went to the same middle school told them how I used to be, but nobody believed them, and if they did, they didn’t care, so everybody just gradually forgot about it. And I just got addicted to the validation, which is why I always studied harder and tried to be prettier, even when it turned into a complete lie. I thought that if I could make everyone believe I was perfect, then it didn’t matter what I was like in real life, so at home, I just let myself completely go. And even now that I’m aware of all of this, I still can’t stop.”

Sunghoon looked at you like you had just slapped him. “So, you used to have a crush on Jay?”

You looked at him in exasperation. “Seriously, Hoon? That’s what you get from everything I just told you?”

He smiled shyly. “Sorry. Thank you for telling me.” You sat there in comfortable silence for another few minutes, still hand in hand. Then, Sunghoon got up, grin on his face.

“Wanna see something cool?” You nodded at him, returning his grin. He headed back inside the rink.

You thought he was gonna show off by doing some fancy trick. But he started gliding on the ice, and you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. He took long strides that looked as natural to him as walking. He spinned one, two, three times, and continued skating as though it was nothing. You were completely mesmerized. You already thought he was out-of-this-world beautiful, but his beauty was brought to another level when he skated. His elegant moves rendered you breathless. When he skated back towards you, you were looking at him with only awe and admiration in your eyes.

After what he’d told you and what he’d just shown you, you couldn't help but get a little emotional. You engulfed him in a hug as soon as he’d stepped out of the rink, your arms around his neck and his naturally coming to your waist. Your hands came up to his cheeks as you leaned back to properly look at him.

“That was- wow. That was amazing, Sunghoon. Thank you for showing me.” You could see the gratefulness in his eyes. There was something else there, and whatever it was, you knew you were looking back at him with as much of it. It was only you two in the building, but it might as well have been the two of you in the whole world.

All too similarly as in your room, his gaze went from your eyes to your lips, and you couldn’t help but mirror that. This was the perfect moment. You inched your face closer, letting him close the gap between you. Your lips touched and it was as if everything fell into place. The kiss was shy at first, neither of you sure what to do, your mouths moving at a slow but steady pace. But as your hands traveled from his cheeks, to his jaw and down to his neck, and you felt him sigh in the kiss, something unclicked in you, making you want more. You deepened the kiss, and he returned it with just as much force. Your right hand came to grab at the nape of his hair and his hands gripped your waist tighter. After minutes or hours, you broke the kiss in need of some air. Your eyes met again and you smiled at him, relieved it had finally happened.

You thought he’d have a similar reaction, but he suddenly looked panicked. Realization hit him like a truck. He liked you. Far too much. And even if the kiss and these past weeks told him you might like him back, it scared him. He’d unlocked his heart for you but couldn’t let you keep the key. Otherwise, he’d let you open it more and more and more until there he was completely bare in front of you, and you decided you didn’t like what you’d found and left him. Just like his mom did. Just like everyone eventually does. Just like his dad never even tried.

He took a step back. His panic was rubbing off on you. You called out his name, but he quickly got his bag and said, “Sorry, Y/N, I have to go. I’ll um- I’ll see you.” He took a few steps, turned around, and said, “I think you should take the bus tomorrow morning. Sorry.”

He started walking away. A few steps before he’d be out of your view, he turned back around. He hated the look on your face, how sad, confused and helpless it was all at once. Above all, he hated that he was the reason behind it. But he told himself it was better to leave you now than be left in a few months when you got bored of him, and started walking again without another word.

—

You walked home alone. It was a dark November night, and you were shivering from the cold and from sadness. Try as hard as you might, you couldn’t figure out why Sunghoon had reacted like that. The past month had gone so well, you were only getting closer and more comfortable with each other. The only logical conclusion you could come to was that kissing you had made him realize he didn’t like you. Thankfully, you didn’t live too far from the ice rink and you got home in five minutes. Lost in your thoughts, you couldn’t even be bothered to be quiet closing the front door and walking to your room, and you woke Sunoo up.

At first, he looked like he was about to scold you for making so much noise; but upon seeing your disheveled state, he started worrying.

“Y/N? What’s wrong, why are you only coming home now? Where were you?”

You couldn’t hold it in any longer. You fell in your brother’s arms and started crying your heart out.

He held you for a little while, but not wanting to wake the others up by staying in the hallway, he said, “Come on, let’s get you in your room. You’re freezing.”

He left for a few minutes and came back with two cups of tea in his hands. He joined you on your bed. You had calmed down a bit and took a sip of the tea, already feeling warmer.

“So, tell me everything.”

And you did. Not just about what had happened at the ice rink, but everything before that: how yours and Sunghoon’s relationship was fake, which you hadn’t even told your siblings, but that it hadn’t kept you from falling for him, and how you really thought he felt the same way. When you got to the part where you told each other about your stories, Sunoo grabbed your arm in surprise, and said, “I can’t believe you told someone about that. Good for you, big sis.”

You sat in silence after a few minutes when you’d finished telling him everything, you, still reflecting on your evening, and him, trying to think of something good to say. He took a deep breath, and started: “You know, this might be completely useless, but I feel like there’s no point trying to figure out why he did that. We’re not mind readers, and assuming things will just go wrong. I think the best thing to do is just ask him tomorrow, or whenever you’re ready to face him, really.”

You looked at your brother fondly. “How can you be so stupid sometimes, yet so wise right now?”

Sunoo and you talked for another minute, but when you yawned for a good seven straight seconds, you both agreed it was time for bed. Before you fell asleep, you told yourself that tomorrow morning, you’d find Sunghoon and make him be clear with you. You at least deserved that.

—

Heeseung and Sumin were clearly surprised to see you the next morning in the bus, but you told them you didn’t want to talk about it and they didn’t push, although it very obviously had something to do with Sunghoon. As you rode the bus and psyched yourself for your conversation with him, you had no idea he was currently in the midst of a heated argument with Jay. The latter pushed him with force, making Sunghoon’s back hit the classroom wall behind him.

“What the fuck did you just say about Y/N?” Jay asked, venom in his voice and fury in his eyes.

Despite the pain, Sunghoon smirked, wanting to rile up his friend even more. “I said, Y/N’s just as stupid as all the other girls. She probably thinks she’s so much better than everybody, but in the end it was so easy making her fall for me. It was almost boring, really, how easy she was.”

Jay pushed him again. “Don’t fucking talk about her like that.”

“Aw, little Jay is getting upset over his little Y/N? You sad that the girl you like actually likes an asshole like me?”

Jay hadn’t had many reasons to get angry in his life. This was making him discover another side of himself; he didn’t know he could get this angry. He didn’t know rage could fill up his veins like that and make him want to destroy absolutely everything around him, but above all, the person in front of him who’d he considered a friend all these years. On the verge of losing control, he reared up his fist, before Sunghoon said:

“You know what’s even sadder? She used to like you, too.”

His arm dropped. “What?”

“Yeah, in primary school. Didn’t you think it was weird how different she was before and after you left? Her little heartbreak made her change everything about herself just so that people would like her. And now all she can do is lie to everyone. I pity her, really. And to think that she thought I liked her. What an idiot.”

That was the last straw. Jay punched Sunghoon square in the nose, making him stumble back a few steps until he hit the wall again. He held onto his bloody, and possibly broken, nose and looked Jay straight in the eyes, still smirking. Thinking his job was done (but not sure what the job was in the first place), he walked away, heading to the nurses’ station. The scene had gathered quite an audience outside. It was less than ten minutes to the first bell, so already quite a few students were there, but no one had dared to venture inside. Jake, arriving too late to prevent any damage, looked wide-eyed back and forth between Sunghoon walking out and Jay standing inside, fists clenched by his side and panting from anger.

Sunghoon barely spared him or anyone a glance as he left the room. What he did notice though, were a crumpled tuna-mayo sandwich and a banana milk on the floor, looking as though someone had dropped them.

What had he done?

—

You had already run back to your friends and were currently crying for the second time in twelve hours in Sumin’s arms. It was the first time ever you cried at school, and probably also in front of your friends, spare Sumin, so it was a curious sight to most; she took you to another room for privacy.

There, you practically told her everything you had told Sunoo the night before, including the fake dating.

“Wait… so, you and Sunghoon weren’t actually dating?”

You nodded, embarrassed by your lie.

“I- Why didn’t you tell me, Y/N? How could you fool everyone like that?”

You looked up in surprise at your friend’s harsh words. You probably deserved them, but you weren’t used to hearing her speak in such a way, nor to the cold stare she was peering down at you with.

“I don’t know… I’m really sorry…” you mumbled, ashamed.

She scoffed. “You should be. I just- I just don’t understand how you can already be living such a lie, and still add onto it. It makes me wonder how I’m still friends with you.” The bell rang right at that moment, and she got up, saying, “Let’s go to class. You wouldn’t wanna be late.”

You followed her, but you felt sick to your stomach. Usually, you could always hide your discomfort or sadness, no matter how bad your period cramps were or how serious an argument with your parents had gotten. But this time, it was too much, and fifteen minutes into the class, you asked the teacher to go to the nurse. Not used to you needing to leave class and trusting that it was for a legitimate reason, your teacher let you off and you quickly packed your bag and left.

When you got to the nurse, you sat down in front of her and said you weren’t feeling well and wanted to go home. For the same reasons as your teacher, she said she’d let you but needed to ask you a few questions before about your general well-being. You answered them quickly, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible and just go home.

When you finally were able to leave, you only took a few steps out of the nurse’s office before someone grabbed your wrist, making you turn around. Sunghoon, who was resting in the room next door, had heard your voice and gotten up as soon as he’d heard you leave. His nose was covered in bandages and his eye had started swelling and turning blue, and you mentally thanked Jay. You ripped your arm out of his grip and continued to walk away without a word. You were too tired to argue.

“Y/N, please, hear me out.”

This made you stop in your tracks, but you didn’t turn around. “Hear you out? I’ve already heard enough, Sunghoon. No need to explain, you made it very clear what you think of me.”

You started walking again but he doubled you and blocked your path in the narrow hallway.

“Y/N, I’m sorry, if you’d just give me a minute-”

“I don’t care that you’re sorry, Sunghoon! Sorry doesn’t cut it. I trusted you. Actually trusted you. You out of all people should know how hard it is to do that. Or was that a lie too?” Seeing him in front of you, your sadness retreated to the back of your heart and you were left with only anger.

“It wasn’t, I prom-”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me anymore.” You pushed past him and walked on. And this time, he let you go, even though the only thing you wanted him to do was make you stay. You so desperately wanted to hear him out and forgive him, but you knew you couldn’t do that. You had too much dignity, and it would only end up hurting you even further.

So you didn’t shed a tear the whole way home. When you finally got to your bed, you didn’t have the energy to start crying. You fell asleep, tears quietly rolling down your face.

—

You slept the whole day, waking up to a soft knock on your bedroom door. It was your mom, telling you Jay was here to see you. Everyone had been surprised to see you already at home when they came back from work or school, but they knew better than to wake you up.

“I’m surprised, you know. He’s gotten so handsome.”

You rolled your eyes at her. “Just tell him that I’m not feeling well and he should go home, please.”

“Oh, I’ve already tried to, honey. The boy is adamant on seeing you.”

You sighed. “Fine. Can you bring him here, then?”

A few seconds later, you heard another knock, and Jay opened the door just enough to peek his head through, asking if he could come in.

“Well, you’re already here, so might as well.”

You sat up and gestured for him to sit down on your bed.

He looked around, taking in the messiness of his surroundings. “You know, I thought your room would be much more… organized.”

“Didn’t Sunghoon tell you? I’m a big, fat liar who hides the truth from everyone,” you said sarcastically.

“About that… did you hear everything he said?” You hummed in response. “I’m so sorry you had to hear that, Y/N. I don’t know what happened to him. He’d never said anything like that about you, and then, all of a sudden… What an asshole. I can’t believe he was my friend.”

“Was? You shouldn’t end your friendship over me, Jay.”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t be friends with a guy who talks about anyone like that, let alone you.” After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Did um- did anything happen, for him to say those things?”

You sighed deeply. “I’ve already told this story twice in the past few days, so I’ll give you the short version, but basically, we were fake dating, and I started really liking him, and I thought he did too, until we kissed, and he left me completely stranded, and then the next day I hear him say all those things.”

Silence again. You suddenly remembered something Sunghoon had said that you had completely put to the side: Jay likes you. At least, according to Sunghoon. You didn’t know if it was true, but judging by his disappointed face, it looked like it. Seemed like all of your friendships were going to hell.

“Oh,” he simply said.

“Yeah…” you murmured back.

“Well,” he turned to you, “that just confirms to me that he’s an asshole. Cause no guy in his right mind would turn you down, Y/N. I know I wouldn’t.”

He looked straight at you as he said that. Yep. Jay liked you. It was a nice feeling, but it was also about ten years too late.

“Do you- do you know what I’m trying to say, Y/N?” he asked, gulping.

You hesitated for a second before saying, ”I think I do, Jay. I have to say, your timing isn’t great.”

He chuckled a bit lifelessly. “Yeah, I guess right now isn’t the best time to say this.”

“I also meant, you know what Sunghoon said, earlier? That I liked you before you left for the US? That was true.”

He looked at you, mouth agape. “Oh, was it…” His head hung down in defeat. “I can’t believe I’ve been such an idiot. I feel like it’s my fault that Sunghoon hurt you like this. If only I’d been just a bit earlier…”

“None of this is your fault, Jay. Please don’t think that. It’s mine for thinking Sunghoon could actually like me back.”

Jay took a deep breath. “God, as much as it hurts me to say, Y/N, I think he did. Or does, actually.” You furrowed your brows at him. “Sunghoon, he has this thing where he goes into retreat mode as soon as he gets too close, too personal. It’s a stupid defense mechanism, and when he realizes he’s let you in a bit too far, he snaps everything closed and hurts you before you can hurt him. At least, that’s how he sees it, I guess. He’s done it to Jake and me a couple times, and it takes some getting used to, but he stops after a while. When he knows for sure that you won’t hurt him.”

You didn’t know what to do with this information, so you just stayed quiet, which Jay took as a sign to go on.

“I’m not saying forgive him. Believe me, if I could smack him into space and never let him see you again, I would. But I think maybe, just maybe, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to, hear him out.”

You smiled at him. “You’re a good friend, Jay. And I don’t mean just to me but to Sunghoon as well. I hope you know that.”

Jay tried to ignore the pinch in his heart at the word ‘friend’ and smiled back.

“Oh, there’s another thing I needed to show you.” His tone was suddenly much more apprehensive, and he looked both sorry and scared to say whatever he was about to say.

He pulled out his phone and searched the thing in question. Before showing you anything, he warned, “Nobody knows who did this. It was sent out to the whole school on a library computer-”

Expecting the worst, you snatched Jay’s phone from his hands. And there they were. Pictures of you from your primary school years, recent pictures of you in your comfortable clothes, at home or in close proximity to your house. Sent out to the whole school, as Jay had said. You were horror-struck. You could feel all the years you had spent perfecting your image and maintaining it crumbling around you as though they were paper. Charismatic smiles and trendy accessories had been your brick and mortar, but a sledgehammer had hit them, destroying your foundations further with each swing.

And that sledgehammer had a name: Bae Sumin. You’d figured it out in an instant. You’d been friends your whole life, she was the only one apart from your family to know about your true face; only she would have access to such photos. You knew it wasn’t Sunghoon because the pictures he had taken that day weren’t there.

If what had happened with Sunghoon had made a crack in your heart, then this had shattered it into a million pieces. The person who you’d trusted the most, who you’d thought would never do anything to hurt you, had done the worst thing anybody could do to you.

“Y/N- are you okay?” Jay asked tentatively. You had forgotten he was there.

“Um, yeah, yeah- I think I just need to be alone for now, if that’s okay.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind staying a while.”

“Sorry, Jay, but I’m sure.”

He looked at you for a few seconds. He’d never felt more distance between you two, not even when you had been oceans apart. “Alright. Call me if you need anything. I mean it.”

You smiled a tiny, tiny smile in response and he left your room. On his way out, your mom hugged him, saying it was nice to see him again and that he was welcome anytime, and he thanked her.

As he walked home, he couldn’t help but bitterly laugh to himself. Even when he confessed, he hadn’t been able to say the words he’d wanted to tell you this whole time: I love you.

—

You didn’t go to school for the rest of the week, the only stain on your perfect attendance record. All of your friends had tried to reach you, asking if you were okay, and you replied in a few small messages, telling them you’d be back when you could. Other people had contacted you, asking if those pictures were real. You obsessed over your school’s gossip Instagram account: the past few days, all the posts had been dedicated to your pictures and Sunghoon’s and Jay’s fight. You had ten missed calls from Sunghoon and seventeen from Sumin. You ignored each and everyone of them, only giving Jay, Heeseung, Sieun and Jiung the time of day.

On Sunday morning you woke up, already dreading going to school the next day. You could already picture the nasty stares and whispers you’d get in the hallways. You thought about facing Sumin and Sunghoon again, and you thought the worst thing possible would be to have to do it at school. So you decided to wait until they called you again, as you knew they would, and finally picked up their call.

Sumin contacted you first, at eleven in the morning. You agreed to have her come over to your house to talk. When she appeared at your front door, you realized you weren’t sad, angry, or disappointed; you were just confused. You didn’t understand why she’d done it. Looking at her face, you couldn’t imagine her sitting down at that computer and sending out those pictures, writing the comment This is what Kim Y/N is like in real life.

You let her in and walked to your room, your siblings’ eyes burning holes into her soul the whole time. You sat down on your bed, sighed, and said, “Go ahead.”

“Thank you for letting me come here and explain myself. I don’t know what took over me, Y/N. Well actually, I guess I do. Jealousy, as stupid as it sounds.” She chuckled at herself. “I’ve always tried to hide it, but I’ve always been a bit jealous of you, Y/N. You’re the prettiest girl, the smartest, the nicest, and I’m just the best friend. That’s all anyone knows me as. Everybody loves you, yet I know it’s all a facade. And I’m not saying that to be mean, because I know you’re an amazing person even without all the glamor. And when I saw you with Sunghoon, I mean, you saw how I was. I didn't fight with my parents. I was so, so jealous. You hadn’t shown interest in any guy since Choi Soobin and all of a sudden you were dating Park freaking Sunghoon, and he knew about your quote-on-quote ‘real’ face, so I couldn’t even comfort myself that he didn’t know who you really were.”

“Wait- why would you be jealous of Sunghoon and me?”

She took a deep breath. “You remember, freshman year, when I confessed to him and he turned me down?”

“Yeah, but I thought that was in the past.”

“Do you also remember that guy I told you about later on, who I’d gotten really close with but completely shut me off when I thought we were about to start dating?”

Something clicked, but you didn’t want to face it. “Yeah…”

“Well, surprise surprise, they were the same person. Ha. I got mad at you for lying to me, but I did the same thing.”

“Sumin… Why did you never tell me?”

“I’m not sure. When we were in that talking stage, I could’ve bragged about it to anyone, you know, that Park Sunghoon was actually being nice to me, but I didn’t. I wanted to keep him my little secret. And then I confessed, and we all know how that ended.” A beat passes as she takes a deep breath, shaking the bad memory away. “I am over it, it was more than three years ago. Maybe there was a nice part of me that thought he had changed, because you seemed happy with him, and I didn’t want to ruin that. But maybe there was another part that hoped he might hurt you like he did me. And that’s such a shitty thing to do, I know. I should’ve told you when I saw you get involved with him. I can’t believe after all these years, he did the exact same thing to you that he did to me. What an asshole.”

You were staring at the wall in front of you, feeling empty. Why did everything have to happen at the same time? You were just drained of any willpower.

“This doesn’t explain the pictures,” you said plainly.

“Right. When you told me you were fake dating, I guess something snapped in me. I couldn’t believe it was another lie, I thought we had gone past the stage where you hid things from me. So that, plus jealousy, I just went a bit crazy, I think. I really wasn’t thinking, Y/N, and I promise you with all my heart that if I could go back and undo everything, I would. I’m so, so, so sorry. I regretted it as soon as I hit post.”

You looked at your friend and knew she was telling the truth. You believed her, and yet you couldn’t quite look past it.

“I know you are, Minie. It’s just… what am I gonna do now at school? Everybody must hate me.”

“I won’t lie, some people haven’t been saying the nicest things, especially Park’s fangirls. But God, Y/N, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but who cares? They’ll talk about it for a week, two at most. Your life at school won’t be the same, but you’ll still have all of us. I’ve talked to Heeseung, Sieun and Jiung, and they’re not the tiniest bit mad at you. They’re just worried to death. A bit confused too, but mostly worried. And you know what? Even Yujin, Wonyoung and Gaeul, who I’ve literally never talked to before, came to ask me how you were. Jay and Sunghoon are barely on talking terms but they always team up when it comes to practically verbally assaulting anyone they overhear talking behind your back. Jake has to hold them back sometimes but he always glares at those people too. You don’t wanna see Jake Sim glare, I promise you. It’s so scary,” she says in a confessional tone, visibly shuddering just at the thought of angel-faced Jake looking angry, and you can’t help the small chuckle that escapes your lips.

Her face softens as she places a warm palm over your hand. “We all love you and care for you so much, so screw literally every single other person in that school. They don’t matter.”

There was something refreshing about Sumin’s words. The idea that you could live your life without worrying about other people had always been in the back of your head, but you always told yourself you were in too deep to go back. Now that you had been forced to, you understood why you felt so empty: the immense weight of having to keep up a persona, had been lifted off your shoulders. You would only have to carry yourself, and not a second person, which made you feel weightless. You’d just have to get used to it and come to enjoy that feeling.

You took your friend’s hands in yours. “I want to forgive you, I promise I do. And I will. I just don’t know if I can do that right away. I’ll need some getting used to this new life.”

“I completely understand, Y/N.”

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you around anymore. And you know what, I’m sure one day I’ll look back at this moment and thank you.”

—

Sumin left a few hours later and you were now waiting for Sunghoon to call you. You waited and waited, until your phone rang with a small ding: he wasn’t calling you, but had sent you a message. A very, very long message. You were very tempted to reply with a I ain’t reading all that. I’m happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened, but you thought it might not be the appropriate moment.

You opened the message, which had come after thirty unread texts, and started reading, slightly appalled by the lack of paragraphing.

Dear Y/N,

Is this how you start a long text? I would much rather be telling you this than writing it, but someone hasn’t been picking up my calls. Sorry. I probably shouldn’t be giving you much attitude right now. Where do I even start? The ice rink, I guess. Asshole move #1, obviously. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you like that. That kiss was really really good and I really really liked it. Because I really really like you. And I think I’ve known that for a while now, but the kiss confirmed it. And I was happy for a second, but then I panicked. There’s no other word for it, I panicked. I’ve never liked someone this much before and I was so scared. I still am. I’m terrified shitless. But I know that my fear is completely irrational, and that you’re literally the best person on Earth, which is why I’m writing this. I know it’s cliché to say my mom left me and now I think everybody will. And my first reaction to that is to hurt someone before they can hurt me, which is what I did. But as much as I wanna fight it, it’s always there at the back of my mind. You can even ask Sumin about it. Should I be saying that? I feel like I might as well. I was an asshole to her, and I’m so angry at myself that I did it again with you. I didn’t mean a single word of what I said about you to Jay. Not a single one. You’re not stupid, you’re the smartest and most amazing girl I know, and I never pretended I liked you, because I never had to. I think I just wanted Jay to punch me, really. I wanted him to run to you and make sure you were okay, because I was too scared to do that myself. But I regret doing that so much. I hope you know that. And bless Jay, he’s a real one. He told me to get my shit together and talk to you. I can tell he’s still mad at me but still wants to make things good between us. I was already trying to call you before he said that, but I probably would’ve said something stupid that would’ve made things worse. And I can’t afford that, Y/N, I really, really can’t. You get me like no one does and being with you is the most liberating thing ever, I’m never myself more than when I’m around you. You just bring out the best in me. Well, except for that thing I did. Which I promise I’ll never do again. I am so extremely sorry, and if you wanna hate me for the rest of your life, I completely get it. But I would also be very happy if you didn’t. I hope I’ll see you tomorrow at school. I really miss you.

Your Hoon

You wiped away the tears that had formed in your eyes and typed back:

You’re such an idiot, Park.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

—

The next day, as you imagined, was mostly hell. You’d decided not to dress up as usual: there was no point trying to look good after this, it would only make you seem more ridiculous. You put less makeup on, not bothering to hide your eye bags, and didn’t bling your outfit up with accessories or fancy shoes, opting for your worn-out Converse you’d had since your feet stopped growing. On the bus, where people usually ignored each other, you could already feel the gossip being told about you. You avoided people’s gaze like the plague and sat down next to Sumin. You laid your head on her shoulder and sighed.

“I already wanna go home.”

She laughed, “I know. We’ll be with you the whole day, so don’t worry.”

You spent the bus ride catching up on what had happened when you were gone (nothing much), and although there was some awkwardness there, it was nice being with your best friend. When Heeseung got on, he practically screamed your name and suffocated you by means of greeting.

“I’m so glad you’re back. You know, I think you look really cute in those pictures. All these people are just jealous they don’t look as good as you even when you don’t dress up.”

Sumin shot daggers with her eyes at him and he cringed, saying, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

You reassured him, saying that it was fine since it was all you were going to be hearing the next few days. “Might as well get used to it.”

It was somewhat easy to ignore the stares coming your way when you walked into school with Heeseung and Sumin flanked at your sides like bodyguards. When you reached your classroom, Jiung engulfed you in a hug and Sieun was almost crying. How the hell had you gotten such sweet friends?

In the hallways, some people tried to get reactions out of you by calling you out, yelling liar! or you can’t fool us anymore. You couldn’t ignore them as they were very much in your face. When at lunch, a table of girls next to you was very clearly talking about you in the nastiest way possible, you took your tray and were ready to get up and leave, but a very familiar voice stopped you in your tracks.

“You think it’s funny talking about someone like that?” Sunghoon was practically screaming at the girls. “You think you’re any better than her? I bet you do the exact same thing but are just glad someone else got called out for it.” You weren’t sure if that made you feel much better, but you appreciated the effort.

“As a matter of fact,” he continued as he pulled out a chair and got up on it, his voice getting louder, “I’ve got something I wanna say to everyone.”

Somebody whooped (probably Jake) and you tried to get Sunghoon to come down from the chair, but he just smiled his radiant smile at you and turned to look at the students in the cafeteria.

“All of you who judge Y/N are hypocrites. You wanna tell me you’re all as perfect at home as you are at school? That you never relax a little bit? Sure, she pushed it a bit far- (hey! you grunted in protest), but nobody shows who they truly are to everyone. We all judge each other in this stupid high school, so Y/N did what she had to do and protected herself. If anything, this should make you respect her even more. And it’s not like she did anything wrong to you. She didn’t use her popularity against anyone, so you better not use this against her.”

From the crowded tables in the cafeteria, somebody yelled “Nobody cares!”

Somebody, whose voice you thought you recognized as Jungwon’s, joined in: “Yeah, what is it about you seniors and thinking the whole school revolves around you? We still like Y/N!”

Sunghoon, taken aback, simply said, “Oh. Alright. Well, you better keep it that way then!” and got off his chair.

He turned to you, already a pleading look on his face and said “Y/N, I’m so sorry-”

But you cut him off right away. “I know, Sunghoon, I know. I think this proved it.”

“I really wanna make it up to you. So just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Buy you a house, move to another country, you name it. I’ll do it.”

You chuckled at him. “You don’t need to go that far.” You looked down, then back at him. “I think I just want to pretend like nothing happened. Like it was all a huge, awful fever dream. Even if I can’t forgive and forget right away, I don’t think I want you out of my life while I figure it out.”

He let out the biggest sigh you’d ever heard. “My God, you don’t know how happy to hear that, Y/N. Thank you so much.”

“Thank you for defending me just now. That was… definitely something.”

He smiled down at you. "I did my best. Too bad those sophomores ruined everything.”

You could feel eyes burning into your sides, so you turned your head a bit and noticed that your friends and the table of girls that had just been gossiping were staring at you, some of them teary-eyed. When they saw you notice them, they all turned back to each other and pretended that they were having some other conversation. You and Sunghoon chuckled, and you realized how much you had missed him.

Yes, Sunghoon and Sumin had hurt you, but you were a strong believer of second chances. Even if it was hard at first to stop thinking about Sunghoon’s voice when he had said those things or Sumin’s intentions when she posted the pictures, they’d made it up to you in any way they could and you’d reciprocated that by being completely honest. No more trying to look perfect all the time; you were human and were allowed to have low moments. Your grades even dropped by two points, because you’d started spending more time with your friends than with your textbooks. You’d spent whole Saturdays at the ice rink with your now real-boyfriend Sunghoon, and had invited the whole crew. Heeseung was surprisingly good at it. You had even caught your little sister Yeeun on a date with the cute Japanese boy she’d talked about.

As promised, Jay came once a week or every two weeks to have dinner with your family; Sunghoon always insisted on being present. The tension between them had turned into friendly competition, and you could tell the two friends were glad to have each other back.

You’d never felt so free. Your relationship with Sunghoon felt like uncharted territory and home at the same time; so daunting and exciting yet so comfortable and relaxing. You kept the PDA at a minimum at school, but when it was just the two of you, your whole body never failed to heat up, even in the cold of the ice rink. He had been nicknamed the ice prince, but he was so, so warm.

In the end, everybody found out. But you had Park Sunghoon by your side, so it was alright.

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#enhypen x reader #sunghoon x reader #enhypen fluff #sunghoon fluff #enhypen angst #sunghoon angst #enhypen scenarios #sunghoon scenarios

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unsolvedjarin · 8 months

Note

Hi! If this inspires you, could you write a platonic fic where reader (who is around Charles’ age and is also teammates with him at Ferrari) is on the podium alongside him and Seb (this being set when Seb is at AM), but like that video or Lewis (that I can’t remember when it’s from) she already seemed exhausted while receiving her trophy, and when they exit the podium, she collapses onto Seb? Just hurt/comfort vibes from both drivers, really. Maybe Seb is close to her like a mentor, he’s worried about her? I think that’s it. Even if you don’t find it inspiring, thank you for sharing your fics. They’re really good. 😊💚

note: thank you for the kind words anon! i saw the word “exhausted” in the request and i kinda ran with it so this might have strayed from the original idea a little bit, but i hope it’s to your liking!

gif by overtake

THERE FOR YOU

pairing: (sebastian vettel x ferrari driver! reader, can be read as platonic or romantic) (charles leclerc x platonic! reader)

summary: you overwork yourself, and pay the consequences for it by passing out on the podium. lucky for you, a certain german driver has the means to catch you and take care of you.

word count: 2.1k

content warning: hurt/comfort, mostly fluff, not grammar checked writing because its 2am

You were going to throw up or faint any time now, you were sure of it.

“Are you sure you’re good?” A voice asked from beside you. You recognized it to be Charles, who was preparing for the race the same as you were.

“With this excessive asking I won’t be,” you retorted.

“I’m just looking out for you, amour. You haven’t been looking great.”

He was right, you looked awful. Everyone knew Spa was a tough track, but you looked like you had just gotten back from war— and the Sunday race hadn't even started yet.

You’d been feeling horrible all Saturday, but decided to ignore it. After all, Ferrari was counting on you that day to get a high position in quali since Charles was out in Q2.

You were starting in 4th today, Ferrari praising you for your good qualifying result. But the sleepless nights on the simulator along with the strain of being in a car going roughly 200 mph yesterday were detrimental to your health.

But of course, you were too stubborn to call in sick for Sunday— Ferrari was counting on you. And you couldn’t let them down.

“AND IT’S LIGHTS OUT IN SPA!”

The race was long and tedious, but eventually you managed to overtake Lewis and end up p3. Considering the heavy rain and how Charles spun out, you were surprised you even made it to the top 5.

You can’t remember how the race ended as you exited your car, weaker than you’ve ever felt before. The roar of the Tifosi was loud, cheering on your podium win. Whenever you won or got a podium they made you feel proud, a large grin on your face and goosebumps all over.

But not today.

Today, it was too loud. Too overwhelming. You could feel your head ache and pound at the noise. You felt a hand on your shoulder, Max coming to congratulate you. You think he had won the race but you couldn’t be sure, everything was too hazy.

“Congrats Y/N! Your first podium this season!”

You give Max a weak smile and a firm handshake, the pressure almost making your vision fade. God you needed to get out of there.

You looked around, there had to be an exit. Some place where you could rest your head for a second and regain your senses.

Thankfully, a guiding hand led you to the cooldown room, and you recognized it as Sebastian’s. He had gotten 2nd, that you knew, you were battling for his position earlier.

Once you got inside the cooldown room, there was no other word that could describe it but moist. The rain outside had moistened up the inside, barely enough to be noticeable, but to you, sweaty from the race and sick, it was enough to have you stumbling onto your chair.

Sebastian could sense something was wrong, he wasn’t stupid. To someone else you would’ve just seemed like someone who was simply exhausted from a race, but he wasn’t someone else. He knew you.

Before he could ask you about it, however, a man led all three of you out the cooldown room to go to the podium itself. You were moving with half-lidded eyes, and a really really sweaty body.

“And in third, the Ferrari favorite, Y/N L/N!”

You raise your arms as high as you can and put up two thumbs up, exerting all your effort to put up a show for the fans. They deserve it, you think.

Unbeknownst to you however, Charles was watching from the side with a worried look. He was the only one who knew about your sickness the past few days, and his concerned eyeing was not ignored by an observant Vettel.

The champagne spraying was everything but fun, the overstimulation getting to you. It was too much, everything was too much.

The sickness, the sweat, the champagne dripping down your face— you just needed to rest for a second, just…lay down maybe…

“Scheiße!” Sebastian shouted out, his voice not heard over the hollering of the fans. With all the chaos of the spraying of champagne and the bellows of the orange army, no one had noticed how you had fallen into Sebastian’s arms, passed out. He had dropped his champagne in the process, and the breaking of the glass was what had gotten Max to notice what happened. He discreetly ushered Charles, who was still watching from the sidelines, to help Sebastian pull your dull body away from the limelight.

People were starting to notice now, and there were worried glances among the fans and the teams, but were eventually calmed down by false reassurances of ‘everything is fine.’

It was not.

You were burning up, a fever so high it would put the sun to shame. Not only that, but Sebastian had noted how you seemed more physically worn than before. Not an unhealthy amount, god knows being an F1 driver wouldn’t allow that, but enough for it to be noticeable.

You were awake at this point already, but still weak. Lying down on a bed in the First Aid tent, your eyes threatened to close on you again, before Ferrari’s resident emergency doctor walked in.

“Well the good news is we don’t have to bring you to a hospital, you just have to get some food in your body and rest.”

That reassured Sebastian a little, but not enough. He needed to see you healthy and well, or he would be a nervous wreck all week. Thanking the doctor, he was left alone in the room with you again.

As much as he wanted to be there for you, Charles was held up by media duties, which meant that it was only you and Sebastian for a good while.

The German had always been kind to you. Not only was he your friend, but he’d also taught you everything he knew, and half your skills were something you had learnt from him. He was your support system, the one who always helped you when you were down, and the one who always had your back as you had his.

That’s why Sebastian didn’t understand why you hadn’t told him about your current ailment.

“When was the last time you slept?” Sebastian asked, the first words he’s spoken to you all day.

Shrugging faintly, you answer, “I don’t know.”

“Have you eaten anything today?”

“No.”

“Have you drank anything today?”

“Some Red Bull,” you mumbled, while attempting to slowly sit up on your bed.

Sebastian sighed. You weren’t taking care of yourself and it was killing him. “Why didn’t you sit this one out if you knew you were sick since yesterday?”

A beat of silence passes, and Sebastian could sense you contemplating if you should tell him the truth or not. He hoped you would do the former.

“…Because Ferrari is counting on me,” you finally answered meekly.

Of course. That was why. Your feeling of obligation to constantly deliver for your team was a feeling each driver shared with their own, but you always went above and beyond. ‘Couldn’t you see how you were much more important than some stupid points?’ Sebastian thinks.

Frowning, he sits down on a chair beside your bed, taking your warm hand and holding it with his own. “Schatzi, you’re hurting yourself. I know you want to deliver for yourself and your team, but this is not the way. If you keep going like this you’ll be sleeping at the wheel and end up worse than you are now. Please, I beg you, take a break.”

You wince internally at his words. He was right. You’d end up in a worse condition if you keep this up and disappoint your team even more.

“I just want to prove myself to Ferrari. Tell them I’m worth it to keep, you know? My contract is expiring soon, and I honestly don't know if any team would pick me up. I feel so— so lost and so hopeless— if I lose my seat I don’t know what to do. I mean I’ve built my entire life up to this, and now I just feel like a burnt out shitty driver.”

You had tears welling in your eyes, and Sebastian was quick to grab some tissue from the bedside table and wipe them away. He hated how you thought so low of yourself, he wished you could see yourself from his view, one of the best drivers and people he’s ever met.

“Your seat doesn’t measure your worth, Amore. Trust me, I know. After Ferrari I didn’t know what to do or where to go, my ‘golden boy’ status had faded and not a lot of teams wanted me anymore. But look at me, I’m here. I’m okay. And you will be too, just not like this.”

His words broke your composure, finally letting out all the stress and pain you’ve endured for days— weeks, even— in the form of full on sobbing. You were grateful for the privacy the room provided, as Sebastian hugged you tightly, not caring if he got your fever too. He whispered sweet words to you, stroking your hair and calming you down.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you darling. Just let it all out,” you hear him murmur into your hair. You’re sure he said more things, but you couldn’t really hear them over the sound of your own sobs.

Eventually the dam dried up, and you attempted to compose yourself and wipe away all the evidence of your tears. Sebastian still held your hand, rubbing it reassuringly, reminding you of his presence. He was always constant in your life. You were thankful for that.

You both sat in the comfortable silence, allowing it to calm you after everything that just happened.

“I’m retiring next year,” Sebastian says out of the blue.

Okay, now you’re no longer calm again.

“I just thought you should be the first to know,” he adds.

“Wh- what? Why? You’re leaving? But no— you’re a pinnacle of the sport! You’re Sebastian Vettel! You can’t leave! You can’t just retire and leave me and- and-” you were starting to see black spots again, your emotions making you forget you were still physically weak.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for him to say that out of nowhere, Seb thinks. But it was now or never, and he wanted you to know before everybody else did. He wasn’t going to tell anyone in advance, but you were special to him. He couldn’t explain it, but you made him realize things in life. The way you enjoyed the little things, the way you laughed at stupid dad jokes, it made Sebastian miss the freedom of just…existing without having to worry about race after race after race.

Silencing you by enveloping your frantic hand with both of his larger ones and shushing you, he replied, “Calm down Liebling, I’m not leaving you. You still have me outside the track, you can visit me anytime and I would gladly let you in. I wouldn’t dare leave your life just like that, I’d never do that to you.”

You smiled softly at his words. He’d never do that to you. That’s why you loved him, whatever type of love it was. He was always there; a constant figure, and that wasn’t about to change. Sure you’d see each other less, but the love would still be there, and that’s all that would matter.

“I would get up and hug you, but I think we’ve both noticed that my body has decided to stop working on me,” you joke. Sebastian rolls his eyes in response, “And who’s fault is that?”

Oops. He got you there. “Mine,” you reply bashfully.

Thankfully he takes pity on you, and adjusts himself instead. “Scooch.” You move aside, giving him space to sit up beside you in your First Aid bed.

Putting his arm around you, he rubs your shoulder gently as you rest your head on his chest. This was nice.

“Don’t you have media duties? Aston Martin will kill you if you miss those,” you ask softly.

Sebastian simply shrugs, “You are more important to me than some reporters milking me for content like I’m a cow.”

His wording made you giggle, and the sound of you happy again makes Sebastian smile. He was going to get a scolding later for missing his duties, and he was definitely going to catch your cold from keeping you this close too, but it was all worth it when he heard that sound of laughter leave your throat.

The next season may be rough, it may not be as kind as this one was. It will be different, it will be lonelier, and it will feel lacking without Sebastian. But right now, as you sit on a bed in comfortable silence in a First Aid tent in Spa, being cared for by a man you care for, you get the sneakiest feeling that yeah— everything will be okay.

#sebastian vettel #sebastian vettel x reader #sebastian vettel x you #sebastian vettel imagine #formula one #formula 1 #formula 1 imagine #formula 1 x reader #formula 1 x you #writing #f1 fandom #f1blr #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc x reader

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breadbrobin · 3 months

Note

Hi idk if you’re taking reqs but I’ve been reading your posts about Luke Castellan a lot and I think I’m getting obsessed- So could you make a fic/shot about a Luke Castellan x daughter of Apollo reader where they’ve known each other since childhood and they’re kind of like frenemies (friends and/or enemies) and one day he ends up getting badly injured after a quest so she has to take care of him in the infirmary for a week, but ever since that happened he’s been trying to get injured just to go and see reader at the infirmary again?

Sorry if that wasn’t clear, and this is kinda inspired from another fic you made about Luke and daughter of Apollo:)

But if you ever make something like this I would really appreciate it if you tagged me!

two hearts

luke castellan x reader — percy jackson and the olympians

[fem!daughter of apollo reader]

summary: (as above)

warnings: canon typical mentions of violence, kissing, flirting, a couple of swear words, blood, idiots to lovers a lil bit too (can you tell it’s my favourite thing)

word count: 3.5k

(hiiii hello hi!! sorry this took me so long to get out, but here it is!! thank you so much for the request i had a lot of fun with this one (3.5k words of fun apparently). hope you enjoy it!)

———————————————

if someone had told you luke castellan was going to be gone on a quest when you arrived at camp for the summer, you wouldn’t have spent the whole drive to camp preparing to deal with his annoying ass.

you hiked up half-blood hill and over the boundary, noticing the distinct tension in the atmosphere. something was off.

when luke hadn’t come to see you as you dropped your bags off in the apollo cabin, or when you stopped into the infirmary, or even when you walked past the hermes cabin, you were clued in that something was up.

“where’s luke?” you asked chiron curiously.

“he is on a quest, child. sent by his father,” he smiled down at you warmly. “do not worry about him.”

“i’m not worried,” you bit your lip. “just curious. that’s all.”

and that was that.

it was weirdly boring being at camp without luke’s constant snarky comments. ever since you’d both gotten to camp when you were younger, he’d been a persistent thorn in your side. maybe it was because you both were new around the same time, or because you didn’t like it when he hovered around the infirmary, poking his quick fingers into buckets of bandages and medications. whatever it was, he seemed to enjoy irritating you. and you apparently enjoyed it more than you thought.

monotonous days: breakfast, archery, infirmary, training, activities, dinner, bed.

sleepless nights: nightmares of quests and dragons and a bright white scar.

you sighed one night, waking up from yet another dream of flashes and brief images. your siblings were sleeping around you, a couple of them snoring, and you sat up.

the air on the porch was cooler that night, especially for summer time. you wrapped your sweatshirt a little tighter around yourself and leaned on the porch railing, peering out into the darkness. you just needed a minute, really. you sat down on a chair and relaxed.

you woke up abruptly.

at first, you were confused as to why.

then you saw the figure on the hill.

it was a camper. the hint of orange in the full-moon light told you that much. they were stumbling down—no, they were rolling now.

you stood up and dashed back into your cabin, grabbing your to-go first aid kit. you then turned and ran towards the obviously injured figure. there were only three people it could be. and where were the other two?

you reached them quickly, dropping to your knees beside them and rolling them over.

luke.

it was luke.

the air rushed from your lungs. he was here. he was back. he was alive. you’d never felt such an overwhelming emotion before. it drew slight stinging tears to your eyes.

his eyes were barely open but he gripped your arm with a strength you didn’t think his weak body could still possess. “y/n?”

“just hold on, luke,” you whispered. there were injuries all over his body. you hardly knew where to start. “just hold on.”

“they’re gone,” he said absently.

you looked at him, but didn’t stop trying to help. “who’s gone?”

“everyone,” he stared up at the moon.

you bit your cheek and looked over your shoulder. one of your brothers had gone on that quest with him. “wake up!” you shouted. “someone come help!” you turned back to luke. “okay, luke. you’re gonna be okay.”

his cheeks were hollow. it was then that you noticed the way his eye was swollen closed and a dark red angry cut traced its way down the side of his face. you gasped and turned his head gently to see it better.

“not looking good, huh?” he murmured bitterly. “guess i won’t be getting any modelling contracts soon.”

“we’ll see about that,” you muttered. “stay awake, yeah?”

“you’re not the boss of me,” he grumbled, but kept his eyes open as help finally arrived to get him to the infirmary.

he’d had more injuries than you’d originally thought. it was like he’d been attacked by half of the monsters in greek mythology, honestly, based on the peppered burn holes in his shirt, the cuts and scrapes on his arms and knees and the gashes littering his abdomen. oh, and not to mention the gaping spear wound in his right shoulder.

after working all night with some of your siblings and chiron in the infirmary, he was finally stable. finally, he’d be okay.

you volunteered to stay with him to keep an eye on him for the first few hours, though your eyelids were drooping with sleep.

you held his hand. it felt like the right thing to do.

he didn’t stir.

it was strange, being around him without him talking. since you were fourteen, he’d rarely managed to shut up around you. incessant talking and waving his hands around, explaining some new thing he learned in sword fighting or some joke one of his brothers made. it was both infuriating and entertaining. you loved and hated it, just like you loved and hated him.

sitting in silence with luke castellan felt like the world was turning on its head.

a couple of hours passed. you didn’t let go of his hand. not even as you slipped into a dream—a memory, really.

you were fifteen, and it was raining. it had only been a few months since you got to camp. things were still fresh and somewhat unknown. what you did know, though, was you could never get a moments peace anymore.

“y/n?”

you rolled your eyes. of course it was luke. “what?”

“where are you?”

you supposed you were hidden pretty well. sitting among the reeds at the bottom of the lake was one of your favourite places to be. it was cooler there, but even in winter it wasn’t cold. your feet could sit in the water if you wanted them to and the reeds blocked you from the wind and outside attention.

when you didn’t respond, you could hear him coming closer anyway.

“that’s fine, don’t tell me. i’ll find you anyway.”

and he did. he always did.

there was some theory about that, you realised as he sat beside you, the tiny space between the reeds barely big enough to hold both of you. some theory about a string of fate tying people together. some greek myth about people originally having four arms, four legs and two hearts, and when zeus split them down the middle, those people spent the rest of their lives searching for their other halves. drawn together by fate and reconnected always. you arm was pressed against his arm and your leg against his leg, and maybe it felt so right because you were cold and he was warm. not because of some silly soulmate theory that didn’t even make sense. because there was also the idea that maybe he’d put a tracker on you, but you had no idea where he would have gotten that. or maybe you were just bad at hiding.

“i’ve been looking for you,” he said.

you tilted your head in confusion. “what? why?”

“well,” were you mistaken, or were his cheeks kind of red? “i kinda hurt myself at training today. and the people in the infirmary told me to grow up and get over it. but honestly, it really hurts and i just wanted to know if you could heal it.”

you rolled your eyes. “always needing something, huh, castellan? is it so much to ask for you to just want to see me?” you hold your hand out and he extends his sword arm, revealing the cross-muscle cut on his forearm.

“i do want to see you,” he protested. “honestly. it’s not my fault that i’m also coincidentally injured whenever i want to see you.”

you couldn’t stay mad at that smile. “coincidentally, huh?” you handed him a small section of ambrosia from your pocket as your fingers ran over the cut, whispering a prayer to your father. you watched as the skin knit itself closed again, leaving not even a scar on his arm. you pulled back with a smile. “there. done. good as new.”

“thanks, doctor. don’t know what i’d do without you.”

“die a horrible death and be left permanently disfigured? to the point where we’d do a closed casket funeral just so we don’t have to look at your ugly face?” you tilted your head with a teasing smile.

he elbowed you. “shut up, loser. you know you love my face.”

and as you woke up, feeling his hand tighten around yours, you realised you kind of did. there was gauze over the cut on his eye and cheek, covering half of his face. and yet, he was still annoyingly beautiful.

“something on my face?” he mumbled as he saw looking, finally awake. “except for this thing, of course.” he gestured to the gauze.

you smiled wanly. “i’m glad you’re awake.”

“missed me?” he half-grinned.

you snort and drop his hand, patting the back of it and standing up to check his bandages. “you wish.”

he was silent as you checked his bandages and reapplied the few that were loosening. then, as you left to go and get the next person to keep an eye on him, he spoke up. “i missed you.”

you paused in the doorway, a small smile growing on your face. you looked back at him. his eyes were earnest and soft. he looked younger like this. “i’ll be back a few hours. we’ll have dinner together.”

you did have dinner together. in fact, you had almost every meal together for the first few days.

it was quiet, mostly. you didn’t ask him what happened and he didn’t tell you. you knew he’d already been interrogated by everyone else. he didn’t need that from you.

annabeth came and joined you a couple of times, chatting about some new architectural design she’d learned about or a new move she’d learned in training.

you realised how alike they were. family in every way that mattered, regardless of blood.

it didn’t take long for luke to start getting annoying again though.

once he’d been in the infirmary for four days, he regained most of his usual personality. and that meant bad jokes, incessant talking and poorly-timed, half-hearted flirting.

“the sun makes your eyes glow,” he said one day. he’d never had much of a filter, so it wasn’t too out of the blue, but it still caught you a little of guard.

you fumbled the supplies in your hand. “sorry, what?”

he was sitting up on his bed now. his wounds were almost healed. two more days and he’d be out of the infirmary. you didn’t know if you were one hundred per cent happy about that.

“your eyes. they glow in the sun.” he repeated.

you paused, glancing over at him. “thank you…?”

he nodded and leaned back, his eyes staying on you.

that was only the beginning.

within five hours he’d complimented your eyes, your skills, your smile and your kindness. multiple times. it got the point where the other two patients in the infirmary had stopped taking you seriously, just complimenting you instead. that’s where you drew the line.

“okay, luke, you need to stop. this is too much,” you said. you were checking his remaining wounds and nodding happily at them.

“what, am i flustering you? are you blushing?” he teased.

you were not blushing at all, you decided. whether it was strictly true or not was between your brain and your cheeks, not your honesty. “you’re annoying me,” you grumbled. “like, a lot.”

“you know you’ll miss me when i go back to my cabin,” he leaned back on his pillows, a smirk on his lips. it warped the scar on his cheek more than you expected, and it made your heart clench every time.

“if i miss you, you have permission to annoy me for the rest of my life,” you grumbled. you definitely wouldn’t miss this.

finally, he was out of the infirmary.

finally, you could work in peace.

finally, you could— oh, what the hell?

“good morning!” luke said as he waltzed into the infirmary. “i’ve injured myself.”

you looked him up and down as you walked closer. “you look fine to me. what did you do?”

“i fell of the rock climbing wall and hit my head.” he turned his head to show you the small trickle of blood above his ear.

you sighed and led him to a bed. you handed him ambrosia as you used a wet cloth to clean his head. “you were meant to take things easy for the first few days.”

“i did!” he protested. “i was only like, twelve feet up!”

you pursed your lips and shook your head. your hand was under his chin now, stopping him from turning his head to look at you. “taking it easy means no rock climbing at all, dumbass. you’ve been out of here for half a day and you’re already back!”

“maybe i like it in here.” he shrugged, pouting slightly, looking up at you.

“maybe i find you really annoying and ban you from coming in here,” you countered.

“you can’t do that,” he gasped.

“watch me, castellan.” you prodded his cheek mockingly. “don’t mess with me.”

his smile wasn’t exactly the response you were looking for, but you found that you didn’t mind it all too much.

luke came into the infirmary almost every two days for the next two weeks.

there was always some new injury that he couldn’t ignore, that he needed to have you heal. he only came in when you were there though, like he knew your schedule off by heart.

he probably did.

his sheepish smile was becoming a fixture of your days and you couldn’t help but smile a little brighter when you saw it. you couldn’t stop your heart from beating a little faster either, and it was annoying.

in the years that you’d been at camp, luke castellan had driven you up the wall. did you hate him? did you love him? how did you love him? how a friend loves a friend? how a doctor loves a patient? how a lover loves a lover? how did you hate him? why? why anything? why nothing? the questions only got worse.

“another minor injury?” you sighed, hearing his footsteps entering the infirmary. you didn’t know when you memorised the sound of his footsteps, or the rise and fall of his breathing while he slept, but you did.

“uh, not exactly…” the weakness in his voice made your stomach drop.

you turned around to see him clutching a bright red wound on his inner arm. he looked pale. that wasn’t a good sign. the blood was still seeping past his fingers. also not a good sign.

you gasped and pulled him to a bed immediately, pushing him to lie down and placing hard pressure on the wound. you could feel him reaching into your pocket and fishing around for ambrosia. once he found some, he ate it quickly and sighed in relief.

“what the hell happened?” you exclaimed.

he shrugged with one shoulder. “sword training.”

“were you training against the fucking terminator?” you took in the other minor cuts and bruises. your voice was unfairly shaky. you didn’t want to get close to losing him again. even just the thought made you feel sick.

his eyes were soft when they looked up at you. you almost dropped all of your anger right there. “i got sloppy,” he said nonchalantly. “i’ll be fine once i get back to normal.”

“this is an artery,” you said. “you could die.”

he didn’t look all that upset or shocked. “i won’t die, baby. i won’t.”

your stomach gave a pitiful lurch at the nickname. “save your energy.”

“is that your doctorly way of telling me to shut up?” he teased.

“yes, it is,” you nodded. “now, shut up while i help you.”

he looked at you like you were hanging the stars in the sky, not tending to him with hands red from his blood.

no one had stopped talking about luke since he got back. the first failed quest in years, with two of the three members dying and the third one permanently scarred by a dragon. not a good ratio.

you often saw luke sitting alone now, and when he was nowhere to be found, you knew where he was.

maybe there was something to the strings of fate theory, you thought as you found him and sat down beside him among the reeds. they were taller now and more dense, but the two of you had carved out a little spot for yourselves over time. your limbs were still pressed against each other though. that was one thing that would never change.

he was turning something over in his hands. a repetitive motion.

you tried to make sense of what it was, but couldn’t.

“it’s a dragon claw,” he spoke up. “the one that did this.” he pointed at the still-red scar on his face. that was why you couldn’t get rid of that one. magic scars never really went away.

you stayed quiet.

“peter distracted the dragon just in time for me to get my sword back. i got the cut, but when i turned back he was getting thrown against the mountainside.” he shook his head bitterly. “he didn’t stand a chance.”

you stared at a dragonfly on a reed in front of you. “knowing my brother, he just would have been happy to be there. and happy that you’re alive.”

he smiled, but it looked forced and bitter. “yeah. he spent the whole time talking about how lucky we were for this opportunity, and how he was so excited to explore beyond camp… and gianna was the same. they were just…” he was fiddling with his camp beads now.

you watched his movements slowly. it was like he’d never been gone, but also like everything had changed. there was a new tension in the air around him. you weren’t sure if it was you or him.

“don’t be resentful,” you said softly, breaking the silence.

“what?” his eyes turned to you. “what do you mean?”

“don’t resent yourself and the gods for this,” you said, leaning a little closer to him and looking away. the dragonfly hadn’t moved—like it was listening. watching. “peter and gianna made their choices. they’re in elysium now. that’s about as good as it gets.”

he pressed his lips together and nodded. “i know.”

maybe there was something to the two hearts theory too, because you could tell he didn’t. he didn’t agree. he didn’t want to. you slipped your hand into his. “you know i’m always here for you, right, luke? i mean, you annoy me—a lot—but you’re still, well, you. and you’re important to me. i’ll always be there for you. if you want to hold hate in your heart, then be my guest. i’ll just have to hold more love in mine to balance you out.”

he was watching your connected fingers as you spoke. his hands were calloused and hard, but yours were softer. less time spent training and more time spent healing. “love for who?”

you, you thought. you didn’t speak.

he turned to look at you. you were already looking at him. “love for me?”

you swallowed tightly. “luke…”

he leaned in closer, until his lips were moments away from touching yours. one wrong move and you’d touch. or was that the right move? was the wrong move pulling away? leaving him alone—again? that didn’t feel fair. but nor did your pounding heart and your flushing cheeks, and maybe you were blushing now, but that didn’t mean you had to like it.

then you gave in. that string that connected your souls was pulling you too tight. your lips brushed against his softly at first, and before you could think to move any further, his hand was gripping the back of your neck and pulling you closer, and his lips were pressing against yours with the passion of years of built up tension. you’d never hated him at all, you realised. you loved him the whole time. sure, he was irritating. he was chatty. he was pushy and annoying and never stopped bothering you. but you’d missed his bothering, and you’d missed his smile, and when he pulled away to take a breath, you missed his lips with a fiery need that bubbled up from deep down inside you.

“guess i’ll be annoying you for the rest of our lives then, huh?” he said softly, chest rising and falling against yours.

your eyes were still closed, reeling from the kiss. “wasn’t that a given anyway? i wouldn’t want it any other way, personally.”

when he kissed you again, you decided that the theory about two hearts was, in fact, correct. you met as two, seperate halves in a fucked up world that had you grow up far too fast. you grew as two, finding your places at camp, finding your people, but always finding each other first. you met now as one. four arms, four legs, two hearts, meeting in a tumultuous display of love and desire. and that’s how you wanted to stay. your limbs locked with his, your hearts pounding in sync, your every feeling, every emotion, every sensation making your very soul hum with joy. you’d found him, finally, after years of your hearts waiting for this moment. finally, your two hearts were one again.

#luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo #pjo x reader #luke castellan x you #charlie bushnell

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bennyden · 3 months

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User hamatoanne's fic plagiarism

Hello, I’m the author of The Android, an AO3 Robot OC x Reader fic that was plagiarized by hamatoanne on Tumblr in her Aemond x Reader story, System Error. You can read my AO3 post for more info about the issue. As you can tell by the timestamps on AO3 and the screenshots of her now-deleted story, mine was posted months before hers. I didn’t want to make this public, but it appears Anne has not learned her lesson and is grasping at straws to keep her readers in the dark. She’s been deleting her stories to hide evidence of her plagiarism. I think you deserve to know who your beloved writer gets her words from.

I don’t know this fandom, but I’ve heard you guys can get pretty crazy. Control yourselves. The only one who needs to take responsibility is Anne. Don’t send hate to her mutuals. Don’t send hate to her followers. Don’t stalk or harass or dox anyone. Read through this post and form your opinion.

First bunch of screenshots: A side-by-side comparison of her story (now deleted) and mine (still up and linked above). I took screenshots in advance in case something like this happened so I’d have proof if I needed it. I decided to compare the first chapter of my fic with the first part of hers. I could do the whole thing, but I’m a busy college student and I think just a quick skim of the pictures below is enough for people to see the extent of her plagiarism.

I have screenshots of her entire post, but I don’t want to make this too long to scroll through and Tumblr posts cap at 30 pictures. I’m assuming some of you have already read her story multiple times, so you’re familiar with the words. If you haven’t, then I should warn you that the fic that she plagiarized is very not SFW. I’ll let you know where the not SFW content starts so you can skip it.

On the left is my story. On the right is what Anne posted (and took down).

Not SFW content starts here.

Not SFW content over.

Finally, I DM’ed her. This was just before I posted to The Android on AO3 about the situation. To summarize, I wrote about how I would go about the situation and how hurt I was about a bigger creator stealing from me. I admit, I was too kind and too much of a pushover. I just wanted things to go quietly. She later replied with this and deleted her fic immediately.

“I was completely stupid for not giving your credit” Why do they always play dumb? You copy that much and can’t even think to put my name there? You credit the artist but not the person who basically wrote your whole story? The story that gave you over 3k notes, so much more clout than any of your other stories has earned you? Total BS.

“I had every intention of giving credit where it was due…But I forgot” Right. Sure. Of course. If she felt guilty about plagiarizing, she would not be so shameless to accept praise like she did. I have examples of where she happily thanked people for complimenting "her work”, but didn’t want to bring other blogs into this, especially since they were none the wiser to her plagiarism. Ironically enough, someone even gifted her a badge for being a good writer the day she replied to my DM. She tagged that post “#a breath of fresh air on a horrible day”. I wonder why her day was horrible. Whoever gifted her that badge deserves their money back.

My thoughts when approaching her DMs were:

If she wants to keep up the story? Fine, just edit the post to say that it was heavily influenced by my story and leave a link to the original. I don’t mind. The readers will see that, click my story, compare the two, and think, “Hey, that’s not just inspiration! She plagiarized!” and her downfall would start from there without me having to do anything.

If she ignored me and didn’t fulfill that request, i would take matters into my own hands and expose her on her own post. Even more damaging.

In the end, she chose to delete the post entirely, getting rid of the evidence and her clout. I actually didn’t expect this outcome since I thought she’d like the clout too much, but I guess she decided this route would be the least damaging to her reputation. Everything was swept under the rug for now.

And like a fool, I said thanks and went on with my life. But I decided to keep track of her. Because while I was too cowardly to do anything, I knew there would always be someone in the crowd who would take action. And it seems like people did.

After reading the supportive comments from readers of my fic, I started to regret how lightly I handled it. I wanted to be mature even though I wanted her entire blog to fall and her reputation taken away. But I didn’t want to be a “bad person”. I wondered if I should keep pursuing the issue. I realized that my overly-people-pleasing behavior might lead her to continue her ways. I decided to speak out because others might’ve had their works taken by her and that my silence wasn’t helping.

Next is her post, now deleted (I wonder why), about how she’s been so sad and how she’s going to be deleting her old stories and starting over. I’m likely not the only one she’s plagiarized from if she’s deleting other stories. At the time, I only saw supportive replies and reblogs on it, but maybe she deleted it after people started calling her out? Idk.

She’s playing the victim game pretty hard. Acting as a kind underdog even though she’s the big creator who stole from a nobody like me. I know I said on my AO3 update that people shouldn’t send hate to her (and even censored her name after she deleted her story) but I guess I’m a little happy that people sought to call her out on her shit. I wish I was as brave.

Later, a nice person (we’ll call her Bob because she asked to remain anonymous) DM’ed me directly with a kind message. After seeing this, I decided I should take action and expose all of this since Anne obviously hasn’t learned and wants to keep it all hidden. Bob confirmed that I’m not the only victim of Anne’s plagiarism either.

Bob asked that I not use screenshots of our DM’s so here is a transcription of the important parts:

“Hey! I just found out that one of your fics had been plagiarized by someone in the HOTD community. First of all, I am tremendously sorry that happened…”

(For Bob’s privacy, I won’t explain her relation to Anne. Just know that Anne has refused to message her back).

“I definitely think you should make a blog post. with side by side comparison. I am still completely gobsmacked that she pilfered your entire story word for word and changed a few things. We found evidence that she had plagiarized multiple stories. Not just yours. We found out her mermaid!aemond fic was entirely stolen as well as a few others. She has quietly deleted them and hasn't spoken on them since.”

“We surmised that she takes ‘underrated’ fics from different fandoms and changes the name and that's it. It's almost like she believed that stealing from other fandoms was going to draw less attention than stealing directly from the HOTD fandom.”

So if you noticed that one of your favorite Aemond fics is gone, now you know why.

‘But benny, she still wrote her own sentences and just changed it around to fit aemond!’

Fanfiction is transformative. You know what the source material is and who created it. You know you’re not reading a copied and pasted text with maybe some words and sentences switched around. This wasn’t fanfic. According to Google, plagiarism is defined as, “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.” (See what I did there? I credited Google. Is it so hard to give credit where credit is due?) She copied people's work, didn't give credit to the source material, and claimed it as her own. That's plagiarism.

I wouldn’t have had a problem if she properly credited me and linked the original story. I wouldn’t have had a problem if she didn’t blatantly copy and paste the entire text and premise. I wouldn’t even require getting permission to write a story based on my fic if she had satisfied those conditions.

She’s a 27-year-old grown-ass woman with enough free time to simp over some blond guy with an eyepatch. I’m a 21-year-old college student who only posts fics during the summer and winter because that’s when school’s on break. I’m too busy writing lab reports and essays to be an active writer online. The fact that she can disrespect smaller writers so tremendously should not be acceptable. The fact that she also deceived her devoted readers and friends about her "works" is also unacceptable.

What can you do about this? To be honest, I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had to deal with this before. I want to be a good person and say, “Don’t send any hate to Anne, don’t harass her. Just unfollow her and stop supporting her.” But that obviously hasn’t taught her anything. She’ll just make a half-assed apology, maybe go on hiatus, maybe disappear, and then pop up again under another name to steal from another creator. If you have any ideas on how to deal with this, please tell us.

She can try to block me or delete her posts, but the evidence is out and the damage is done. Anything she does to hide this mess will only make it worse for her. I’d appreciate people bringing more awareness to this issue, especially if it can reach the eyes of others she’s taken from.

Thanks for reading.

#aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #aemond x reader #hotd #house of the dragon #reader fanfiction #prince aemond #plagiarism #android x reader #robot x reader #ao3 #aemond and reader smut

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withlovemark · 10 months

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all of the moments that led me to you.

warning: steve's black eye (nothing new), violence, mentions of blood, a fight between steve x billy

pairing: steve x reader, light billy x reader (not really, this isn't a love triangle lol)

words: 4.5k+

summary: the title speaks for itself -- a series of moments with steve harrington

an: i was going to post everything as one fic but i kind of hit writer's block in the middle of year 1985 so i'll post this for now instead and hopefully gain some inspiration to continue :)

yr. 1984

i. the first meeting ft. dustin henderson

the words “code red” hitting your ears every five seconds, the stomping of feet running around the house, the back door opening and closing several times - babysitting is weird. not one kid is ever the same, some are easy-going, others can be a real pain in the ass.

you hoped you got an easy kid today. one that just stays in front of the television, binging on crackers and occasionally asking for your help. obviously, you were wrong.

if it wasn’t for the fact that it pays well while simultaneously allowing you to do some of your own studies and looking good on your college resume, you wouldn’t even be here.

but you are here. seated inside the henderson household.

“hey y/n, can you please drive me to my friend mike’s house?,” dustin runs into the living room, an exasperated expression on his face, interrupting your reading.

“are you okay?” you ask, worried about the kid you just met when his mother called an hour ago trailing on about how she saw your babysitting flyer some time back. and even though she knew that she had to book a date at least two days beforehand, she still asked if you could watch over her son.

“just for today” she said, as she needed to look for her missing cat. her promise of double pay, convincing you to accept her request.

“i’m fine, i just really need you to drive me to mike’s,” dustin says hurriedly, eyes hopeful that you wouldn’t ask anymore questions.

“why?” you ask and the boy’s shoulder slumps, doing his best to not roll his eyes at your persistence. he’s obviously not used to asking for permission.

“i uhm forgot my book there and i really, really need it to study for my exam tomorrow,” he sends you a toothy grin, trying to convince you that that was all there is to it. you’re no fool. you notice the slight change in his voice, his fingers anxiously playing with his pockets, right leg slightly bouncing up and down - indications that he’s lying.

“you know your mom’s not paying for my gas, right?” you reason, not wanting to give in to his request and hoping you could just have a calm afternoon.

dustin sighs, his smile disappearing, “fine. i’ll just go behind your back and bike there and if i end up missing or in a ditch somewhere then it’ll be your fault,” he counters, personality quickly switching from the boy who said “please.”

you sat there, flabbergasted, “are you…blackmailing me right now?” an eyebrow raising, you couldn’t believe how diabolical the curly headed boy is.

“i’m not blackmailing you. i’m simply telling you what's going to happen if you don’t drive me,” he smiles, an almost devilish smile, tone hardening with every word and you truly do not know whether you’re terrified or impressed.

letting out a quiet chuckle, you shake your head, “alright, c’mon kid,” you say, grabbing your car keys off the table, “but we’re going back as soon as you get it.”

——

you should’ve known not to trust him, finding yourself hurriedly getting into the back seat of the car of the last person you ever expected to interact with - steve harrington.

pushing his forgotten red roses towards the other end of the car, you take your seat in the middle.

“wh-what are you doing?” dustin turns from the passenger seat, facing you as steve takes in your presence, eyes on his rearview mirror, a confused expression evident on his face.

“y/n l/n?,” he questions, finally remembering where he has seen you before, “you’re in nancy’s grade?,” he asks, more a question for himself than you.

you nod, “steve harrington,” acknowledging his presence for the first time.

“why are you with dustin?” he wonders. he didn’t know much about you. only that you and nancy were sometimes studying in the library together. she’s told him before that you always get the top grades in class and she wanted to be around more motivated people like you.

“i’m his babysitter and i’m coming with,” you simply answer his question, keeping the explanation short. it’s weird enough that you were inside the car of hawkin high’s famous “king.”

“since when did you have a babysitter dude,” steve reverts his attention back to dustin.

“i'll explain later,” dustin reassures him quickly before turning back to you, “and uhm, you don’t have to come, i have steve now,” he points to the guy in the driver seat like you don’t see him.

from what you’ve heard about steve, you’re not sure you trust leaving the young boy with him. he’s known for being notorious, having bad company and overall, just a guy with the money, the looks and the popularity that somehow has every girl wanting him and every boy wanting to be him. you’re not sure how that guy can be trusted with kids.

subconsciously, you eye steve suspiciously, causing him to put two hands up in surrender “hey, i have no idea what’s happening either,” he defends, shrugging nonchalantly.

snapping out of your daze, you focused your attention back on dustin, “look dustin, steve isn’t the one being paid to watch you right now,” you start to explain.

“hold on, you’re getting paid for this?” the older boy interrupted.

you ignore him, attention still on dustin, “if something were to happen to you, your mom would be looking for me. i’m responsible for you kid, i-,”

“fine! there’s no time,” he cuts you off, obviously in a rush.

“you can come, just,” dustin contemplates, already regretting the words that slipped from his lips, “just don’t blame me for getting you into this thing.”

at that, steve snaps back to reality, “wait, wait, wait, if this ‘thing’ is about ‘that’ then she definitely can NOT come,” steve declared, his voice laced with a seriousness you didn’t think he could have.

“well, are you going to drag her out of the car so she doesn’t find out about this thing?,” the younger boy replies, a sarcastic tone evident on his lips.

“guys, i can hear you,” you piped in, eyes going back and forth between the two boys, having absolutely no clue what they’re referring to.

“dustin, im not joking ok!,” steve ignores you, “we can’t tell people about this,” a serious expression appearing on his face, one you’ve never seen on him before, “we’ll get in trouble, you know that. besides, we shouldn’t involve anyone else into this anyway!,” he protested.

he didn’t sound like the steve you would hear about at school. he sounded responsible, protective. he sounded like…a babysitter.

“i know that steve, that’s why i told her to leave!,” dustin shouted.

“well, she’s clearly still sitting in the backseat of my car!,” steve’s voice raises with every syllable.

“can someone just explain what’s happening?” you try butting in, rolling your eyes, completely fading into the background as they continue their bickering.

“i don’t see YOU trying to do anything about it!,” dustin throws the argument back to steve, his patience on thin ice.

“she’s YOUR babysitter!,” steve points out yet again, ears turning red, veins popping and finally pushing the young boys’ limit.

“fuCK!, we don’t have time for this steve, we really have to go NOW!” dustin shouts, losing his temper.

steve, ready to reprimand him, before you decide you’ve had enough.

the series of “thing” and “this” has your mind spinning and your curiosity getting the best of you.

“SHUT UP!” gaining the two boys’ attention, their bodies turning towards you, “both of you. shut. up.” you enunciate, loud and clear.

“i promise i won’t blame you…or you,” glancing at the two boys, “for whatever the hell this thing is…just put your seatbelts on and drive,” ending their argument as you sat behind the passenger seat, clicking your own seatbelt into place.

steve gives up, letting out a sigh, “fuck it,” before finally stepping on the gas.

ii. the babysitters and an angry billy hargrove

you should have never picked up mrs. henderson’s call and you definitely shouldn’t have agreed to babysitting. what was the point of having your own terms and conditions when you didn’t even follow them yourself?

you should, however, have listened to steve and dustin when they told you to leave.

the day isn’t even over yet and you’re already questioning everything you knew. in a span of a couple of hours, you have been introduced to a world you couldn’t even imagine. having to pinch yourself a couple of times to make sure you weren’t just dreaming.

everything was strange.

you’ve spent the whole afternoon dropping meat, trying to bait something called a demogorgon. met steve’s spiked bat. got questioned regarding your relationship with billy hargrove from his very own red headed step-sister. came face to face with the said demogorgon, who, by the way, had demogorgon friends and were actually a pack of demodogs. almost died in a junkyard. walked in the dark woods just to end up in a creepy laboratory. felt the awkward tension between steve, nancy and jonathan. understood why will byers was called the zombie boy. stood behind steve while holding a random kitchen knife you grabbed from the byers’ kitchen — and to top it all off, encountered a little girl who flung the finally, very dead demogorgon through the window then unlocked the front door, all using only her mind.

in conclusion, monsters and superpowers aren’t just a thing people read in their comic books.

“how are you holding up?” steve breaks you out of your thoughts, your eyes snapping to his voice.

everyone else has left, leaving you the only two teenagers to act as the adults once again.

the strangest thing of all of this was somehow, steve harrington went from being the popular jock to a guy whose simple presence can provide you comfort. everything you knew about him has changed.

it’s amazing what shared trauma could do.

you shoot him a small smile, “well, i definitely wasn’t expecting all this,” you look around the mess around you, “to be a part of that thing” you refer back to the boys’ banter, trying to keep the energy light despite everything that happened.

he gives you a sheepish smile, almost like he was sorry, regretting that he allowed you to be a part of this.

“it’s not your fault. i chose to come,” you say, reading his thoughts and putting an end to them.

“where did you put the demogorgon?” you continue, changing the subject, reassuring him that you were ok. at least, as much as anyone could be ok in this situation.

“we stuffed it in the fridge,” he shakes his head, arms crossing, like he couldn't believe it himself, “‘for science’ dustin said,” steve quotes the younger boy with a grin.

“right, of course, all the important things,” you chuckled, matching his grin as the two of you continued to clean the broken fragments that have scattered around the house.

you thought it was over, that you could all just wait for everything else to unfold in peace but after a few minutes of silence, the kids were back on their feet, ready to "get off the bench.” you’re not sure how steve has the energy to continue arguing with them when you’re completely exhausted.

the sound of an engine brings a silence to the house, max running towards the blinds recognizing the car that has made an appearance in the driveway, “shit, it’s billy, he can’t see me,” she says frantically, eyes meeting yours, a silent call for help.

“i got it, just hide,” you hushly ordered, quickly making your way to the front porch. steve tried pulling you back but you were out the door before anyone could protest, resulting in him looking through the peephole.

billy’s momentarily confused expression at your arrival wasn’t lost on you and if you were in his shoes you’d probably have the same one on, “hey sweetheart, what are you doing here?,” his husky voice taking up space in the cold, night air.

standing a couple steps away from him, his hand immediately finds a spot on your waist, pulling you closer. you placed a hand on his chest to keep some distance between the two of you, aware of the audience you have, “i’m babysitting a kid, his friend lives here,” you explain, smiling sweetly at him, hoping that he won’t suspect anything and leave as soon as he came.

“have you seen my sister?” he asks breathily, face inching closer and closer to yours, a smirk on his lips. if it was any other day, you would have enjoyed his attention, maybe even be up for some fun. right now though, you just want him as far from max as possible.

“no, why would she be here?,” feigning innocence, you hope he believes your lie.

“she’s been hanging out with a couple of kids here, a bunch of bad influences,” he huffed, eyes quickly glancing around you before pulling you even closer.

“i haven’t seen her, she’s probably at the arcade, have you checked?,” you hope he doesn’t hear the shakiness in your voice.

“you know what i like about you sweetheart?,” he muttered, placing a harsh kiss below your ear, his grip on your waist starting to dig into your skin. you know he has caught you.

“you can’t lie for shit,” pulling you away from him, gaze darkening, he howled with laughter as you followed his line of vision, seeing four kids peeking through the window — one, with very bright red hair.

frustrated curses slip from your lips as you shoot them an angry glance before billy grabs your wrist, dragging you right behind him as he pounded on the door, coming face to face with steve.

“harrington, am i dreaming or is that you?,” he mocks, his hold on your wrist tightening.

“yeah it’s me, don’t cream your pants,” steve rolls his eyes, hands on his hips like a disappointed mother.

steve notices you wince under billy’s hold, “let her go man,” he orders, taking a step towards the wider boy.

billy focuses his attention back on you, for a second you see a feeling of betrayal flash through his eyes but that was quickly replaced with a snarled expression, like he was completely disgusted with the thought of you.

“is there a reason why you both are here alone?” his dark voice causes goosebumps to rise throughout your body.

you’ve heard of how violent he can be but until right now, he has never shown that side to you.

“what are you saying?,” you almost couldn’t recognize him anymore, breath hitching in your throat.

“are you fucking him behind my back, sweetheart?,” billy’s voice grew menacing, “you know i don’t like to share,” he continued accusing you, his free hand coming in contact with your neck, forcing you to look at him.

“dude, no. we’re babysitting,” steve answers for you and motioning towards the kids like it’s the most obvious answer in the world.

“you’re hurting her,” he emphasized, “just let her go,” gently stepping closer, steve has his arms slowly reaching for you, hands up, a signal that he comes in peace.

steve hopes billy will focus his attention on him instead, just wanting to get you out of there. he feels responsible for your safety and well-being.

“gladly…” billy shot him an evil smirk, “you can’t trust bitches anyways right, harrington?,” he scowled, violently throwing you against the wall.

your head makes a direct impact with the concrete, causing you to fall to the ground, a whimper slipping through your lips. you hear the kids' screams and a punch being thrown as you feel your vision slipping between darkness and light.

you make out dustin running towards you and grabbing your hand, trying to get you to sit up. a couple of unsuccessful tries, he pleads “i’ll come back okay, just stay alive,” as he makes his way back to his friends.

the proceeding events were all a blur and it felt like you were watching it through static television. one moment you can hear victorious cheers. the next moment, you hear something break and steve is suddenly lying on the floor a couple feet away from you, bloody faced and barely breathing. billy continuously throws his punches and the kids scream in fear. you try to get up but your body betrays you, only allowing you to reach out your arm towards the brown haired boy.

somehow, the sound of the punches halted and billy fell to the ground. a sigh of relief escapes from your lips while the slow rise and fall of steve harrington’s chest becomes the last thing you see as you completely fade into the darkness.

—

the next time you open your eyes is to another set of screams, waking you up from your much needed slumber, if you can even call it that. you ignore the pounding in your head as you try to regain your vision. the first thing you feel are the strong arms in front of you, acting as your seatbelt, as you try to piece it all together.

a couple minutes of confusion later, you finally recognize what’s happening, joining steve in full babysitter mode. the yelling of “no’s!,” and “stop the car’s!,” filling the tiny vehicle.

“great, now they’re both awake!, i told you we should have just left them!,” mike cursed dustin annoyingly.

“we were not going to leave them there, mike!,” dustin retorted, “c’mon guys i promised you’ll be cool, okay? just calm. down,” he softly ordered, like he was the babysitter and you two were his children.

you scoff, “dustin, don’t fucking tell me to calm down!,” somehow fearing for your life now more than ever.

“everyone just shut up, i’m trying to focus!,” max yells as lucas yells the directions in her ear.

max makes a harsh turn causing a chorus of screams to rise. your hand immediately clutching around steve’s arm, face burrowing in his neck, seeking for protection, afraid of the crash that luckily never came.

you’re not even too sure what happened the rest of the night but somehow you all made it out unscathed, besides the fact that you and steve are probably suffering matching concussions.

iii. the heart-to-heart

in the tiny bathroom of the byer’s house, you find yourself standing in between steve harrington’s legs. his body feels familiar now, especially after you seeked comfort in each other in the dark tunnel, the two of you thinking it would be your last breaths. in some way, the miracle happened and the screeching demogorgons ran straight past the two of you, like you weren’t even there.

you remember looking up at his golden, brown eyes. being that close to him, you noticed how beautiful they actually are and finally understood how he has charmed every girl at school.

‘i guess it wouldn’t have been too bad dying in steve harrington’s arms.’ you thought to yourself.

brushing those thoughts away, you bask in the moment of solitude within the commotion that is taking place behind the bathroom door. everyone reunited here, checking up on each other.

“does it hurt?” you ask him as you gently pat the alcohol covered cotton pad around his eye, cleaning up the bits of red that have stained them.

he slightly winces, hoping you didn’t notice, “i’m fine, this isn’t my first rodeo,” he assures, sending you a wink before completely regretting the tiny action, a frown briskly replacing his smile, causing small chuckles to slip between your lips.

“you know, you should really stop getting into fights, i could’ve sworn you had a black eye just a year ago,” you remember it like it was yesterday - steve harrington walking the halls of hawkins high without his two minions for the first time, looking like he had fallen off his throne as the hushed whispers grew louder until they finally made its way throughout the school in a matter of minutes.

you could tell he wasn’t at all the person he was trying to be and for a second, you saw yourself in him. you wanted to get to know that steve. the steve that may understand you. but that second didn’t last long.

“so you were watchin me?” he teases, a smirk on his lips resulting in a playful shove and an eye roll from you.

gently grabbing his chin, you stare straight into his eyes, “of course i was. you’re steve harrington,” you remind him, “everyone watches you,” stating the facts before letting go and going back to removing all the dried up blood from his pretty face.

he clears his throat, shrugging his shoulders, playing it cool, “yeah, i guess you’re right,” he says dumbfoundedly, making you laugh.

“you’re ridiculous,” you quietly comment, a smile still on your lips. steve focuses on your light touches, trying not to wince every time you get near his open wounds. you notice his knuckles going white, gripping the toilet seat he was sitting on and ever so gently, hurried your actions.

“there, all clean,” you softly declare as you slip from his space, turning around and putting all mrs. byer’s first aid kit back into place. he quietly thanks you, leaning his head back a bit to rest, his eyes shutting for a second.

“thanks, by the way,” you break the silence “for protecting me earlier… with billy and all the upside down things,” you explain, looking at steve through the mirror. he nods, not entirely sure he’s deserving of your gratitude. you protected him as much as he protected you.

“is he always that violent with you?” steve asks, an eyebrow going up.

you immediately shake your head, “no, he’s never laid a hand on me, i don’t know what came over him,” you say honestly.

“why billy hargrove?” he asks, causing you to pause your actions, paying attention to him.

“what do you mean?” you reply, turning around to face him once again, your back against the tiny kitchen sink.

“well, you didn’t leave dustin alone even though you just started babysitting him today, you care about having seatbelts on, you immediately covered up for max and just now, you took care of me when you should be taking care of yourself,” he points out, “you’re responsible and kind and you care and, well, billy is just a huge dick,” he finished, a hand flailing in the air as you stare at him, stunned at his observations.

you compose your thoughts for a while, not at all ready to have a heart to heart with steve harrington in a bathroom.

instead, you throw the question back at him, “why nancy wheeler?”

“you cannot possibly be comparing billy to nancy,” he replies quickly, a disapproving tone laced in his voice.

“i’m not,” you say defensively, “i’m just saying, she hurt you too but you’re still with her, you-”

“i-i don’t know if we’re actually still together,” he sadly replies, cutting you off, eyes dropping to the floor and you think back to the woods earlier that night — nancy emerging with jonathan right by her side.

“but you still love her,” you continue, “even though she’s hurt you, you still love her,” you finish, trying to make a point.

“so, you’re in love with billy?” he concludes.

you scoff, wanting to say yes and finally drop the subject but the mere thought of agreeing with that sentence makes you visibly wince.

“god no, i’ve been on a couple dates with the guy, it’s far from love,” earning an even more confused steve to face you.

“i don’t know if it’s because i got my brains punched out or i really am just dumb but i completely lost you there,” he admit, a tiny smile on his lips and all you could do is sigh.

heart to heart talk it is.

“you’re not dumb, i just-” taking a deep breath, you prepare yourself.

“we all have our own reasons why were with someone,” you begin, “i’m just so tired of the perfect good girl image that has been imposed on me, it's like people just see me as that and nothing else,” as soon as you start, the dam breaks, flowing.

you find yourself entrusting your deepest thoughts to him, “i can’t be fun because good girls aren’t supposed to be, i go to parties and people are confused that i'm there. you know, i even joined the cheerleading team so people can see me as something more? but all that does is fuel the assumption that i can do everything and still get shit done...that im not capable of mistakes and bad decisions. that i’ll turn out to be something great when really i’m just so damn scared all the time,” your voice breaks but before he could comment, you cleared your throat and continued.

“i guess being with him makes people finally see me out of my stereotype” you confess, waiting for him to say something. the silence becomes overbearing and you feel completely vulnerable under his gaze.

“oh,” steve responds, before bursting into laughter and you feel like a complete idiot, eyebrows shifting downward. god, you’re so ready to dramatically walk out of this bathroom and slam the door against his face but before you could do that, he notices.

“hey wait,” he says, gently grabbing your arm, asking you to stay as he arranges his thoughts.

“i’m sorry, i’m just relieved that you’re not actually in love with him because you deserve a lot better than billy hargrove,” he says charmingly, his cool facade still on display.

“i know,” you agree, stopping yourself from rolling your eyes, “is that all?” you ask, still annoyed.

“yeah,” steve starts, “i-no,” you give him time. you know that he’s having a war in his mind right now, the same one you just had.

he avoids your gaze, thinking to himself, until finally, he puts his defenses down, “i understand you,” he confesses.

“if it makes you feel better, it’s not at all greener on this side, i wished people looked at me less, i wish i didn’t have to go to all these parties just for people to respect me,” steve rattled on, feeling the weight fall off his shoulders with every word that falls off his lips, his facade disappearing bit by bit.

“i completely gave up on school because everyone has already expected me to fail and i started to believe them…it’s tiring having to pretend i’m this ‘king’ steve,” he quotes, “when really i am spiraling and have no fucking clue what i even want in life...i’ll probably just end up having a stupid job i hate and being as bitter as my father,” he sadly chuckles.

“i’m just as scared as you,” he ends with a small smile, eyes meeting yours. he feels lighter after having said it all out loud for the first time and he can’t quite comprehend how he feels so safe sharing his saddest truths with you.

but as you cast him a kind smile, the words “fuck stereotypes,” making its way to his ears, he can’t help but be thankful for the spilled truths and ajar doors.

steve mirrors your expression and you’re glad you finally got to meet him. not “playboy” steve harrington and definitely not steve “the king” harrington.

just steve.

next: yr. 1985 (to be written)

an: a lil bridgerton reference there hehe ... thank you for reading! let me know if you're interested in reading the other moments i had planned :)

feel free to inspire me by dropping your thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc. here <3

#steve harrington x you #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington imagine #stranger things x reader #steve harrington angst #steve harrington x reader angst #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington x reader fluff #steve harrington stranger things #steve harrington hurt/comfort #dustin henderson #billy hargove imagine #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove x reader angst #stranger things #stranger things x y/n

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bunnys-kisses · 1 month

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teacher's pet - halsin silverbough

pairing: halsin silverbough x fem!reader rating: 18+ tags: pwp, apprentice!reader, master/pupil relationship, smut, 2.3k words, multiple positions, a small fic a/n: partially inspired by this post by @chiwhorei

To join with Halsin was not something you expected to happen. You were quite content with being his apprentice in the Grove. But, when he decided to join the party to find out more about the tadpoles, you were taken away on the adventure too.

At first it was hard to be away from home, you often missed it quite dearly. But Halsin was there to comfort you during the early period of your journey.

”We will return before you know it.“ He said as he placed you in his lap and rubbed your head with his large hand. He wiped away the stray tears and even joked that you'd become a hero. That made you smile a little.

You, a hero? It was almost comical. You bloomed under his attention and care, he still made sure that you were kept up to date with your studies. When he returned to camp, he often asked you questions about what you had been reading that day.

”You have to keep your mind sharp, you know.“ He said, ”Now, why don't you try again with that question?”

But with time, his touches lingered longer. His gaze held yours more often. He often found himself touching parts of you while at camp. He especially loved placing his hand on the small of your back and guiding you around. After all, you were meant to learn everything from him.

He told you that he could never imagine leaving you behind at Emerald Grove. You were meant to be his side, after all that was why he picked you to be his apprentice. Even though he had many throughout his life, there was none like you.

“So curious.” He once said, “So kind.” He wanted to reach out for you, but stopped himself. He had to maintain a hard line between apprentice and pupil.

But in all fairness, it didn't take long for the line to become blurred. Those back at the Grove wouldn't know if he touched your back or got a good smell of your hair as you walked by. They wouldn't know that he had one more than on occasion pleasured himself to thoughts of you.

He wondered if you had any lovers, if a man had ever touched you. Not that he was the most possessive man, but he was curious if he had to teach you more than just healing.

He wondered how you tasted, how you sounded when you reached climax. How hot your body would run if he pleasured you in just the right way. There were many questions that all made him wonder if he'd ever get an answer or would they be simple ideas that wracked his brain when he was alone.

He stood close to six feet and five inches. He made you feel so small, even with the encouraging smiles. He knew that, he knew that you'd always be so much smaller than him. But that was alright, he was your teacher after all. Which meant that he was assigned to protect you when the wilderness outside the Grove became too powerful for you.

And of course, you'd be there to bandage his wounds. One time you were applying bandages and he got a good look at your cleavage. He wondered if such a smaller woman could become as powerful as him. He held a need to protect you, even from himself.

But he was often lost in thought about you. You were the same way. And like a strong magnet, you came together in a night of heated passion. Then another one soon after that, then another one after that. Soon it became a frequent occurrence.

“I'm doing this to train you further, you should be able to perform under pressure.” But in reality he loved how you squirmed on his cock and he loved dumping his seed deep into you.

“Of course, master.” You blushed, “I want to learn everything you know!”

He smiled and patted your head, “ Of course, little one. Now come here before the others come back.” Then patted his lap.

It was another long day, night had crossed the sky. Most of the party was asleep except for you and Halsin. You had waited in the dark until Halsin moved from his bed roll and went into the forest. You followed soon after him like a puppy dog.

He heard you following him and turned around to look at you. You picked up the pace and got closer to him. He wrapped an arm around your shoulders and pulled you close to him. Your face was up against his side as he led you further into the woods.

You felt excitement to your core as eventually you two found a familiar clearing to have your nightly activities. You felt a heat pool in your gut as you exited the thickness of the woods.

He let go of you and you walked closer to the nearby river. His gaze caught the sight of your ass as you swayed your hips from side to side. He chuckled to himself, “Teasing me, aren't you?”

You looked at him, “No, sir.” And yelped when he closed the gap between you two and grabbed you by the ass. He squeezed the cheek and leaned down to kiss you to silence you.

Your legs became like jelly as you melted into his kiss. He knew exactly how to make you weak. You had trained so hard to have zero weakness! Yet, your master was the one who left you so weak and vulnerable.

When he pulled away, he took you by the hand and led you up on the boulders that lined the river. He began to undress you slowly, it was like opening a present. He had seen you naked before, but this was something else. To see you up so close.

He kept you in his large lap as he pulled your clothes off of you. His callused hands grabbed your breasts. He pulled at your nipples gently over your thin bra before he took that off too. Your naked body was exposed to the warm air of the night.

“You look divine, my apprentice. I wish I could have done this sooner. To taste you, to have you.” He dipped his head to kiss at your neck. You reached behind you to grab onto his hair.

He continued to play with your breasts, he listened closely to the sounds that you made. His covered erection rubbed against your back.

“Do you want me, little one? Do you want to feel me inside of you.” He pulled at your nipples once more, “Because I want to feel every inch of you.” His voice was low and hot, it made heat curl in your stomach.

“Please, sir. Take me.” You whined in response. You did everything you could to keep your voice low. You didn't want your passionate cries to be heard from camp.

He chuckled, “Of course, anything for my little apprentice.” Then picked you up with ease and placed you down beside him. He slowly began to take off his clothes, careful not to toss them into the river by accident.

You blushed at the sight of fuzz on his body and the strength of his muscles. You often joked that he looked like the bear he turned into, and he said that you'd make a cuter cub. Which only made your ears grow hotter.

Once he was naked, he man-handled you like you weighed nothing and got you settled back into his lap. He pushed hair away from your face and buried his face in your neck as he moved you so you could be seated on his cock.

You held onto your knees as you felt the stretch of your pussy around his cock. You held your breath and reminded yourself to breathe as you sank on his length. When you were fully seated on it, it felt like it was in your throat.

He was big, but it only made sense considering his proportions. He was a large man with a cock big enough to make anyone feel small. You slowly rolled your hips to get more adjusted to his size. You puffed out your cheeks for a moment as you tried to move up and down his length.

He groaned into your heated skin as he held you in his arms. You could feel the hair on his chest against your heated back. You panted and moaned but tried your best to keep your noises down to a minimum. When you became used to his size inside of you, you felt the wash of pleasure over your heated body.

“Halsin, ah!” You whined as you began to move faster.

He chuckled and kissed at your neck, “That's it. Such a good apprentice. You're an amazing learner. But you still have a lot to learn.”

“Ah, sir!” You squeaked as you felt his cock bully your cervix. Of course you'd end up with the man with the largest cock at camp. Not only was he your teacher, but also your lover.

“I feel like I should be quizzing you now.” He laughed, “There's a lot you can learn while being intimate with a man.” He kissed your neck and held you close to him.

You felt your brain practically leak out of your ear. You let him take control of rutting up into you. You reached behind yourself and held onto him as you rode him. Your heart hammered in your chest as the sounds of your fucking filled the nighttime air.

His hands were back on your breasts as he played with your hard nipples. His breath was hot against your already heated skin.

“Please, Halsin.” You whimpered as you felt his cock hit more of your sweet spot. You felt your toes curl as you tried to relax against your lover.

“I know, I know. You feel so good. I can't get enough of you. Since the moment I saw you, I knew you were destined to be mine. Now I have you all to myself. To love, to be with.” He said as he thrusted up into you.

You moaned and arched your back away from your teacher. He held onto your hips to guide you up and down his length. Every hard thrust felt like a blow to the gut. It left you breathless. With his heated pants against your shoulder you felt like you were in a state of euphoria.

You kicked out your legs as you felt a sting of pleasure run up your spine and the heat bloom in your chest. Your head started to feel hazy from the intense feeling. You cling to your lover as he thrusted up into you. His large frame behind you made you feel so tiny and vulnerable.

“My sweet apprentice. You always know how to repay me for my teachings.” He remarked with a slight joke to his voice, “You know how to drive me wild.” He said as if he didn't try to have sex with you weeks earlier while in his bear form.

Your body bounced against his thrusts and you held onto him harder for some stability. Everything felt loose on your body and your brain felt gooey and soft like honey. He had a way with you that you couldn't define into words.

“Please, Halsin.” You whimpered, “Please, sir.”

“Of course, little one.” He then positioned you on your hands and knees, facing the river before you as he thrusted into you at a different angle. You were so easy to move, he could put you into whatever position he needed you in.

Now with a deeper angle, you felt like your womb was in your throat from how hard he was thrusting up into you. He groaned as he continued to move his hips. He pushed you further into the rock under you. Your hips were tilted at an angle that he got to the deepest parts of you. If he was hitting against your cervix prior, he was for sure doing so now.

Your eyes rolled back and the orgasm took you by surprise. You gripped onto him as you arched your back once more. You felt sweaty but at the peak of your pleasure as you climaxed around his heavy cock.

“Good girl.” He said with affection in his tone. He continued to thrust into you. He gave it his all as he held onto your hips, he watched your ass move with each one of his hard strokes.

He licked his lips and leaned in to give your back a nice string of hickies. You were just too perfect in that state, with your nose pressed against the cool rock. To fuck out in the wild was a blessing, to share the sight of your pleasure with nature.

You were divine, his little student. He was going to make sure that you learned everything he could offer. Then maybe, if you agreed too, he'd make you his wife. But until then a little pleasure went a long way.

It wasn't the most conventional, but he didn't mind. You'd make a great woman for the rest of his days. With a few more thrusts of his hips, he finished inside of you with a loud groan.

You two slowed down as the slowness of post orgasmic bliss took over. He pulled out of you and pulled you into his arms. He kissed your face before you turned in his arms. The sight of you aroused him once more.

You giggled a bit before you ran a finger across his slick cock. You whispered, “Let me help you, sir. I see you still have a bit of a problem.”

The chuckle came from deep in his chest, “Of course. Help your teacher, please.” He knew he'd be falling asleep with his cock nestled in your sweet sex.

Such a teacher's pet.

#bunny writes #halsin silverbough #baldurs gate 3 #halsin x tav #halsin x reader #halsin smut #bg3 x reader #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 halsin #bg3 #buldurs gate 3 #buldars gate 3 #video game x reader #halsin silverbough x reader #daddy halsin #halsin bg3

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pieroulette · 11 months

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Did I, A Side Character Became the Male Lead's Wife?!

2023 | 13+ | ONESHOT | YANG JUNGWON × READER | -> PART 2

SUMMARY you — a side character in a royal novel doing absolutely nothing but enjoy your rich ass yet boring life, only watching over the female lead and doing your job in protecting her, only for a pair of kittenish eyes to fall not upon the female lead but on you, unfortunately.

AUTHOR'S NOTE not me writing a whole ass oneshot at 5am bcs of that sweet ask from that one anon, imma name u serotonin dopamine anon lmao- and jungwon bae u r truly my muse.. also inspired by sum manhwas cuz I binge read 90+ chapters in less than a day 💀💀💀 plus happy 900+ followers for me <333 mom wake up I'm famous even tho I'll never let u know what my secret writing blog is about 😊😊

a side character, how cute?

well, you only came to know of this very horrible (not really) fact that you're nothing close to a main character's vibes cause look at you babe, where's the sparkling shiny starry dust on you as you walked through the red carpet at the ball?

and did they even spare a glance at you? unfortunately, nope. because the female lead, Liz; was your enemy, at least in how your character was written in the novel by the goddamn author which was you.

yes, that's right!

you, a hella introverted author dwelling in the deepest corner of her room doing nothing but spent an ungodly amount of hours creating the perfect and enchanting characters after crying for major character death of a fic a few years ago. wiping your dripping tears off your cheeks in a comical way as you pull open your laptop and risk your 20/20 vision for life, just so you can reverse the aching pain in your chest that you wore a thick ass glasses now.

Liz, the female lead. Swooning over her was your religion, throwing not one but a ten whole buckets explaining how perfect she was—or how tremendously kind she was, delicate and utterly sweet. patting yourself on the back for creating such a goddess of a character, so it's only wise for you to give her a fitting male lead, right? Okay we'll talk about that later since it's about you right now.

So how did you end up in your novel? Well, because of one fateful day of you doing absolutely nothing but taking a goddamn rest, and whoever the god in heaven that just randomly decided to throw you in the novel you wrote yourself—must be utterly insane. Perfect indeed!

it took you a humongous realisation to see yourself in a dark green puffy dress that represents jealousy, envy, and betrayal—which also represents the side character standing behind the female lead on the thick cover of your book. you've originally written her as that wicked best friend that uses her seductive way of speech to seduce men, and at last turning her back at the female lead by accusing her of a horrendous crime.

her fatal fate consists of her head being snapped by the guillotine, unfortunately. but for you, not really, cause you are so in for destroying wicked characters but jokes on you—you're now in the body of that character.

pfft, can't the gods put you in a character that lives near the sea, with your straw hat on and as you drank your lemon juice away from the public drama, angsty dialogues, cringe moments you yourself have created because you don't have atleast an ounce of social skills that's why you pour it all on your characters.

"oh my apologies, milady— pfft—" three ladies sticking with each other like a super glue, had thrown the glass of wine on the female lead's gown—earning a series of gasps from everyone who saw but you were sure won't pay an ounce of consideration towards her as you had written almost everyone in this novel as "the world against the weak, fragile character."

oh, right. the hyena laughters of those you describe in episode 3 of "the flashy ball"; the three evil sisters, because why not? they added the extra spices in your tongue to the point you couldn't wait for them to get slap by the female lead or possibly someone.

ah, the tremendous satisfaction.

and you were one of that person whose hands itching to smash their skull apart, you cringed enormously at them as they were the ones that brought total trouble wherever they went or whoever are unlucky enough to get in their way. unfortunately, you seal your female lead's fate with them as she need some little obstacles, doesn't she?

you as hell were not sure what you're supposed to do, whether to just let things happen as the story goes or you do the male lead's job in protecting the female lead cause you have no idea why is he taking such a long time to appear, when he should've made his grand entrance at the freaking introduction?

and you wrote it that way cause you got fed up with male leads making their first appearance at the ball, and somehow quickly gaining the female lead's heart like Cinderella cause dear lord where's the slow burn?

just say, you're a conservative grandma type of a mindset or that you are skeptical over love at first sight. yep, you're right. that's why you ain't gonna let your precious female lead get bullied in front of your very eyes. she's like your granddaughter right now, seriously.

a shriek echoed through the entire ball, gaining everyone's attention. "oh my god! my dress! you— lady Liz! who did you even brought with you?!"

oh right, you forgot it's your first time at the ball either. "my apologies, milady. it's just that i saw a bunch of hyenas roaming around.." you rubbed the back of your neck.

"hyenas?! guards—"

"chill, what's the commotion here?" a bright dashing blonde haired man in a red royal suit came around, with sets of stars dusting upon his form which you already realise to be part of the main characters but unfortunately you forgot. you ain't having that extra superhuman memory just because you are an author.

the bunch of hyenas before you reasoned with the prince, but you slowly realise that the prince was none other than Prince Jake. Inspired by that one puppy image idol from fourth generation of kpop, you were apparently slurping your noodles in the local restaurant when you watched him imitating a dog from the tv, causing you to choke on your noodles.

it's safe to say, he's hot enough that he had to be part of your main characters. aah, that signature dashing smile of his as he defended the female lead with his wisely chosen string of words which immediately melted everyone's heart at sight.

times like this you wish you were actually the female lead, but the logical side of you beg to differ; you are not emotionally capable of spewing cringy romantic words for that's only reserved for writing. So thank you, i'll pass.

Surely, Prince Jake ain't the male lead for your precious female lead but you just let them converse with each other despite her with her absolute kindness, urging you to talk with them too, atleast a word. it sort of felt for a moment like she was trying to match you with the prince.

like no please, you'd rather not to. hot guys are hot, but they're not worth the emotional investment past the fangirling section.

plus the prince doesn't seem interested you as he doesn't spare not even one look at you which obviously you couldn't care any less, you sneakily went out the ball after a series of mishaps—for example your heavy puffy ass gown with its sole purpose to only look pretty but the reality ain't that pretty to say the least, panting like a dog as you took each step towards the entrance all while cussing yourself for ignoring your logical part of brain that you shouldn't have been adding humongous useless words to describe the gown just to make it sound extremely pleasing to the readers.

now you're the one to bear the consequences of your own writing, the fuck.

"one! two!—" a long, long, depressing sigh echoes. "three! ah!—" consequently falling upon your face, what a perfect day indeed. you just wanted to go home, tuck yourself in your comforting blanket, eat your hot cup of ramen or indulge yourself in the sea of chocolate while daydreaming of your favourite idols and fictional characters.

not this awful disaster of you getting tangled in the courts' affairs.

"i suppose, you need help, milady?"

oh no, certainly not. don't call me milady, pretend i do not exist for i certainly do not have the social skills to pretend that i like you, or form a decent conversation especially with men.

"milady?"

you curled yourself, burying your head into the comfort of your gowns. wondering quite a bit of how odd you look in the middle of the hallway.

"milady?" his voice-like whisper came closer, obviously standing beside you right now. "are you okay?"

fuck it. "please, i beg of you to kindly leave me alone as my day has been utterly ruined and—" oh wait, he seems oddly familiar. those lush fluffy hair and kittenish orbs that only softens among those he were close enough.

prince jungwon.

oh! the male lead, oh my god! your jaw hang so low it fell on the ground, your eyes sparkled in dozens of star like universe as you took in his marvelous beauty that you had spent creating meticulously after studying all the '101 rules of how to create the perfect male lead that had the readers heart evaporating & a huge ass green forest that certainly would cause blazing flames'.

"oh my god! you look absolutely gorgeous, i've done it really well didn't i?! oh my god!"

"o-oh—! absolutely, you did well!" he immediately replied back, pressing his lips tight nervously.

wait what? what did he say? oh shit, oh well, covering your mouth instantly as you accidentally let it out before the prince, your precious male lead that you solely created for the female lead. "i—.."

the prince, your very precious character—obviously taken aback with a slight blush dusting of his adorable cheeks as he raise his fist up to his lips, coughing a couple of seconds. a personality trait you very well are familiar of cause that's how you wrote him when he fall in love with the female lead.

your eyes ogled out at that familiar sight, screaming at the back of your mind—wait, wait! you're not supposed to fall in love with me, you idiot! go back! go inside the ball, she's inside there!

"that's oddly brave of you, milady. i'd certainly go as far as to say that i've never seen such traits from a lady." kitten eyes softening at you, crouching down as he lend both of his hands for you. you raised your eyebrow confusingly at what is he trying to pull at but you realise he was intending to get you up.

"u-uhm? uh, sorry. i could get up on my own, actually." yeah, that's what you did. pushing yourself back up despite his protests because you ain't gonna let him fall any further for you, nah uh, not in this life, your mission is to get him and your female lead together inside the frames of birds holding flower wreaths as they went on to their happily ever after.

not with you!

"may i have the honour to know your name, though, milady?" why the fuck isn't he leaving, what is there so interesting in you that he is still standing here asking you such generic questions.

you shouldn't be having the characters attention on you as you obviously wrote it that way, and that even though your character in the novel had tried to get the prince's heart, despite resorting to foul actions, that he never truly had been attracted to her despite this characters' seductive aura.

for you squealed so loud at the scene you wrote, with jungwon putting her in her place. "you are not her, and you would never be her." along with the bunch of your readers hosting a flamboyant celebration under the comments, screaming over how loyal he was.

so what in the actual fuck is this?

"you don't need my name." you nonchalantly answered.

"my apologies?"

"you see, my best friend is in the ball—" you gestured your hands to the entrance of the ballroom, "and she needs your help more than i do."

"wait? why would she need my help?" his eyebrows knitted together in utter confusion as you pushed him through his back.

"of course, she do! don't ask anything!"

"wait!— my name is!" he forcefully turn to face you again, but you immediately covered his mouth with your hands—kabedonning him against the wall.

an excruciating silence occured between you two in the silent hallway, Jungwon freezing to his core when your other hand shoot beside his head.

"listen i don't need your name, dear sir." you emphasise each word, you certainly don't need to know his name nor his status as a prince, not wanting to risk any possible connection with him judging by how he acted before you just now.

"b-but!" his words were muffled into the void as you cupped his mouth tighter.

"shh, shh. stop talking and listen, will you?!"

jungwon nodded slowly, what an odd situation he was in right now, he thought. but somehow he likes it.

"so first step, is go inside the ballroom. second, look for the lady in pink gown, and third—"

"t-third?"

"third is tell her your name! my best friend needs it more than i do!" you release him from your grasp as you went to swing open the huge double door, "now go!" waving a goodbye before kicking his body through the entrance, pulling the door back with your entire strength despite his protests.

oh of course, you finally let out a gag after suppressing it in front of him the entire time as you've never had a proper conversation with a male without stuttering, somewhat a sad tragedy for you, unfortunately. you felt quite guilty about your readers who swoon over the romances you wrote between your leads, weeping over how you're so good at it—not knowing you're a complete introvert with only a gigantic ass dictionary with you.

finally, the male lead and female lead's romances are about to start! you squealed with your hands clasping as you went on your way to the carriage, gesturing for the rider to embark on the way to your heavenly puffy manor with the widest big grin ever that it had him questioning you, "has any gentleman had caught your heart, milady? a couple of hours ago, you were often beyond distraught to attend the ball but insisted when you heard Lady Liz was going."

"oh, you silly." you giggled as you swayed your hand, "of course, that's one of the reasons. but there's another one.."

"may i ask what is it, then?"

you leaned in closer, urging him to get closer as you whispered. "i got the chance to become a Cupid!"

"a Cupid?" you squealed before the old man, hopping like a child for quite awhile before flying into the carriage much to his surprise, but only shook his head in amusement—appalled by how his mistress had changed so much.

"so?" you couldn't help yourself from pulling out the widest eccentric grin at the female lead, extremely curious and ecstatic over what romances had bloom between her and Jungwon.

Liz raises her eyebrow in confusion, "so?.. what do you mean, milady?"

you shrugged, falling back to your seat as you raise your eyebrow in a comical way, "that.." whispering ever so seductively, "prince."

"p-prince?

"yes!" the teacup rattles at your excitement oozing so much that you tapped the table a couple of times. "what happen? what's the tea~"

she lets out a soft giggle, a bit amused by your excitement. "i have no idea what you're trying to imply, milady."

"wait? what are you saying? didn't the prince went to you last night?"

Liz shook her head slowly, her expressions clearly stating that she absolutely don't know what and who you were talking about as a smile pulled up on her lips once again, taking a few sip from her teacup.

veins popped out from your neck as it dawned on you, your head snapped towards the castle on top of the mountain, you stupid of a prince! you cussed at him endlessly at the back of your mind, tightening your fist as your ears and nose fuming in anger. how dare he? he didn't listen to you at all? what in the actual fuck? would this somehow divert the original route? a dozen question arise into your mind one after another, causing you to let out an exaggerated sigh.

facepalming yourself as you imagined the imaginary heavenly light on top of you, weeping to yourself about how tremendously unlucky you are to have a hard headed male lead. it's impossible, you have never added a trait so irritating like this in his profile so how could this happen?

"milady?" the gentle voice of your precious female lead pulled you out of your inner desperation, you leaned in closer, whining so much over how unlucky you were and such, the rest only being in your mind as you pouted.

"ah, i remember now, the prince—"

"WHAT?—" you immediately seated yourself after giving her a potential heart attack, "my apologies, what did you actually.. remember?"

"i assume you were talking about the prince from yesterday? prince jake?"

"no not that bitch— oh certainly not him, ehem.." you took a couple of exaggerated coughs, avoiding her evident confusion. "isn't there a prince.. name jungwon with you that night?"

"oh my goodness! right! prince jungwon!" she shook her head in disbelief with her finger on her head.

right, how did you even forgot that the female lead in front of you had a "weak ass memory" in her profile description. tsk tsk, truly a forgetful author you are. you should be trying your best to remember the things you wrote before and revise it as best as you can, to avoid any possible problems in the future, atleast.

"right, how did i even forget, the prince asked me for your name, milady—"

"huh?" you look at her with confusion, as you were out of reality a couple of seconds ago. your orbs terribly widened as her words slowly sinking in to your brain. "HUH?"

ask your name?! why your name, why not hers?! what did the prince ate that night before stumbling onto your way that he had to ask for your name before the female lead—his own lover?!

laughing awkwardly, you raise your leg on top of another as you nervously swayed your hands repeatedly. "oh dear, oh dear. you might have heard it wrong, the prince?—" snorting outloud as you gestured to yourself, "asking for my name? what a funny news!"

"i didn't, milady. the prince came to me and asked me for your name, as he was immensely curious of who you are so i—"

"so what?—" you can't believe this, you really can't bring yourself to believe any words she was uttering. you should have been bestowed by the news that the prince had taken an interest in her, a hand in marriage, or anything, anything as long as you're out of the picture! "y-you didn't tell him my name, d-didn't you?"

"of course, i did!" exclaimed she did with the widest grin ever.

why are you so freaking happy over this?! clasping your head in your hands as you tragically fall on your knees causing the lady to gasp in shock, ushering to your side to get you up.

"milady?! what's wrong?"

"d-dear," you pouted as you look up to her, "you didn't tell him where my manor's at, r-right?"

she simply replied, "i did? the prince informed me that he's going to send a letter for you to be his partner to the ball."

an imaginary arrow struck back to your heart, forming a humongous hole that threatens to give you a panic attack. what? what in the actual fuck? did you accidentally did something to divert the original story you yourself created? but you didn't even do anything! you tried to do your best to keep the interaction with him as short as possible and he dared to take an interest in you?!

"milady, a letter from the royal palace had arrived for you."

"discard it. throw it. keep it away from my sight."

"milady?!" Liz and the head of the maid exclaimed in utter shock at your nonchalant answer.

"forget about it, forget about it." you clasped your forehead in utter disappointment, yet your brain were creating another plan b for this unexpected turn of events. what should you do? even more so, what would you do now that the prince had asked for you to be by his side to the ballroom?

this won't do, you won't let this happen—you had to look as unattractive and ugly as possible for him to cringe on and finally divert his attention back to the rightfully person who deserved it; the female lead.

your maids could only fall apart every single time you pluck out the enchanting gems they attached on your hair, ears and wrists. their efforts deemed futile as always as you had no mood for any sort of events, it was like a slap to their face as you initially weren't like this. you overheard them that they couldn't get used to how you were adamant in staying behind the spotlight as you often did your very best in dressing yourself up before, with the sole intention of gaining the favour of men and even more better, a prince.

of course, they are totally oblivious to your real identity. only a series of jaw gaping one after another with your change of character, at first—you had a dilemma over whether you should act like the character you created but you later scrap the idea as soon as the anxiety of being engulfed in the crowd suffocated your chest. opting to avoid as many as balls or public events as possible, but that obviously didn't work out that well since you heard of the female lead's arrival from the country side—just like you intended it to be.

and being the proud mother (writer) you are, of course why wouldn't you take one single look at her and see of how far she had came? but alas, one interaction leads to another one and so on—till finally, you became her best friend throughout her entire journey. waiting for the male lead's arrival, and watch their romances blooming and per se—but oh well, look at the situation you were in right now; total disaster.

you truly despise being in such an extravagant puffy gown and the numerous accessories hugging your skin, it's tremendously uncomfortable that you wanted to rip it off part in front of the prince standing before you right now, and right here.

asking for your hand to dance with that odd kittenish smile, that you swore you had never ever written in his personality profile; he should never have been this casual and chill over a person he had just met. he should've been cold as fuck, icy to touch, and a spiralling disaster if you dare to talk to him, so why?

plus how could he have taken an interest in you? you couldn't possibly have added a dose of the love at first sight trope, didn't you? you despised that trope to your very core.

"milady? may i?" he extended his hand before you, patiently waiting for your answer.

you had decided that you're going to reject him quick and efficient—just like the local fast food restaurant your mouth kept drooling over for, smashing a five star review for their inhuman speedy delivery.

"you see, prince jungwon. i have no desire to have a connection with you, a relationship, as a matter of fact."

he raised his eyebrow, seemingly unfazed by your bold words. "i'm curious milady, why so? have i done something that perhaps had annoyed you?"

cliché question, you loathe that. "what if i said you did?"

"then tell me, milady. i'll try my hardest to own up to you—" he took a steps forward, which causes you to immediately step back as well with a frown on your face. you can't, not in this life, to even give him a single chance to get close to you. nah uh.

"no need, and stay one meter apart, please." you pointed your index finger towards the floor and he hesitated, but complied immediately.

"i." you raise your index finger back to yourself and then at him, "don't like you. do you understand?"

"b-but?"

"stop questioning me, prince jungwon." you stayed firm in your spot, "i believe it's a common decency to step back when a lady had voiced out her opinion, a prince like you certainly would understand, am i right?"

Jungwon was clearly taken aback, the fact that you didn't give him a single chance to utter a word nor take a step closer was a hard punch to his face. It feels as if he was trying to reach for you, but you efficiently dodged it with ease. It kind of.. annoys him.

"base on how you didn't say anything anymore, i assumed we're done here! well then, goodbye prince jungwon." you turned your heels towards the entrance, not bothering to waste any time at this goddamn ball. "i hope this will be the very last." you scoffed inside your mind, eager for the story to return to it's original route, and that the prince would soon deem you useless and such—returning to the female lead's arms.

hm, now where's your precious female lead? she should've appeared right now and right here, strike the pot while it's hot!

"i'm afraid i can't back down that easily, milady." jungwon took a few steps forward, wrapping his hand round your wrist as he spun you around to face his eyes filled with blazing determination. one that you specifically added on top of his profile so that your readers would kept it in mind.

your breath hitched down your throat as you remembered there's only two reasons he could have this; one that reminds you when he was at war, shouting at the top of his voice to encourage his soldiers as they push through the enemies, and another reason of it appearing is when he have to get what he wanted, or else all hell will break loose, chaos will ensue.

right, you're truly an idiot. staying a few years in this novel without any memories, and only for it to surface back when you stumble upon the library—dozens of books flickering a series of eccentric images in your mind. It had cause you to lose all memories of important details, only emerging everytime you are presented with a situation you couldn't comprehend. such as when you forgot that the female lead had memory problems and such.

"i'll only present this choices to you, milady. since you tremendously intrigued me over how well spoken you were and fascinating indeed—" bitch, you don't even know how you had the sudden ability to confront him but you were just sure as hell that you don't want to ruin your own novel. no fucking way.

you can't let him have the upper hand on you.

"let me go." irritated to your core, you tried untangle Jungwon's tight grasp on your wrist but he won't budge even an inch which only had you fuming in anger. "i said let me go, bitch!"

the crowd emits a series of gasps and murmurs as you spun around—twisting the prince's arms which had him yelping in pain, and ultimately pinning him onto the ground. with rage consuming you that nothing was going in your way, you slammed your hands on the both side of his head. clenching your jaw and gritting your teeth as you emphasised each word. "you are one a dumb hell of a bitch, when i said i do not want to see you anymore. i mean it. so—"

"so what?" his smug look resurfaces, one that emerges whenever he was being challenged. yes, do that! he should despise you, not take an interest in you! he should loathe you so much that he can't even gaze at you for a second. excitement surged through your veins as you open your mouth, preparing for the last blow.

"so, get lost. just because you're a prince doesn't mean every girl would fall for you, idiot."

an even more louder gasp emits from the crowd as they clearly heard what you said, their jaw gaping and some covering their mouths with their hands as their mind are now bombarded with random questions over how exceedingly brave you are to insult the royal prince, and of what fate will you met now that you've done such an atrocious act.

a low giggle sent shivers down your spine, and goosebumps to riled over your neck as you realise the prince under you had the widest smirk on his face. you frowned deeply, he shouldn't be smirking! he should be fuming in anger and throwing you out of the palace at this moment. so why?!...

"oh milady, how truly fascinating you are." you let out a loud yelp when he grabbed both of your wrists, pulling you closer to his face—a dangerous close proximity against his fluttering eyelashes and lips that your breath caught up in your throat which causes your cheeks to heated up in embarrassment of what kind of position you two were in right now. "i like you, you would certainly be a perfect fit to be by my side."

"what?!" you exclaimed, jaws dropping and eyes about to pop out at his very words. "i don't want to be by your side—"

"a lady like you, i'm afraid to say, intrigues me very much..." Jungwon shots a kittenish wink right through your heart. "be my wife, milady. i'll show you how good I can be for you."

#「 talesofyuan 」 fics #did i. a side character became the male lead's wife?!#enha #enhypen #enhypen x reader #enha imagines #enha x reader #enhypen oneshots #enhypen scenarios #enha fanfic #enhypen x female reader #enha fluff #jungwon smut #enhypen fluff #enha smau #enhypen jungwon #yang jungwon

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