#renjun fic

[ghostofhyuck]

Gang AU Series 2

Mafia boss! Huang Renjun x Undercover agent! Reader

Summary: “You’re worth all the trouble.”

cw: violence

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

“I don’t know why you’re still here,” you let out a sigh, moving a bit to give Renjun space.

“Why? Don’t you like it?” Renjun asked, slumping the plastic bag on your lap. 

“No, of course not,” you whispered quietly. “It’s just, it’s dangerous.”

Renjun only hums. He didn’t say a word but instead, stared at the view in front. The moon’s shining bright and clear, gleaming against the calm sea. 

You couldn’t help but to shift your attention to the plastic bag. As you opened it, you found a roll of kimbap, and two yogurt drinks. You grabbed the roll and started stuffing it in your mouth, ignoring the way Renjun stares at you. 

“Do they even feed you there?” Renjun asked, caressing your hair. You stopped and glanced at him. 

“If only you knew,” you taunted.

“Come on now,” Renjun said with a teasing smile. “If you just agree to my offer then maybe I can give you more than a roll of kimbap.”

You only rolled your eyes, then proceeded to playfully punch him. In his soft laughs, you remained quiet, pondering with questions inside your mind. 

You wonder how you ended in this situation. Perhaps it was because of greed. A craving for validation and usefulness in your agency.

It was simple. Infiltrate the underground scene. Discover who’s the mastermind, and the boss. It was a hard task if you’re a girl, they say. But you have pride in yourself, and with that pride of yours, you managed to stumble your way into one of the biggest gangs in Korea. 

Then came trouble, Huang Renjun who you met by accident. You swore to yourself that he’ll be nothing but a pawn, but Renjun’s a genius. He can read you quickly and perhaps you think that it’s just a fault of yours.

“I know your secret,” Renjun told you one day. 

And in a swift moment, you drew a knife on him. He stood there, chuckling as he was unfazed by the cold blade on his neck. 

“Don’t worry,” Renjun smiles, surprising you. “I don’t have plans of exposing you. In fact, I’ll be here to help you.”

As day passed by, you weren’t unsure what Renjun’s intentions were. You tried to build walls, avoiding him as much as possible. But the more you push him away, the more he gets closer to you. As you began to question him, he was only cryptid about it. Leaving hints and notes which made you even more clueless. 

It took you a few months to discover who Renjun truly is. 

“This will make the operation easier,” your senior started. On a Saturday afternoon, he called you for an urgent meeting.

“We received a tip from an insider and it’s revealed to us who’s the boss of the gang,” he said, handing you a paper in which you accepted.

Eyes wide. You couldn’t believe that his face is printed on the paper. 

“His name is Huang Renjun, he rarely shows up and is very secretive. On the days that he shows up, try to find ways to get closer to him.”

You were dumbfounded. You couldn’t believe this! You wished that this is just a joke because their description is completely different from when you first met Renjun. Your mind became blank, wondering who to believe or not. 

So when you met Renjun once again, you took the opportunity to corner him — literally. 

“I guess you discover who I am,” he smiles. You gripped on his collar tighter, the blade of your knife pushing it closer to his skin. 

“You think that this is a game? You’re having fun aren’t you?” you asked, anger dripping on your tone. 

Renjun chuckles, looking at you with a teasing smile. “It’s been a while since the agency sent me a play toy, you know that? You should also know that the people they sent don't last a few days in my territory.”

You looked at him with surprise. “What —”

“Oh, they didn’t tell you? How many casualties your agency had because of this operation? Of catching the mastermind?” His hands brushing your hair slowly, chills running down your spine. “That’s so sad, you were probably tricked by your senior to accept the operation.”

You freezed. You remember it vividly. The avoiding eyes, the pity, people who taunted you. Tried to convince you that you couldn’t do it —- you falling to the pressure of being belittled, accepted it without any hesitations. 

It was evil. You couldn’t help but to be in daze, slowly your hold on Renjun loosens. 

“Oh dear,” Renjun smiles. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take good care of you.”

That’s where it leads you. Straying the operations towards an uncertain ending. You don’t know what to do, especially when everytime you look at Renjun, your heart is screaming for him.

You wanted him. You don’t know when it started but you just know that you wanted him even though it’s wrong, even though you should be arresting him by now. 

But how can you? You don’t even know where to start, especially when there’s hidden lies in this operation. You tried to open it to your seniors but he avoided the subject as much as possible —- which meant that what Renjun told you was true. 

In the case that you might die, they will just find another pawn to replace you. The only think that you can think about is how fucked up the situation was. 

And to add fuel to the fire, Renjun offered you safety. Leave your agency and join the gang, you’ll directly be under his protection. You’ll be untouchable and you have nothing to worry about. Renjun will handle everything. He’ll give you the world if you want it. 

But something’s still holding you back. The fear of trusting the wrong person, especially when you’ve been tricked by the people you should trust. Should you really trust a man who’s the boss of a gang? And yet, weeks have passed and Renjun wasn’t giving up on you. 

“I wonder,” Renjun started. “Why do I always find you in this spot?” 

You two are on the outskirts of Han river. Away from the clean park crowded with people. In this area, there’s nothing but fishing boats from the locals. The lighthouse is nearby but the light couldn’t reach or even touch the place. It was dark, cold, and yet you find it calming. 

“Why? Do you want to find me in a better place? Somewhere where people can recognize who we are?”

A star-crossed lovers, if you two were lovers to begin with. Renjun blinks. He wonders when you will give him your answer. He doesn’t want to dance around with you anymore and yet, that’s what makes you even more alluring. Perhaps because you’re the only thing that he still hasn’t owned. 

You only gave him a smile as you pierced the straw on your yogurt drink.

“Yn-ah,” Renjun started, glancing at the sea. You shifted your gaze and for a moment of silence, you saw how Renjun’s face became serious. 

You only hum as an answer.

“The moon looks so beautiful tonight, isn’t it?” he smiled. You wanted to laugh, but his tone was serious. You knew that it meant something else, that’s why you could only stare at him. 

“So this is where we can find you,” your body freezed. Hearing a familiar voice that you dread to hear. 

You stood up and there stood your senior along with two unfamiliar officers. They were wearing their casual outfits but your eyes are locked at the gun in their jacket’s pocket. 

“You’ve done a pretty good job here yn-ah, trying to lure us to Renjun,” your senior teases. Approaching you two slowly, you felt Renjun’s hold and before you knew it, he pushed you behind him. In that same instance, Renjun quickly pulls a gun and points it at them.

“No wonder you’re still not dead, you’re plotting against us aren’t you!?” your senior laughed, and slowly they took a step closer.

You didn’t mind how hurtful it was to hear it from your senior. Your heart started beating fast, you were scared and it wasn’t for your life — you were scared of what's to happen to Renjun. 

“You guys are fucking annoying you know that?” Renjun said, and the next thing you knew, you heard gunshots. 

You fell on the floor, the world started to feel blurry on you and as you stood up, you felt an inflicting pain on your shoulders — you were wounded. 

You tried to navigate the place but it was too dark, light steps closer until you felt someone’s hold. 

“Renjun —” your smile drops when you hear the chuckle coming from your senior.

“You did a pretty good job here,” he taunted and before you knew it, he pushed you away towards the docks, and the only thing that you felt was the cold water hitting against your back.

You felt yourself sinking, it was cold yet assuring. It was quiet and the only light you can see is the gleaming reflection of the moon. Renjun was right, the moon looks so beautiful tonight. You only smile, realizing how tired you are, maybe it was better that it ended up like this. Slowly you closed your eyes.

But what you don’t know is that it was the same moment Renjun dives in to save you. He reached out for you and as he held your hand, he was able to retrieve you and quickly rose to the surface.

Renjun drags you to the nearest shore. Coughing out the sea water he had inhaled. 

“Yn, yn, wake up! Wake up!” Renjun shouts. Tapping your cheeks harshly before proceeding to give you CPR. You regained consciousness immediately, vomiting out the seawater that you drank. You were fighting for your life when you felt Renjun’s arms wrapping around you. 

“I can’t believe I almost lost you!” he shouted, that’s when you realized what just happened. You tried to hug him back but you winced at the pain of your arms. 

“You were shot?” he asked, before grabbing his handkerchief to wrap around your wound.

“Obviously,” you answered back, and you winced once again when Renjun tightened the knot. 

“Very funny,” he taunted. When he finished, you two drowned in silence. You only stared at him, who’s dripping wet from saving you. You realised that tonight was a fiasco. 

“Renjun —-”

“They’re dead yn,” Renjun confessed. “I’m sorry.” 

“Why are you apologising? I should be the one that should say sorry,” you told him. “I didn’t know, I promise.” 

“I know, I know you wouldn’t do it.”

You only let out a sigh, “I guess I have no choice but to come with you.”

Renjun glances at you, “What —-”

“You went through all the trouble just to save me, I’ll be in your debt Renjun.”

And the next thing you knew, his lips crashed onto yours. It was deep and full of desire, as if he’s been yearning for your kiss for years. 

“Don’t worry,” Renjun said as he broke the kiss. “You’re worth all the trouble.”

#nct dream #nct imagines #nct dream fic #nct fic #nct #nct x reader #nct dream imagine #nct renjun #nct dream renjun #nct renjun fic #nct renjun imagines #huang renjun #huang renjun fic #nct dream renjun fic #renjun fic

[haetrack]

HOW IT ALL GOES | MASTERLIST

there are millions of love songs in the world. though they all speak of the same thing, they’re not all the same. love can be happy, sad, exciting, or just shown physically. love is different for everyone. there’s a song for every story, for every person who experiences love.

starring: haechan, mark, jaehyun, jaemin, and renjun!

general warnings: fluff, angst, and smut (not all fics will contain smut, so minors be aware!) fics will be tagged with their specific warnings! general yearning, heartbreak, happy and sad endings

note: the fics are not connected to each other! they can be read as stand alone fics but i hope you stay to read them all! synopses and tags might be changed during the writing process!

side note: if you would like to be tagged, please send in an ask or comment on this post!

I. (lucky for you) we’re just friends

best friend!haechan x reader

synopsis: haechan is someone who always gets what he wants. he’s willing to do anything, but now, he realizes, he doesn’t know what to do. will you, his best friend of many years, let him step into your life where he hasn’t before? do you think about him as much as he does you? or will it all slip away, along with all his memories with you. (angst, little fluff)

side a: like a friend - pulp

side b: now playing

II. no clue

one night stand!mark lee x reader

synopsis: when mark realizes how long it’s been since he’s gotten laid, he rushes out to a party. he’s quick to find someone, rushing into a room without really thinking about it. when he sees you laid under him, it clicks that he might just like you, a stranger. he tries looking for you all over campus, wanting to talk to you. how long will it take for you both to meet? do you even want to meet him? (smut, fluff, little angst)

side a: tongues - the frights

side b: now playing

III. your fate, my karma

fwb!jaehyun x reader

synopsis: jaehyun realizes he’s in love with you. it’s fucked, especially because he rejected you once before. he doesn’t want to ruin what he has with you, more importantly, the friendship he has with you. he can’t help it, not with how you look at him, how you smile, how you feel. it’s like he was made to see and touch you. he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold in his secret. (smut, angst, little fluff)

side a: somethin’ stupid - frank sinatra

side b: flip over?

IV. can it last forever?

boyfriend!jaemin x reader

synopsis: after many successful dates, jaemin finally asked to be your boyfriend. you were so happy in the beginning, but doubts begin to fill your head. jaemin is a loving boyfriend, but you can’t help but wonder if you deserve him. did you go into this too fast? what if this is all you have? will you be able to make him happy? (fluff, angst, suggestive)

side a: valentine - laufey

side b: flip over?

V. all to myself

acquaintance!renjun x reader

synopsis: renjun hates how all you’ve been doing is talking about another man. usually, he wouldn’t really mind. but now, he realizes the only reason why he hates it is because he likes you. you’re a friend of a friend, and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to get closer to you if all you’re thinking about someone else. (fluff, smut)

side a: eastside - daisy

side b: flip over?

a/n: im so excited for this series HOORAY!!! i hope u guys are as excited as i am when i start releasing them :3 i also recommend listening to the songs i put!! the fics were inspired by them and lay out the overall feel i want the fics to have! enjoy reading :p

#nct fic #nct smut #nct scenarios #nct dream smut #nct 127 smut #nct angst #haechan fic #haechan angst #mark lee fic #mark lee smut #jaehyun fic #jaehyun smut #jaemin fic #jaemin smut #renjun fic #renjun fluff #hiag

[ilwonuu]

⋆·˚ ༘ * messy ⋆·˚ ༘ *

↬ huang renjun

𓋇 pairing- nonidol!renjun x fem!reader, softdom!renjun x sub!reader, established relationship, they’re want each other so bad <3

𓋇 summary- your boyfriend loves to make a mess out of you.

𓋇 warnings- messy sex, slight clit play???, unprotected sex(she’s back everyone dw), creampie, pet names (baby, good/pretty girl)(junnie), kinda clothed sex but not really????, dirty talk, renjun loves when reader is needy, kissing, MDNI, lmk what else

𓋇 a/n- i had to write this because it was taking over my head,,, i want renjun so bad bye

renjun likes messy sex. he loves when he can hear all your slick with his thrusts. he’s been fucking you for what seems like hours to you. your underwear pulled the side as he rubs his dick against your slick.

your pretty pink panties soiled completely with the two of your juices. it is just straight up filthy. his dick rubbing against your sensitive clit has you moan pathetically.

“j-junnie-“ you whimper as you reach for him. you’re embarrassed at the state of your cunt. your wetness being heard with every movement renjun makes. both your moans also filling the room. his dick is harder than ever as his tip catches your clit, making you moan louder.

“love how messy you get pretty. look at this pretty mess.” he teases you a little as he continues to rub his dick against you. his dick slips into you at ease as he slides the tip.

“o-oh- yea fuck me-“ renjun keeps his thrusts up but only for a moment as you feel him pull out of you to rub against you again.

“n-need more- please!” you love the way he feels against you but he’s been dragging it on for a while now. your panties making it so the his dick is rubbing hard on your clit, as it holds it in the fabric.

“i know baby. but doesn’t it feel so good like this?” he gives your lips a peck before shifting his eyes to your cunt. the scene is so dirty. he loves the way you try to grind up for more friction. he loves the way your panties are stuck to your cunt to the side.

“such a pretty thing for me. you love when i play with you like this baby?” he slaps his dick against your clit to mock your wanting pleads.

“should i give you what you want? you’ve been such a good girl for me.” his voice sounds so sweet and innocent. he kisses your jaw as you feel his dick slide into your cunt.

“want to hear your pretty cries for me. look at me baby.” he pulls your face to look at him as he shallowly fucks you. “mmm yea- just like that.” you moan out as you look down to watch where his dick disappears and reappears. the squelch noise is overwhelming the other sounds in the room. “junnie- kiss me.”

you lean up to kiss him. he responds to your kiss with a smirk as he melts into the kiss. your panties are soaked when renjun grabs them. he grips them to fuck you deeper into the sheets.

“f-fuck im not gonna last-“ your cunt clenching around him tighter. your moans are loud and desperate. “my pretty little thing, you gonna cum? you’re squeezing me s-so tight.” his head is against yours as he starts to fuck you at a different pace.

you nod quickly as you bite your lip to hold in your cries for him. renjun tsks at that. “don’t hide your moans. want to hear how good i’m making you feel.” you eyes start to roll back as his hips grind into you.

“i’m coming-“ your climax cutting you off as you cum on renjun’s dick for the unknown amount of the night. “yeah fuck-“ he fucks you through your high, planting soft kisses onto your lips. his hips speeding into yours.

“want my cum baby?” you moan at his words. you hold his waist trying to get him to move quicker. “i’m coming- fuuck baby. you’re so fucking pretty for me. my good good girl.” his cums is hot when it fills you. he pulls out of you slowly, not wanting to lose any of the cum.

“junnie-“ you moan as you feel some of it drizzle out of you. renjun notices the messy dripping, he fucks his cum back into you with his finger.

“mmm so sensitive.” you pout when you feel his finger leave you. finally leaving you empty. “me too baby. you came so hard for me, like a good girl. let’s get this mess cleaned up yea?”

#renjun x reader #renjun smut #nct dream renjun #nct renjun #renjun #nct smut #nct #nct x reader #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct dream #nct u #nct dream drabbles #nct dream smut #renjun fic #renjun scenarios #nct dream fluff

[rrxnjun]

blondes are done with fun ✲ h. renjun

pairing. journalism student! renjun x journalism student! fem! reader starring. huang renjun, lee donghyuck, yoo jimin, huh yunjin genre. college au, acquaintances to lovers. angst, fluff, smut warnings. alcohol consuption, swearing, renjun is a dick at the beginning, sexual content (fingering, unprotected sex) word count. 31k (31.320) a/n. awsten knight please stop making music so i can stop writing fics about your songs thanku. also this is my first smut please be gentle with it also if you're my friend please don't read the smut parts orif you do dont tell me abt it or i will literally kms

playlist. cherry red - waterparks ; fake happy - paramore ; heaven angel - the driver era ; blonde - waterparks ; disaster - conan gray ; raspberry - grouplove ; black butterflies and déjá vu - the maine ; fuck about it - waterpakrs, blackbear ; robbers - the 1975

a rumor has it that the popular couple in town broke up after years of being together. having to share your favorite seat in class with the male part of said relationship, you try to find out how to make your heartbroken project partner warm up to you— or— huang renjun goes blonde when he's sad.

✲ PART 1 OF THE SIMPLIFY ROMANCE SERIES ✲

“A rumor has it Huang Renjun and Huh Yunjin broke up,” is the first sentence that lands into your ears when your feet cross the imaginary border of the school premises one early morning, a cup of coffee in your hand as your best friend Jimin breaks the news to you, walking by your side into the university building.

Snapping your head around to look at her in shock and surprise at the news, eyes wide in question, you’re already invested in the love life of your classmates more than you probably should be, but due to multiple reasons that could explain it; one of them being the ordinary human curiosity– mainly created in your brain thanks to the fact that these two had dated for as long as you can remember– another reason being the gossip-oriented side of your personality– the part of it you like to explain through the fact that you’re a Journalism major and the love for gossip is just another part of your (hopefully) future occupation– and the last reason, the one that is probably the most harmless of them all (or maybe the most, depending on how you look at it) is the mere fact that while Huang Renjun had been a taken man for as long as you remember, he is also insanely attractive, and you’re just a simple woman. The idea of him being finally attainable is irking something in your brain, and even though you would feel embarrassed to admit this out loud, you can’t help but wonder what happened between those two after such a long time that made the legendary couple– iconic, even– break up. 

“What happened?” you ask, walking alongside the girl as you round the corner of the hall, in a rush to get to your morning class. The two of you slept in by accident, watching too many episodes of Keeping up with the Kardashians last night to notice the clock striking well past midnight, and now the journey to school was more difficult than it already is, with your dorms situated 30 minutes away and the class starting at 8 o’clock sharp. The time is now 7:58AM and while you’re already in the building and yours and Jimin’s classes are different, they are both on the fifth floor– and with the frequency of your visits to the gym, the way up there is hard not only because of the time pinch, but also because of the shortness of your breath when you rush to walk up there in less than five minutes before you have to take the walk of shame to your desk, watched by the professor with passive aggressive eyes.

“Nobody knows,” Jimin heaves out, taking two steps at once now, “I just heard from Yizhuo that Yunjin deleted all of their Instagram posts together and she supposedly stopped wearing that necklace he got her for their anniversary. Oh and also, Renjun didn’t drop her off at school on Friday, so something must be up.”

Humming in agreement, you rush up the stairs, the halls already emptied out because all of the students are hidden in their respective classroom. You manage to keep your voice down in case anyone’s listening in on your insensitive gossip, now that your voices aren’t drowned out by any other noise. “That’s weird. They’ve been together for so long, I’m starting to lose faith in real love if they really broke up.”

“No, yeah, I know,” Jimin squints as the two of you finally reach the fifth floor, the girl checking the time on her wristwatch huffing out at the sight of already being late, “something bad must have happened, if they really broke up, because the two of them didn’t seem like they’ve had any problems, you know.”

“Definitely,” you nod, pacing along the hall as you finally reach the door to your classroom, waving your roommate off with a tight-lipped smile, still trying to catch your breath. “I’ll see you after class?”

The girl doesn’t even turn around as she agrees with you, long legs striding down the hall into the last classroom on the left, waving at you with her right hand. “See ya!”

Silently opening the door to the classroom, you notice the professor already standing at the very front of the class, turning around to look at your figure once the almost unhearable noise of the door cuts through the silence in the room. Offering her a shameful smile, you hurriedly scan the space, feeling the eyes of everyone glued to your sweaty and out of breath body, as you try to find a place to sit. Your usual seat is right at the corner of the room, at the very back– it has the window in close accessibility, so you don’t have to worry about being too hot or too cold, depending on the weather, because you regulate the freshness of the air in the classroom. The window also provides a good distraction to you once the class gets too boring to listen to, so you’d say with 100% sureness that the desk you chose to sit at the very first day of your Journalism class was the best option. 

However, when you look at the usually empty desk for two– one of the chairs, the one closer to the corridor being your handy armrest as well as a place to put your coat and bag on as you sit on the other one, the one closer to the window– you notice a man sitting at your usual place, eyes glued to the whiteboard. Feverishly scanning the classroom once again, realizing in terror that there is no other empty space for you to sit at, you sigh in annoyance as you near your usual desk, cursing the intruder in your brain for breaking the unwritten seating plan. 

Taking the bag off your shoulder, you softly land it to the ground, afraid of making any noise that would interrupt your professor’s lecture again. After sitting at the chair and trying to listen to the words coming out of your professor’s mouth, trying to see what she’s talking about, you find yourself drifting off into the mess of your thoughts, choosing to daydream about the amazing lunch you’re about to have once your classes are over for the day, your eyes knowingly moving away from the whiteboard to their place out of the window. It’s a little harder to gaze out of it in the different position– you tell yourself you’ll come earlier next week so the intruder doesn’t take away your spot again and you can go back to your usual plan of watching people walking through the campus and making up fake stories about them in your brain– when your periphery vision takes notice of the side profile of your seatmate, the curve of his nose and the slight pout of his upper lip sparking interest in you as your brain finally connects the dots.

Only slightly moving your head to the side, so your seatmate doesn’t notice you staring, you observe Huang Renjun sitting at your desk. The image in front of you (or beside you, to be precise) surprises you to an extent nothing has ever surprised you before (no, not even the birthday parties Jimin has thrown you have made this effect on you– but that’s probably because she can’t keep a secret and always spoiled the surprise), and once again, there are multiple reasons for your surprise. To list a few, you’d start with the fact that Huang Renjun almost always sat at the same desk with his girlfriend Yunjin– the desk was at the very opposite corner of the room, leaving you to occasionally observe the couple as he landed a hand onto her thigh or let her put her leg into his lap, away from the eyes of the professor– but due to the news that were broken to you just a few minutes prior, maybe this is the only reason that shouldn’t surprise you with the sight of Renjun sitting by your side. Continuing the list, you’d state the fact that the boy looks lifeless– his eyes lost their usual spark and there are dark circles adorning his lower eyelids, the sick look making you feel almost sorry for your classmate. And to finish the list, you’d state the fact that takes you by surprise the most– the one that shocks you to your core, for it’s the reason why you didn’t recognise the boy when you first sat down in the first place. His hair is now bleach blond, and while the look definitely suits him, it’s something different, something new– because for as long as you can remember, not many things changed in Renjun’s appearance over the years, and you’re not so sure if you can consider this as the side effect of his breakup, or if he really just wanted change.

Blinking at the male, as if to make sure that you’re not dreaming, you take notice of the dead strands falling into his eyes, contrasting well with the darkness of his eyes. Once again noting that you’re just a simple woman and Huang Renjun is simply put, a very attractive man, you can’t help but gaze at him with a newly found interest, everything you’ve learned about the male this morning irking you with undeniable curiosity.

The sad and embarrassing reality of it all is, though, that you’re not the only one who gets that weird feeling of someone staring at you in public sometimes, only for that feeling to be true as you turn around and see someone with their eyes burning through your skull; Huang Renjun gets them as well, it seems, as he turns his head to you with his eyebrows furrowed, as if to silently ask you why the hell you’re creepily staring at his side profile in the middle of your Journalism class. The two of you were never close, despite sharing multiple classes over the course of multiple semesters, and so being caught only made you feel more embarrassed as you sharply turn your head towards the front of the classroom– so much for being subtle and nonchalant about it, erasing all the possibility of playing it off in the process– feeling heat creeping up your neck. 

This is not how you imagined your morning to go.

Trying hard to pay attention to the class instead, in order to both learn something and also forget about the events happening only a few seconds prior, there’s no use as your brain now decided to replay the moment over and over again, making sure you never forget about it and randomly think of it in the middle of the night 5 years from now, still not moving on from the shame. In the process of trying so hard to focus, you actually do quite the opposite– as if your brain decided to turn off from the essence of humiliation instead to protect you– and before you notice it, the class is over and everyone is scattering out of the classroom with their things and bags hung over their shoulders. At least it’s finally over, you think, when a voice lands into your ear, shaking you out of it.

“We’re doing the project together,” he says, and as you turn around to face the owner of the saccharine voice to inquire him on what the actual fuck he’s even talking about, before you get the chance, the man is already out of the room, leaving you standing in full dumbfoundance.

Maybe you should’ve paid more attention to the class, after all.

Next week, even though you arrive to class earlier than the last, it seems like your designated seat in the corner of the classroom is now your and Renjun’s designated seat in the corner of the classroom, and if you’re being totally honest, this is exactly the thing you did not expect to come up on your Junior year bingo card. Talking over the whole interaction with Jimin right when you got to dorms– alongside with the takeout you ordered in the restaurant that’s at the corner of the street– the both of you stared into your plates with a newly found sense of absolute, utter confusion. 

You also had to shamefully text one of the only classmates from your Journalism class whose number you have– Osaki Shotaro, who you had a thing with in Freshman year because you thought he was an exchange student and would go back to Japan after summer, surprising you with his smiley face in the class in your Sophomore year (and this year, once again) as you had to be reminded of making out with him at a party every time your eyes landed on the poor boy– about the assignment. The truth is, you could just ask Renjun when you got into class, but you also wanted to spare yourself the embarrassment of that action. Through your fling from Freshman year, you learned that you have to work in pairs on a magazine of some sort– and while the assignment still wasn’t clear to you, after Shotaro ended the text message with ‘i’m sorry tho, i already have a partner ://’, you didn’t have enough dignity in you to pry him for any more information.

Clearing your throat as you step inside the classroom with an encouraging slap to your bottom coming from your roommate walking along to her usual class at the end of the hall, you walk over to your seat and put your bag onto the ground, silently sitting on the chair next to the corridor– the thing that makes you the most furious about this whole thing– as you prepare for the next lecture. From what you’ve gathered, the assignment was 70% of your final grade, and you really didn’t feel like failing your most favorite subject, especially if it’s something you could see yourself doing in the future. Working on something like this with someone you’ve hardly ever spoken to was a scary feeling, though. 

The class starts as soon as the noise of footsteps fills your ears, your professor standing at the very front of the classroom announcing her arrival with a heartfelt smile on her face. Sometimes you wonder if it’s her cheery demeanor that makes you like the class so much, but then again, you’ve always been interested in the topic– her character is just a bonus.

“Hello class,” she greets, full of energy despite it only being 8 in the morning, “I decided that instead of following with the lectures today, I will leave you some space to plan out your final project for the class. It has the weight of 70% of your grade, so it’s kind of important, so make sure you plan it well and come up with something original and interesting. The contents are 25-35 pages and you have until the end of the semester to complete it, so I hope you all put in some effort!”

Nods and hums of understatement are shared along the class, the pairs turning to each other in soft murmurs as some even take out a journal to note down all the things they come up with. You think it’s not a bad idea to at least brainstorm a little, but with how awkward you feel at the moment with your project partner sitting right next to you, you don’t think you can start. And the thing is, Jimin told you you could just pick a different partner– but as you look across the filled classroom, you really don’t think working with anyone else is possible, since you don’t have many friends in this class and everyone seems to be paired up already. Huang Renjun is your only choice, and although it doesn’t fill you with relief, you wonder why he chose you, when in reality, he’s the popular one– he has many different choices to pick from. Maybe he was just too lazy to ask anyone else. Who knows.

Clearing your throat again, you avert your gaze from the front of the classroom and try to sneak a look on your seatmate. The platinum blonde hair neatly styled on his head doesn’t fail to make you shocked again, but you figure you must start to get used to it now, because you can’t keep living with the constant urge to stare at the boy just because he dyed his hair. Waiting for him to look at you or give you any sign of the fact that he’s willing to work on the project, you continue your little staring contest with his side profile– it seems like he’s in the mood to ignore you today, so you gotta bring out the big guns and actually talk to him instead.

“So… how do you want to work on this?” you mumble out, nervously bumping your knee up and down. Human interaction isn’t your favorite thing in the world, mainly because you don’t like things you’re not good at– this includes sports, but mainly volleyball, drawing, knitting and mixing drinks as well– but you’d say with full confidence that making friends and talking to new people is truly the worst thing you could ever imagine. 

You notice that your seatmate finally recognised your efforts to spark up a conversation– he rewards you with a shrug of his shoulders as he not only does not look at you, but also decides to lay on the desk instead, closing his eyes as if this was the perfect time for him to catch up on his lost sleep. “Dunno,” he says, “we have plenty of time, let’s not do this right now.”

Blinking a few times at the male, you are once again struck by lightning that is his weird attitude to things. If this was how he behaved with Yunjin, you can’t blame the girl for breaking up with him– everything about the smug look on his face and the fact that he chose to take your favorite seat in the classroom makes your blood boil with annoyance. 

“W-what?” you stutter out, still not quite believing your ears. 

The man doesn’t reply to you– it’s too much effort, it seems– only making you angrier. Why did he even choose you as his partner if he didn’t want to work on the project in the first place? You’re no stranger to procrastination and leaving work for last minute, and you’re also not really a fan of the feeling of stress creeping up your back whenever you give in to the inevitable action of procrastinating; so if it comes to a project that is quite literally 70% of your grade, you would rather not do everything the week before.

Seeing that you’re getting ignored again, you put on your brave face as you fold your hands on your chest, determined to do something about the issue at hand. “Can’t you just put in some effort, man? I’d rather not do this last minute. I know that you probably don’t give a shit, but I do care about my grades, y’know,” you get out, seeing as the man next to you finally straightens his back and looks at you sharply– as if he has any right to point you with the killing look in this dark eyes– before he squints in mock agony.

“Do you really have to be such a fucking perfectionist?” he snaps at you, taking you by surprise. 

This is not how you imagined Huang Renjun to be. Looking at him over the course of the years, more often than not, you always saw the boy with a welcoming smile on his face. Whenever he was around Yunjin, he was all sweet words and gentle touches, erupting laughter whenever he was around his friends. When you were a freshman, somewhere in the back of your brain, you even envied the circle of friends he had around him, daydreaming about fitting in with them when you were lonely at lunch break. That was before you met Jimin at volleyball practice– the extracurricular you lasted in only for a week with the intention of making some friends (at least it worked) – and moved in with her in your second semester when both of your roommates decided to drop out. The girl provided you with undeniable love and care, and while you no longer desired to fit into a circle like Huang Renjun’s, talking to him now makes you feel like a child with crushed dreams.

“I’m sorry?” is all you get out as you stare at him with shock. If you were in a better mood, you would’ve searched through your brain to find a snarky remark to bite back at the boy. It’s too early in the morning and you weren’t prepared for his attitude, though, so you only opt to stare at him as he sighs in what you presume is annoyance– or defeat– as he scatters through his backpack and takes you a notebook, opening it to the first page and clicking his pen he found somewhere in the depths of his bag so he can write with it.

Too taken aback from his sudden change of mind, you wait for him to initiate any other action. You really don’t feel like getting screamed at again, so you chose to play it safe as you watch the man scribble the words Final project at the very top of the paper, underlining it two times and circling it five, the weird ritual making you furrow your eyebrows in confusion.

“25 pages. We split half and half, so you can come up with whatever you want. We can do the design together and I really couldn’t give less shit about who works on the cover, so if you really want to do it, you can. Good?” he says, not once looking at you as he writes the words down on the paper. 

“Amazing,” you bite back with irony, shuffling your chair closer to the table so you can take a look at his notes, “the magazine has to have a coherent theme, though, doesn’t it? If we work on the pages by ourselves and just do whatever, as you said, it’s gonna be shit.”

You chose to accommodate yourself to the pattern of his speech– a habit you always do with new people, but in this situation, what feels the most safe. Seeing the man sigh again, twirling the ballpoint pen in between his fingers, he shrugs at your point and offers you a half-assed solution.

“We can figure that out later.”

Biting back a chuckle at his comment, it’s now your turn to sigh. Why was he being so difficult? Is it really that hard to make an effort on something important, especially when he was the one who said he wanted to work with you in the first place? Shaking your head in disbelief at his actions, you lean back in your chair and take out your own notebook, set on the decision of brainstorming as much as you can, hopefully coming out with some solid ideas you could incorporate in the magazine.

You have no idea what direction Renjun would go with. You don’t know anything about his interests or hobbies, and you surely don’t know what would inspire him or what he would want to write about. And with his new change of persona, you find him even more unreadable than he’s been in the past– and you can’t say you like the way he treats you right now. It seems like his sudden metamorphosis managed to change his brain synapses as well, because this is not the idea of Huang Renjun that you knew until now.

Chewing on the end of your pencil, you take a glimpse of your seatmate. He is messily scribbling something down onto his paper, seemingly realizing that the sooner you start working on this, the better, and with how full his paper seems to be, you wonder if this project won’t be that hard to complete after all.

“We’re doing the cover together,” you mumble out, seeing as the boy tears his eyes off his paper, glaring at you instead.

Almost expecting him to snap at you again, awaiting his suggestion that you will be the one doing all the work, you’re left with an answer that satisfies you with yet another surprise. “If you really insist…”

“Are you really sure you want to do this right now?” Jimin asks you as you put on your shoes at the door, slinging your backpack containing not only your laptop and notebooks, but also snacks just in case you get hungry. Looking at her through the hair falling into your face that you efficiently get out of the way with a poof of breath coming out of your mouth, you chuckle at her distress. The girl’s been watching you get ready for the last 15 minutes, with her robe on and bowl of guacamole in her right palm, eating up on the tortilla chips every once in a while as she squints at you with disbelief.

“Yeah, why not?” you shrug. “If he’s initiating this, I don’t see a problem. Besides, I think that if I don’t take every chance I get, I’ll end up working on the project alone, and I really don’t like that idea.”

Humming in agreement for the first time since you told your roommate that Renjun texted you if you wanted to work on the project today, Jimin motions to the phone sitting at the entryway table next to the front door. “Well, just make sure to text me if anything goes wrong and I’ll come pick you up,” she suggests, making you giggle at her noticeable worry. 

“Okay, mum,” you shake your head in disbelief, finally slugging the backpack over your shoulder and walking out of the door of your apartment. 

The truth is, you can’t really blame Jimin for her over-protective behavior. Ever since you retold her everything that happened that one time in Journalism class, she’s been wary of Huang Renjun. You would agree with all of her arguments of how much of a dick he is when acting like that, but you also don’t really think you have to put more energy into hating him at this moment, since it won’t really help you with your assignment and you don’t have any other choice. You are stuck with a grumpy project partner and that’s how the rest of your semester will go– you just have to learn how to live with his annoying remarks and snarky comments at whatever you say. Who knows, he may be in his ‘hating all women’ era, considering the breakup and all…

You can’t say you weren’t surprised when he added you on Instagram and messaged you about the project this afternoon, though. Considering that you were always the one initiating the talks about the final assignment over the course of the last few weeks, you weren’t expecting him to finally be the one reaching out. You would be stupid to not take him up on the offer, since you don’t know if it will happen ever again– who knows, he might have accidentally smashed his head into something and get a sudden revelation that is only a one time type of situation– and that’s exactly why you responded to him almost immediately (to which you admittedly, got a bit of an ick from yourself) and agreed to meet him at 6 in his apartment.

You were pleasantly surprised to learn that his place was only a 15 minute walk away from yours when he texted you the address, and after a few more minutes of scrolling through his Instagram that was private– and therefore hidden away from your eyes until now– you set yourself on the difficult journey.

Upon arriving at the apartment building, ringing the door bell and texting him to let you in just in case, so he knows it’s you, you start to feel a bit nervous, though. The truth is, you don’t really know what you’re getting yourself into as you walk into the elevator and press the button that takes you to the fourth floor– as he texted you the moment the door to the complex opened– and you think it’s safe to imagine you could be running out of that apartment at any given moment. Maybe Jimin was right and you should’ve taken at least some self-defense tools with you. You never know these days.

Once the elevator door opens and you step outside of the small space, you get prepared to take out your phone again to text him and ask which door leads to his apartment– the right or left– when you’re surprised with the sight of Huang Renjun already waiting for you in the doorway, loose sweatpants, messy hair and all, expecting your arrival.

Clearing your throat, you tightly smile at the male. “Hello.”

“Hi,” is all he responds as he moves away from the door and disappears into the apartment, seemingly thinking you're going to follow him and get inside, no questions asked. You expected at least an invitation to his premises, even a wave of his hand would be nice, you think, but you guess you can’t really have expectations that high when it comes to men– especially if the man in question is the insufferable Huang Renjun.

Taking your shoes off at the entrance– because even though your host doesn’t have good manners, you still do– the figure of Huang Renjun suddenly appears in the doorway of one of the rooms, watching you put the sneakers into a corner that seems to be designated for footwear. Looking up at him with expecting eyes, he finally breaks the awkward silence as he takes a step inside one of the rooms, calling you to go after him.

“We can work here, I guess,” he mumbles, leading you into what you presume is a living room connected to a kitchen– the place is not that big, but you are a broke university student too, so you don’t have it in you to judge. The place is surprisingly clean and adorned with multiple plants all around the corners of the room and windowsills, the only thing out of place being some dishes at the kitchen counter, waiting to be either used or put away, since they look washed. There’s a sofa in the shape of an L in the middle of it all, a TV sitting right opposite of it on a small TV stand, and when you notice an opened laptop on the coffee table, you presume that this is your work station for the day. You half expected him to invite you to his bedroom, but you guess that you can’t really complain– this feels much less awkward anyway. 

Nodding at his words, you move to the sofa and rest your backpack against the foot of it. Taking out your laptop as well, you sit crossed-legged at the soft cushions as you watch Renjun walk over to the kitchen side of the room, opening up a cupboard and taking out two glasses, bringing them to the crowded coffee table alongside with a bottle of soda. You think this is his way of welcoming you in as your guest, but you don’t have it in yourself to thank him– he’s the one being silent all the time anyway. You won’t put effort unless he does.

The boy silently takes a seat opposite of you, but chooses the carpeted floor instead of the sofa– a sight that almost makes you chuckle in amusement when he struggles to fold his legs in the small space– sighing and bringing the laptop closer to himself, rubbing a palm across his face in presumed tiredness. 

“Did you work on the ideas for the articles?” you ask, voice low, as if you were afraid to speak first, now that you’re in his space. “If they’re too different from mine, we can make like… sections… in the magazine… or something like that. But I think it would be easier if they correlated, you know.”

Renjun hums, not giving you many words this time either. He’s always difficult to work with, but today, it irritates you twice as much– maybe because you’ve gone out of your way to meet him at his apartment, when it was all his idea to work on the project today in the first place. Sighing in disappointment, the boy takes it as a hint that you expect more of him than tired hums and silent nods, and so he opens his mouth to speak, soft voice echoing through the silent apartment.

“I did,” he says, “don’t really know what you’re going for, but I have a short list.”

Satisfied with his answer, you nod. “Can I see it?”

Shrugging, he looks around for a while, eyes searching through the place as he finally finds the paper peeking out from the bottom of the coffee table– so much for the seemingly clean space– and offers the A4 format to you, scribbles in blue ink almost unreadable as you squint onto them, bringing them closer to your face. Once your eyes finally get adjusted to his handwriting, you manage to decipher a few of the words he’s written down; some of his ideas are neatly described, yet, some of them are just a simple word that barely gives you any idea of what he truly meant to say.

The difference between more thought-out ideas like ‘Karaoke songs (history, questionnaire of favorites across the campus…)’, ‘The importance of art in education’, ‘How to really use wikipedia’ and simple words like ‘campus’, ‘festivals’ and ‘soccer(?)’ almost makes you laugh out loud, but you note that the boy actually took the time of his day to work on the project like he promised you he would the last time you spoke about it in class, so you can’t really say anything mean to him, for you truly think it would hurt his pride. Nodding as you finish reading over the list, you offer the paper back to him, noticing him watching you with eyes full of undeniable expectancy.

“Satisfied?” he asks, irony seeping through his voice. 

Rolling your eyes at him– because of course he has to be annoying about everything– you choose to not play by his rules, opting to nod instead and let the tiniest bit of irritation show only through your ironic smile as you reply to him. “Very, actually.”

Seeing as he’s satisfied with himself, you choose to continue to lead this meeting with the same energy as to this moment. You think it’s the safest choice, and it’s also what he seems to be comfortable with, so you don’t beat around the bush and speak up again. “I think it won’t be that hard to combine our lists, since our ideas aren’t that different,” you note, cringing at the suggestion that you and the man in front of you actually kind of think alike, “but I think it would be nice if we chose a few topics and wrote about them together. I bet the professor would like to see some articles written by the both of us, so it shows that we actually worked on it together, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” he mumbles under his breath, taking you off guard. See, maybe you got ahead of yourself when you thought that this afternoon might go by smoothly– you forgot for a moment that Huang Renjun enjoys the idea of being a total ass to the people around him (or you, at least) these days. Huffing at his response, you furrow your brows in disbelief.

“Why not?”

“Just… don’t wanna,” he answers shortly, shrugging in nonchalance.

The sight of him in front of you, not even sharing eye contact as he points his gaze towards his laptop, makes your blood boil. What does he even think of himself? You were starting to think that Jimin was right– you should’ve rethought this interaction over and spared yourself the trouble, because this was surely not going anywhere.

“Look, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you were clearly the one that told me we were project partners, so I don’t know why you’re being so difficult about this-” you huff, but are instantly cut off by your partner.

“I’m being difficult?”

“Yes,” you jump in, “yes you are! And I don’t get why you even invited me over to work on this, when you clearly don’t have the slightest intention to do so in the first place!” you complete, almost ready to stand up from your place on the light-brown sofa and storm out of his apartment. 

He chuckles at your outburst, rolling his eyes. “Well, I’m sorry I’m not in the mood to work on a stupid project after arguing the whole day on the phone with my cheating ex-girlfriend,” he mutters.

The moment those words come out of his mouth, it seems like the already silent apartment gets even quieter. Staring at him in dumbfoundance, the spark that ignited the anger in you suddenly dies out as you ponder on your next actions. Because what does one do when your project partner suddenly overshares possibly one of the most traumatic and heartbreaking facts about himself so casually, in between snarky comments and a petty argument? Sure, you do feel sorry for him now– because no matter how shitty a person acts to you, nobody deserves to get cheated on– and you suddenly wonder if the whole change of atmosphere in his character isn’t the direct result of this very fact. 

You can’t tell him that you’re sorry– because frankly, you know that Huang Renjun doesn’t want your pity. He doesn’t want to hear that you feel sorry for him and what happened, because you’re not friends and you’re not close enough for you to express such feelings towards him. A question arises in the very same essence, though, making you wonder why he even chose to share this information with you in the heat of the moment in the first place, and even though you could excuse his lack of motivation to work on the project by this fact, it still doesn’t change the reality that he was the one initiating the whole thing, and suddenly, you feel confused. 

He invited you over to work on a project, even though his mood was shitty and he didn’t have the motivation to do so. One would find that ridiculous, but if you really look past the sharp eyes and the bleached mess on his head, you could see the true intention behind his actions– the poor boy just wanted a distraction. And with how empty his apartment seems to be right now– his roommate, Donghyuck (a person that Jimin shares a Finance class with, as you learned this very afternoon) is nowhere to be seen– you only bet you were the last option he had instead of wallowing himself in pity and terror. 

Jimin would argue that you’re stupid for your next actions– you would even agree, because this truly doesn’t feel like you– but still, despite going against yourself in a way, you close the laptop sitting in your lap and reach over to the soda he placed in the middle of the coffee table, pouring yourself a glass. You don’t leave his apartment like you fantasized of doing just a few minutes ago; instead, after downing the sickeningly sweet liquid, the bubbles hurting your throat, you rest your back against the sofa and watch the boy in a new light.

“Okay, let’s not work on the assignment, then,” you calmly say, “wanna watch something on Netflix instead?” you ask, seeing him staring at you with confusion in his expression.

“I don’t-”

“It’s okay if you don’t have it, I can log in with my roommate’s account. She’s probably watching Single’s Inferno right now, but I’ll text her to find something better to do instead,” you don’t let him finish his sentence– because you already know that he’d try to protest to your suggestion– shrugging in nonchalance as you reach over to the TV remote you find sandwiched between the sofa cushions.

Turning the TV on, not even sparing a glance to the grumpy-looking boy sitting on the floor opposite of you, the shuffling of clothes and socked-feet on the ground lands into your ears, a figure taking the remote out of your hand when you can’t figure out how the TV works, a low mumble full of fake offendance masking the shameful, yet clear gratitude in his voice.

You don’t miss it as you look over at him with a tight-lipped smile, though, seeing the Netflix app suddenly come up on the TV, his shoulders relaxing as he settles into the cushions of the sickeningly colored sofa. 

“Of course I have Netflix, what do you think I am, poor?” he grunts.

…and the old Renjun is back.

Arriving at class the next week, you’re finally met with less nervousness than the last few times. After interacting with Huang Renjun more and seeing him break his stone-cold demeanor in front of you as you two watched Netflix– he even made popcorn after the second episode of Unsolved mysteries you decided to watch when you saw the show in his ‘continue watching’ list and gushed about how it’s your favorite (to which he told you that you’re weird, but he’s the one binge watching it too, so you really don’t know why you’re the problem and he's not). Thankfully he doesn’t seem as smug and insufferable as he did before. It’s not like you’re suddenly best friends or anything, but you can feel the ice between you melting with every word he sends your way that isn’t laced with irony– not that there's many of them, since Huang Renjun loves his sarcasm– but it’s progress in your book.

Walking over to your usual seat in the classroom, making your backpack fall to the ground next to your desk with a soft thud, you sit at the chair and take out your things for the class when you notice something standing in the way of your notebook and pencil case in the middle of the table. 

Furrowing your brows in confusion, you move the cup of coffee out of your way, closer to your seatmate’s side. Sighing, you mumble under your breath. “Don’t you have enough space for your things on your side of the table?”

“That’s yours,” he deadpans. Gaze switching between the cup of iced americano from the coffee shop at the corner of the campus (you know it by the plastic cup with their logo on it– it's too tacky for your liking and you even gushed about it to Jimin the day the café opened) and the blonde boy next to you, confusion doesn’t seem to leave your insides as you let out an unfocused hum, showing him that you’re still not following. 

“Do you not like coffee or something?” he hisses, seemingly annoyed at your expression. If you saw yourself in the mirror, maybe you’d understand his frustration– your brows are furrowed and there's a crease in the middle of your forehead from how hard you're racking your brain to come up with answers– but now, you’re just in utter disbelief. Maybe you are a little slow– it’s only 8 in the morning, to your defense– but you really don’t remember bringing coffee to school today. Especially not an iced americano– you don’t like the bitter taste, opting to choose a sweeter drink like a caramel macchiato or the infamous pink drink that Jimin teased you for the last time you got it. So how did this strange cup of coffee end up on your table?

Looking around the space, noticing another half-empty cup of coffee on Renjun’s side of the table, the label on the plastic the same as the cup that was waiting on your side, you finally connect the dots. “Did you get that for me?”

“Yeah,” he nods, not even looking at you as he agrees, taking another sip of his coffee instead. 

Now, you do finally know where the strange cup of coffee came from. Why did Renjun buy you coffee in the first place, though, is still a mystery to you, but you guess with how he’s avoiding your gaze, eyes glued to the white board and an uninterested expression sitting on his face, you think it’s better to not ask him any other follow-up questions. He did something nice for you, and with how your thoughts and rationalization are the only clues you can use in figuring out the reason behind it, you wonder if this was his way of apologizing for being rude to you and thanking you for hanging out with him last week.

“Thanks,” you mumble out instead, smiling at his humming figure that barely acknowledges your spoken gratitude. Taking a sip of the drink, while trying really, really hard not to scowl at the bitter taste, you shift your focus on the class instead, taking notes from time to time. Drinking the coffee as if it was a disgustingly tasting medicine your mother forced you to take when you were little– you hated the taste, but had to get through it anyway– you eventually finish your iced americano somewhere in the middle of the lecture. You feel kind of proud of your acting skills, but there’s also an annoying voice somewhere in the back of your head asking you why you even forced yourself to get through that drink anyway and why is it that you didn’t want to hurt Renjun’s feelings by refusing it in the first place. 

But like anyone in your position would, you shush that voice out of your head.

“Did you finish watching the whole season last week?” you ask instead, suddenly interested in having a conversation with him. After you told Jimin about how your weird hang-out with Renjun went, she practically scolded you for not going home right after he let out the first snarky comment out of his mouth. And maybe she’s right and the whole thing you’re trying to do– but what are you even trying to do in the first place? – makes you seem like you’re out of your mind, but at the end of the day, you did finally progress in watching the TV show after putting it on hold for multiple months because your dear roommate wouldn’t stop begging you to watch all of the seasons of Too hot to handle with you instead, so it’s a win in your book.

“I didn’t,” he replies, his voice quiet enough only for you to hear, not interrupting the rest of the class, “Hyuck, my roommate, didn’t come home until like 11pm and I got too creeped out to watch it alone after you left,” he completes, his face completely serious as he utters out the laughable words.

Chuckling at his response, you see him crack a smile from the corner of your eye. The sight is a rather pleasant one, for you think you've  forgotten how it looks in what seems like ages since the obvious breakup with his girlfriend happened, the reminder of his squinted eyes and full cheeks making you feel accomplished, in a way. “Didn’t think you were the type to get scared so easily,” you tease him.

“Not scared,” he huffs out, offended, “just creeped out. That’s different.”

“Did you wait for your roommate because you were too scared to go to sleep?” you test the waters with more teasing, your tone light and playful.

“No, I waited for him because the last time he got home late and I was asleep, he came home drunk and broke down the door to his room and we had to get it replaced,” he announces, making you cover your mouth with the palm of your hand as you almost burst out into a loud giggle. 

“You know what? Yeah. Valid.”

Your conversation falls silent after that, and it makes your spirit fall for a split second. You don’t even know why you wanted it to continue– you don’t know your seatmate, and frankly, you shouldn’t have the desire to do so in the first place. But the sudden act of service thrown your way, although the coffee was disgusting and he could’ve presented the gift to you in a different, more welcoming way, made you get your hopes up– about what exactly, though? 

Jimin always told you that desperately wanting to be everyone’s friend (despite being socially awkward and kind of nervous around new people), is one of your best and worst qualities at the same time. Best, because it means that you’re nice to people– worst, because you’re nice even to people that don’t deserve your kindness; and you also get too disappointed when people don’t share the same enthusiasm with you. Maybe some friendships are meant to keep at surface level, and if this was the type of relationship you and your project partner are about to have, you’re going to have to let go of that annoying voice in your head that keeps telling you to get deeper than that level.

“Why did you dye your hair, by the way?” you ask him nonetheless, after a few heartbeats of silence, curiosity getting the best of you. The moment this question leaves your mouth, you regret it– thinking you somehow could’ve made the boy uncomfortable, your words annoying to his ears– but instead of rolling his eyes at you or telling you to shut up, he replies instead. The reaction surprises you– he really conditioned you to think that every question of yours is going to be met with spite and tantrum, didn't he?

“Dunno,” he says, shrugging, “they say blondes have more fun, so I think it’s only natural to go blonde when you’re sad. To cancel it out, or something,” he snickers as he looks at you, realizing the implication of his words makes the whole statement kind of embarrassing, his tight-lipped smile being the proof of his internal battle not to cringe at his explanation.

You understand, humming in acknowledgment. You’re just a simple woman, after all– you very well understand the urge to change your hair after a breakup. While it is a visible proof of his mental breakdown, you guess you can’t really blame him for trying to feel like there are things that are under his control; even if it’s just the color of his hair.

Walking along Renjun, the atmosphere is thick and a little awkward. Your bag is heavy on your back and you’re slowly starting to feel a bit of an ugly sting in your bones from it; you mourn the fact that you decided to ask Renjun to walk there with you instead of having to take the bus by yourself, too afraid of getting the address wrong and getting lost along the way. You’d love any kind of transport instead of your own two legs right now, since the walk seems to be never ending and you’re pretty certain that the backs of your feet have calluses from wearing your new shoes that you got from a clearance sale from the Nike store at the corner of the town. 

Clearing your throat, you decide to spark up a conversation. It seems like you always have to be the one to initiate things when it comes to Renjun– it’s kind of ironic, though, when you think of the fact that he was the one that made you be his project partner in the first place.“Why did you wanna do the article about the shelter? I didn’t know you were an animal person,” you hum, testing the waters with a casual question. 

Looking up at you, furrowing his brows, the man offers you an indifferent shrug. “My friend Taeyong works there and he wanted to advertise the shelter a little, so I offered to take pictures for his Facebook page in exchange for me writing the article about it,” he mumbles, “he thinks that would give the shelter more exposure too, but I doubt it. Nobody’s gonna read our fake magazine anyway, it’s just an assignment…”

Humming, you kick the rocks on the pavement, a tight-lipped smile appearing on your face. Huang Renjun must do a lot for his friends, you think. You remember him taking pictures for his friend Xiaoting once– she’s an influencer (a model, if you want) and well known around the campus. When you saw his instagram username in one of the picture descriptions one day, you were surprised at the quality of those shoots (and it also led you to stalking his instagram for a bit, but that’s not the main point of this conversation). You also remember seeing him with his friends Shotaro and Yangyang in a team when it was your school’s annual Sports day (you’d argue that you’re not high schoolers anymore and this day is useless, but your classmates seem to think otherwise) trying his best, despite not really liking sports in the first place– or so you heard and seen from how badly he did in most disciplines except from running– and if that’s not a sign of him doing everything he could just to make his friends happy, you don’t know what is. So to see him doing an article about the animal shelter Taeyong works at, despite being more of a plant person himself, you’re not as surprised as you thought you’d be. He does show affection to his friends, after all– you’re just not one of them to see that side of him often.

Walking some more, you eventually end up in front of a big building painted a light tangerine color, windows decorated with pretty curtains on full display to you. Renjun chimes in like a regular, crossing multiple halls and taking sharp turns before you’re met with the image of a taller man with dark brown hair putting small, pastel colored collars on necks of a few little creatures running around the room, despair clearly written on his face.

“No! Don’t run away, oh god-”

Chuckling at the view of yet another kitten running away from his hands, you admire the fluffy little cats crawling all around the place, your heart quickly softening at the sight of them. It’s been a while since you were around animals yourself– the dog you had back home died the summer before the semester started and you weren’t really in the mood to get a new one, since you weren’t going to be around much anyway. 

When yet another kitten escapes the man’s hold, you find yourself watching Renjun as he crouches to the floor and swiftly takes one into his hands, walking closer to the man with collars in his hands, grinning to himself. “Here you go.”

“Man, the cats hate me… where did you two get here?” he shakes his head in disbelief, putting a collar onto the small cat before he pets it on its tiny head.

“Just a minute ago,” Renjun says, “is that one Poppy?” he asks, reading the name tag dangling from the little band around its head, affection filling his words.

“Now it is. I got confused when they all started running around,” he shrugs, sighing as he looks around the room, counting the last few kittens that needed their collars. His eyes soon land on you, a welcoming smile spreading on his boxy lips. “Hey! I’m Taeyong. You must be Y/N.”

“Nice to meet you,” you smile, trying to make yourself seem as nice as possible. You don’t know what Renjun told him about you, but if they were bad things, you only hope to undeceive the man with your warm attitude. 

Renjun then puts the kitten down, and while you’d expect it to run away from him and join its siblings in the corner of the room, the creature does quite the opposite– it stays by his side and lays on the ground close to him, making even Taeyong himself gasp at the image. “Wow,” he snickers, “you should start coming here every time I need to put these on them, you’re like a cat whisperer.”

While the two of them chat, you stay a little behind, not really wanting to intrude. You take off the heavy bag and take out your camera, deciding to take a few pictures of the shelter instead, so you can say you worked on the interview with him. You think it’s expected of you, since he asked you to come along despite being absolutely fully capable of doing the interview with his friend alone, so you do your work and zoom in on the two of them talking, snapping a few quick pictures. 

After a while, you take a seat on the ground– being the infamous enjoyer of sitting on the hard surface of it, earning yourself a lot of scolding screams from your mother growing up– and fully take in the interior. The walls are the same light tangerine color as the outside ones, and there’s a little enclosure in the corner of the room that would surely make Taeyong’s job much easier if only he had used it. There are bags of cat food in the other corner of the room, and while the shelter doesn’t look very modern or fancy, you think it’s kinda homey and welcoming. You bet kids would love it here– with the colorful atmosphere and the smiley worker running around catching kittens, and after a while of taking pictures of everything your eyes land on, you find your inner child healing, little by little.

The truth is, you always wanted a cat. But you were never able to get one, because your mother hates them. No matter how hard you tried, no matter how many times you petted strays on the street and begged her to take them home, you never won this battle– so you had to settle on a dog. And don’t get me wrong, you loved your dog, but at the end of the day, you knew you were more of a cat person anyway.

Reaching forward a little, noticing the kitten waddling your way, you think of petting it– it quickly jumps out of your reach, though, too scared of your touch, and you’re left frowning, the bubble bursts at the rejection from the small ball of fluffiness.

“Taeyong?” you hear a voice of a woman call from the door, the man swiftly turning to her with brows raised in question. “They need your help with the big dogs. They keep dragging Yeri on the leash and she’s too weak to get them to their cages.”

“Oh,” the man deadpans, scratching his neck for a bit before he turns to Renjun again, escaping the room in one swift motion, “I’ll be right back!”

The room falls silent after that, no longer having the background noise of their conversation playing as you observe the animals. You feel the atmosphere growing thicker again, and as time passes by, you find yourself taking short glances at your project partner, wondering what’s on his mind. One moment, he’s crouching down and petting the cats that come his way, the other, he is gazing out of the window with a soft frown that takes over his features like a dark shadow, and you wonder when this expression really settled into his face and made itself the default, and why is it not willing to leave. Not really knowing what to say or what to do to make the boy that’s still so out of your reach feel any better, you opt for silence, even though it does get quite heavy and thick over time– and the truth is, you don’t even know why you notice yourself feeling this way so often around him, when all he’s done was give you the cold shoulder so often and then offer you an iced americano you don’t even like in the first place.

Minutes pass and the silence slowly makes your ears ring; you desperately try to find a good solution in your brain– create a script where hanging out with Renjun is easier and less nerve-wrecking– but still, there’s nothing and you’re left with the awkwardness and hesitance. Sighing when another kitten escapes your grasp, you put your hands into your lap and give up on the task, settling on just watching them instead– there was no use in you trying to pet one when all it wanted to do was run away from you.

Watching the group of fluff jumping at each other and sleeping all around the room, your focus only shifts when there’s a kitten suddenly thrusted into your point of view, its big blue eyes staring you down making you awe. You wonder how it got there in a moment of full stupidity before you look up and see your project partner, the cat magnet himself, holding the cat up to you, waiting for you to take it into your hold and pet it. Gazing at him with mouth agape in confusion, he slowly puts the cat into your lap, petting the creature when it settles, and takes a seat opposite of you all in the span of a few seconds, the action making you smile uncontrollably.

“They’re adorable, aren’t they?” he mumbles, watching as you pet the kitten in your lap, cooing at the soft fur. There’s a hint of you that desperately wants to adopt it once you finally pet the small cat, but you know that it wouldn’t be a smart idea– animals are banned at dorms and you don’t think you’d have enough energy to take care of another living creature right now anyways.

“They are,” you hum, “I always wanted one.”

“Why didn’t you get one, then?”

“My mum doesn’t like them very much,” you mumble, pouting at the small creature in your hold, as if to apologize for the words coming out of your mouth.

He hums in acknowledgement, picking up another kitten that waddles his way, putting it up on his thigh– his body now sitting cross-legged on the floor. Watching as the animal crawls up his body and tickles him with its claws, soft laughter erupts out of him, making you smile unconsciously at the boy. 

“I’m not really into animals that much,” he says, further proving your earlier claims. See– in some ways, Renjun is easy to read. Just by looking at him, you could tell he’s not a fan of sweet beverages; you can tell he enjoys black coffee– just like the one he brought you that day– and herbal teas, perfectly matching the image of him in your head that’s surrounded by plants rather than animals, just the bit of greenery you saw around the kitchen very clearly still alive and thriving making you believe you are correct in this assumption as well. One can say a lot about a person by the way they dress, and with Renjun’s casual, yet cozy attire, you can tell he dresses for himself, choosing comfort over style, but still looking effortlessly put together at the same time. You would never strike him as someone that makes spontaneous decisions, rather being more focused on a plan, so to see him dye his hair so randomly is a sign of the fact that there’s something crumbling inside of him– a sense of security, maybe a feeling of stableness– that he tries so hard to grasp. 

“They are into you, though,” you giggle when the kitten purrs at his touch, pointing at the cross-eyed creature. 

“What can I say,” he shrugs, “I guess I’m that irresistible.”

There aren’t many opportunities for you to laugh at his jokes. Mainly because he doesn’t make many, but also because you always notice them being self-deprecating, and you don’t want to support that idea in his head. At this one, though, you send him a soft chuckle and a roll your eyes, showing how you seemingly think the idea is ridiculous and his joke is corny, but deep inside knowing that you resonate with his words.

In a moment of selfishness– an indulgence you try to mask by the fact that you came here because of the assignment and this was your job in the first place– you take your camera and snap a picture of the boy in front of you, his hands holding the small kitten up in air and snickering when he sees you pointing the lens to him in order to capture him playing with the creature. You don’t know what it is that makes your heart warm up at the image that comes up on the screen shortly after, but you figure that’s a problem of future you and there’s no use in pondering about it now.

You don’t know how many minutes pass with just the two of you playing with the kittens, but when Renjun takes his phone out of his pocket and checks the time, you furrow your brows before he hums. “He’s taking so much time,” he says, sighing. 

All while playing with the fuzzy small balls, you didn’t even notice the time passing by so quickly. You don’t know how much time it’s been, but you assume it could be more than 35 minutes of the two of you left alone in the room, Taeyong seemingly too overwhelmed with the shelter responsibilities.

“Maybe we should go,” he offers, catching you off guard.

“Oh,” you hum, “well, maybe. But you haven’t even done an interview with him yet,” you mumble, your hands lost in the soft fur of the kitten still laying in your lap.

“I can just send him the questions to his email. Perhaps, I’m sure you’ve taken more than enough pictures of the kittens for his Facebook page,” he snickers, shrugging, “I don’t see why we should be staying here if he’s busy, we’re only putting more work on him.”

“I- I mean…” you mumble, trailing off at the end. You don’t really wanna say goodbye to the kittens, the healing in your heart not quite done yet, when the boy next to you laughs at what you presume is your emotions showing clearly on your face.

“Unless you wanna play with them more, of course. We can stay a little longer, then.”

The autumn season slowly fades into winter, time passing by quicker than you could even grasp. The shock and surprise of having to work on the lengthy project with Renjun morphs into a feeling of ordinarity, getting used to his mood slowly shifting from reserved and irritated to a one more pleasant, full of hesitant smiles and soft words when he notices you feeling down or disappointed with yourself, and a one more close to a brother-like teasing when he watches you arrive to his apartment to work on things. One would say you hit it off, your energies matching as you slowly get to know the boy, but still, there’s a hint of something inside of you that makes you grow nervous around him whenever he is too close to your figure, your body falling limp and your brain working on overdrive. You wonder if it’s the sheer fact of simply not being fully used to his presence; while Jimin says you’re down bad for the man. She’s wrong– or at least you’re convinced that she is– and that’s why you simply think the uncertain feeling of uneasiness that settles in your bones sometimes is the effect of the fact that you never truly know what to expect when you arrive at Renjun’s place.

Some days, when you arrive, there’s a mess waiting for you in the living room, where you usually work on the project with Renjun. There are pots and pans with dried food everywhere and your partner’s hands are foaming with washing liquid when he opens the door for you, and you giggle at the sight. Other days, the apartment is full of people you don’t know and Renjun has to throw them out with a scream saying that the group was supposed to leave two hours ago, and when you come on weekends, he lets you in wearing sweatpants and bed hair, as if he spent the whole day in his sheets. Dare you say, this is your favorite version of him– his eyes are half-lidded and he moves slowly, even his remarks aren’t as harsh as they tend to get. Jimin once argued and told you that you two don’t even need to meet that often for the sake of the project– and on a weekend as well– but you’d say it adds to the value of the magazine if you two can get opinions out of each other and review each other’s writing in real time. 

Some days, his roommate is home, and that’s when you join Renjun in his room so you two get a bit of privacy (not that you’re doing anything that requires privacy. His roommate Donghyuck is just very nosy and he keeps asking you questions you don’t have the time and energy to answer). 

Today is one of these days, with his energetic roommate roaming the halls of the apartment, but this time, you two don’t hide away in the comfort of Renjun’s small, yet very organized room. Sitting in the living room of his and Hyuck’s shared apartment, your bottom meeting the carpeted floor instead of the cushions of their couch, your laptop screen darkening when you don’t work on the device for some time and it puts itself to sleep mode. The reason for said action is your attention being somewhere completely else– on Donghyuck’s figure trailing in and out of the room, each time wearing a different outfit than before.

“What about this one, Y/N? Do I look good?” he asks, posing like a model that didn’t pass an audition in any modeling agency, their dream of flashing a smile on the title pages of Vogue fading out of their sight.

You burst out laughing at the weird combination. You don’t remember Donghyuck ever being bad at fashion from the few times you've met him before he left their apartment to attend a party or go to class– you’re quite certain that his habit to always tuck in his shirts into his skinny jeans, the stylistic choice showcasing his long legs making not one, but many girls, boys and others salivate over him. But when seeing him in a tragic combination of cowboy boots and a cow-print shirt, you can’t help but giggle.

“Hyuck, now you’re just taking the shit. That’s your Halloween costume from last year,” the boy next to you on the ground whines, running his hands through his hair in despair.

“Okay, but what if I really want to wear it?” he asks all innocent, his roommate now faking a cry in response, “besides, I was asking Y/N, so you shut your mouth.”

“I think it’s great,” you nod, wiping the corner of your eyes from the stray tears that fall off from the laughter you’ve been doing at the interaction. Your assignment was long forgotten the first moment Donghyuck decided to pay you a visit in the living room, starting with shitting on his professor for making him study on a weekend (which you argued that he could’ve started with earlier in the week, to which he glared at you and asked if he looks like a nerd), and then proceeding to do everything but study– starting with making a smoothie in the living room– while efficiently making so much noise with the mixer every time Renjun spoke up, annoying the short male– to giving you a make-shift fashion show.

“Do you want me to embarrass myself? See, I wore this to test if you were being genuine, but I see now that you’re on Renjun’s side,” he scoffs, shaking his head in disbelief and escaping the living room, making you burst out laughing even more as you hear the door to his room shut with a loud thud.

He’ll come back soon– you’re sure of it.

And you’re right. After Renjun manages to let out a loud noise of despair at the fact that he has to live with someone like Lee Donghyuck– not only now, he complains about it every other day, when the latter drags him to parties only for him to be the designated driver for the night and get him home safely, or how he makes him pay for dinner he orders for the both of them without asking– the other man joins you in the living room again, now dressed casually in sweatpants and a loose shirt.

“Okay, the fashion show’s over. I think I’ll go with the first outfit, just by the way, because it matches my eyes,” he says, quite seriously, to which Renjun only sighs.

“Hyuck, your eyes are brown.”

“Okay and?”

“That what you wore was– you know what, never mind…” Renjun shakes his head as he stops himself mid-sentence, making you snicker at the mental image of the outfit Donghyuck’s talking about, because frankly, Renjun is right with his frustration. The shirt his roommate wore was blue, and while it didn’t clash in the slightest, it surely didn’t match the brown depth of Donghyuck’s orbs, and that’s what makes the whole thing that much funnier.

Turning your head around to watch Renjun’s roommate moving through the kitchen area, opening up the fridge and pouring himself a glass of milk– you don’t even dare to question him anymore– you ask. “What is the occasion anyway?”

“Jisung’s birthday party,” he mumbles, taking a sip, “you know Park Jisung, right?”

“Never heard of him,” you shake your head, seeing as the man widens his eyes at you with surprise.

“No? Well, you’re gonna get to know him soon, then,” he says, shrugging.

“That sounds like a threat,” you giggle, “what do you even mean?”

To that, Donghyuck shifts his eyes to his roommate sitting next to you on the ground, shrugging. “Well, I assumed you were invited…” he says, grinning to himself.

The man next to you audibly sighs– what is the reason behind his frustration this time, you truly do not know, but with Renjun, there’s always something getting on his nerves. He has a problem with having his anger in control sometimes.

Furrowing your eyebrows at the proposition, you shake your head. “Why would I be invited to Park Jisung’s birthday party?”

“Because it’s quite the event! Park Jisung’s turning into an adult, and to that, he’s throwing a big party, which means friends of friends of friends are invited,” he says, as if it was the most matter-of-fact information you’ve ever heard, “and since you’re a friend of a friend, I’d assume you get a pass.”

Shrugging, you mutter. “Well, I wasn’t invited,” you add, not paying the whole party much thought. 

The man squints his eyes at the two of you, eyes drifting from one figure to the other, humming to himself as if he was lost in thought. “Okay, then…” he mysteriously mumbles under his breath before downing the glass and putting it into the sink, completing his visit by exiting the living room.

“Would you come back and wash your dishes after yourself?” Renjun yells into the depths of the apartment, a sneaky remark being thrown his way almost immediately.

“No, thank you!”

And after watching the interaction, you come to the conclusion that if you were living with Lee Donghyuck, you'd turn kind of crazy too. You can’t even blame Renjun anymore. Truth be told, though, you didn’t get much work done that Saturday, and you think his sheer presence might be the reason why.

“What do you think?” you ask, turning your laptop towards Renjun, the two of you currently sitting in the library, working on your project. Originally, you had planned to go to your place– but Jimin texted you last second that she has a guy over, and Renjun said his roommate has a gathering of some sort at his apartment, so you settled on the comfort and silence your university library provides. Not a lot of people are here during this time of the year; the exam season isn’t that close yet and no one’s panicking about last-minute studying, so only a few responsible students are currently scattered across the spacious room on the second floor, working on their essays. You bet they’re humanities students– they always have the most shit to do when it comes to essays. You study Journalism, but your roommate is a Sociology major, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone write as many essays as Jimin in a single semester.

What you’re showing Renjun is an opened Microsoft Publisher document, your shared magazine shining from the blue light of the screen. Renjun sent you his copy of the pages he’s done with the animal shelter interview, and as you were looking at the columns of text and off-centered pictures, the perfectionist in you woke up and forced you to fix the tiny mistakes that didn’t escape your eye.

“It’s different,” he hums, eyebrows furrowing as he examines the two-page spread, resting his head on his hand, plopped up on his elbow, and pushing his rimmed glasses further up his nose bridge. “Did you change anything?”

“I just… played around with it a little,” you mumble, afraid of what he thinks. As far as you know, he could flip out any second and scream at you for doing his work when it was perfectly fine the way he sent it to you– at least the Huang Renjun you met a few weeks ago would certainly do that– and so you don’t think it’s that unexpected of you to be so nervous about his opinion.

“This picture wasn’t here before,” he says, pointing to one of the pictures you neatly slotted into the corner of the page– it was one of your favorites, you must admit with severe embarrassment– with Renjun holding up a baby kitten, looking at it with softened eyes. When you looked at the page spread he sent you the other day, you couldn’t believe he didn’t add that picture. Something about it being your favorite– finding yourself admiring it when you look through the pictures on your camera’s SD card– was enough to make you think it’s surely his favorite as well. It didn’t matter that it didn’t really fit the professional aura the whole spread radiates. For you, the magazine wasn’t complete without including it– think of that what you will.

“It was asymmetrical without it, so I had to add it…” you say, scratching the back of your neck. That’s a partial lie– you could make it work if you moved the pictures around a little bit, but Renjun doesn’t have to know that.

He hums, eyes scanning over the text, shrugging. “It’s nice. As long as you didn’t change the text part, I don’t mind,” he says, relief making your shoulders slouch down, not even noticing how tense you’ve become, “I actually got bored while working on this, so I get that it didn’t really look nice before. Thanks,” he completes, offering you a soft smile as he takes a sip of the black americano sitting on the desk.

“Good,” you nod, shaking off the nervousness from before, “okay.”

Scrolling through the document, moving a few things around, adding better punctuation here and there, the number of pages is still not hitting the criteria for your final grade. That’s okay– you still have a lot of time to complete the magazine and you still have plenty of ideas. To execute them is another thing, but you’re sure you’ll find a way.

“What about your interview?” Renjun suddenly asks, almost making you jump up from the surprise that is created by his voice suddenly cutting through the silence of the library.

“What about it?” you hum, looking at him. His hair is a little tousled– he’s been putting in way less work than you today, laying on the table occasionally when you don’t show him anything on your laptop for a while, acting more as your company than a help. It looks like the coffee on his table is the only thing keeping him awake, and you suddenly feel a little bad for insisting on working on the project even though your initial plans of doing it at your place fell through, because he seems to be exhausted.

“Well, I did the shelter, so you should do something too,” he says, shrugging, “or do something similar, you know… I think it would be nice to have you write about something from a reporter's perspective.”

“Oh,” you nod, “well, I dunno… I had a few ideas, but it’s…”

“Hm?” he motions for you to talk when your voice drifts out, eyes looking at you with patience and genuine interest. The change of demeanor that’s been happening with him lately slightly shocks you, but you welcome the new character in him with open arms. Still, it doesn’t mean you don’t get a little hesitant around him whenever he shows you this side of him– you don’t really know how to react, or what to expect of him anymore. It’s like walking on eggshells, but you can’t say you hate the strange anticipation.

“Well, it’s stupid, but…” you start, seeing him roll his eyes at the beginning of your proposition, “my favorite writer is doing some sort of a fan sign slash q&a thing in the local library next week. She’s coming out with a new book, and I think it would be nice to get an interview with her, but she’s probably very busy and everything, so that won’t work out.”

Looking at Renjun, feeling shy of the sudden revelation of hopes and dreams, you chew on your bottom lip in anticipation. The range of answers he could give you is truly big– he could laugh at you, tell you to go alone, or he could tell you that it’s a stupid idea, a boring one, even, or he could be supportive– the least likely response, you think. Sharing your idea with him makes you a little hesitant again, feeling a little naked in front of him, and you even avert your gaze towards your laptop and aimlessly scroll through the document to avoid his gaze, to seem more nonchalant and not at all bothered by his lack of words, when he gives you a tired hum.

“Well, you could at least do an article about the library, then. To advertise sustainability, and all… And kids these days don’t read much, so I think it’s nice to talk about it,” he says, once again folding over the table and burrowing his face in the space between his folded arms and his chest, half sitting, half laying down on the furniture, “wanna go next week? Maybe we can catch that writer of yours.”

Allowing yourself to look at him, relief once again washing over you at the acceptance, you can’t help but smile at his slurred words of affirmation. “I mean, I’m down…”

Doubting you could get the interview– not even trying to reach out to the writer, already setting yourself up for the expected failure– you make plans to visit the library the said day with Renjun anyway. You’ll get your camera and maybe get some nice shots, maybe ask around for an interview from one of the nice, old librarians instead. It’s not a bad idea, and it fits the vibe of your magazine quite nicely.

Who knows, maybe you could even get your book signed. Doesn’t hurt to try.

You think it was safe to say that you didn’t expect to see a text message pop up on the screen of your phone one afternoon, the black letters shining darkly on the bright screen with a hesitant, yet a little hurried invitation to Park Jisung’s birthday party. The whole interaction you had about it with Renjun and Hyuck was awkward, and so to see getting an invitation for yourself the day of the said event was a shocking concept, leaving you scrambling your things from various places of your apartment and putting them into a handbag before getting dressed for the occasion. 

Quickly learning that Lee Donghyuck is a man of his word– meaning that he never lies, especially when it comes to big parties– your mouth hangs open when you arrive to the address Renjun texted you in the afternoon, the big mension-like building full of people you’ve never seen before, leaving you to acknowledge that friends of friends of friends must have been invited to fill up the whole place, since it’s not possible for poor Park Jisung to know everyone at his birthday party. The fact makes you feel less special; the invitation not really making you feel like you were wanted there, the place breaking in its seams making you internalize a thought that you were there just to fill up the blank spaces and Renjun invited you only for the sheer fact of needing a lot of people for his friend’s party. A little disappointed, yet, still kind of amazed at the size of it all, you walk out of Jimin’s car– she offered to drive you there– and hesitantly set your foot to the  grass that divides the land from the sidewalk. 

Feeling a little lost, turning your head in various directions to try to find anyone you’d know– Huang Renjun being the best alternative, since he was the one who invited you, after all– you start to feel a little out of place when no one pays you any attention and the loud music filling your ears only acts as a distraction that slowly makes you oversaturated with stimulus. Just when you go to take your phone out of your bag to call either Renjun or your roommate to come back to pick you up and drive you to the safety of your apartment, a hand lands on your shoulder and makes you turn around in your tracks, a strange sense of comfort enveloping your insides when you see the short blonde peeking at you from under his carelessly styled bangs, a grin sitting on his face. “You’re here!”

“Yeah. I told you I’d come…?” you mumble, observing Renjun’s sudden enthusiasm at your arrival, letting the man drag you inside of the building. 

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel all the eyes of the guests on you. While you were a stranger to all of them, you are almost certain the popular Huang Renjun was one of the more known people of the bunch, catching attention of multiple friends of his and also friends of their friends, and suddenly, the feeling of his touch on your wrist as he drags you inside makes your skin burn, your brain almost overheating when you realize this might as well be the first time you’ve had any sort of physical contact with the male. Fixing your gaze on his back, enveloped in an oversized leather jacket, you start to wonder if he’s drunk.

“Do you want anything to drink?” he asks, finally turning back to you when you arrive in the spacious kitchen. You wonder if this house is rented, or if Park Jisung’s one of the wealthy kids in the town. You truly have no knowledge on the man, and when you hesitantly look around the room, trying to sort out what alcohol they have in store– while mentally thinking of what would make you the least hammered, considering your low alcohol tolerance– you feel Renjun’s eyes glued to you, heat inevitably rising to your cheeks. “What’s that in your hand?” he asks, making you jump out of your haze.

“Oh,” you stutter, “I brought a birthday gift for Jisung,” you mumble, seeing Renjun’s glossy eyes blink at you a few times, his lips suddenly twitching up in amusement. In this moment, you think he truly must be drunk, his fingers reaching towards the gift bag in your left hand as he peeks inside, noticing the handwritten card and a box of chocolates you brought to the boy you’ve never seen before. Your project partner cracks up as he puts the bag away to the corner of the room.

“You’re too sweet for this world,” Renjun giggles as he looks back at you, making you widen your eyes in surprise at the affectionate words falling off his tongue.

“Why?”

“Nobody actually expected you to bring a gift, you know,” he says as he walks through the half-empty kitchen, eyes roaming over the solo cups filled with alcohol, “you don’t even know him. Half the people here don’t know him and I’m pretty sure half of his actual friend group didn’t give him anything.”

“Oh,” you blink, suddenly feeling stupid. “Well, I didn’t want to seem rude…” you sheepishly mumble, scratching the back of your neck in hesitance. Maybe you did go a little overboard– nobody can really blame you, though. You’re not a big party goer, and since it’s someone’s birthday, you only assumed it’s socially expected of you to bring a gift. And it’s Renjun’s friend, on top of that– one would say you wanted to give off a good impression, as his plus-one to the party, whatever that means. If you were considered that, to be exact– with the amount of people here, though, you were starting to feel a little lost in the situation.

“See, you’re too sweet,” he says, shrugging,  eyes still fixated on the kitchen counter as he seemingly searches for a specific drink. Arm motioning towards one of the red solo cups, he suddenly turns to you and offers you the contents, smiling. “He loves chocolate, though, so that gift’s gonna be his favorite. Well, if it even gets to him in this whole mess… rum and coke?” he asks, and without much thought, you eagerly take the cup from his hand, nodding.

“Thanks,” you say, tasting the alcohol on your tongue. You don’t tell him that rum and coke is your biggest enemy– not because it tastes bad, quite the opposite, actually. You enjoy the mixture too much for you to control yourself sometimes. You can only pray that you don’t get too loose tonight.

The man’s eyes stay strangely glued to your figure as you sip from the cup, and you almost open your mouth to tease him about it– or ask if there’s something on your face, either or– when there’s a chant coming out of one of the rooms outside, incoherent screams slowly forming into one recognisable word– a name, to be exact– the voices calling Park Jisung, tonight’s birthday boy. Renjun’s eyes widen at that, his body moving fast as he tugs you by your hand again, almost spilling your drink in the process, your figure suddenly standing in a living room seemingly bigger than your whole apartment, the sight in front of you making you laugh.

A tall, lanky boy is thrown up in the air by the arms of multiple men– one of which you recognise to be Hyuck– as the whole room chants Jisung's name, the sight  a little comedic in your eyes. Rose tint settles on Park Jisung's face as the whistling only gets louder, a few phones with the flash turned on pointed to his face, the moment captured in time. You wonder what the boy did in his life to get this amount of popularity, but you can only imagine that, as one would say, this could very well be a core memory for him. You only turn adult once in your life, and for some reason, the thought of Park Jisung doing so surrounded by his friends that threw him perhaps the biggest birthday party in the history of your university campus, you get a little emotional for him. Maybe Renjun was right with you being too sweet for this world– in this moment, though, you think you’re too soft instead.

After a while, the men get tired of holding up his weight and the boy slowly comes down from the high, the hollering getting more quiet as it turns into the birthday song, making you join in with the singing. The thought of being an outcast, just a random person in the crowd slowly seeps away when you feel included in the moment, worry leaving you as you watch Donghyuck– the biggest hype man of his friends, or so it seems– shake the birthday boy vigorously by his shoulders before he lets go and plants a sloppy kiss to his cheek, which leads to the two of them chasing each other around the crowded place.

Watching the whole scene unfold right in front of your eyes, you find yourself gazing at Renjun from the corner of your eye, the bright grin on his face making your heart squeeze in a weird way. He seems so happy in this moment, dragging you from room to room excitedly as if he was a regular in this place, the joy of celebrating his friend making his flushed face glow in a healthy way. You got used to seeing his face clouded in a shadow; the worried crease in between his eyebrows and the darkness under his eyes regular visitors in his expression, so to see him seep in the ugly orange lights of the luxurious house tugs at your heartstrings in a way you choose to not recognize or name. 

“Y/N!” you hear your name screamed from somewhere in the room, making you tear your eyes away from the man standing by your side. Looking at the source of the yell, you find Lee Donghyuck striding towards you with his long legs, the action almost threatening, yet, his face beams in an excited aura.

“Hyuck!”

“You came!” he yells back in the same energy as last time, although his body is now only a few steps away from you, making you giggle. You recognise his outfit to be one of the multiple he showed you back at their apartment before he started acting all silly, the memory making you laugh in fondness.

“I did!” you nod, “I got invited,” you say, voice almost sounding proud of the achievement. 

“Yeah, I know,” he says as his eyes drift from you to Renjun, his eyebrows wiggling suggestively before he earns himself a punch to the shoulder from his roommate, a sharp, over-exaggerated scowl escaping his lips at the motion. “Come meet Jisung!” he quickly switches up the topic, dragging you along with himself like a rag doll in an instance. He must be drunk; you think. 

You wonder why you keep being dragged around the house– maybe it’s a sign that you’re too weak and should probably start working out more so you can stand your ground. Nonetheless, you follow the man as you look around, as if to apologize to Renjun for leaving him, when you see the blonde following you to the small group in the corner of the living room, recognising them to be the ones holding up Jisung just a few minutes prior. 

“Jisung! This is Y/N!” Donghyuck utters out as soon as you get to the small gathering, all eyes suddenly glued to you. You wouldn’t say it made you feel comfortable or even invited– quite the opposite, to be honest– but the man that was addressed cutely turns to you, a shy smile plastered on his face when he greets you.

“Ah! Hello!”

You doubt Park Jisung even knows who you are. You doubt any of these people do– with how they’re looking at you in examination, but you still bite through it as you force a smile on your face. “Happy birthday,” you say to him, earning yourself a bright smile from the recipient.

“Thanks!” he beams. “You’re Renjun hyung’s friend, right?” he asks  in response, almost making you choke on your spit in surprise at the fact that the boy knows who you are, which leads you to believe that you were talked about in this circle before.

“Sort of,” you nod, forcing out a giggle.

“Sort of?” the annoyed voice of Huang Renjun himself fills your ears from your right, making you jump up at the proximity of him that you weren’t aware of before, the mock offense on his face making you giggle when you think of the remorse he treated you with when you first met. He looked like he never wanted to speak to you in his life, and now he’s acting offended at you not fully calling him your friend? Yes, you did that to spite him– because if you weren’t friends, you truly don’t know what you were even doing here in the first place– but you still think the whole thing is a little ironic. “You’re at our house at least once a week and we’re not friends in your eyes?” 

“Well, that’s only because I have to,” you argue, when the man only shakes his head at you in disbelief.

“Okay, you’re not allowed to eat our snacks when you come over anymore,” he says, shrugging in nonchalance. Laughing, you find yourself looking over the group you’re standing with, the discomfort slowly fading away when you engage in conversation with Renjun. You catch a few names you can’t really place to their respective faces– mainly because Jisung was the only one formally introduced to you– when you notice a girl staring at you in examination, her figure not noticed by you before. 

The longer you stare at her, the longer you start to recognise her, and before you let panic overtake you– in all honesty, you don’t even know why you’d panic at this fact– you realize it’s none other than Huh Yunjin, your friend’s ‘cheating ex-girlfriend’ looking at you with something resembling spite in her eyes, her jaw clenched and her look glazing from your outfit to your face, as if mentally scoring you on your attractiveness, judging every detail of your body, all while a tall boy hugs her to his side– whom you presume is her new boyfriend.

He looks nothing like Renjun– he is quite the opposite, if you really think about it– and even though you tear your eyes away from her figure, your brain still screams at you with arguments that you look nothing like her; even though it shouldn’t really matter. You’re not Huang Renjun’s new girlfriend– not even the object of his desire, or the new girl by his side– you’re just his project partner, a classmate he’s grown to calling a friend, but still, you can’t help but notice her radiating beauty, the outshining features on her face and the charismatic aura she radiates– the polar opposite to everything you’d describe yourself as; and the comfort you felt while talking with Renjun’s friends is suddenly swept under the carpet, long forgotten when you still feel her eyes burning through your skull, her gaze making you like an intruder, someone who’s not supposed to be here, someone who doesn’t belong. 

And to make things even worse, you suddenly feel Renjun’s hand around your waist, and when your eyes lock with his you swear you see a hint of understatement in them, something that lets you know that he’s aware of his ex girlfriend’s burning stare; his protective side kicking in, yet still making you question the matter even more.

You bet he did it to soothe you. You can even clearly read his intentions in the warm smile he sends you when he squeezes your side, hugging you closer to himself, but the more you’re aware of his burning palm on your flesh, the more uncertain you become, the less engaged in the conversation you get, and the more uncomfortable you feel under the orange lights of the living room.

“Wanna go outside? I’m pretty sure they have a karaoke machine there, if you wanna play,” you feel Renjun whisper into your ear, his warm breath hitting your skin, the hint of vodka in it supporting your earlier claims and that he was at least a little tipsy after all. 

Nonetheless, you nod and find him leading you outside, not before you turn around to look at Yunjin for one last time, though, seeing clear jealousy shading her expression; making you wonder if you were invited just because she was too, and if you just fulfilled your designated role for the night.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” you ask, looking at your companion as the two of you sit on the stairs outside of the university building, your bags carelessly placed at your feet. It’s getting quite dark out, the winter days still being insanely short even though it’s the middle of February and spring is slowly approaching the town. The two of you had worked on your assignment in the library before Renjun told you that he has to wait for his friends Jeno and Donghyuck to pick him up, since they are meeting up with their friends from high school, their friend group living out of town requiring the two of them to take a drive there.

“Of course not,” Renjun shakes his head, “I offered to drop you off, so why would I mind?” 

“What about your friends–”

“If they have anything against it, I’ll make sure to choke them, so don’t worry about that,” Renjun softly laughs at his own joke, trying to ease you. Still, there’s something inside of you that makes the atmosphere heavy and thick, having you crack your knuckles as you sit in silence, chewing on your bottom lip from nerves.

“What’s up? You’ve been acting weird lately,” Renjun hums, looking at you from his place on your left. 

You tried hard to mask your hesitance, especially because you think the worries inside of you are stupid, but you can’t help but feel a hint of discomfort whenever you think of Jisung’s birthday party. Sure, you had a great time– his friends were nice to you, Hyuck even dramatically sang a song at the karaoke with you when Renjun got tired, the two of you taking shots together when you were done. You danced with Renjun after, the music keeping you close, and when you got tired, he walked you home. Everything felt normal between you– except from the weird closeness and occasional touches he sent your way– but you presume that was the effect of alcohol, so you didn’t ponder on it that much.

The eyes of his ex girlfriend on you the whole evening is what made you feel a bit itsy about the situation, and even though there was no hint that would further prove your previous claims, you can’t help but think about Huh Yunjin from time to time, and that’s what makes you feel at least a bit awkward about the whole thing.

“Nothing, I’m fine,” you say, trying to play it off.

“Come on,” Renjun sighs, “tell me. Is it something I did?”

Shaking your head, you roll your eyes at his insisting. The shift in dynamic is ironical, to say the least– 4 months ago, he wouldn’t care about what was making you feel so down, he wouldn’t even care about you walking home from university alone in the darkness of the evening hours, but now, the crease between his brows almost makes him look worried about you, and you can’t say you hate it– even though in this moment, you’d rather have him not care at all.

“Okay, so I’ll just play a guessing game, then,” he scoffs, humming, lost in thought. “You’ve been weird since the party. Something happened there?” 

“No,” you disagree, tone of voice almost sounding desperate and harrowing, not really wanting him to keep asking about the reasoning behind your mood.

“Okay, so that’s a yes. Did someone make you feel uncomfortable? Do I need to beat somebody up? Oh god, was it Hyuck? That fucker said something to you, right? I’m gonna lock him out of the apartment, I swear to god–”

“It wasn’t Hyuck,” you giggle at his outrage, deciding to save his roommate’s life.

“It wasn’t?” he asks, seemingly genuinely surprised, expecting his devilish roommate to be the reason behind all the bad things in the world. “Okay, so it must have been me, no? What did I do?” 

Sighing and shaking your head in disbelief at his insistence, you grunt. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Jun, can you just stop asking?” you say, the nickname rolling of your tongue automatically, without much thinking. 

There’s a moment of silence between the two of you. It does nothing to help you relax or feel better about the situation, but at least you think Renjun finally dropped the topic and won’t ask you about it again. You’d rather have the ground swallow you whole than to admit what’s been bugging you, especially when it’s Renjun himself you’re talking to about the matter.

You were, once again, wrong in your assumptions. Renjun did not drop the topic– no, he just took his sweet time to hit the nail on the head.

“Was it because of Yunjin?” 

The question opens a pit in your stomach, the embarrassment creeping out of your body and making you heat up not helping your case. Hands clammy as you shake your head and gesture, trying to prove your disagreement with the question to the best of your abilities– but only making yourself look stupid and like you’re trying too hard– your words come out weirdly high-pitched, only further proving Renjun’s point.

“No, it– it’s not that, I– I–”

Renjun scoffs at you, shaking his head. “It’s okay. Did she– did she make you feel uncomfortable? I know she’s been staring a lot the whole evening, I’m sorry about that…”

His words do a little to comfort you. You wouldn’t say you were perfectly fine with the fact that he knows that it was his ex girlfriend that’s been on your mind the past few days– because you two aren’t dating, and realistically, this shouldn’t matter to you– but his understanding eyes bearing into yours make you calm down a little when you sigh and avert your gaze, chewing on the inside of your cheek before you speak back up again.

“It’s okay,” you hum, “I– It was expected, I guess?”

Renjun hums, eyes focusing somewhere into the unknown. Picking at the skin on your cuticles, you think the conversation is over and you’ve done a good job at playing it off, half of your worries now soothed, but Renjun is a man full of surprises, it seems, when he looks at you again, licking his lips in hesitance.

“But that’s not all, is it?” he asks, but he gets no answer from you. It doesn’t matter– your silence is enough of a conformation. “Look, I didn’t… I didn’t invite you to make her jealous, or anything, if that’s what’s running through that brain of yours, okay? I didn’t even know she would be there.”

Blinking a few times at him, not expecting him to read you so well, you let out the breath you didn’t even know you’ve been holding, nodding at his reassuring words. “Oh…”

“I invited you because I thought you’d have fun… and because I kind of wanted you there. And so did Hyuck, actually, he thinks you’re his platonic soulmate, or something–” the man rambles, explaining his intentions to you, the frantic words coming out of his mouth making you giggle. Relief washes over his face at that, noticing the ease in the atmosphere, his hand gently squeezing your knee when your laughs get quiet. “Everything’s good now?”

“Yeah,” you nod, “thanks. It was silly, but– you know,” you shrug, awkwardly grinning to yourself.

“Yeah,” he sighs out, looking back in front of him, the moment of silent sincerity between the two of you having him open up to you, “it wasn’t like that. me and her… it wasn’t quite the same for a while, you know? Like, I knew it was over before it really happened, but nonetheless, I didn’t expect her to… to do what she did to end it.”

You hum, not really knowing what words you could offer him to console him. Not really wanting to ask any more questions, you wait for him to talk by himself, to assure you’re not insensitive or prying too much. You’ll let him tell you how much he wants, and you’ll silently thank him for the trust he has in you when holding up his feelings to you on a silver platter, naked and vulnerable for you to see and examine. 

“It’s like… I wanted to end it, but not with her cheating on me. That– that hurt more than the actual break up, I think. And maybe it shouldn’t matter, because I wasn’t in love with her anymore anyway, but it still… left a scar, I think,” he hums, and by the way he plays with his fingers in his lap, you can tell he didn’t expect himself to open up to you like this– maybe this is the first time he’s even sharing this with anyone, and the urge to protect him and his heart is suddenly stronger than ever before, even though it’s been somewhere there, deep inside of you, all along.

“That’s valid,” you say, “nobody deserves that to happen to them, no matter how your relationship looked at the time. You were still together, and she shouldn’t have done that,” you mumble, hoping to provide comfort to him, but also hoping your words aren’t unwelcome at this very moment.

The blonde looks at you, an appreciative smile appearing on his face. “Thanks,” he says. There’s nothing to thank you for, you think, but perhaps those are the words he needed to hear for a while now. Perhaps your sentences just mended something in him, perhaps you were the voice that finally made him admit that what he’s been feeling about the situation wasn’t stupid or irrational.

In a moment of weakness, a selfish masochism, even, you let out a prying sentence slip out of your lips– a sentence that could hurt you, have you not been prepared for the outcome. And maybe you were going too far, maybe you should’ve stayed quiet, but you can’t turn back time and the words were already spoken. “Do you ever miss her?” 

Renjun thinks for a while– a heartbeat of a second that makes you feel like you’re falling into a deep abyss– before he shakes his head. “Not really. Not her, I don’t miss her. I think that sometimes, I just miss what we had, but… that’s long gone.”

Humming indifferently, you accept his response in a quiet solace. 

You don’t know where this conversation brings you, but you bet it’s a step in some direction.

After a while, with Renjun’s head soundly resting on your shoulder when the silence gets too long, yet a comforting aura still shades the two of you sitting at the stairs, there’s a black Ford Fiesta honking at the parking lot, the two of you jumping to your feet. The boy drags you to the backseat, your bags hitting the floor of the vehicle, as Jeno looks back at you from the front, smiling at you with moon crescents in his eyes.

“Hello!”

“Hi,” you breathe out.

“Is Y/N tagging along?” Hyuck gasps from the passenger’s seat, turning towards you two, a face of a pleasant surprise written all over his face. You know what, maybe Renjun was right and you and his roommate are platonic soulmates of some sort. Or at least that’s how Lee Donghyuck’s been acting ever since the day he met you.

“I’m not,” you giggle, shaking your head in disapproval.

“Jeno, can you drop Y/N off at her apartment?” Renjun hums, and suddenly, the previous worries leave you as soon as the tall man nods and tells you to navigate him to your place. There was no reason why you’d be rejected by Renjun’s friends– for more reasons than one, you just aren’t aware of them yet.

The ride to your apartment is filled with laughter. Squinting at your project partner sitting next to you at the back of the car, you notice that he’s glowing brightly in the reflections of the lampposts shining through the windows of the car, a stolen galaxy swirling in his eyes when your eyes meet when you pay your goodbyes to the guys while getting off at your driveway a few minutes later.

And it’s quite funny. You don’t even live that far.

–

Clapping when your favorite writer completes the little interactive Q&A at the local library on a Monday afternoon– all throughout you didn’t have any courage to ask any questions yourself, even though you had plenty– you stand up from your place at one of the little, lanky folding chairs in the back of the room and smooth your hands over the skirt of your dress, getting the creases out. You’ve learned a lot about the author today– all from how she started writing, what inspired her to write your most favorite novel, and where she finds her inspiration for writing. You have a lot of information, yet, you still bet you could master more questions, if you were to do an interview with her– you wouldn’t even have to try as hard. 

Reading is one of your passions, it’s something that brought you to the love you have for writing, and although you didn’t stick with fiction for long, finding that the world building and creating plot and characters got boring for you after a while, you found your love for writing shining through when you type articles; making sure your headlines are captivating, that your articles are well-structured and bring something new to the table. It’s a completely different branch– some would say a less creative one– but it’s undeniable that the love for it started in you when you first started reading books, when you were little, in the quiet and comfort of your room.

Glancing back at Renjun, the boy follows you like a lost puppy (you bet it’s his first time at the library, despite him owning quite a few books himself– you noticed so while examining his room one time and found classics in his bookshelf), he offers you a soft smile, nudging you to keep walking. There’s a line forming towards the head of the room, where the writer is still sitting, numbers of passionate readers and fans of her work waiting to get their books signed. There’s a little stand in the middle of the far right wall, containing numerous books written by the person currently sitting in the same room, breathing the same air as you two, and you don’t hesitate to buy the latest one, the one you haven’t had the chance to read yet, with the intention of getting it signed.

“Which one’s your favorite?” Renjun asks, standing close to you and pointing towards the stacks of books on the stand.

“That one,” you hum, bringing his attention to the paperback cover at the very corner of the stand, watching as the man takes it into his hands and flips it over, reading through the summary. He looks like one of those Pinterest boards you’d title ‘Dark academia’ with a series of emojis that fit the ‘aesthetic’, with his plaid coat layered on top of a knitted, light brown sweater, the blonde fringe slightly falling into his eyes. 

“I’ll get this one, then,” he looks at one of the ladies behind the stand, smiling at her as he gets his wallet out.

“Don’t you want the latest one?”

“Nah,” he shrugs, smiling at the lady once again when the book is back in his hold, paid for and now in his ownership. His eyes are back at you when he offers you the explanation. “You said you liked this one, so I wanna try it. And you don’t know if the latest one is any good, so at least I’ve heard a good review on this one and don’t have to be afraid of buying a shitty book,” he snickers, making you roll your eyes at the tone of his voice, but still, there’s a little man in your brain screaming at the top of his lungs– screeching, even– at the action, the gears in your brain turning faster and faster as you let yourself indulge and overthink his words. He bought it because it’s your favorite– so he said– and in a split second of delusion, it doesn’t matter to you if it was just because he wanted to be sure the book is good, or if it was just him wanting to read your favorite book as a way of learning more about you.

“As if any of her books could be bad,” you mumble, moving slowly through the line. You’re the last ones waiting for the autograph, and while there’s still a lot of people in front of you, you can’t help but feel a little nervous at the promise of an interaction with the author.

“Well, you can never really know. Everyone has bad days.”

Snickering at his argument, you shake your head in disbelief and move a few steps forward again. You’ve taken a few photographs of the library while you were sitting and listening to the talk; a few of the author– to capture the nice memory– and some of the interior as well, showcasing the numerous shelves filled with books of different genres that the library provides. Still, you take the camera into your hands again, taking a few more– you were sure to get permission from the smiley and welcoming librarians when you arrived– trying to capture the atmosphere and the heartwarming aura of it all. A little selfishly, for your own memory, you turn to your companion and point the lens towards him, seeing as he poses with the book, acting a little silly when you take the picture, and when he breaks into an amused grin after, you take another one– a moment captured in time, his toothy laugh on full display. When you look at the picture again, your heart warms up a little at the image. Maybe you could get it printed out and add it to your memory book alongside the pictures you have from your first university parties and moving into the new apartment with Jimin– just so you have something to look back to.

Soon enough, you reach the front of the room, your bodies only a few steps away from the author. When the last guests in front of you leave, paying their goodbyes, you take a step forward with a little sigh, trying to encourage yourself and also calm down the erratic beating of your heart, ready to face the idol you’ve been looking up to since you were 11. With Renjun on your side, you put on your most picture-worthy smile, clammy hands offering the book to the writer when you reach the long table, choking on your words.

“Hello,” you greet, not really knowing what to say. You would be lying if you said you didn’t rehearse this in your brain seventy different times ever since you talked with Renjun about going to the library last week, trying to make up the perfect scenario and find the best words to use when you finally meet her, but in this very moment, the whole script flies through the window and you’re left silent and hesitant, heat rising to your cheeks when you can’t seem to find the right words to say.

“Hello,” you hear Renjun greet shortly after you, bumping into you a little with his hip when he stumbles to the table, seemingly more calm than you, trying to save the day, “my name’s Huang Renjun,” he says, and you want to kick him in his shin– because who even does that? Who tells their full name to a stranger, an author he’s never heard of before actually attending this meet and greet, acting as if he was an old friend of hers, meeting the famous writer after a long time? You almost thought he’d save you from the embarrassment and lead the way, from the way he approached her, but after hearing those words come out of his mouth, you almost go to scold him for his behavior.

To your surprise, though, the writer’s eyes widen in what seems to be realization, nodding to herself. “So you must be Y/N!” she says, looking back at you, a welcoming smile appearing on her lips. 

“I- I-” you stutter, suddenly feeling really confused. Is this a dream? Are you asleep? Or is your favorite writer suddenly a psychic too? What are you missing?

“Yeah! She’s just a little nervous right now,” he grins, taking a short look at you before he turns back to the author, “so… I take it as you haven’t changed your mind about the interview?”

“Not at all! I’m actually really happy to hear that students are taking interest in my writing and that they want to interview me,” she says, quickly signing your books on the front pages, offering them back to you, “I usually don’t give interviews just to anyone– you know, it would get a little too busy if I did that– but your passion really caught my attention.It reminds me of myself when I was your age… Just give me a few seconds, I have a phone call to make right now, but after I’m done, I’m all yours!” 

“Of course!” Renjun nods, watching as the author stands up from the table and disappears in one of the back rooms, seemingly to take care of the call. Turning back to you, still finding you dumbfounded from the interaction, he can’t help but let out an amused laugh. “Are you okay over there?”

“I- What-” you stutter, shaking your head as if to make your brain reboot, dragging your hand through your hair to get it out of your face, “how did you even manage to- she doesn’t even-” you fail to create coherent sentences, shock and surprise overshadowing your otherwise good choice of vocabulary, confusion spreading over your face like a shadow.

“I have my ways,” he shrugs nonchalantly, as if this was the easiest thing to accomplish, once again breaking into a grin when he sees your stoic face, “maybe try to smile a little? She might think you’re terrified of her if you keep frowning like that.”

“I am,” you mumble, still not quite comprehending the situation.

Rolling his eyes at you, he snickers. “Come on,” he says, “I bet you have plenty of questions for her up in that brain of yours,” he points to the middle of your forehead, shaking his head at your frozen figure.

“I do, but-” you mumble, catching yourself mid-sentence, “how did you even-” the words stream out your mouth, a puzzled expression not leaving your face.

“You can thank me later. Now focus on your job,” he says, turning you by your shoulders and pushing you a little towards the author that has now emerged out of the back room, a welcoming glint in her eye when her eyes land at the two aspiring journalists.

On that Monday afternoon, with sweaty palms and tongue-tied as you stutter out the curious questions, making an interview for your imaginary magazine, you learn that contrary to the popular demand, Huang Renjun is quite full of surprises. 

The longer you know Renjun, the more you hang out without the purpose of working on your assignment together. Truth be told, you started working on it pretty early into the semester, and while others were now aimlessly pulling all nighters to complete the magazine, you and Renjun were pretty much done with it already by now, since you forced the man to start working on it as soon as it was possible. He didn’t say it out loud, but you can tell he was thankful for that– it would kill the both of you if you had to focus on the project now, when exam season is slowly, but surely in reach and you’ll have to start studying soon.

It was a little awkward at first– you still remember the first time you watched Netflix with him in the silence of his apartment, with his mood very apparently below zero– starting with the two of you taking breaks in between working on your assignment, talking about the latest episodes of the anime you two have, coincidentally, chosen to watch at the same time; later progressing into full on sessions of gossip with his roommate Donghyuck joining the two of you at the comfortable couch. You’d say your friendship started a little this way, with you and Renjun running to the convenience store when you ran out of snacks in the middle of your study sessions and the two of you randomly laughing at something in your Journalism class, earning yourself scolding looks from the professor. It was unexpected, but you grew familiar with the antics, flowing through the days together, filling the boring days with texts full of TikTok links and Donghyuck sending you random pictures of your project partner all zoomed in on Snapchat. You even invited Renjun over a few times, Jimin accepting the new man in the comfort of your home when she realized he’s not as bad as he used to be before, as you ate up all of your snacks this time around instead, having impromptu karaoke sessions in your room, trying to quiz each other on the lyrics of your top tracks of the last year on Spotify. 

Everything felt casual, growing more in tune with the man he was, learning his antics and all about his character. You quickly learned that when he’s feeling down, he gets a little snappy– a bad habit you made him recognise and try to eliminate, at least when you’re around. You found out that when he’s nervous, he bites his nails, and you choose to slap his palms from the proximity of his lips whenever you catch him in the act. When he’s annoyed– much like when you prevent him from the action of gnawing at his fingernails until the skin around them  bleeds– he rolls his eyes and sighs, sometimes even shakes his head at you in disapproval. He looks adorable while doing so, but to save both of you the embarrassment, you’d never tell him out loud.

And you’d even dare to say he learns about you too. He’s an observing individual, and you’d even argue that he cares about you at least a little. For one, he’s not rude towards you anymore, the way he was when you two first started talking, and also, he shows his affection towards you in the most Renjun ways possible. He’d argue that he’s not good with words, but he’s always there to affirm you with them in his true love language whenever you’re stressed or overwhelmed with responsibilities. He also remembers your favorite drinks and snacks, opting to save them for you whenever you come by his place, and even slipping some into your bag before you leave his apartment. He’s a caring individual, a big hearted man, delicate in all directions.

You believe it’s impossible not to fall for him at least a little. Not when you really know him– the way you do, from up close, in his most joyful moments and the ones where he tries to battle you away when the ghosts in his brain try to make him shelter himself away from everyone too.

But you wouldn’t tell him that. Never in a thousand years.

“I hate all this fucking snow,” you tell him instead, when you walk by his side with your groceries in hand, the tips of your fingers brittled from the cold. “Why is it even snowing in the first place, it’s the end of February, for fuck’s sake!” 

The two of you decided to go for a grocery run together, and while some would say it’s not a fun activity to do, you think you like experiencing mundane things with your close ones the most. If you enjoy someone’s company, you truly do not care what you do together– you always go pick up packages from the post with Jimin, or drive your little sibling to the store when you’re back home, even though the action itself doesn’t provide you any conventionally ‘fun’ experiences, most of these are a fond memory in your brain, because you got to spend time with someone you love. It’s the same right now– even though it’s snowing heavily and you can’t feel your feet from the cold– you went to buy groceries with Renjun when he texted you about it, realizing you could buy some things you ran out of as well, opting to walk there together.

“I thought you liked winter?” he snickers, seeing your grumpy expression. 

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you said you hated summer,” he says, matter of factly, making you giggle to mask the warmth spreading on your insides from the knowledge that he remembers the random fact you once told him when you were working on your project together.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I like winter either,” you say, shrugging.

“Do you even like anything?”

“No,” you shake your head, totally serious before you burst into laughter, “kidding. I like spring,” you smile at him, eloquently, shuffling your legs along the snowed-in ground, moving closer to the campus, near to where you both live.

“I like spring too, actually.”

“Because your birthday’s in spring?” you snicker, teasing him.

“Maybe,” he admits, laughing with you. “No, but I think spring’s neat for a number of reasons. It always feels… like a new beginning, perhaps? After months of silence, you can finally hear the chirping of birds in the morning, and the sun sets later too, so the days feel longer…” he says, and you find yourself observing him, admiring the love he has for the season.

“Exactly,” you nod, pointing your gaze towards the ground when you notice that he caught you staring, embarrassment creeping up your back before you shudder from the cold, heavy snowflakes falling on top of your head, drenching your freshly washed locks and making your cheeks burn with cold. You can’t remember the last time it snowed so hard– you were in for a couple of warm winters for the last couple of years– and as much as you hate to admit it because of your noticeable aversion towards winter, you must say it looks quite magical.

“Look, I know you hate winter, but you do have windows in your flat, right?” he jokes, making you roll your eyes at the nagging you know you’re about to hear. “Maybe look out of them before you go out, so you could dress for the weather the next time.”

“Very funny,” you snicker, “I’ll let you know, it wasn’t snowing when I was getting ready.”

“Okay then, maybe start using the weather app. It’s great if you want to know how cold it really is outside, and you’re quite good with technology, so maybe you could-”

“Oh, fuck off,” you snap, but feel yourself grinning at the teasing.

The man lets out a sigh– a habit of frustration he does a lot whenever you’re around– before you feel him tugging something onto the top of your head, your ears suddenly shielded by soft fabric. Looking up at your companion in shock, you notice that the beanie that had been sitting on his head until now is covering yours instead; and although you appreciate the gesture with a giddy clench on your insides, you find yourself protesting.

“Jun! You’ll get cold,” you pout.

“Okay, but so will you, and as far as I’m concerned, I have more layers on than you right now, so you need it more than me,” he shrugs, all nonchalant, making you hesitantly smile at him and shut up, keeping the warm wool over your head. 

Next time, you’ll look at the weather app to save your heart some trouble. 

Or maybe you won’t.

Walking closer to your apartment complex, naturally accepting the fact that Renjun decided to walk you home– or just hasn’t realized he’s doing so yet– you fall into comfortable conversation, mostly consisting of you complaining and Renjun finding your tangent amusing.

“My groceries will get all wet! Fucking hell, Renjun…”

“I didn’t force you to come,” he laughs.

“Well, but you have the weather app, as opposed to me, so maybe you could’ve predicted the fact that it was going to snow soon,” you pout, shaking your head in disbelief. 

“And if I did?” 

“Then why’d you drag me out?” you huff, nearing the steps that lead up towards the front door of your building, being careful not to slip on them as you stand on the first one, towering above the man that takes his position opposite of you while you say your goodbyes. 

“Okay, next time get your groceries alone, if you’re just gonna complain the whole way,” he giggles at your fake offendance, looking up at you from under his eyelashes. Snowflakes settle on the tops of his cheekbones, the rosy tint in his face taking your breath away, something in his eyes captivating you and hypnotizing you into doing things you would’ve never dared to do as you reach out towards his hair, now wet from the snow that manages to melt away on his body, brushing your hand through the locks.

“It’s gotten so long,” you muse, “the blonde’s all grown out now.”

He hums, the eye contact making you heat up despite the coldness that’s been trying to seep into your bones. “Maybe I should dye it back to black, then.”

Grinning, you shrug as your hand escapes his scalp. “Yeah,” you nod, “maybe you should.”

“It’s a plan, then,” he says before he grins, poking you in your forehead with his pointer finger as he takes a step back from you, heading towards the direction of his apartment. “I’ll text you,” he adds.

Paying your goodbyes to him, you stumble inside and reach your flat, your whole body on fire even though you’ve been freezing until now as you take off your wet shoes and tug the borrowed beanie from your head. Putting away the groceries, you wonder if there’s a significance in his decision, if the change of hair is the same as the reason why he loves spring; if new things are beginning, or if you’ve just tricked yourself into falling for him too hard.

“You have to mix it together with this first!” Renjun whines, sitting at the edge of the bathtub as he watches you open the box dye you bought together at the drugstore a few hours ago, pointing his finger at the white pack containing the mixing solution.

“Oh,” you mumble, clammy hands flying around and trying to read the instructions instead, too worried to mess up again and accidentally burn Renjun’s hair off. After a few moments of you silently turning the big sheet of paper around in all directions, you hear your companion snicker under his breath, standing up from his position at the edge of the bathtub and mixing the dye with the solution in a little plastic container he got from under the sink himself instead.

“Let me do it,” he shakes his head, “didn’t know you were this useless.”

“If you didn’t want me here, you could’ve just said so,” you put the instruction paper down, crossing your arms on your chest as you take a step back and look at him with an offended pout, watching as he gets everything ready. His hair is sticking all over the place and the shirt he has on is stained with bleach– you suspect he wore this exact outfit a few months ago when he dyed his hair blonde– the fabric hanging loosely down his shoulders. 

“I’m perfectly capable of dying my hair on my own, if you didn’t notice,” he says, “me wanting you here is the sheer reason for your presence.”

Heart skipping a beat at the sentence, masking it off with a fakely annoyed sigh, you watch him take a seat back at the edge of the bathtub when he’s done, motioning for you to take matters into your hands and start dying his hair. “Don’t fuck it up.”

“I’ll do so just to spite you,” you argue back, taking the plastic container with the dye into your hand and standing close to Renjun, parting his hair down the middle as you get the chemical-smelling mixture into his growing locks. Focused on the task at hand, trying really hard not to get the dye all over the place, you almost get lost in the motion of playing with his hair and pay too much attention to each section, your touch gentle not to tug at his hair. It  makes you not notice the way you’re suddenly standing in between Renjun’s opened legs, your skin covered by fabrics of sweatpants touching.

His head suddenly moves, making you almost dye his whole forehead black, when he plops a gummy worm into his mouth and regains his previous position. 

“Stop moving or else it’s gonna look bad!” you scowl, frustrated with the fact that he made you lose your focus.

“Want a gummy worm?” he asks, looking up at you with an innocent smile instead– as if to make you forget all about his actions from before– and you reward him with an annoyed shake of your head that shows him disapproval which he seemingly chooses to ignore as he reaches into the pack of gummies again and holds one up to your lips, fingertips brushing against the skin of your mouth making you feel heat in your cheeks. You didn’t want a gummy worm, but with the proximity of his hand to your face and the starry gaze he offers you when you meet his eyes, you don’t hesitate to take the gummy into your mouth and chew on the candy, earning yourself a satisfied smile.

Turning towards his hair again, the last few strands left undyed waiting for your attention, the man suddenly squeezes your thigh, making you wince. “How is it going up there?”

“Good,” you choke out, suddenly hyper aware of his hand resting on the skin of your leg, as if to hold you in place, his other hand working almost on auto-pilot as he completes the symmetry and grazes your other thigh, his touch on you so gentle you could almost miss it if you didn’t pay enough attention.

“If it’s patchy, I’m blaming you and not the dye,” he teases, drumming against your leg with his fingers, each little gesture making you less and less focused on his hair and more on the way his eyelashes fan over his cheekbones from above, biting down hard on your lip to keep yourself from making any sound close to frustration or the sound of perhaps losing your mind. 

“Well then, maybe you shouldn’t have bought the cheapest one.”

“I’m staying on budget,” he says, making you snicker.

Forcing yourself to focus back onto his hair, you finally complete your task of dying the man’s hair back to its original color. Taking a step back from him and putting the plastic container onto the sink, you start to miss the feeling of his hand on your skin; his hair slicked back by the dye makes him look oddly amusing, though, so you let a grin slip out at the sight of your companion sitting at the edge of the bathtub like a scolded child, his legs outstretched right in front of him and a pack of gummy worms once again firmly gripped in the palm of his hand.

After cleaning up the mess you’ve made on the bathroom sink, with Renjun singing to himself as he put up a timer on his phone for 20 minutes, you find yourself in his kitchen, walking around and finding a pot in which you could cook some ramen for dinner. It’s getting quite late and it’s rare that you find yourself alone in Renjun’s apartment with him, his roommate finally getting out after the dreaded exam season to celebrate, and you can’t help but find the domesticity of sharing his space with him– although this is not the first time– overtake you in a deep feeling of intimacy.

Stirring the noodles around with a fork you found in one of the drawers, listening to the low hums of Renjun singing in the bathroom as he cleans up the skin on his forehead and behind his ears with a wet cotton pad, you wonder how you managed to get used to this– how you even managed to find yourself in the presence of Huang Renjun so often, after only hearing about him from gossip around the school halls and hating his presence when you first had to work with him. It’s ironic, but you don’t hate it quite as much as you would think. 

“You’re making ramen?” he asks as he finally reaches the kitchen, big eyes full of thankfulness meeting yours when he notices you getting out some plates to transfer the meal into, since you’re close to being done.

Humming in agreement, you see him lean on the kitchen counter from the corner of your eye, a satisfied smile reaching his lips. “I should invite you over more often.”

“I’m here like twice a week, Jun,” you mumble, focused on not spilling the meal all over the place.

“Well, if it means you’ll cook all the time, you can even move in, if you want to” he jokes, making you shake your head in disbelief as you take the plates and move them to the coffee table you are so used to sitting at by now, since the boys don’t really have a dining table in their apartment, making them (and sometimes you joining) eat all the meals at the coffee table, sitting on the ground.

“And where would I sleep? On the couch? No, thank you,” you shake your head, digging into the noodles and blowing on them to make them cool faster.

“I’ll kick Hyuck out, so you can have his room,” he mumbles in between bites, following you. 

“So you just want me to be your maid, got it,” you nod.

“That’s not what I said,” he looks at you with offense, before digging into the noodles again, mumbling under his nose before taking a bite, “although you would look nice in a maid dress-”

Kicking him in the leg, seeing as he chokes up on the food from laughing, you shake your head in disbelief at his antics. You think it’s the hair dye getting to his brain, so when his timer goes off in a few minutes after you’re both done with the food, you thank god for bringing you out of your misery. 

Listening to the sound of the shower as he washes the hair dye off, you take it upon yourself to clean up the dishes. You’d feel bad for leaving a mess in his kitchen, and you also think it’s a nice thing to do. It only takes a few minutes before he’s out of the bathroom again, hair damply sitting on his forehead, his figure twirling like a ballerina– reminding you of the way you did little fashion shows for your father whenever you came home from shopping with your mum– waiting for what you have to say about his new look, although in true reality, he looks just the same as a few months ago. 

“Does it look good?”

“I can’t tell ‘cause it’s wet,” you say, squinting your eyes at the mess on his head, “go blow dry it.”

“Fuck no,” he shakes his head, protesting, “I hate blow drying my hair.”

“Why? I can’t tell if it’s patchy this way,” you say.

“My hands get tired and I get bored and I just really don’t enjoy the experience,” he simply states, and he wins– whether this was his intention or not– as you drag him back to the bathroom and get out of him where he keeps the blow dryer, plugging it in and moving to do it for him. 

There it is again– that funny feeling in your stomach as you move your hands through his hair, brushing his bangs away from his forehead as you blow dry his locks. The feeling makes you weak in your knees as you look at the boy who now has his eyes closed, seemingly enjoying the motion of your fingers threading through his freshly dyed strands, and when you finally turn the device off and watch him open his eyes, looking at you half-lidded and seemingly a little tired, you once again notice his hands on your thighs as he sits at the bathtub, although now the touch is more firm, pulling you close to him. 

“Are you happy now that your hair is black?” you find yourself asking, your eyes bearing into him as you reference the dialogue you two had when he dyed his hair blonde, when you two didn’t know each other well just yet and he told you the wishful secret of wanting to have more fun as a blonde since he was sad when his hair was black. 

His smile looks a little drunk, despite the both of you being completely sober as he replies, acting as if he was getting tipsy off your proximity and gentle touch. “My hair’s black because I’m happy, not the other way around,” he mumbles, your eyes momentarily drifting to his pretty lips as he talks, their rosy plumpiness making it hard for you to unstuck your gaze from the curve of his smile and focus on other features of his face.

“Good,” you nod, your hands finding their place at his shoulders, almost going for a hug, but never really completing the action. 

“So how do I look?” he asks again, your conversation growing quiet in the intimate atmosphere, voices not wanting to interrupt the calm, yet tense harbor. 

Examining him, you find yourself once again attracted to the boy you see in front of you. He looks exactly like he did before his break-up– yet now, you’d argue and say he looks even better; healthier and more radiant, his features gentle, hair a little longer and his smile reminding you of an angel. Humming to yourself, you brush your hands through his black strands again, letting yourself indulge in your growing feelings for the man for just a second, before the moment is gone. “Really pretty,” you mumble, watching as his smile grows for a mere second before his eyes drift from yours down to your lips, making you forget how to breathe.

Your hands continue to get lost in his hair as you stare at each other for a while, silence in the bathroom making you listen in on each other’s breathing, before your brain fails you and you let yourself operate on auto-pilot, leaning down to his face, surprised to see him meet you in the middle. You kiss him as if you’ve been waiting ages to do so, your lips molding in with his in a perfect harmony, firm, yet still unmistakably gentle contact making you shiver. 

It feels like a century before you pull away, ready to face the consequences of your actions, when he captures your lips in another kiss, drunk on the action. Feeling him standing up from the edge of the bathtub and moving his hands to firmly grip your waist before he walks you backwards against the tiled wall, the coldness of it mixing with the heat spreading across your body makes you gasp into the kiss and invite his tongue into your mouth.

Your hands fall from his hair and find their way around his neck, tugging him close, while one of his gentle palms rests on your jaw, angling your face in a way that lets him take control and have you even closer, two bodies seeking each other’s presence.

“Renjun…” you gasp when his lips move away from yours, leaving kisses down your jaw, slowly reaching the delicate skin of your neck and the conjunction of your shoulder. 

He hums into your skin, a cold hand sneaking under the hem of your shirt making you wince, all of his actions making your senses hyper aware to the touch and feeling of his lips pressed against you, especially when he finds the sweet spot behind your ear and makes you squirm under him, the feeling of his smile against your skin turning you crazy.

Finding yourself tugging his face back to yours, taking back his lips, his hand travels up your side, leaving goosebumps all over your skin with the cold motions of his fingertips, you shiver under his caring, yet teasing touch. The kiss feels as if it’s one step away from heaven, letting out a satisfied sound when he softly brushes the underside of your breast.

Pressing him closer against you, leaving open-mouthed kisses down his neck, you feel him hard against your thigh, neediness overtaking you as you lightly move against him, hearing him choke out a breath. “Is- is this okay?” he asks, voice not louder than a whisper before you continue with your motions, answering with your actions before using your words, breathing growing quicker with the way the friction makes you feel.

“More than okay with me,” you mumble, seemingly encouraging him as he presses you firmer against the tiled wall, helping you guide your desperate movements. Foreheads pressed against each other, breathing mixing in the silent room, you can’t seem to find it in you to stop, completely losing yourself in him and in the way he makes you feel, selfishly chasing down release from all the butterflies and electric stares he’s been sending your way.

Grunting when you press up against him in a way that sends sparks down his spine, his hand reaches up under your thigh, almost on the skin of your butt, holding up your leg to make more room and get you even closer to him, before he heaves out a sigh. “Let’s go to my room?” he asks hastily before you nod and let him plop you up against his figure with your legs entangled around his middle, escaping the cold tiles of the bathroom and walking over to the his room smelling of fresh laundry detergent and vanilla, soft sheets enveloping your body when he lightly drops you into his mattress.

A giggle escapes your lips at the contact of your body with the bed, earning yourself a playful roll of Renjun’s eyes as he leans over you, plopping himself up on one elbow above you, caging you in his embrace. Maintaining eye contact with him, blissful smiles stretching on your lips, you almost think the moment is over, but he quickly brings you back to the neediness you felt before as he leans in again, kissing you painfully slowly while his hand reaches under the hem of your shirt, letting his palm travel against your body. His actions make you shiver as his fingertips softly tickle your side, moving towards the dip of your waist, then back up across your stomach as he traces mindless shapes against your skin, occasionally letting himself travel up towards the fabric of your bra. Cupping one of your breasts into his hand, you let out a soft grunt when he squeezes the flesh softly enough to make you yearn for more.

Mirroring his actions, your hand moves under his loose shirt, hypnotized by the heat of his flesh. Enveloped in his warmth and the smell of him in his bedsheets, you let yourself roam up his abdomen, embracing the way his muscles jolt a little under your touch, before your hand settles onto his back, fingertips dancing up and down his spine.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he mumbles, making you break into a blissful smile, before his hand lazily dips down your belly, seeking approval in your eyes, “can I?” 

Nodding, afraid of seeming a little too eager– although maybe he would welcome that with open arms– you feel his fingertips messily dragging down the waistband of your sweatpants a little by little, leaving you in front of him only in your underwear, his lips swallowing your sighs when he hesitantly brushes his thumb against your clit. 

His movements get more confident as he adds more pressure, making you let out a few more muffled sounds he welcomes with a cocky smile, demeanor shifting as he presses a wet kiss against your cheek when he drags your underwear down and gets back to where he was before, but now acting more gently– as if the contact of your bare core with his fingers made him afraid you’re gonna break in his hold. Softly nudging your thighs, opening up your legs and softly tracing his pointer finger down your slit, he makes your cheeks flush from the contact and the feeling of air against your naked bottom half.

He doesn’t say much as he tests the waters, dragging his digits along your folds, examining your reaction when he circles your sensitive bud and sees you crumble under his touch. Your hands grip his pearl white sheets, not really knowing what to do to ground yourself back to reality, the man above you finally finding enough courage in him to insert one finger, then two inside of you, watching you react to his actions.

“Feels good,” escapes your lips, and truthfully, you didn’t even catch yourself saying it. It left your mouth on itself, your tone a little fragile but full of eagerness, wanting more– and seemingly understanding, he moves inside you with more reason now, hitting the right spot that makes your eyebrows crease and your breathing hitch in your throat.

“There?” he asks, as if to tease you. In any other circumstance, you’d find it in you to bark back something full of sarcasm and irony, but now, vulnerable and sensitive to his every move, you only nod eagerly and meet his eyes which are now clouded with lust, a view you’ve never experienced before, but welcome with undeniable curiosity.

Angling his fingers inside of you just the way you need them, you quickly feel yourself reaching your high, one of your hands flying to his forearm as if to let him know or warn him, somehow. Judging by his actions, he got the memo– showing his experience when he continues with the same speed and pressure, keeping still– before he slowly trips you over the edge, having you clenching around his fingers as you let moans slip out from your lips, euphoria taking over your whole body.

His figure leans into you, holding you close as your breathing comes back to normal, his lips press soft kisses to your temple. It’s almost a hint that the act is over, his actions growing more tender as opposed to the way he had you just a few moments prior, but you find yourself not wanting it to end, tugging his shirt up and earning yourself a questioning look.

“More?” you mumble, looking at him, grabby hands helping him take his shirt off. Your please sound almost like a question– they may as well be, for you don’t know if he wants this too– but he reacts to you positively when you have your eyes roaming across his bare torso, hands flying towards your own shirt, taking it off before you chastly press against him, both of you sitting at his bed, meeting him in a kiss as you settle yourself into his lap. 

In this moment, there’s nothing but him. Your head spins with his essence, your brain painfully aware of everything; of your hands holding his cheeks when you tug at his bottom lip with your teeth, chasing after his neck in a desperate need of leaving a mark, wanting evidence of you being there the next morning, so you could remind yourself that this wasn’t just a dream or a product of your own imagination. When you press down against his lap, dragging your naked core against his hard on, his hands grip your sides, sneaky fingers trailing up after a moment as he tugs the straps of your bra down before slipping it off completely, leaving you naked in front of him.

Lifting you by your hips and moving you back against his pillow, laying you into his sheets, he lets you drag his sweatpants down, your fingers dipping below the waistband of his boxers and gently dragging along the sensitive skin, feeling needier at the sounds of satisfaction escaping his lips. Bringing him closer with your other hand, he takes a moment to confirm with you one last time. 

“Are you sure you… want this?” he doesn’t seem to find the right words, leaving you softly laughing at his puzzled expression.

“I am,” you nod, assuring him, “I- I want you,” you mumble, still loud and clear, and he wastes no time in freeing himself of his underwear and aligning himself with your entrance.

He slowly pushes inside of you, his whole length filling you up. He leaves you some time to adjust, checking in with you with a look to your eyes, fingertips gently dragging your hair out of your face before you confirm with him that you’re okay with a soft nod, making him move and gently thrust inside of you; painfully slow at first, but reaching deep, taking in every inch of you. Pleasure builds inside of you as his thrusts become more quicker, finding a rhythm that makes your toes curl and your hands fly to his back, scratching down along his skin when he hits your spot and your eyes shut in a spell of satisfied sighs.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he mumbles, pressing a kiss against your lips, a sentence sweet enough to make your cheeks flush under him– yet you think the heat you feel is more than shyness from his words, but from the contact of his skin on yours, driving you absolutely crazy.

His finger gently plays with your clit, slowly, but surely tipping you over the edge. You hold back a moan, head falling to your side on his pillow, Renjun’s lips pressing kisses into the now exposed areas of your neck, still going at a steady rhythm. 

“Fuck,” you let out when he picks up at speed, the imaginary glass of pleasure in you getting fuller and fuller, making afraid of it spilling out when he keeps going, your hand flying into his hair, tugging at it in a desperate attempt to ground yourself, “I’m close.”

He hums against your neck, softly biting a bruise into your flesh. He doesn’t say much, again– his loving is quiet, only occasionally letting out needy noises out past his lips here and there, grunts slipping out when you feel just right around him. You find it hard to keep up with the silence, blissful sounds escaping you when he takes you over the edge. Your walls clench around him as he’s still thrusting into you, chasing down his climax and making the most out of yours. You swear you can see stars, the tips of your fingers starting to tingle when you get a little too overstimulated, but before you can do anything about it, he slips out of you and warmth spreads on your stomach, his body crashing next to yours.

He doesn’t say much after either. The room falls into silence, your bodies heaving with deep breaths as you try to calm down the erratic beating of your hearts. Mindlessly threading your fingers through his hair, you stare at the ceiling, his arms draped over your middle, occasionally playing with the flesh of your hip, squeezing it with his palm and dragging his fingertips across the soft skin. Looking down at him, not seeing much other than the raven locks falling into his forehead and his closed eyes, you try hard to appreciate the closeness of his body, just in case you don’t get to experience it ever again.

Feeling his nose nuzzling into your skin, you wonder if he’s happy.

Dark, wallowing pit opens up in your stomach, the harrowing feeling you didn’t know you could recognise fills you up to your rim; your vision goes a little blurry at the sight in front of you and after a few seconds of torturing yourself by watching, you feel the bitter taste of blood on your tongue from gnawing at the gentle skin of your bottom lip too hard. That alone wakes you up from the weird transe you’ve been put in, making you turn on your heel and chime outside of the building, the iced americano in your hand thrown in the nearest trash can as you take the short way home, suddenly wanting to hide away from everyone and everything, too fragile to deal with the outer world today.

You open up the door to your apartment with a little struggle, your hand shaking not making it easy for you to put the key inside the keyhole, and when you finally get to the comfort of your little place, you’re met with Jimin’s concerned eyes waiting for you in the hall, her figure hesitantly walking over when she heard you struggle with the door.

Closing the door behind you a little too loudly, careless in your actions from how hard your heart is hammering against your ribcage, your roommate approaches you with gentle words. “What happened? Weren’t you meeting up with–”

“No,” you shake your head, cutting off her sentence before his name manages to come out of her mouth, your throat closing as you choke out the response; the soft gaze she offers you at the stern words of disapproval makes your eyes water even though you already promised yourself you wouldn’t cry over this.

“Oh, sweetie,” Jimin mumbles as her long legs make their way towards your shrunken figure, enveloping you in her arms. You let yourself be comforted, almost yearning for the slow strokes she gives your back, her long fingers threading through your hair. There aren’t many instances where you two had to hold each other in the entrance hall, too afraid of letting go before one of you breaks. You remember her breaking up with her boyfriend Jaehyun– they dated for a couple of months last year before he had to move away and a long distance relationship wasn’t something either of them was willing to put each other through– but that time, it was in the comfort of her bedroom and you watched the first season of Too hot to handle together after it was done to take her mind off things. You, however, don’t have much dating experience. Not a significant one anyway– you only dated in high school, and even though the boy you crowned your first in many things was sweet, you simply fell out of love with him after a few months and called it quits, with no tears shed and no hearts broken.

“I think I was just a rebound,” you get out in between your quiet sobs, the image of Renjun sitting at the cafeteria with Yunjin, his soft gaze offered to her as she leaned over the table and said something quietly to him before pressing a kiss to his cheek only further proving your claims.

And you guess you were the stupid one– you guess you were silly for thinking he was over his ex already, even if it’s been a couple of months since they broke up, even if he told you he didn’t miss her, but was sad to let go what they had– because the sweetness in his eyes when he looked at her hurt you more than you could’ve ever imagined, because you think you remember him looking at you like that the evening you dyed his hair black; you remember him looking at you like you hung up the stars on the sky, and you believed the gentle gaze– you believed there was something more than sex to it, you believed he felt the same feelings as the ones you’ve been harboring for the boy ever since you first hanged out at his place and watched Netflix with him to take his mind off the said girl.

Jimin doesn’t ask any questions– she knows you’ll tell her eventually, you just need comfort right now. Sniffling as you try to come down from the heartbreak you’ve caused yourself, you groggily get out a sentence that hurts to say out loud perhaps the most from the feelings freely roaming around your brain. “I don’t think it meant anything to him– I– I don’t think I meant anything to him.”

As if to torture yourself even more, the images of you two getting closer over the time flash through your brain– and you wonder if you were just lying to yourself the whole time. If his words weren’t what he made them out to be, if his gentle nature that overtook him when you were around was just him treating you as one of his friends. If he hooked up with you only because he was horny, and not because he cared for you enough to want to explore you further, deeper– if you were the only one in it for something more, if he was just keeping himself busy while trying to get over his ex.

And much like that time at the party, where he held you close and spent the whole night pretty much glued to your side, right in front of everyone’s eyes, you wonder if you just fulfilled your purpose in his life. 

“Shh,” the girl shushes you out of your self-destructive thoughts, still not getting any context on what happened, but being there for you anyway, “let’s just watch something, okay? We have the whole day off to ourselves, let’s watch this new anime I’ve been eyeing, what do you say?” she mumbles, seeing as you tiredly nod and she affectionately squishes your cheeks together, leading you towards the living room.

If you weren’t so numb right now, you’d even giggle. Jimin doesn’t watch anime– the amount of reality TV she watches is quite concerning sometimes– and her effort to aimlessly search through the internet for the first episode of an anime she randomly saw on Tiktok one day and thought would suit your watching style both amuses you and makes your heart warm just a little. Indulging in TV series is one of the only coping mechanisms either of you can ever come up with, it seems.

When the opening credits roll, you hear your phone’s notification sound pop up, your hand reaching for the device. You don’t even get an opportunity to look at who is texting you before your roommate snatches the phone out of your hand, swipes across the screen and turns it off with one swift motion, forcing you to focus on the animation going on the TV.

Sometimes, all you need is your caring roommate to take over everything. Today, more than ever, you’re more than willing to give yourself into her hands.

After that, you do what you think anyone in your situation would (or wouldn’t do, to be precise). You don’t text Huang Renjun random things throughout the day like you used to– you no longer laugh at weird memes he finds funny with him and you no longer read his texts that are full of random complaining, mostly about his roommate Donghyuck, throughout the day. You don’t meet him to work on the project together. It’s almost done and you still have time– you are planning on just finishing it by yourself and turning it in on the day it’s due, with no contact with the male. You also don’t call him when you’re walking home alone in the late hours of the evening, scared and yearning to find comfort in his saccharine words. You don’t even look at his messages– he sent you multiple– only letting yourself to check the contact name before you swipe the notification away without giving it much thought, making yourself ignore all of his calls the moment you hear your ringtone go off. Worst of all, you don’t even attend class anymore. You’re glad for the past you that managed to attend every single class, because now, you have more than enough absences to use up before the semester ends and you go on spring break.

You do everything in your power to erase him out of your life. It takes an admirable amount of self-control, you must admit.

And sometimes, it even feels silly. It feels stupid to react so much to seeing him with his ex girlfriend, because frankly, you two weren’t dating. No amount of touches, gentle words, hang-outs after the sun sets and intimacy means that you are a couple; it didn’t matter that you opened up to him so much when neither of you confirmed to this being inclusive. The day before you dyed his hair back, you two were just good friends, after all. Sex didn’t change anything– even though you thought it would. 

And maybe that’s what’s making you feel even more angstier about the whole thing. You gave him every last ounce of yourself you had, every inch of your body, from the inside out– so now, you feel thrown away, as if you were useless.

The cold nights slowly turn into warmer evenings, birds chirping outside waking you up in the mornings even more reminding you of the man you lost somewhere along the way. Spring was the favorite season of you both, but somewhere deep inside of you, you’re starting to dread it. Maybe it’s the fact that you were yearning for a new beginning for yourself in spring; for something to be born seemingly out of nothing– but it seems like you are supposed to bloom by yourself now, and you’re finding it harder than ever. 

It’s the beginning of the second week of March. Warm sunlight makes your feet spring up from your bed in the early morning, forcing you to take a walk. You’ve gotten used to going on these, as many call it, ‘mental health walks’ lately– you read on the internet that they help your mood, and even though it’s a slow progress, you’re willing to try anything, at this point. 

You chose a fixed destination you walk to every other day. It’s on the opposite side of the campus– where the Science buildings are– and you would be lying to yourself and everyone if you said you didn’t carefully craft the journey so you wouldn’t get in contact with the man you’ve been trying to avoid for the last two and a half weeks. It’s far away from your apartment, and even further away from his. There’s no reason for him to visit those parts of the campus, and you find comfort in the fact. 

Finding a bench under a cherry blossom tree– it’s slowly starting to wilt these days– you sit in silence for a while on some days, and on others, you put in your earphones and watch the world around you go by without you moving a single finger, trying to find comfort in the fact.

Listening to the playlist you made in the crack of dawn last night– Renjun always made fun of you for the fact that you once listed ‘making Spotify playlists’ as your hobby– you fall deep inside of your thoughts. When this happens, it’s hard to control your mind and think of something positive. The only thing left for you to do is to hope and pray you don’t spiral.

Why did it even matter so much to you anyway? It was just a kiss to his cheek. It’s not like you caught them in the act…

However, still, the image of them looking so comfortable together broke your heart; because somewhere along the way, you thought he’d always feel resentment towards the girl. She broke his trust, she made him feel worthless, and it was left for you to take all those broken pieces of him and glue them back together. You didn’t realize it back then, but just the fact that you didn’t give up on him back when he was being difficult was enough for the boy to feel at least a little better again. Your nagging, yet silent acts of meeting him somewhere in the middle, even on his worst days, was a source of comfort for him. And after a while, you started noticing that– you started noticing him warming up to you every time you met, you started noticing his gratitude towards you in the little acts of service he brought with himself when he bought you snacks or texted you if you came home safely after your meetings. 

You guess that seeing Yunjin talking so freely with him, seeing her kiss his cheek with such tenderness, made you feel so deeply, easily replaceable in his life. You guess you always feel like that with everyone anyway. It’s a bad habit you find hard to break– maybe you too, just need someone to be patient with you while you heal.

“What are you listening to?” you hear a voice, tone close to honey, ask from the place next to you. It makes you jump in terror, both from recognising it so easily and from not expecting him to find you here, so far away from everything, as you look at him with surprised eyes.

You don’t know what it is that keeps you silent. Perhaps it’s surprise. Perhaps it’s pettiness. Perhaps it’s shame. 

The feeling makes you stiff in silence, everything in you refusing to respond to his sudden casualty. “Okay, I’ll just stalk your listening activity on Spotify when I come home again, then,” he shrugs, his uninhibited demeanor making you boil inside. You feel like your insides are on fire, you feel like the whole world came crashing down on you because of mere seconds of seeing him with someone that he once held so dear to his heart, making you  feel replaced and forgotten, and yet, he comes to you so easily and doesn’t even acknowledge your hurt?

“What are you doing here?” you ask, voice soulless as you turn your music off and put your tangled earphones into your jacket pocket, finally choosing to recognise his presence. 

“Talking to you,” he shrugs, “I… brought you coffee,” he smiles, showing you the Starbucks take-out cardboard holding two drinks together, one iced americano and one caramel latte, the sight making your heart warm up quite dangerously at the thought that after all this time, he got your coffee order down, he noticed you sweetening your drinks, and he remembered.

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you scoff. “How did you know I’d be here?”

The man shrugs. “I didn’t, at first. I… I came to your apartment to talk to you, but Jimin said you weren’t home, so after a few minutes of begging her to tell me where I could find you, she gave up and sent me here.”

You guess you’ll have to have a serious talk with your roommate when you come home.

“Why… why are you here, then?” you ask, still feeling the bitter pettines on your tongue when the words escape your mouth.

“Well,” he starts, taking a deep breath in, collecting his thoughts, “at first I thought I’d give you space. I thought you didn’t want to talk with anyone and you kept ignoring my texts and calls, so I texted Jimin to ask if you were okay, and when she told me you were doing fine, I figured it had to do something with me. And then– and then I thought I’d give you some space, since you looked like you needed some, but… but I think I need to face the problem now, since it’s clearly… something big, you know…” 

It’s undeniable that Huang Renjun is quite the smart individual. His ability to instantly sense your emotions and decipher the meaning behind them never fails to catch you off guard, though.

Looking at him from the corner of your eye, you suddenly notice the nerves he tried to mask by fake casualty. He keeps chewing on his bottom lip and he’s picking at his cuticles so hard you think they’ll bleed at any minute, his frame small and hesitant as he turns away from you, afraid to meet your eyes. He looks so, so guilty, and you suddenly feel stupid for making such a big deal out of something that shouldn’t have mattered to you in the first place.

“What… What did I do to hurt you?” he asks, voice barely louder than a whisper. “Because you must be hurt, if you’re avoiding me this much.”

Taking a deep breath in, you shake your head at the whole situation. He’s right, though– perhaps it’s time to finally face your problems now, so you can move on. Maybe this closure is what you need, maybe you need to hear it from him– to hear that it didn’t mean anything to him, to hear that Yunjin apologized and he’s gonna get back together with her, because somehow, your brain convinced you this was the case– to finally let him go and stop mourning something that was never there in the first place. “I–” 

Your words fail you.

“Do you… regret it?” he asks, voice so small you almost don’t hear him. 

The sentence takes you off guard. Looking at him, you can’t even bring yourself to speak, confused eyes roaming over his tense features. Opening up your mouth to ask for clarification, he mumbles again before you get a chance to speak. “Do you regret sleeping with me?”

Blinking at him a few times, a crease appearing in between your eyebrows, you shake your head. Is this really what was running through his brain? Is this why he left you alone for more than two weeks? Because suddenly, it makes sense– the way he gave you space and let you avoid him for two weeks before he came to find you in person– but again, this is not at all what was running through your brain all these days. Never once did you regret what you two did, no matter how shitty you’re feeling about it now after your brain convinced you of things that weren’t even real in the first place. “No,” you simply say.

A hint of relief washes over his face, his shoulders relaxing just the tiniest bit– it looks like this was what he’s been scared of the most; it looks like he feared he hurt you in this way. Still, he insists on talking it out once and for all. “What is it, then?”

Shameful to meet his eyes, you point your gaze towards your feet. Convincing yourself that your feelings are valid and that you were right to feel the way you do, the same way you did to him all those weeks ago at the stairs in front of the university building, you confess to your worries. “I saw you with Yunjin the other day.”

Now it’s his time to stay silent, and somehow, your brain can’t find a way to deal with not getting a response from him, so you ramble to cope. “At the cafeteria, I mean. I– I wanted to surprise you, and you said you were getting lunch alone and I was at the campus, so I thought I’d come to keep you company, but then… then I saw you with her, and you two seemed so comfortable together, so close, and then she kissed your cheek and it made me… it made me feel like… like you maybe wanted to get back together with her, or something…?”

“And really, it’s fine, if you want to do that, I guess I just… for the sake of both of us, or maybe just me, I think… I think it’s better for me to keep my distance from you, then.”

Watching as his expression shifts to one full of disbelief, you swear that what you want the most in this moment is to disappear. “Is this why you’ve been avoiding me those past two weeks?” he asks.

Pressing your lips into a thin line, suddenly feeling insanely silly and unreasonable when you say all of those things out loud, you avert your gaze from him, pointing it somewhere into the distance. 

“Is this really it?” he asks again, insisting, full of disbelief. “You made me feel like you regretted having sex with me, and this is it?” he chuckles, and you don’t know if it’s because he’s looking down on you, or if he just truly finds the situation funny. 

“Look, I–” 

“Fuck, Y/N,” he gets out, looking as if every nerve and stress in his body finally let go, relief washing over his face like waterfalls, “I was so scared, and this is what’s been bugging you?” he asks, shaking his head in disbelief as he runs his hands through his hair. “She came to apologize to me. Not that it mattered something to me, and not that it made any difference, but I didn’t have it in me to tell her to fuck herself, you know? That’s what you saw. She told me she wishes me well and that she hopes I find joy in someone else too. She didn’t even– she didn’t even sit with me at lunch. She went to eat with her boyfriend.”

And here it is– the inevitable notion of shame intensifies. Finally having the explanation you’ve been wanting to hear, but purposefully avoiding for two weeks; finally feeling relief in your chest, your worries escaping out like the summer wind, and even though you should be happy, you can’t even bring yourself to meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble.

“No, I mean– it’s just… I’m sorry too, it’s just…” he trails off, making you look at him with examining eyes, eyebrows raised in question. You don’t really know what he’s apologizing for. Maybe for leaving you space even though he was convinced that’s what you needed– had he approached you earlier, you wouldn’t have to avoid him for two weeks.

“It’s just…?”

“I find it ironic how you thought I wanted to get back together with her, when in reality… you were the one I wanted to get together with in the first place, you know?” he asks, and if you squint hard enough, you could still see hints of nervousness in his body when he asks the rhetorical question, soft eyes scanning your face when your eyes meet.

“Oh,” you hum, mouth agape in surprise.

“Yeah,” he nods, lips pressed into a thin line, “cause I like you… like, a lot, actually, so…” he mumbles, the confession reminding you of your first weeks with Renjun– tense and awkward, but with a promise of something new the more you got to know him.

“Oh,” you repeat again, your brain still not catching up to the situation.

Suddenly, the two weeks of avoidance feel even more silly. You don’t know what happened in you to cause this much distress for the both of you, but you’re filled with delight with the fact that even though you expected him to get mad at you– to call you unreasonable, maybe even a little stupid– he seems to be understanding of your emotions. He seems to accept them, willing to put up with them and everything that requires of him; he seems to be willing to find you even at the end of the world and try to get you back into his life. Because only god knows how much he appreciates your presence in it. 

“So…” he mumbles, a silent question hanging in the air, making you realize you were too caught up in your thoughts to really give him an answer.

“I… I like you too, if that… wasn’t obvious,” you snicker, shrugging as a wide smile spreads across your cheeks. The words fall a little bashfully off your tongue, the confession ringing strangely in your ears, but you don’t mind the little uncomfort the shyness in your demeanor brings you.

There are no long confessions, no deep words of love. Once again, Huang Renjun is a man of few words– he shows you his care through actions. 

He finds you when you’re avoiding him. He makes sure you get home safe. He tries hard to work with you on a project he originally wanted to avoid, only because he notices you finding interest in it, your passion slowly sparking up his. 

He keeps annoying the publicist of your favorite author for a week straight to let you make an interview with her, even though he got declined twice over an email with messages filled with bitter and annoyed words. He remembers your coffee order and he invites you to hang out with his friends to show you that you are now a part of his circle, that you are one of his close ones. He lets you make fun of him with your roommate, but doesn’t give you the same treatment he gives Donghyuck when he tries to bully him. He sends you all the cat pictures he gets from his friend Taeyong, sometimes even asking for some when he hasn’t sent you ones in too long, and he also thinks of you any time he sees the snow– because he gets reminded of the walk you two had in the midst of the snowflakes, even though you hate the cold. 

He reads your favorite book and finds pieces of you scattered all across the pages, he feels his love for you in the poetic words and metaphors hidden in the plot. He lets you dye his hair to signify that a part of his life is now over and a new one started– with you being the main actor of the subtle metamorphosis as he slowly shifts back into his old self, yet now a little wiser. 

He is a man of few words, affection coating them only sometimes, when he reassures you over a mug of hot tea in the evenings before you present your assignments in class and when you get too scared of crowded places; but somehow, the words he keeps to himself translate to you despite not being spoken.

In the beams of the warm sun, you gravitate to him like you’re two planets in the solar system, always sharing the same space. And when his smile meets yours in another kiss, you think that after all, you get the kind of new beginning you wanted in spring.

You and Huang Renjun may be the prime example that love, just like cherry blossoms, always blooms in patience. 

#nct #nct dream #renjun #nct x reader #nct dream x reader #renjun x reader #renjun fluff #renjun angst #renjun smut #renjun fic #renjun scenario #nct dream fluff #nct dream angst #nct fluff #nct angst #nct smut #nct dream smut #huang renjun #renjun drabble #renjun fanfic

[galacticseonghwa]

Huang Renjun fwb/sneaky link texts pt.2

INCLUDES: VERY suggestive content, fem-bodied reader, swearing, fwb concept, possible jealous renjun, fluff???? a/n: not yet proofread

#galacticseonghwa #nct dream #nct #nctzen #renjun #huang renjun #nct renjun #renjun fic #renjun texts #renjun smut #renjun fake texts

[yutasbellybuttonpiercing]

- canine, but mine (pt. 1: acquaintances)

pairing: huang renjun x reader

au/genre: hybrid!au, fox hybrid!renjun, human!reader, virgin!renjun, smut, fluff, angst (?), the au is kinda unserious

don't like it, don't read it, okay... *sighs*

also, don't publicly shame me for any inaccuracies. i admittedly do not ready many (read: any) hybrid fics...

word count: 2860 words

warnings: HYBRIDS!, bullying, comforting, petting (not the sexual kind), semi-public diddling, mentions of virginity, cumming untouched, the base of renjun's tail is very sensitive......., sub!renjun ig

a/n: happy renjun day! 🦊

taglist: @jaeminnanaaa17 @i6renj

Ever since Renjun remembers, life has not been kind to him. Born not out of love between two people, but created in a laboratory for scientific research purposes, born not to be a part of society, but as an experiment for a potential weapon; part animal, part human, but not really part of either of those worlds.

Only after hybrid-rights-protests forced the government to take action against hybrid experiments, he was freed; free, but not really free, because that he'll never be. Instead, unloved by his creators that he could never bring himself to call parents, he continued growing up in a foster home, surrounded by kids that were nothing like him, kids that looked different than him, and kids that did not believe in the concept of "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself". The days he was not kicked by them, he was at least laughed at, mocked, or judged.

Renjun, objectively, knows that it's not his fault that he looks different, that he is different. He was just born, or rather: brought to life, with a set of orange fox-like ears on top of his fluffy, brown hair, a soft, bushy tail, tiny little fangs, and claws that he always keeps neatly trimmed to not accidentally hurt anyone.

The bullying did not stop when he started going to school, nor did it lessen the older he got. Kids are mean, Renjun knows that by heart, and he's never even had a friend. When he was 14, the girls in his class dared each other who would be brave enough to "kiss the freak", when he was 16, people started inviting him on dates only to laugh at him with their friends when he showed up all excited, and when he finally finished school and started going to university, he thought it would all be different. To be fair, he was no longer pushed into lockers, he was no longer spat at and people stopped pulling at his tail for fun, but the mocking did not stop. And even when he met another hybrid, a popular, big white tiger hybrid, he didn't receive any sympathy. God how he wishes to at least be a cool, strong hybrid, like a lion or a bear... or even a wolf! Why did they have to make him a stupid fox...

Ever since that day, he's told himself one thing: you're going to work hard, get through university and get a good job in the big city... where there are lots of hybrids and lots of supporters.

At this point, Renjun is fairly used to the bullying. With his goal in mind, he doesn't fight it, he just lowers his head, his ears laying flat against his fluffy hair as he waits for it to be over. He guesses that people are just not ready for hybrids yet.

One can only imagine his upmost shock when on the first day of the new semester, someone willingly sat down next to him. Admittedly, you were 5 minutes late and there were no other seats available, but you didn't beg anyone to please scoot over just so you didn't have to sit next to the weird guy with the tail. Renjun vividly remembers this day in philosophy class, as the professor went on and on about Henri Bergson and how the sand wasp instinctively knows where to sting the caterpillar to paralyze it, while Renjun was just smitten by the girl sitting next to him without gagging.

Unable to talk to you, he was just sitting there, smiling shyly to himself at this small act that seemed so big to him. He remembers almost falling off his chair in shock as you "psst!"-ed at him and awkwardly asked for a pen since you forgot yours. He remembers having to pinch himself as you smiled and thanked him, and told him you thought his shirt was cute. He remembers looking around in case you weren't really talking to him as you said, "see you next week!"

And when in the following weeks, you kept sitting down next to him even though there were other seats available, he was almost sure this had to be a dream. But it wasn't, and when during the third lesson, you softly asked for his name, he was this close to bursting into tears.

A few weeks into the semester, Renjun is currently sitting at the library, trying to memorize the different forms of utilitarianism. As always, he's sitting in a separate study room that he booked just for himself – a precautious attempt to not get made fun of as he's trying to concentrate. He crosses out his second attempt of trying to spell deontology correctly as he notices someone passing by the glass door to his study room. A moment later, the person backs up and looks inside, and he realizes it's you.

His heart stops for a moment as you begin smiling and waving at him, and he slowly lifts his hand to mimic the action hesitantly. Of course, you take that as an invitation to come in.

You close the door after slipping inside, still talking in a low tone as not to disturb anyone outside.

"Hey~" you say and sit down across from Renjun. He smiles and bites his lip nervously, "hey."

"You here all alone?" You ask softly, "is it okay if I sit with you?"

Renjun blushes. He knows you didn't think anything of it, but mentioning his lack of acquaintances is a bit of a sore spot for him.

"Sure... if you want," he says shyly, still not completely trusting that you're not going to turn this all around and make fun of him.

"Only if it doesn't bother you," you smile, "I'll be super quiet, promise!"

His smile is getting more genuine as you talk so casually to him. He just starts feeling a bit more comfortable, when sudden movements in front of the glass door make his head lift up.

A group of guys is standing there, pressing their faces against the door, clearly mocking his fox ears with their hands behind their heads. His heart sinks, he should've known this was going to happen today, it always happens when he's out in public.

"What-" you ask, noticing the pained look on his face and the way his ears are pointing down as he feels a wave of shame overcome him. You turn around, taking in the group of guys who're still silently making fun of the fox hybrid. "What the fuck..."

Renjun's ears twitch in surprise as you stand up, and he waits anxiously for what's about to happen. You rip open the glass door, lifting your finger into their face before speaking to them, hushed but still loud enough for a few people to lift their heads. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Did your mom not teach you manners? You should be ashamed of yourselves, you're university students, cut the crap with your preschool bullying, you fucking assholes," you tell them, and Renjun's eyes widen comically. You... you're standing up for him? For him?!

"If I see you doing this one more time, I'll get you kicked off campus... Now go back to being worthless idiots somewhere else. Leave him alone, I swear to God..." you say before closing the door, flipping them off, pulling down the blinds, and heading back to Renjun. To Renjun's upmost surprise, the guys actually left, and looking embarrassed at that, possibly because you just made one hell of a scene – and it's probably the sexiest thing Renjun's ever witnessed.

You sit down again, this time next to him. "You okay?"

Renjun breathes out shakily, ears twitching, tail swaying back and forth nervously. He's not sure what to make of this, someone standing up for him, it has never happened to him before. And before he can stop himself, he blurts out the question he's been asking himself since the moment your ass cheeks touched the surface of the chair next to him in that first philosophy lesson. "Why are you so nice to me?"

You halt, furrowing your brows. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He seems even more confused by that answer. "Um... You know, I'm a hybrid? Maybe you find that weird?"

You blink at him, "why is that weird?"

"Don't you... think I'm weird?" He asks. "Odd? Repelling? Freaky? Off-putting?? Anything???" He keeps listing adjectives as you keep shaking your head no. "Why... would you stand up for me?"

"I just don't like bullies," you state nonchalantly, "plus you're really cute."

Renjun's eyes bulge out of their sockets, tail curling up so suddenly that he feels like he's almost broken something in there. Maybe you're an animal friend, maybe that's all he is to you? "Cute? Like the fox parts or...?"

"Everything about you is cute. The fox parts are cute, but you'd still be cute without them."

Renjun just stares at you. This can't be real. He pinches the palm of his hand several times without you noticing, but he's just not waking up. If this is a dream, which he's almost certain it has to be, he could do anything he wants right now... like making your head explode- just to be sure! He concentrates greatly on it, but your head stays intact. He gives up. "You're not disgusted?"

"What?!" You look utterly confused, then your features soften into a look of concern. "Are people... usually disgusted by you?"

He nods without hesitation. "Usually, they just point and laugh, sometimes it even gets worse than that..." Renjun can't even bring himself to cringe as you put on a brave expression and tell him you're going to protect him from now on, because this is honestly the best thing that's ever happened to him. His heart melts at your words and it's hard to believe he's actually being comforted. There are no jokes being thrown around, no mockery, not even any pity. For once, Renjun feels like there's someone who wants to protect him. His lower lip quivers slightly as he holds back tears, and without thinking, he leans forward and places his head on your shoulder.

He hears you coo quietly, lifting your hand to his back and pulling him closer. "Is... is it okay if I stroke your hair?"

Renjun closes his eyes and nods. The warmth of the hug is comforting, the touch of your hands is gentle and soothing. His tension quickly dies down as he melts against you as he realizes that he has never felt like this before. And as you begin gently scratching and massaging his scalp, his ears begin twitching and relaxing at the feeling of your nimble fingers. He tries to hide the innocent pleasure that's shooting though his body, not sure if you would think it's odd, but his heartbeat is increasing rapidly. Your fingers feel like magic as they brush against his ears and scratch the base of his scalp. Suddenly a little too unhinged for his liking, he begins purring and nuzzling your neck, enjoying every single bit of your touch.

"God, you're adorable..." you say softly, making sure to pet him behind his ears and Renjun's entire body fizzles with pleasure at the feeling. As if it has a mind of its own, his tail curls around your legs. "Is this okay? Have you ever been pet like this?"

Renjun hums in delight, "I've always dreamed about getting pet like this..." Your fingers begin gently playing with his ears. At first, they twitch nervously, but soon, he relaxes into the touch. He notes that his ears are very sensitive when being touched by someone else that isn't himself, and he loves the sensation.

"They're so soft... I could pet you like this all day," you say softly, making Renjun smile.

"Do you...," he hesitates for a bit, "want to touch my tail too? It's even softer..."

"Do you want me to?"

Renjun nods shyly, lifting his tail a bit for easy access. The moment your fingers begin brushing over his fur, he shivers, whimpering slightly. Every other time, whenever someone's touched his tail before, it was rough and mean, but the way you oh so gently run your fingers through his fur makes him almost lightheaded.

"Your fur is so soft...," you whisper and he hums in response, eyes already closed as he gets lost in the feeling. His tail makes small circles behind your leg when you brush over the fur, he whimpers softly as your fingers move further up towards the base of his tail.

Your fingers feel so good, unlike anything he's ever felt before. He keeps questioning if this is love, or if this is what it feels like when someone really cares, but all he knows is that he craves more and more of this all consuming feeling, when suddenly, he lets out a short, loud moan. The tips of your fingers have unknowingly reached the base of his tail, causing a jolt of pure, white, hot pleasure to shoot through his body.

Shamefully, he buries himself into your shoulder, his tail curling around your leg. He's mortified as your movements pause for a second, he's sure he's messed up now, but then your scratching picks up again and he breathes out shakily, body twitching at the feeling.

You keep going and going, and he begins moaning softly.

"Is this still okay for you?" The softness of your voice makes his heart melt.

"Mhm..." is all he is able to bring out at the overwhelming sensation of being touched there for the first time.

"Have you been touched here before?"

"N-never..." Renjun whines softly. He's feeling himself harden in his pants, cock straining against the fabric of his jeans and he's sure you noticed.

"Are you a virgin, Renjun?"

The question catches him off guard, but honestly, he's too far gone now to feel shy about it. It seems that you have picked up on how sensitive he is, and he can't really blame you for your assumption. You seem so open and accepting of him that he doesn't even hesitate before slightly nodding his head, "yeah..."

"And you're sure that you want to experience... this with me?"

The feeling of your fingers on his tail intensifies with every second, Renjun feels dizzy, there's barely any blood left in his brain at this point, all of it damming up in his cock and every other sensible part of his body. "yes.. yes...!"

It seems like this is all you needed to hear to speed up your movement, fingertips scratching and petting him in the most arousing way possible, forcing whimpers and moans from his mouth. "Aahh... Ah..." He tries to hold back, but the sensation is too much for him. Your touch is too nice and it's making him lose control as he bites his lip to keep himself from letting out a vocal response, but it's not enough. He's starting to tremble, breath getting heavier as he begins panting harshly. This sensation surely feels very close to how he feels when he's about to cum.

And just the attentive person you are, you speak up about it. "Are you gonna...?"

"I... Aahh... I think so..." He says, his voice shaking as he speaks. "It feels so nice..."

Experimentally, you move your fingers to the underside of his tail, and Renjun's body jolts in pleasure, his whole body jerks as he moans out, mouth slightly open while keeping his voice down as much as possible given your current location. He reaches up and grabs your wrist to make you keep touching him there. "Please..." He says in a thoroughly pleading voice. "Don't stop.."

As he forces his eyes to open, he notices your eyes on him, your face so close to his, and his eyes inevitably dart down to your lips as he gasps for more.

Of course, you take it as an invitation to kiss him, and as soon as your soft lips merge with his, Renjun knows that he's going to cum. He feels like he's actually going to faint as the pleasure reaches new heights, your kiss building the tension up and up, his head spins as he feels himself tighten up.

Your movements quickly send him over the edge. The intensity of the sensation is making his body shudder as he pulls you closer toward him and he lets himself go, muscles tightening even further as he releases into his pants with a high-pitched moan.

Your hands carefully stroke over his tail again, your unoccupied hand coming back up to his hair to help him calm down. He's breathing heavily, body feeling fuzzy inside at the attention and from his intense release. "O-oh, God..."

"That was so hot...," you whisper, gently kissing the top of his head. He lets out a soft giggle. You successfully have made him blush once again. But just as he's really, fully calming down, he inevitably notices the sticky feeling between his thighs and cringes.

You chuckle softly as you notice the look on his face. "Maybe we should get you to a restroom..."

© 2024 YUTASBELLYBUTTONPIERCING all rights reserved — please DO NOT translate, take, nor repost any of my works.

#renjun #renjun smut #huang renjun smut #nct renjun smut #kpop #smut #nct #kpop smut #nct fanfic #fem reader #nct dream #nct x reader #nct dream smut #huang renjun x reader #renjun x reader #renjun angst #renjun fic #i love renjun #renjun fluff #nct dream renjun #nct renjun #huang renjun

[prettyrenjunn]

you belong with me

huang renjun x f!reader

20. make up or make out

ybwm masterlist

that’s the end!!!!! i’m sorry if it felt a little rushed (i mean renjun was an oblivious idiot for a while so) i’m so excited to start working on the mark fic and i have no life so it’ll probably be soon but SPOILER!!!! HOT ROCKSTAR GF (SORT OF)

@thisisnotjacinta @maguisilla @miniature-tragedy @clean-soap @polarisjisung @haezyhyuck @defzcl @aerivrs @gukuwii @rjhcluv @achocosun @choisan4life @beommii @artstaeh @multifandomania @haechansbbg THANK YOU ALL FOR SUPPORTING TOOOO!!! LOVE U GUYS

#nct dream fanfic #nct dream fluff #nct dream imagine #nct dream scenarios #nct dream imagines #nct x reader #nct dream x reader #renjun fluff #renjun x reader #nct dream fic #nct social media au #renjun fic #renjun fanfic #renjun

[dojunie]

MESSENGER; HRJ SMAU

[★]; YOU FIND A PHONE NUMBER WRITTEN ON THE MIRROR OF THE SULIM LIBRARY'S SECOND FLOOR BATHROOM. It's scrawled messily across the glass in erasable expo marker, the handwriting underneath almost closer to hieroglyphics than lettering— and what you thought it read, was 'SEND DUCK PICS FOR A GOOD TIME.'

(You suppose, in hindsight, it was a good thing this person's penmanship was so shit— because if you knew what it really said, you might have never stumbled across the oddly intriguing inbox of one Huang Renjun.)

info;

smau (with many written parts)

renjun x fem!reader

strangers to lovers

quotations means written, no quotes means text!

PART 1: DUCK DEALER

PART 2: PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

PART 3: 2AM

PART 4: "COFFEE VS TEA"

PART 5: SPORT BALL

PART 6: "FACE TO FACE"

PART 7: STUBBORN

PART 8: "SHH!"

PART 9: ONE LAST TIME?

PART 10: QUICK THINKING

PART 11: BRIBERY ♥︎

PART 12: "SWITCH UP"

PART 13: BUNNY TAX

PART 14: WRITING ON THE WALL

PART 15: "TWO FACES"

PART 16: STUDDY BUDDY

[and more to come soon...!]

LAST UPDATED: JAN 26TH, 2024

#huang renjun au #renjun smau #nct dream smau #nct smau #nct masterlist #nct dream masterlist #renjun fic #renjun fanfic #renjun text #renjun texts #nct texts #nct dream texts #messenger masterlist #fic: messenger #renjun au #nct au #nct dream au

[anna-357]

Renjun fic recs

My favorite Renjun fics

portrait of a blank slate. huang renjun

college au. fluff, smut, and the tiniest bit of angst

Perfect present

it’s your boyfriend’s first birthday with you. too bad he’s too stubborn to tell you what he wants, leaving you to take matters into your own hands. still, you’re certain the little blue set you have at the back of your closet will be just the perfect present for him.

Bad Habits

Your boyfriend Renjun offered to blow dry your wet hair, what could go wrong?

blondes are done with fun

a rumor has it that the popular couple in town broke up after years of being together. having to share your favorite seat in class with the male part of said relationship, you try to find out how to make your heartbroken project partner warm up to you— or— huang renjun goes blonde when he's sad.

Lip tint

reader being whipped for Renjun, kissing, making out, slight hair pulling

Best friend over gel pens

your beauty marks indicate where your soulmate in your past life liked kissing you the most—and also, for some reason, renjun has a habit of pressing his lips to your hands.

Art of Innocence

Art and gaming. That’s all Renjun found himself doing. Of course he spent time with his friends, but he had to be dragged away from his games console or easel first. Renjun had been brought up around art, his mother being an artist and his father being a drama teacher. So it wasn’t a shock to anyone when he decided to study art at university. His quiet, shy, nerdy nature meant that he didn’t get much attention when walking around campus, which is just how he liked it. You however, had found him on your first day of university and had stuck to him like glue. He pretended as if you didn’t mean that much to him, but you and him both knew he would be lost without you. Only, you didn’t know he was a virgin. So after you found out about the pact from one of the other boys, you couldn’t wait to intercept his gaming session and quiz him on his innocence. You couldn’t help it, but you suddenly saw him in a different light, one that had your fingers tingling and stomach flipping. The same way Renjun had felt looking at you since the first day he’d met you.

We met in online class- 10 parts

You’ve been crushing on art major, Huang Renjun and you somehow find yourself asking him out in front of all your classmates. He doesn’t like you back; but it would be awful to turn you down in front of everyone… right?

#renjun #renjun smut #renjun x reader #nct x reader #nct smut #nct dream #nct fic #nct renjun #nct scenarios #nct #nct imagines #renjun fic #renjun fluff #huang renjun #renjun huang

[boba-at-323]

[02:29AM]

“Love?” Renjun's head appeared from behind the door of your bedroom. 

After a hectic week at work, Renjun had decided to spend the weekend with you because one, what was better than relaxing with your favourite person in the whole wide world? And two, he was practically dying to see your beautiful face because it had been way too long since he last met you.

Even though he had been excited and was looking forward to spending some time with you, he was crushed once your figure came into his sight. 

Several books and what seemed like notes were sprawled across the small study table. The rest of the table was decorated with bright, eye-catching highlighters and a variety of multi coloured pens and pencils. Your laptop sat in front of you, the professor inside the screen going on about some topic you had lost focus on long ago. Although the earphones connected to the laptop were plugged in your ears, you had knocked out a long time ago. 

Your head rested on your crossed arms, eyes shut with soft snores leaving your slightly-parted lips. Your hair was a mess, in fact, your whole state was a disaster. With the finals catching up, you had been pushing yourself way too hard. You spent hours upon hours studying without breaks, and eventually, came to the point where you just couldn’t take anymore in. After a mental breakdown, you finally dozed off listening to the boring, monotone lecture.

Renjun clicked his tongue in defeat, shaking his head as he knelt down next to your sleeping self. He knew you had been working too hard, after all he was your boyfriend.

“Babe?” He whispered softly, removing the earphones and tucking those stray strands of hair behind your ears. 

“R-renjun?” you opened your eyes lazily, wondering if you were hallucinating or dreaming. 

You were greeted by his soft, sympathetic smile with his hand now running through your hair. 

“What time is it?” You asked him, a sinking feeling taking over you once you realise that you had slept in the middle of your studying session. 

“Well, it’s late.” His reply came after a pause, not even bothering to check the time from any of the various sources which could tell the exact hour.

“Great.” You groan, closing your eyes again. The said word was greatly sarcastic because you had wasted precious time which could have been utilised for at least completing one more chapter. 

“Hey, hey,” Renjun’s sweet voice made you look back at him, “You’ve done enough for today. In fact, you’ve done more than enough. Let’s get you to bed okay?”

“But-” You open your mouth to protest, only to be shushed by your beloved boyfriend. 

“I don’t want to hear a word, love. We’re going to bed and that's final.” He took your hand in his as he helped you up. Sure, his parent-side was annoying at times, but that was one of the reasons why you loved him so much. He was just looking out for you and that was more than anything you could ask for. 

Helping you back up on your feet, you couldn’t help but think what you did to deserve such an angel besides you. He always made sure to take out time for you, even if he was keeping up with his busiest schedules. 

Maybe because your thoughts were still blurry because of your drowsy state, you suddenly wrapped your arms around his waist, burying your face in his chest. Your sudden affection caught Renjun off-guard, but since he had missed you dearly as well, he returned your hug. 

Holding you in his arms for a while, he planted a soft kiss on the top of your head. 

“Love,” he said quietly, as if he wanted his voice to be heard only by you even if you were in an empty room, “I know you’ve been going hard on yourself. And I just want to tell you that you’re doing great.”

He pulled apart just for a second only to look at your tired, sleep-deprived eyes. He gently cupped your face, his loving gaze making you melt into a puddle right there. You gave him a sheepish smile, something he loved to see. 

“I love you, okay?” 

It wasn’t very often Renjun would tell you that. He believed that the more someone used them, the more they became worthless. So he was very considerate with those three words, only using them on special occasions. But right now, he thought he should remind you how special you were to him, how you were his universe, how you made his world spin. 

“Don’t ever forget that.”

Title : [02:29AM] || Word count: 779 || Genre: FLUFFY FLUFF wiht a sprinkle of angst?? || Pairing: bf! Renjun x implied Fem!Reader || Guys I love him so much can you tell

Tagging : @armysantiny @mosviqu ( I hope you don't mind I'm gonna tag you for every Renhyuck fic I write🫶)

#wc : 779 #huang renjun #renjun #renjun fluff #renjun angst #renjun fanfic #renjun fic #nct fanfic #nct fic #nct x reader #renjun x y/n #renjun x reader #renjun x you #nct x you #nct x y/n #nct dream #nct dream x you #nct dream x reader #nct dream x y/n #nct dream fluff #nct dream angst #nct dream fanfic #nct dream scenarios #🤎 – kyuzu writes #🤎 – jade writes

[lonelyharmonies]

out of the blue

When Huang Renjun enters his classroom on a Friday morning, he expects anything but a cryptic note with a math equation placed on his desk, addressed to him.

pairing: art teacher renjun x math teacher reader. word count: 4.5k warnings: one student has a crush on a teacher (?) a/n.: i love renjun and i love this silly little story 💖

Out of the blue, notes started appearing on Renjun’s desk. 

At first, he thought it was a prank. He was used to it, after all, the staff at Dream High is playful and Lee Donghyuck is particularly fond of pulling pranks on Renjun. That’s why he made nothing of the silly note that read:

Roses are red,  violets are blue,  DaVinci painted Monalisa, ‘Cause he didn’t meet you.

Renjun just put the note aside and moved on with his classes. On the following day, however, the same blue post-it could be found on his table in the art room. This one said:

Is your dad an art thief? Because you are a masterpiece.

He chuckled to himself, in disbelief, and threw it inside one of the drawers of his desk before class started, and just moved on. But the cheeky slash flirty notes didn’t stop there: Renjun spent days finding silly pick-up lines written on blue post-its.

You must be an artist, because I find myself drawn to you.

On the day his class was discussing surrealism, there was even one referring to it:

You must be Salvador Dalí because you are persistently in my memory.

What confused him the most is what’s the reason for it? It wasn’t Valentine’s Day for Donghyuck to be doing something like that and Renjun was sure this is all Donghyuck’s doing (he is the only teacher who is overworked yet acts idle enough to come up with this kind of nonsense just for fun). Confirmation of his suspicions came on a Friday morning when he found the blue post-it on his desk, but, this time, it had an equation.

9x-7i > 3(3x-7u)

During recess, Renjun walked to the teacher’s office stomping his feet as he made his way to Teacher Lee’s cubicle. Today was the last straw, especially because one of the students found the previous notes in his desk’s drawer and the whole class started talking about his ‘secret admirer’ (and Renjun hated being the center of the student’s gossip. When they found his Instagram account it had been enough attention for a lifetime).

“What’s this?” he crossed his arms, wearing a scowl. 

“Damn, not even a ‘hi, Hyuck! How’s your day?'” Donghyuck turned to his coworker with a raised brow. 

"Cut it, Lee Donghyuck, you know what this is about.”

“Do you want me to teach you basic algebra?”

“I want you to stop sending me these ridiculous notes!" 

"What notes, man?” Donghyuck was both confused and curious about how the situation was going to unfold. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I have been finding these cheesy pick-up throughout the whole week and just today i see this studpid equation.” Renjun pointed aggressively to the note on the desk. “It’s obviously you!”

“What does the note say?” Jeno, biology teacher, also got invested and leaned into Donghyuck’s cubicle to take a look at the note. He snorted at the sight of the blue post-it “There is no way.”

“Yeah, I can’t believe it either!” he fumbled with the pockets of his pants, trying to find the other note. “You even left this one about Dalí on the day I was teaching surrealism.”

“I’m sorry, who? You’re teaching what?” Donghyuck scratched his head as Jeno peeked at the other notes thrown on the desk. 

Donghyuck’s genuinely disturbed reaction made Renjun rethink his accusations. When the pick-up lines started getting too art-related, Renjun should have questioned if it was really Donghyuck’s doing. The math teacher was smart, but Renjun doubted he had enough knowledge of European painters to come up with such a specific pick-up line. But if it wasn’t Donghyuck… Well, he could have googled them, right? I mean,The Persistence of Memory is a very famous painting, you don’t need to know that much about art… right?  Because,well… If not Donghyuck, then, who?

“I don’t know why you keep leaving notes on my desk, but please, stop. The students are gossiping already.”

“Do you think I have the time to leave you notes? I have a student to tutor, Renjun.”

“Then what’s this equation?” Donghyuck sighed and rolled his eyes. “You are the only person who loves making fun of me and my limited knowledge in math.”

Jeno, who was beside them holding his laugh, chimed in. "Did you try to solve it?”

“Why would I?”

“It’s because the answer is this,” He grabbed a pen to write ’ i<3u ’ at the bottom of the post-it. “It’s a confession, Renjunnie." 

When the word 'confession’ came out of Jeno’s mouth, Donghyuck was not the only one to stop his activities to pay more attention to the post-its thrown at the table. A little crowd started to form around Donghyuck’s desk, who was laughing at the note. You were one of the teachers that eventually got closer to his desk and as Donghyuck’s fellow math teacher, you silently inspected the note as well. Renjun asked again if the math teacher wasn’t the sender, getting more and more frustrated by the minute with his friend’s negative response.

"If it wasn’t you, who sent this?”

“Your secret admirer,” Jeno smirked and Renjun felt like punching his face.

“Considering how childish this is, probably one of your students.” Park Jisung, P.E teacher, spoke, munching on his kimbap.

“15 year-olds love a reserved and mysterious artsy man who seems to hate everyone.” He continued, making Renjun scowl and Jeno laugh. “After Jeno, you’re probably the most popular teacher among students.”

“Do you want me to break your other arm, Jisung?” Renjun challenged, making the younger teacher close his mouth and pretend to zip it.

“It’s not childish,” you butted in, sheepishly smiling at the note. “I think it’s adorable.”

Donghyuck snapped his head towards you and scoffed, “Yeah, for 15 year-olds, not grown ass adults." 

"I think it’s sweet and I’d love to get one of these from a secret admirer too.” you said, feeling the blood rushing to your face and a little self conscious about everybody’s judgmental remarks. 

“I told you to stop projecting your high school dreams onto others,” he singsonged, while twirling the pen in his hand.

“Oh, shut up, Donghyuck!”

“And you make it pretty obvious too.” Donghyuck,who always sees right through you, giggled as you punched his shoulder.

“What?” you and Renjun asked at the same time

“Your crush on Renjun,” he muttered absently, scanning the exams he is grading.

“What- I don’t know- You-" 

You staggered, trying to form a sentence but failing miserably. Your brain was too slow to process any words at the moment and the whole room seemed to move in a slow motion. Renjun, who was on the far left side of Donghyuck’s table, lifted his eyes to meet a very flustered you. Jeno, who was sitting right in front of you, turned his chair to see your reaction and even Jaemin and his student who were entering the room, stopped at the entrance when Donghyuck dropped the bomb. 

"Mrs. Y/N has a crush on Mr. Huang?” Jaemin’s student asked, baffled by the math teacher’s confession and Jaemin intervened:

“Yah, Cha Yuna-”

This seemed to wake up Donghyuck’s senses, who realized he had slipped something he definitely shouldn’t have. The way your colleague had his cheeks painted in pink and his mouth ajar are enough to let you know that his thoughts were probably faster than the words his mouth could filter.

“I mean, we all have a crush on Renjunnie, don’t we?” Donghyuck tries to cover for himself, chuckling nervously. "Jeno buys him lunch every other day, simp behavior."

The thing about school is that it is one of the first and sometimes only socializing spaces for many, many students. Which means that their relationships usually revolve around the school grounds. Their conversation topics regard gossip about school events, the student body and the staff. And boy, these kids do love to talk.

You and Mr. Huang had the silent agreement of not mentioning what you called to be ‘just another Donghyuck joke’, so you have both led your routines just like you always had. The only difference was that you actively avoided Renjun for around 4 days after The Incident. You were too embarrassed to face him. Even though Donghyuck apologized profusely, saying how he really didn’t think he had said that out loud, and, somehow, managed to make everyone believe it was a joke, you were still unsure. Everyone could be pretty much pretending not to know the truth and your true feelings towards Renjun were just out in the open.

But while the staff seemed to have forgotten about it a couple of days after The Incident, the students didn’t. After that disastrous recess at the teacher’s office, the rumor about your crush on the art teacher spread like wildfire and it was especially fueled by the sight of you leaving Renjun’s car. 

It was a particularly rainy Monday morning, when Renjun was driving to school and passed by you at the bus stop. Being the kind gentleman he is, he offered what was the most awkward ride ever, but you were thankful nevertheless. It’s better to stay in a warm car than in the freezing cold, even if it means having the shortest and most awkward conversations of your lives. The only problem was that ever since then, for the students, you became Renjun’s girlfriend. 

Well, some theories said you were dating, some others said you were actually engaged and Mr. Lee had accidentally exposed your secret relationship and there were Renjun’s fangirls who would get into arguments to deny any alleged relationship between you and Renjun.

You really didn’t mind it because you knew soon the students would find a new target and the rumors would die. Eventually. But Renjun was most definitely not enjoying all that gossip. Not at all.

He looked visibly frustrated as you approached his desk, placing a cup of black coffee on it. You frown at the sight of a box of heart shaped chocolates at his table.

"Can you believe Cha Yuna just confessed to me?” He sighed and took a sip of the coffee you gave him. “First it was Jeno’s student, now this. What the hell is going on with these girls?”

“Oh,” you gave him a sympathetic smile. “You know how it is…Teenages tend to have a crush on people older than them.”

“I didn’t!”

“You didn’t have an impossible crush as a teenager? Not even a celebrity crush?” You raised a brow at him who just chuckled.

“The worst is that she even wrote this note asking me to break up with you and to wait for her. Can you believe that?” He scoffed and you took the seat beside him.

“Well, will you?” you asked playfully and he frowned in confusion “Will you break up with me and wait for her?”

“Should I?” he joked. “No, seriously, I’ll talk to Mrs. Kim today about this, I’ll ask her to talk to Yuna and give her the chocolates back.” 

“Mrs. Kim won’t be coming to the school this week,” you said apologetically. “Didn’t you get her email about the conference?”

“I guess I’ll have to give it back to her myself…” Renjun groaned, making you feel bad about the situation he’s in.

“Is she leaving you uncomfortable?” he nodded.

“It’s not that… I just worry because I have been the most assertive I can to make sure she understands that I’m her teacher and over a decade older than her, but she doesn’t seem to take it seriously.”

“Do you want me to do it?” You asked, making him look at you with hopeful eyes. “I’ll talk to her.”

You should have not offered to do that. Honestly, you didn’t think straight, it just sucked to see him frustrated and pouty Renjun was too much for your heart, so you just blurted that out. Maybe a part of you also felt very guilty because part of his stress comes from the gossip running around the school about your non-existent relationship.

That day, you interrupted Mr. Na’s class to ask for Yuna and give her chocolates back. She’s Donghyuck’s student, but you like to think you have a good relationship with the student body in general, so you don’t worry too much about the situation. You waited for her to come out of the class and as soon as she saw the chocolates and the note in your hands, you realized you should have thought this through. You — whom she believed to be her crush’s girlfriend — were going to reject her on behalf of Renjun. Of course she was not gonna take it lightly.

She didn’t wait for you to open your mouth, grabbing the chocolates from your hands and stomping on the heart-shaped box until the floor had a mixture of chocolate, paper and broken plastic. When there was nothing else left to destroy, she looked at you with fire in her eyes before walking away and going back to class, silently.

You seriously thought this could unfold into a bigger problem in the future, but after that day you haven’t seen Yuna anymore and Renjun didn’t touch the subject either. Everything seemed fine,so you just assumed his student just needed to let her frustration out and some time to understand her feelings.

Oh, boy, how wrong you were… 

A week or two after the rejection, Mr. Kim assigned some of Donghyuck’s classes to you to balance the teachers’ workload and that was when weird things started to happen to you.

First, your markers started to disappear, leaving you in a very disconcerting position when you looked for them in your bag, didn’t find them and had to go to the nearest classroom to borrow one from another teacher. You have never been the type to lose your personal belongings like that, but you guess you have been just forgetful lately.

Then, the air-conditioning starts acting up. On a particularly cold day, you called maintenance to turn it off since some students complained about it, but it would suddenly turn on in the middle of the class again and again. 

The third situation made you become more alert and realize someone was probably messing with you. It was exam week, so you sat on your chair and just waited until the students were finished. When you stoop up, you feel something on your pair of jeans and see the gum glued to your clothes. Gum. Funnily enough, all of those only happened on Thursdays, in Cha Yuna’s class. No that it mattered, right? Coincidence.

Despite these three "accidents”, you were still reluctant to talk to Mrs. Kim because you didn’t want to sound crazy. How are you going to explain to her the situation? 'Oh Mrs. Kim, someone’s been turning on the air conditioner and I sat on gum the other day. I think the student who has a crush on Renjun is messing with me.’

It would just sound like a conspiracy theory, wouldn’t it? But after exams week, you couldn’t really avoid the situation anymore. 

“What did you call me, Cha Yuna?” you slam the book on your table, making the whole class startled. 

“Bitch,” she spat, “I called you a bitch.”

“Enough. Principal’s office.” you pointed to the door and she raised a brow, as if challenging you. “Now.”

“Or what?”

You feel your blood boil, and the urge to scream, grab the teenager by her hair and drag her to Mrs. Kim’s office was becoming tempting, but you kept your composure. “This is not a request, Cha Yuna.”

Her friends started to hush her to stand up, probably desperate to avoid getting their friends into any more trouble, but Yuna didn’t falter. She didn’t break eye contact with you. 

After about 10 excruciating seconds of pure silence, she stood up hastily, making her chair screech, and grabbed her water bottle. You walk to the exit of the classroom, opening the door and before walking through it, she opened her bottle and threw the water on your face.

“BITCH!” She screamed and the whole class gasped. “YOU GIVE ME BAD GRADES, YOU STEAL MY-”

“CHA YUNA!” You and another voice screamed at the same time. In the hallway, you see a disheveled Renjun holding a box full of art supplies walking in your direction.  

Needless to say, you became the talk of the school for a while. Yuna was suspended for three days, got a month of detention, and was transferred to another class. But Mrs. Kim didn’t let you and Renjun off the hook easily. 

You talked to her separately about how this all started, from the rumors about you and Renjun to the day Yuna disrespected you in front of the whole class. And even though she managed to sort things out in a way neither of the parties involved would be uncomfortable (or have to deal with each other), the principal was adamant about how you dealt so poorly with the situation, starting by not telling her any of what happened before things went downhill. Considering you were both teachers and the situation was not entirely in your control, she just decided to give you a warning in the form of a task: tidying up the teacher’s office with Renjun for a month.

“I have a feeling they are using even more plates and cups now that we have to do the dishes,” you said drying the plate Renjun just handed to you.

“I’ve seen Jisung using three different knives today to make a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” Renjun sighs looking at you defeated. “He blames his broken arm but I can see right through him.”

“I’ve seen Donghyuck using all his four mugs to drink coffee and leave them unwashed on the sink before going to his tutoring class." 

"They’re definitely doing it on purpose.”

You chuckled, finishing up the rest of the dishes that are on the counter. “You know, this is my first time in detention.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I never got into detention in high school. I’ve always wanted to know what it was like.”

Renjun laughed wholeheartedly “So you’re saying this is our detention? As teachers?” you nodded and he smiled at you. “Well, I can’t say this is my first time though.”

“Ooh, so Mr. Huang Renjun was a bad boy in high school?” you joked, narrowing your eyes at him.

“I only got in trouble once, actually. Graffiti on the school’s wall." 

"No way.”

“Yeah. It was a dare. I felt so cool as if I was a Bansky of sorts,” he said and you leaned on the kitchen sink, standing a little closer to him than before.

“What did you draw?" 

"Oh, it was very cliché,” he shook his head, smiling sheepishly. “Anyways, I think we’re done, right? Do you need a ride?”

“Come on, Renjun,” you whined, pouting at him and stretching the last syllable of his name. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know, I can’t remember it was ages ago,” he tried to brush it off and walked to his desk.

“How come you can’t remember it? You just said it was cliché!”

“Y/N,” he warned, making you whine again. 

“You’re embarrassed because it was a confession, right?” you beamed with his annoyance. “Oh my god, did you confess to your high school crush through graffiti on the wall? That’s so cute!”

“And you get mad when Donghyuck jokes that you project yourself into the high schoolers." 

You looked at him unamused. "Yeah, my high school years sucked but I don’t project myself into the students. It would be a cute confession, though.”

“Well, it wasn’t a confession.” Renjun zipped his messenger bag and put it over his shoulder. “It was a factory named ‘school’ with people coming out of it and the lyrics of Another Brick in The Wall next to it." 

"Are you joking?” you asked and he shook his head. “Why are you embarrassed of that?”

“Because it’s only cool and revolutionary for a sixteen year old who had just found a Pink Floyd disk in his mother’s basement,” he shook his head fond of the memory. “Now, I know smarter and less cringey ways of criticizing and fighting against the alienating educational system we live in.”

You laughed as you followed Renjun outside. The “detention” definitely played a part in making you become closer friends, which felt great. Renjun has always been nice and polite, but he was equally reserved to people he was not close friend’s with. And you did have to acknowledge that, before getting to know him, you felt silly at how your heart would beat faster just at the sight of him in the teacher’s office. You were like a high schooler who got a crush on the cool and popular guy but barely knew him, it felt ridiculous (Donghyuck made sure to point that out a couple of times. And call you a coward too for taking too long to approach him).

But as you get to know Renjun better, you realize he is so much more than that. He is kind, gentle, and hilarious. He might not crack a lot of jokes or be goofy all the time, but he has an impeccable comedic timing, he delivers the funniest lines ever, not rarely leaving you with tears in your eyes. 

And wow he’s so intelligent. It’s unbelievably attractive how smart he is and the way he utters the words in a discussion is so elegant that you cannot not stop and listen to him. He could talk for hours and hours and you would never get tired of it because that’s just how compelling he is.

I mean, you like him a little (too much).

That’s exactly why on the last day of your detention, you find yourself in Renjun’s car heading to a restaurant: because you can’t say no to him. “It’s to celebrate that our detention is over,” he said, but you felt that there was something different going on. Or were you reading too much into this?

“I was surprised that other day,” he said, looking at the road ahead.

“By what?" 

"You,” he smiled and you turned your head to him. “I was talking about that painting the other day and you immediately guessed Monet.” 

“To be fair you mentioned Impressionism.”

“Well, I didn’t expect you of all people to know painters’ names.”

“I only know the famous ones,” you scratched your head sheepishly, smiling at him. “And why the surprise? Can’t a math teacher enjoy visual arts too?"  

"It doesn’t really match with the stereotype, honestly,” he said playfully, making you punch his shoulder lightly. “Hyuck didn’t know who that was.”

“Hyuck is more of a music type of guy, though,” Renjun hummed in agreement, stealing a glance at you. When the car stopped at a red light, he turned to you. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” you turned your head to him again, signaling you were paying attention. “Was it you?”

“What?”

“The notes on my desk, was it you?” you stopped breathing for a couple of seconds as the question caught you off guard. Why was he asking about that? Everyone had forgotten about that thing ages ago, why now?

“Why are you bringing this up? It was months ago,” you laughed awkwardly, looking nervously at the traffic light that didn’t seem to be turning green anytime soon.

“Because I never got to know who sent them.” He leaned his body into the console, while you moved closer to the door. “Was it you or not?”

You heard cars honking behind you and Renjun went back to driving the car, not before giving you a look you couldn’t quite read. The question still hung in the air while an indie song played softs on his radio. You didn’t dare to speak a single word anymore. 

“You know, I think the Dalí one was my favorite, but I wouldn’t have written it that way,” he glanced at you, who was suspiciously interested in the road ahead of you and refused to look to your left. 

“What would you have written?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he teased, parking the car in front of the restaurant. 

You both entered the restaurant and Renjun started a conversation about how that became his favorite restaurant in town, seeming to forget all about the question and how you left it unanswered. If it were for you, it would remain like that for the rest of your life. However, after drinking a glass or two of wine and a very exhausting week of work, you can’t expect much from your brain, can you?

As Renjun pays the meal (after you almost got physical for wanting to pay the bill, arguing that he spent with gas already), you take one of the paper napkins on the table and use the pen you keep in your bag to write him something. As he came back to the table to lead you outside, you stretched your arm, handing him the note and walking right out of the restaurant as fast as you could.

“if i were an artist you’d me my muse, jun”

You reached Renjun’s car and leaned on the parked vehicle, wondering if only two glasses of wine were enough to leave you so drunk to the point of becoming this reckless. Can you blame the alcohol tomorrow? Renjun didn’t drink and he knew you weren’t drunk either,maybe just tipsy. You should have just ordered something else, just like he did, but nooo, it was Friday and it was a tough week, you deserved a little alcohol! Now, you had to spend twenty awkward minutes with Renjun, who now had probably connected the dots and knew you had a stupid crush on him. 

Okay, maybe it was time for a confession, but should you have done it through a note? Again? Like a stupid school girl?

You started to wonder if you should get an uber, because Renjun didn’t seem to be coming to his car. He was taking a little while. Maybe he was watching you from the restaurant’s window, hoping that you would go away and he wouldn’t have to drive you back to your apartment. 

Your mental rant stops when he suddenly leaned on his car, but stood very, very close to you. Your shoulders touched and you could smell his expensive perfume, making your heart beat even faster than it was before. He didn’t say anything, just kept smiling as he handed you a folded napkin, just like the one you gave him minutes ago. He motioned his head towards it for you to open the note. 

Are you Dalí’s painting? Because what I feel for you is surreal.

“I’m not as good as you, but-" 

You kissed him.

"I think we make a pretty neat couple, don’t we?” you asked, linking your arms with Renjun’s. “I love colorful clothes, you’re into earthy tones. I teach math, you teach art. I hate spicy food, you love it. We’re living proof that opposites attract.”

“Oh, no, I can’t believe you’re saying we’re a cliché couple." 

"What’s so wrong with cliché?” you pout and Renjun fights the urge to kiss you in the middle of the art gallery. “Cliché is good.”

“Cliché is overdone and predictable. How can it be good?”

“If it has been done a lot, it means it works.Isn’t it good?” You smiled, sneakingly giving him a quick peck on his cheek. “And you’re the one to talk about originality. An art teacher inviting his partner to an art gallery date? Really?”

“Oh,shut up! You were the one who brought up this exhibition,” he clicked his tongue, making you laugh. 

“Just admit you want to dump random art facts at me so you can sound all smart and leave me hot and bothered,” you said jokingly, hoping Renjun won’t think much of the fact that you actually really get all hot and bothered when he is all focused and critical.

“Damn, you got me all figured out,” he huffed, faking annoyance and you smiled so prettily that he couldn’t resist kissing your lips.

On the next Monday, you both find out that one of your students was at the same exhibition and took a picture at the exact moment Renjun stole a kiss. When someone suggested in the comments that it could be you and Renjunon the background, thanks to his two-toned hair, it became chaos. Needless to say, you became the talk of the school. Again. And the most shipped couple in the school among students (a title that Jisung is fighting to revoke). What can you say, the opposites attract trope is really popular.

#nct scenarios #nct drabbles #nct fluff #nct dream fluff #nct dream scenarios #renjun fluff #renjun scenarios #renjun drabble #renjun x reader #nct dream x reader #nct x reader #nct fic #nct dream fic #nct dream drabbles #renjun fic

[haechansdoll]

rooftop - hr x reader

Pairing : Hwang Renjunx f!Reader

Description: Renjun and y/n take a sightseeing break on the rooftop, which turns into something more.

Warnings : sneaking around, sex

y/n and renjun sat on the parapet wall of their dorm rooftop, looking over the City. They were on their break, which they used as an excuse to do some sightseeing… at least, that’s what they told their members. But everyone in the dorm knew that what they really meant was time alone together.

Renjun was the first to look at his wife. While the view of Seoul City from their building was beautiful, it couldn’t hold a candle to his wife's beauty. He took the time to admire everything about her, from her lovely black hair and gorgeous eyelashes to the adorable heart tattoo on her shoulder. Even though he lived with this beautiful creature and saw her every day, he never took her beauty for granted.

He then looked down and saw her hand set down next to him, which he couldn’t resist putting his own on top of. y/n looked back at him the moment he did so and noticed his loving gaze. She couldn’t help but smile at the handsome man beside him, making Renjun see her incredibly cute smile.

Now y/n was admiring how handsome her husband was, from his cute little freckles to his classy outfit. Much like Renjun, she cherished everything about him every day, even at times when she would get frustrated at him. To these two, they hit the jackpot when it came to romantic partners.

The two couldn’t help themselves anymore, so they leaned in and gave each other a sweet and tender kiss on the lips, savoring how it felt. They have kissed hundreds of times before, and not once had it become dull or meaningless. In fact, it came to a point where a passionate kiss was a euphoric experience for them, and today that was especially the case.

The two pulled away for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes, only for the addicting pull of their lips to bring them right back to smooching as if they were magnetized. It was much more intense this time as Renjun put his hand on y/n’s cheek. Their tongues would soon roll around in the other’s mouth as they began to moan from the intensity.

They took their tongue-fucking to the floor of the roof with Renjun on top of y/n. The two held each other in their arms, increasing their kiss's intensity. It came to a point where saliva was dripping from their mouths. They would pull away, but only to catch their breath for a couple of seconds before continuing the assault on their mouths. The feeling of their heavy breaths going down the other’s mouth, as well as the dance their tongues did together, would cause inevitable arousal in them.

After what felt like an eternity of tongue-fucking, they reluctantly pulled their lips away before looking at each other with a glare of passion as they panted. They didn’t need words to know what the other one wanted. While the chances of being walked in on by their coworkers were high, they didn’t care. They both wanted to make love right this second… no, they needed to.

So Renjun helped remove y/n’s pants and underwear, revealing her pink pussy that was already wet from their tongue dance. After that, y/n took off renjun’s pants and underwear, showing his dick which was hard and ready. Their kiss was all the foreplay they needed, and now they were prepared.

renjun pinned y/n’s hands on the ground by her side, interlocking his fingers with her own, before lining up his penis and slowly inserting it into y/n. She moaned as she felt it penetrate her, taking extra pleasure in the fact that she was doing it with the man she loved. renjun felt the same way as he looked his beautiful wife in the eyes, which only made him harder. Without further delay, he began to thrust his cock in and out of his wife, making her wail slightly louder. Renjun soon joined in on the moaning.

Even as the thrusts grew faster and faster, the two never broke eye contact. They had done many sex positions before, doggystyle, cowgirl, and sometimes even pegging, which he enjoyed. But their favorite was the classic missionary position, that way they could see their lover's faces as they romantically fucked.

The magnetizing pull of their lips activated as they went in for yet another kiss. With both of their mouths being attacked by the other’s tongue and moans combined with the sex, they were feeling pure sexual bliss. Not once did they pull their faces away during renjun’s penetration, for the taste of their saliva was too intoxicating to ever do so.

However, they stopped their kiss to scream in unison as they orgasmed in perfect harmony. He savored the feeling of his wife’s cum on his dick, while y/n did the same with her husband’s inside her. After regaining their composure, they looked at each other and smiled.

They said their I love yous before kissing yet again, but it was much less intense this time. It felt more like they were resting their lips atop the others. By now, their break was probably over, but the couple just wanted to spend more time in each other’s arms, so they did just that.

Members would understand… hopefully.

ps : Idk what i just wrote, I'm so sleepy..

#nct #nct dream #renjun #nct x reader #nct dream x reader #renjun x reader #renjun fluff #renjun angst #renjun smut #renjun fic #renjun scenario #nct dream fluff #nct dream angst #nct fluff #nct angst #nct smut #nct dream smut #huang renjun #renjun drabble #renjun fanfic

[rrxnjun]

portrait of a blank slate. huang renjun

pairing: huang renjun x fem! reader genre: college au. fluff, smut, and the tiniest bit of angst. warnings: swearing, alcohol, angry man renjun, very bad dialogue, this is the most un-renjun fic i've ever written, dry humping, a heavy makeout session, unfinished blowjob word count: 5.8k playlist: no specific one this time but i listened to a lot of keshi while writing this, so have this playlist of mine to fit the vibes a/n: inspired by that one tweet describing how someone's art professor met his wife the same exact way, lost the screenshot and also the og post im so sorry!

turns out all it takes to save a life is a bad, bad college party, a few shots and a weird, magical coincidence back in a girl's dorm room.

It’s hard to believe that Huang Renjun is currently finishing up the art portfolio he needs for his summer internship program after procrastinating and angrily stomping at every single bad stroke of his paintbrush for the last few months.

Because he’s not.

He’s looking at the canvas with stern eyes, the smudges on the white linen so messy he could cry just by looking at them, and the more he tries to save the disgrace currently scribbled in front of him, the worse it gets and makes the levels of frustration in him turn into rage and fury, because let’s be honest– what is Renjun’s primary emotion if not anger. 

And he tries hard to fix it again, he really does– he sighs heavily while doing so as he takes a smaller brush and tries to paint on a few hairstrokes to the portrait of Frida Kahlo he wants to execute– and in honest reality, it doesn’t even look half as bad as it does in the poor boy’s eyes when he takes a step back after holding in his breath and carefully piercing together the artwork. Maybe if there was someone else in the room– everyone but his annoying roommate Donghyuck, because that fucker always manages to make things even worse– they could talk him out of it, offer some words of consolidation, even, hype him up and tell him that with outsider’s eyes, the canvas looks beautiful and very well put together. But the truth is that there’s no one present right now, not a single soul in what feels like the whole campus right now, that could ease Huang Renjun’s frustration from what seems to be art block, when he throws the paintbrush to the wall (he’ll worry about the stain of acrylic paint later, when he gains consciousness) and puts a fist through the middle of the painting.

If he was a character in a comic book, his hand would go through the canvas and create a quite satisfying hole. He’s a real person, though– a weak one as well, to be quite honest– and his fist is stopped by the stretched-out fabric, making his hand bounce back, but now stained with all shades of brown and tan, which somehow only makes him even more mad and turns him into a furious animal roaming around free and causing uttermost chaos in his all true sense.

Nothing can stop Huang Renjun when he opens the drawer he keeps all his artwork in, taking out all the graphite sketches and colored pencil drawings, and then the next one containing the watercolor paintings and various other acrylic paintings done on expensive sheets of paper, stacking all of those onto one pile in the middle of the table. Not one thing is safe– except from the digital artworks he keeps in his iPad and his big A4 sketchbook he forgot about in the heat of the moment, since he keeps it on his nightstand– when he takes the big, heavy stack of art and runs, chimes towards the entrance of his and Donghyuck’s miniature dorm room, luck only standing by his side once in this whole evening when his said roommate opens the door and clears the way for him, looking at the poor boy with mouth agape in a slight shock.

“What the fuck are you doing right n–”

Donghyuck doesn’t get an answer. When he asks stupid questions, Renjun doesn’t tend to pay him much mind, settling on not engaging with the discourse if it doesn’t make much sense, so Hyuck should be used to the ignorance– he thinks this was a very valid question to ask at this moment, though. If he was curious enough, he’d even follow his roommate down the hall and watch him in his endeavors only to find out what’s the intention behind his angry stomping and the fierce look on his face. The truth is, though, he doesn’t care all that much.

That doesn’t stop Huang Renjun, though, as he chimes down the hall of the boy’s dormitory, kicks the glass door open (thankfully not the actual glass part, because that would for sure be expensive) and practically runs the rest of the way towards the bins at the end of the street, dumping the papers into the bin (forgive him for not recycling in his current state of mind) before he angrily kicks the poor object twice for good measure and turns on his heel, slowly, but still as angrily making his way back to his dorm room by stomping all the way up until the entrance.

The dorm guard doesn’t even ask for his dorm ID like he usually does– Renjun must have been quite memorable as he ran out of the building with 5kg of artwork of various sizes in his arms– but the truth is, the man isn’t as old and he saw the boy going out just a few minutes ago, so he doesn’t think it’s necessary. Renjun would appreciate the memo, although, when he remembers that the man always asks for the dorm ID, especially on the nights out when he comes back slightly intoxicated and too disoriented to look for the little slip of paper in his pockets, and on the nights when he forgets his dorm ID as well– the man was set on letting him sleep on the front porch of the dormitory once and it took Renjun 15 calls to get ahold of a sleeping Donghyuck and another 15 of him walking down the hall in slippers and pajama bottoms with his roommate’s dorm ID in hand before he could warm his bones from the cold slowly seeping into his bones on the January night– and that whole thing makes Renjun somehow even more angry at the whole situation.

And so when he comes into his room again, Donghyuck now sitting on his bed still in his outside clothes (something Renjun hates and would murder for), and his eyes land on the damaged canvas still waiting for him in the corner of the room, he wastes no time in opening his window and throwing it down from the second floor, not really caring where it ends up or if he’s gonna get a fine for violating one of the dormitory rules– to never throw stuff out of the windows..

“Dude, what is–”

“Don’t ask.” Renjun huffs as he closes the door and peels his clothes off, taking a towel that’s still hanging from the top bunk of their bed and aims towards the bathroom door. A true tantrum can only end in a cold shower, and that’s what Renjun’s gonna do as he washes his dreams down the drain and ends up silently crying himself to sleep tonight in agony.

It’s hard to believe Huang Renjun is currently at the best college party since the days of ‘megaparties’ of Johnny Suh, the senior that’s slowly halting his party performance due to stilling in life. Renjun was dragged to Lee Jeno’s party by his roommate Donghyuck after he mourned in his bed for approximately two days before it got too much for the poor gemini, promising and honestly thinking that alcohol is truly the best solution for the poor boy’s misery. Again, it’s hard to believe Huang Renjun is currently at the best college party of the year when he listens to the loud EDM music piercing through his eardrums and he swears he catches a glimpse of a couple dry humping on the couch.

Because he’s not.

He’s at a college party, sure. He’s also getting some alcohol into his system– because why not, am I right? He’s not the one paying, and that’s always enough of a reason to drink. Is it the best college party he’s ever experienced, though? Absolutely not.

It’s quite literally the worst party he’s ever been to. The music is too loud and the whole house smells of cheap vodka, people are pushing each other around and with the amount of alcohol in his system, the whole room feels like he’s on a boat, his stomach weak and his eyes hazy. Renjun must admit Hyuck’s therapy skills are kind of paying off– because at least now he’s not thinking about the wasted opportunity of a summer scholarship and is instead looking into the eyes of his cute classmate from History class across the room– but at the same time, he’s not thinking much of anything in this moment, and the glint of your eyes is the only thing he can focus on when you get closer.

That might be a good or a bad thing– depends on how the encounter goes. There’s a fine line between the amount of alcohol that’s just perfect for Huang Renjun to get rid of his usual shyness and speak to other, much more attractive human species, and the amount of alcohol that’s just perfect for Huang Renjun to black out and puke on the floor, efficiently making it impossible for him to chat up the cute classmate he’s been eyeing the whole semester and ruining his chances of ever being seen in a good light in front of the said person ever again. He prays intensely that he hasn’t crossed the line yet when you open your mouth and speak to him in the crowded kitchen.

“Renjun!”

“Y/N!” he tries to mimic your tone, a flashy grin settling onto his face when you approach him first. You two aren’t strangers, after all– you’ve sat together in class during various exams and also accidentally bumped into each other in the cafeteria, but what were your courageous attempts in making conversation with him and efficiently trying to make him more interested in you didn’t lead to your desired goal of getting invited out by him, instead leading him to think you’re just that friendly to everyone and not just him, making the chances of him taking the next step that much slimmer. Not tonight, though– he really must have had too much to drink.

“How are you?” you ask, clearing your throat as you bump into someone and decide to shift closer to Renjun, making the boy’s breathing hitch in his throat.

“Wonderful,” he gasps, and for some reason, the response laced in irony makes an excited laugh escape your throat, and the more he listens to your bubbly giggle, the more he wishes he did music instead of fine arts, because maybe if he was competent enough, he could mimic the sound in one of his songs and replay it over and over even when you’re not around. 

“That sounds very genuine,” you note, which makes the boy laugh in return, making him wonder if maybe he could have the same effect on you– if you’re smiling wider now because of the sound of his laughter, or if you’re just amused at something completely else. 

It’s pathetic, really– the gloomy boy that was trailing to this party behind his roommate Donghyuck is nowhere to be seen now, instead replaced by the cheap imitation of a ray of sunshine that you brought out of him only with the magic of a few words and the few drops of alcohol on his tongue.

“Oh, trust me, it was genuine,” he teases, and you only nod to his attempt at masking his obviously saddened composure from before.

“Having a rough week?” you ask, and you sound truly interested– something Renjun hasn’t found in the tone of his roommate when he insisted on dragging him here– and maybe that’s the reason why he just shrugs and decides to come clean and be honest with you. You seem like that kind of person that wouldn’t make fun of his troubles, the kind of person that would genuinely want to help– although he’s not seeking counseling tonight, he figures he can talk a bit about his shitty mood if it means that it gets the conversation flowing.

“A rough life, actually,” he snickers before he sees you eye him with a concerned look, “just joking,” he adds before he retracks back and fixes his initial answer. “Some things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to, so I’m kind of moping around for a bit.”

You seem to feel empathetic towards the boy, nodding and pouting at his confession. “Well, I hope things get fixed for you, Jun,” you mumble, tone of voice encouraging– and maybe he could dwell at the caring nature of you a little longer, only if it wasn’t for your use of a nickname for him that just oh so sweetly rolls of your tongue and Renjun wishes he could legally change his name to the nickname so he could listen to the way it sounds forever– scratch that, to the way it sounds from your mouth forever, which means he won’t change it, just so it’s reserved for you and only you to say.

“What about you, though?” he finds himself asking in the midst of his inner screeching.

“Me? I’m great, totally fine, having the time of my life,” you emphasize, the over-the-top expression on your face making the boy burst into laughter as you wave your arms around as if to show him your surroundings. “I am a party person for sure, you know, so this is perfect,” you joke, and Renjun seems to get the memo. If he’s being honest, he’s not sure he’s ever seen you at a party before– not that he goes to many himself, which might honestly be the reason, actually– you could just be at different parties in different times that hadn’t overlaid, but by the way you’re currently tensely sipping at the alcohol in your hand, he figures you’re not too familiar with the scene of college partying.

“Who forced you to go? Was it your roommate?” Renjun remembers the girl from another one of his classes– you two were always walking around together and often got to class at the same time. Figuring out that you two lived together wasn’t as difficult, and she surely seems to be the more extroverted one.

“No, actually,” you say, eyes glimmering when he seems to remember the girl you share a room with, “to my surprise, honestly. It was another one of my friends– Na Jaemin, not sure if you know him– but the moment we got here, he disappeared and left me alone to deal with my thoughts,” you click your tongue and Renjun finds himself totally mesmerized with you– amazed with everything about you; the way you talk, the way you lean on the counter and watch him with stars in your eyes (which might just be the reflections of the kitchen lights, but don’t tell him that), the way you slightly lean into him when he cracks a joke and earns a laugh out of you…

“They always do that,” Renjun scowls, “they drag the introvert in and then force them to survive on their own…” he shakes his head in disappointment, clearly distraught over the situation. 

“Exactly! But if you ask them to come with you to a picnic, or to the library, they decline the offer. So much for being good friends,” you roll your eyes. Renjun finds himself smiling, and although he must admit that as every other college student, he himself would decline an invitation to a library if anyone asked, he’s like 99% certain that if it was you uttering out the question, he wouldn’t miss a heartbeat before joyfully jogging there with you. 

“Ask me next time,” he blurts out, a poor attempt at flirting, “I wouldn’t say no.”

And it seems like tonight is the night where you suddenly get the last kick of courage needed when you talk to Renjun– maybe fueled by his coy smile when he said the previous comment, maybe just acting out on pure hormones– tonight's the night where he breathlessly takes your offer, still not thinking much of it, but igniting a curious spark in his own heart nonetheless, when you scratch the back of your neck in the last residue of anxiety, scrunching your nose at him and mumbling under your nose, barely heard above the loud music resonating through the living room. “Do you wanna sneak into my dorm room, then?” 

Renjun almost chokes at your question– visitors in the dormitory are only allowed until midnight and as far as he’s aware, the clock is well after 2 AM right now, and he’s a male visitor, which is even more off the bounds in the eyes of the fierce woman guarding the entrance of the girl’s dormitory building. The more he stares at you, the more you seem to translate his silence into disagreement, which you panically try to undo with even more rambling. “I- I mean, since we both kind of hate this party and I think that if I drink more, I’m going to puke all over myself, so… My room is on the ground floor, so you can just climb in, if you wanted to. My roommate went home for the weekend, so there’s no one there, and we could– I mean, we don’t have to, honestly, but it’s kinda cold out and I thought we could both use a place more silent, ‘cause I really wanna head back now, but I don’t want to stop talking to you, y’know, and I don’t know if–”

“Okay, I’m down,” Renjun nods, efficiently shutting up your rambling, and when there’s a very apparent relief flashing over your face, he finds himself smiling in endearance at your antics, going as far as ruffling a hand through your hair in whatever kick the alcohol mixed with adrenaline gave him before you have him dragging his feet out of the house, both of your feet shuffling towards the campus.

The walk isn’t long, but he finds himself enjoying it. The condensation coming out of your mouths at the chilly weather serves more to the atmosphere when the both of you giggle out at absurd jokes and gossip, your voice breaking into soft hums when you sing a song under your breath in moments of silence that somehow feel both kind of awkward, but also kind of pleasant. He drags you by your hand to the other side of the sidewalk when a car passes by and you jump in surprise, eyes wide and glossy, mouth a little agape in an open-mouthed grin when his fingers stay intertwined with yours and you adjust your purse on your other shoulder, clearing your throat before you try to nonchalantly continue on with the conversation.

“I’ll go inside now,” you announce when you get to the girl’s dormitory building, breaking apart from the eager boy and coming closer to him when you confide the secret, “I’ll turn the light on in my room when I get there, so make sure to look out for the window. I’ll help you in, don’t worry,” you smile at him, and before he has a chance to reply, you disappear behind the glass door with a pep in your step. 

Renjun finds himself sighing– now is the moment when he should realistically get relief, the moment when he’s supposed to relax for at least a second and prepare himself for whatever might happen in your dorm room– but when he slowly walks over to the left wing of the building and squints at the dark squares of windows, he wonders how in the hell he’s gonna climb in. Escaping out will be an easy task– the windows aren’t that high up– but coming in will be the problem. He guesses it’s the same with the whole situation– he bets the easiest part of the whole evening will be jumping out and running to his own room– how to survive the night in your presence and not go completely insane, he doesn’t know and wishes he had a manual to before he agreed to do this in the first place.

When the light goes on in one of the rooms and you wave at him from the inside, he finds himself involuntarily jogging towards the window, gears in his brain turning faster than the speed of light when he reaches the wall and you grin at him, opening the window and offering him your hand. 

“If you grip the edge of the window and give me your hand, you can get in easily,” you say, watching as the boy cautiously looks around himself and scratches the back of his neck, mentally calculating his next movements.

“Have you done this before?”

“No,” you bashfully shake your head, “but my roommate did it twice, so I don’t think it’s that hard,” you note and nod at him, waiting for him to finally take action. 

Renjun finds himself doing what he’s been told– and even though he huffs and almost falls over to his back (which would kill him, he thinks, since his physique is very close to a turtle’s), victory fills his veins when one of his legs finally ends up in your window, his body stumbling forward and almost toppling you over when the warmth of your room welcomes him as he lands on top of your desk. 

“Welcome,” you laugh at him when he shakes his head in disbelief and takes off his coat, dropping it on top of the wooden table and watching you close the window behind him, so the cold doesn’t get in. 

“That’s one way of inviting guests over, I guess,” he teases you, watching as you roll your eyes at him and go over to one of the beds. Renjun notices the room is different to the one he shares with Donghyuck– you and your roommate have two beds instead of a bunk one, the table is right under the window and you get a little more space over-all. You turn on the little lamp kept on your bedside table, and the boy watches you with interest as you cautiously walk around your own room as if it’s your first time seeing it, reminding him a little of a deer in the headlights, clueless and suddenly out of ideas.

Renjun finds himself laughing at your behavior– he finds himself endeared by it, the way you play with your fingers in nerves and try to think of anything to do in the intimacy that suddenly envelopes you when you invite someone over to your dorm room in the middle of the night– and when you aimlessly end up standing in front of him, your big eyes even bigger and glossier than before, he snickers at the state of you and shakes his head.

“Okay, so I know I was the one who invited you over, but now I’m kind of helpless in what we should actually do and all…” you giggle, a little embarrassed when you bear your eyes into his, your body subconsciously slotted in between his legs, his position leaning on the edge of the table allowing you and inviting you to do so. 

“You’re cute,” he laughs at you, and before you have a chance to question him about the compliment, he has you silenced abruptly by his next actions.

“What do you–”

His hand is gripping your jaw and he leans into you, the newly found courage and affection towards you having him drunk on more than the alcohol, but also your whole presence– the way your hair smells when he’s this close to you, the way you pull the sleeves of your sweater further down when you don’t know what to do with your hands, the shyness in your gaze now that you have him in your cage– and his lips act on themselves when they press themselves against yours, soft but firm, tasting the strawberry juice mixed with vodka off your mouth, a surprised gasp against his lips more than enough to invite him even further in.

He feels your fingers tugging at his shirt and your skin growing hot under his touch, leaning back from you a little and finding you looking at him with a thousand different galaxies in your eyes, enough of a confirmation to him, but he’s a man– he still needs it vocally, when he grins lazily at you. “Was this one of the things you thought about when you invited me over?”

“Maybe…” you tug at your bottom lip with your teeth, a clearly battled grin trying to settle its way onto your lips.

“You should’ve just said so, then,” he smiles when he leans into you again, a little more confidently this time and kisses you again, again and again.

You stay under the window for a while, lips pressed hard against each other as you try to learn the curves of each other’s mouths by memory, lazy hands threaded into his hair and an arm around your waist now, steadying you in place. Foreheads pressed against each other when you break away for air, giggles resonating through the room when his lips make their way towards your neck and the softness of his hair tickles your skin, fingers threaded when you tug him towards your bed and you watch him kick his shoes off before you follow him onto the soft mattress.

His head falls into your pillow and you straddle his lap, your hair falling into your face when you look down at him from your position, the newly found dominance in your position charging you with unexplainable energy, and Renjun can’t help but smile at you sweetly when your eyes meet and you eagerly lean down towards him, fingers once again intertwined with his, hands laying next to his head. Your breath fans his swollen lips that you once again find yourself attacking, the contact overwhelming you and making it hard to breathe. Who knows how long the both of you have wanted to do this but never had the courage to– it’s a miracle that it’s even happening tonight.

And with the built-up desire, you act instinctively– hands breaking away from his when you grip his cheeks and give him one last peck, lips now traveling down his jaw and neck instead, having the boy shivering under the contact, your actions slowly but surely driving him crazy when you find his sweet spot and you get a satisfied gasp from him, a reward for your tonight’s efforts.

His hand grips your hip, and something about the burn of his fingers even through the fabric of your jeans makes you move on instinct, earning yourself a sharper hiss this time that doesn’t make you stop, however– quite the opposite, actually– as you break into a wide grin at the very evident effect you have on him, your movements slow and painful, but still having him harden under you.

Goosebumps appear all over your skin when his cold fingers capture the skin of your stomach when he aimlessly tries to find a place in your body to ground yourself, but the more he answers to your movements, the more encouraged you get. He tugs you back down so you’re facing him, which does nothing to halt your painful pace as he drags out yet another kiss from you. 

“If we don’t stop now, it’s gonna be really hard for me to do so later,” Renjun huffs into your ear, which only gets you more excited.

“Who said I want to stop?” you ask him, fingers trailing up his side over his shirt, yet still making him fire up and flush in his cheeks. “Do you want to stop?”

“Do I look like I wanna stop?” he snickers, shaking his head in utter disbelief, hand traveling dangerously close to the cup of your breast.

“Let’s continue, then,” you muse, peeling yourself off him only the slightest amount, hands dragging themselves down his body until you reach the waistband of his pants, gently dragging the fabric down until he’s left in front of you only with a tent in his underwear, big eyes curiously and breathlessly watching you in your actions. He could be a gentleman and tell you you don’t have to, tell you to stop and come back up and that he will pleasure you first, but the more he watches you as you palm him over the thin fabric of his boxer briefs with the dangerous doe eyes of yours, the less he wants to do just that. In all reality– who is he to deny a blowjob from you? Or anyone, for that matter?

His whole body shudders under your touch, actions careful, but so painfully satisfying. Renjun watches your face with his bottom lip trapped between his teeth, the reality of it all sobering him up and making him aware of each shift of your body, each centimeter your fingertip travels against his skin, each motion that slowly makes a bundle of nerves appear in his stomach. It only gets too much for him when you lean on your elbows, nails gently pricking the skin of his thighs as your mouth hesitantly greets his dick, and he feels like a virgin again when his eyes peel off you just in case he finishes just by watching you blowing him off like a highschooler at his first blowjob, forcing himself to watch the ceiling instead.

Eyes traveling all over your room– the closed window opposite of him, the bed on the other side of the room, the walls above your bed– he gets lost in the galaxy drawn on a piece of paper that’s plastered right above your pillowcase, and another graphite sketch of eyes bearing right into your soul, as if they were watching him in the act, and another one, of a deer that looks through the shade of the trees, before it hits him.

“Oh my god what the fuck–” he gasps, and his tone must have sounded too different to the satisfied moans that have been spilling out of his mouth up until now, because you abruptly stop your movements and your gazes lock, your eyes completely mortified.

“Am I doing something wrong?”

“Oh– Oh god no, fuck, you’re doing amazing, trust me,” apologies spill off his tongue at your distressed state, “it’s just– where… where did you get these?” he asks, pointing towards all the drawings taped all over your walls that he failed to notice in the heat of the moment before.

“Oh,” you cluelessly hum, eyebrows furrowed, “I found them spilling out of a trashcan close to the boy’s dorms when I was walking to class one morning, and they were so pretty I had to take them.”

“I– you like these?” Renjun asks, full of strange surprise and genuine curiosity. You’re now sitting back on your heels and looking at the boy with big eyes, still slightly clueless and very much in a weird state of distress– because why would a man ask you about the random artwork on your wall in the middle of a mindblowing blowjob?– before you nod with a slight pout, agreeing.

“Well, I wouldn’t have decorated my room with them if I didn’t like them, y’know… Why are you… why are you asking?”

“Oh,” Renjun repeats again, a dumbfounded look taking over his soft features before he sits up on the bed and scoots closer to you, a weird sense of euphoria spilling out every vein of his body when the held-back dopamine is released into his system. A wide grin appears on his lips before he stares into your eyes with a milky way mirroring behind his eyeballs, glittering orbs haphazardly gliding over your face before he reaches your lips again, pecking them one, two, three times before you break away and look at him with furrowed eyebrows, a slight crease right in between them.

“What are you–”

“I think I’m gonna literally cum just at hearing those words, Y/N,” he blurbs out before he kisses the tip of your nose again, completely endeared and close to a happy boy under the Christmas tree, and while you may enjoy that look on him, you’re still slightly confused. Huang Renjun sighs almost a little too dreamingly and smooths the wrinkle between your eyebrows with a careful swipe of his thumb, still not giving you any explanation.

“Renjun, I’m afraid I’m not quite following why this is so important to you right now,” you mumble, having your partner laugh airly– just as if all his worries escaped through the window and you fixed his life with a few drawings plastered on your wall.

“Those, dear Y/N,” he points towards the papers stuck to your walls, eyeing the specific one he worked for 3 hours on and kind of mourned the morning after he realized he threw it away, months of practice and art that maybe wasn’t even that bad in the first place ending up in the trash because of a fit of rage, “are all mine. Mine as in, I drew them… And then threw them out in the middle of a slight mental breakdown.”

You look at him for a few heartbeats, eye contact never breaking before you avert your gaze towards the artwork on the walls– it takes you a few seconds before it hits you– and you gasp, hurriedly looking back at the artist in front of you, stars glimmering in your eyes now as well, matching his excitement. “Oh my god, are you for real?”

“Yeah.”

“You drew all of these?”

“Yeah,” he nods again, breathless.

“This is an insane coincidence,” you snicker, and Renjun didn’t know he had it in him– maybe it’s still the effect of alcohol that slips off his tongue when he speaks– but he cages you in his arms as he kisses you again, a whole new world appearing in front of him when the cheesiness meets the comfort of your walls.

“You’d call this a coincidence?” he hums. “Maybe it was fate.”

Earning himself a sharp laugh, almost mocking him as you swat his shoulder, you fall back with him towards the mattress, and while the heated moment might be gone, you don’t mind at all. Renjun looks at you with a certain softness in his eyes, a pride swelling in his chest, and for a moment, it’s true and you truly did open up a new reality for him and changed his life forever, fixed all of his problems, if you will, because the appreciation it takes for a girl to tape up at least 20 of his messy artworks onto her wall after finding the stash in the trashcan on her way to class might just be the encouragement he needed to keep going with the craft. 

It’s hard to believe that this shitty party actually brought him somewhere– not only to your bed, but also to your life, to a beginning of something new and a restart in something he thought he’d forever be giving up on.

“So… Do you need those back? Because I kinda like them here,” you giggle, and the crinkle of his eyes is enough of an answer to you.

“You can keep them. I’ll just draw new ones you can look at,” he muses, stealing another kiss from you and squeezing your hip, having you squeal against his mouth.

“Now, to get back to what we were doing before–”

#nct #nct dream #renjun #renjun x reader #renjun fluff #renjun smut #renjun scenario #renjun fic #renjun drabble #nct dream scenario #nct dream reaction #nct dream smut #nct dream x reader #nct dream imagine #renjun imagine

[galacticseonghwa]

Huang Renjun fwb/sneaky link texts

INCLUDES: VERY suggestive content, swearing, fwb concept, renjun being jealous for like 3 seconds, fluff???

a/n: yet to be proofread

#galacticseonghwa #nct dream #nct #renjun #huang renjun #nct renjun #nctzen #renjun fic #renjun texts #renjun smut #renjun fake texts

[yutasbellybuttonpiercing]

Stolen – HRJ

pairing: huang renjun x reader

au/genre: pure filthy smut, strangers to..?!, shoplifter!reader, store detective!renjun

word count: 1795 words

warnings: well... shoplifting (and getting caught), abuse of power, dub con, but there is consent.., it's humiliating, but renjun is just really serious about his job (real), reader is pressured to take off her clothes, searching of orifices (anal and vaginal fingering), renjun has a big dick, (degrading) dirty talk, um.. vigilantism (??), oral (m receiving), unprotected sex, an abrupt ending

a/n: i'm a bit ashamed.

Shaking, your eyes move around the room. Your nerves are strained, it's simultaneously too hot and too cold, your rapidly beating heart not doing much to ease the weird temperature you're feeling. Once the door opens, your heart drops once more, just like a few minutes ago.

It was really nothing big, just a lipstick and a bottle of nail polish that you had snug into your pocket before trying to leave the shop. You don't even remember why you did it, there was enough money on your card to pay for them, but you just didn't. Maybe the thought had thrilled you, but now you were in big trouble, that you knew from the moment that strong grip of the store detective closed around your arm to keep you from leaving.

You'd been caught.

And now you're sitting here, sweaty palms repeatedly rubbing over your jean-clothed thighs to wipe away the perseverative moisture to no avail. The store detective enters, a serious expression on his face as he closes the door behind himself, the snap of the lock making you jump.

"Let's look through what we got here, shall we?"

"I didn't do anything! Let me go!" You plead, opting on lying your way out of the situation. The detective looks at you with raised brows, blinking a few times.

"I'm sorry, what? We've caught you on camera. I don't know what you're trying to do here," he spits, nodding over to the screen of his computer that clearly shows a (admittedly pixelated) picture of you looking around nervously as you place the items in your pocket.

A whine escapes you, pleading eyes looking up to the detective. Though your brain is completely stressed out about this situation, you still manage to pick up on how cute he is.

"Listen, Mr.-", your eyes dart down to his name tag, "Huang. This really isn't a big deal. You should just let me go."

"Let you go?" Mr. Huang scoffs. "I'm going to call the police."

"No! Please, don't. Please don't call the police!" You beg, head suddenly clouded with the realization of what that would mean for you.

"Then what else are we supposed to do?" He asks, but it doesn't sound like a question.

"I promise I've learned my lesson. Just-"

"You sound like it's really urgent for you to get out of here. Did I miss something when I was searching through your pockets? Did you steal anything else?"

"No! I promise!" You hold his strong gaze, feeling a little dizzy.

"I don't believe you. Take your clothes off."

Your eyes bulge out of their sockets. You must've misheard that, right? There is no way in hell this is happening right now. Afraid that he'll call the cops if you don't, you slowly get up to push your shirt over your head and your jeans down your legs. You step out of them, handing them to him.

You sit back down and he takes his time looking through your clothing, goosebumps erupting over your body from the slight breeze of the AC. You hug your arms around yourself to shield yourself from the cold and his potential gaze.

"Lucky for you, there's nothing in here," he confirms, then turns back to you, eyes wandering over your exposed form. You look at him like a kicked puppy, scared about what's going to happen next. "But there are even more places to hide things... You spent an awful amount of time in the dressing rooms."

"What are you saying?"

"The bra. Take it off too."

"No! Please-"

"I can still call the cops. If I don't do it, they will," he warns, intimating eyes boring into your soul. Shakily, you obey, reaching behind your back to unclip your bra, making the fabric slowly fall down your shoulders. You do your best to cover yourself, but suddenly your arms are pulled away from your chest.

"I have to see. You could hide something there, too," Mr. Huang mutters, now directly looking at your chest. You gulp, hating the way you like his eyes on you. Your chest heaves in fear, still afraid that he'll call the police and make things even worse for you.

"Get up."

"What?"

"I said, get the fuck up," he spits, pulling you from your seat by your arms only to then push your chest down on his desk. Adrenaline washes over you, your veins immediately filling with excitement. You're confused, but so aroused by his sudden roughness. It's like he's really only doing this to do his job, and not to profit from it in any other way.

"Are you hiding something in here?" He asks, but doesn't wait for your response before he pushes your panties down your legs, making them pool around your ankles. You suddenly feel very hot to be exposed like this in this cool room. The breeze of the AC feels like it blows against your cunt and you can feel how wet you are. It's embarrassing.

"May I check?"

"Yes," you gasp out, pushing your ass out even more for him to gain better access. Your breath hitches in your throat as his fingertips ghost over your hole, and you have to bite down on your lip to muffle a moan as he pushes inside. You still whimper, though, and you're sure it doesn't go unnoticed by him.

You wonder if he has a girlfriend with the way he expertly feels you up. The rational part of your brain telling you that this is weird and so wrong, but you honestly can't focus on that, not with how great his fingers feel inside of you.

"Hmm, empty," he mumbles, pulling his fingers from you. He must be noticing how wet they are, you think, as you suddenly feel his fingers again your rim.

"Wh- no!" You jump, body lifting up from the table slightly, big, scared eyes looking at him from over your shoulder.

"I just have to see if you're hiding something," he says, looking so genuine that you lay back down, giving him a verbal okay to keep going. Honestly, you're not even sure why you told him off, the thought of him pushing into your ass makes your head cloudy with arousal.

He slicks his digits up with your wetness, then presses a finger into your other hole. You gasp at the intrusion, but he's slow and careful. He presses in further, and you can't hold back your whimpers as his knuckle catches at your rim, then forces even deeper.

Your thighs begin to shake, eyes rolling back as you push yourself onto his finger that soon moves around your insides to be able to locate any more stolen goods, only to find none.

"There's nothing, I guess," Mr. Huang says, and part of you is disappointed that it's over.

"Don't call the cops, please, I'll do anything," you say quietly. You can hear him shuffling behind you, but you don't dare to look. Your eyes close on their own, fear creeping up on you at the realization that you're really, totally screwed.

"Maybe you'll learn your lesson another way," the detective mumbles behind you, and you don't even have time to question that statement before you feel him pushing into you. You gasp, eyes opening widely as he stretches you out with his girth. It's too much, in the best way, and you grip onto the edge of the desk to not go crazy.

"F-fuck, big," you manage to gasp, your walls struggling to adjust.

"If you can steal, then you can fucking take it," he answers before drawing his hips back and fully burying himself in your cunt shortly after, then sets a rapid pace. His hips snap against your ass, and you briefly wonder if the obnoxiously loud sound of skin clapping against skin can be heard through the locked door, before every trance of thought is wiped from your brain.

There's not much you can do except for taking it, which you gladly do, going cross-eyed at the feeling of him repeatedly abusing your sweet spot. One of his hands pushes down on your back to make you arch even further into his motions, strained groans flying from his mouth.

"Stealing is bad. You're such a bad girl, bad, bad, fucking girl," he pants, and at this point, you're too far gone, tongue lolling out as you relish in the feeling of his cock brushing along your walls. "Say you're sorry."

"'m sorry," you babble, grinning hazily with unfocused eyes.

"You'll never do it again right?"

You want to answer, you really do, but as soon as you open your mouth, his fingers find your clit, massaging into the bundle of nerves with such expertise that you can suddenly taste your orgasm at the tip of your tongue.

"Say it."

"Hng- ah- c-cumming-" you stutter, brain focus on your high and nothing else as it is suddenly ripped from you. You feel empty without his hot length filling you, a whine ripping from your throat at the loss of stimulation.

"You're not supposed to fucking cum. You're not supposed to enjoy this," the detective scolds, gripping your hair to lift you up from the desk, then push you onto your knees. Just a single glance at him has you pushing your thighs together. His forehead coated in a thin layer of sweat, brown hair slightly messed up around his blushed features, and his big cock just in reach that you can't help but wrap your lips around it.

"F-fuck," he draws out the syllable, pushing further down your throat. You gag, only once, before adjusting to his girth and letting him fuck your mouth. You try your best keeping your eyes open and on him, but it's honestly really hard with how fucked out your brain feels.

You don't even notice how you're hoisted up onto the desk once more, facing him this time as he pushes into you again. Your moans are unhinged now, the orgasm you were previously robbed of coming back quicker than you'd expected.

"I'm risking my fucking job because of you, just because you're too fucking pretty to get charged for shoplifting. So dumb and bad, but so fucking pretty."

You whine, looking up at him with innocent eyes and an agape mouth.

"You're not going to steal ever again, right?"

You shake your head, humming out negatively.

"Promise me?"

You nod feverishly.

"Then you may cum."

That's all you needed to hear to continuously pulsate around his cock, your orgasm ripping through you, the feeling spreading through your body like a wildfire. Your high seems to trigger his too, thrusts getting sloppy before he pushes in deeply, emptying himself inside of you.

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