#some major fallout | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

in-san-ity · 2 years

Text

Entropy (k.ys)

synopsis: things never went according to plan; career wise, family wise, relationship wise and especially not when you were suddenly saddled with an infant to raise but you learned to roll with the punches. except the next challenge you were about to face wasn't a punch, it was a machine gun.

pairing: kang yeosang x reader

genre: mafia au, fluff, angst and smut

word count: 21.3k

taglist: @tohokuu @bangtanxberm

Kang Yeosang was going to kindergarten.

Now this wouldn’t be weird had it not been for the fact it was already time for the preschool to close. Or that he was 26 years old.

But still, Kang Yeosang, with his hair bleached blond and wearing tattered jeans and a pair of ratty sneakers made his way towards ‘Little Ducklings Preschool’ with his hands stuffed into his hoodie. With each step he took, his heart pounded so violently against his ribcage that he felt a little pathetic. I mean, what mafia member trembled like a leaf while walking towards a place filled with toddlers?

It wasn’t quite the slimy toddlers he was afraid of, but the woman who taught them, his darling mother.

Yeosang and his mother used to be really close growing up and she was the only one to support him when he said he wanted to pursue computer science as a major and eventually started a career path of becoming a hacker. However, they had a falling out 8 months ago when she found out that he wasn’t exactly a lawful one.

No, he worked with a mafia gang named Ateez as a hacker and IT specialist. To say his mother was not pleased would be an understatement. She threw him out of the house and refused to see him ever again, horrified that the son she raised had gone so off the right path no matter how much he tried to convince her that while some of it was unethical, he did some good too.

As a last resort, he tried to contact her using an encrypted thread of messages, but she ignored them. He was hurt, but still respected that this drift was a cause of his own actions. He knew she wouldn’t have supported it but agreed to do it anyway and now he had to deal with the fallout.

They went months without any contact until one day he received a message on the thread he had forgotten about a long while ago from his mother, asking him to meet her today and that was exactly why he was headed to her preschool.

The school was quaint and tiny like he expected, the ceilings were low enough for him to touch and the stairs were short enough to make sure toddlers with their tiny and clumsy legs wouldn’t fall easily. Everything was painted so brightly, with characters and cartoons drawn on the side of the walls and even the floor.

He reached the school just as it was letting out; parents were holding the hands of their happy mini humans that skipped beside him. He was used to this of course; his mother had been a teacher all his life, so it wasn’t rare that he showed up to her kindergarten just as school was ending. However, it did seem to alarm him that most of the parents looked closer to his age. Oh god, was he already that old? Were other people his age already having kids?

His mother was standing at the exit of her classroom, waving goodbye to the children, and having short conversations with their parents. As he approached her and peeked through the classroom, he noticed only one girl was left and she was calmly drawing on a piece of paper that she was given to keep occupied until she got picked up.

His mother had missed him, he could see it in her eyes and felt it in the way her hug had lingered for just moment longer, but she still resisted making a big deal about it.

“I was actually surprised that you asked to see me, mom.” He admitted and then watched her bashfully stare into the classroom, keeping an eye on her last remaining student before she steeled her expression and looked back at him.

“I still don’t support the choices you’ve made, Yeosang.” She was cutting right to business, “But you said that you could do good, and I want to believe you. That’s why I called you here today. I need some help.”

Yeosang’s brows pinched together, what could his mother possibly want from him?

“Mom, did you involve yourself in my work?” Realizing what he was insinuating, his mother rolled her eyes, offended that he would even entertain an absolutely absurd thought such as that.

“Not me, one of parents here. She’s in a bit of a situation and I told her that you might be able to help. I’m hoping you will be.”

He immediately wanted to say no. When it came to cases like this, they either wanted money or owed someone else money. It was never a good idea to get involved but this was the first time in 8 months that his mother asked to see him, willing to look past his choices in life if he could just help this one parent and he wanted to at least find out what she needed his help was.

“Mrs. Kang!” You interrupted, rushing up to the door while looking at your watch. You grimaced when you realized you were already 25 minutes late. However, she didn’t look peeved at all, instead smiled at you kindly as you approached her with an apologetic look on your face.

“Trouble getting away from work?”

You sighed, pushing away the strands of hair that managed to fall out from your ponytail in your hurry to get there, “An absolute mess. Some idiot left the fume box open and there was a huge contamination thing and even though we went through the proper procedures, my asshole supervisor—”

It seemed like you finally realized there was another person standing beside you, “I’m interrupting something. I’m really sorry, Mrs. Kang.”

“Don’t worry about it, dearie. This is Yeosang, my son.” She smiled, gesturing to the man standing beside her and your eyes widened, remembering the conversation you had with her a couple of days ago. When she said her son could help you, you didn’t think she was being serious.

“Sol-ah, your aunt is here to pick you up.” She called and you glanced into the classroom to see your niece look up from the paper she was drawing on. She was the only one left in the classroom and your heart squeezed in your chest with guilt for leaving her alone for so long. Her face lit up when she saw you waiting by the door and she quickly gathered up her things, leaving the crayons strewn about on the table as she ran up to you.

You smiled widely, crouching to her level, and gently cupping her cheek, “Sol-ah, you should clean up after yourself.” You scolded softly, gesturing to the items she left messily on the table and even though you could see she knew what she did was wrong, she didn’t want to leave your side for a while longer. She never admitted it, but you could tell she had a little fear of abandonment that festered when she was away from you for a long time.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll clean it up.”

“I don’t want to give you more work. You already looked after her for so long.” To be honest, you were still grasping at straws when it came to this whole parenting thing but so far, you were making it work and for now that had to be enough.

“Oh hush, you work hard too. I’ll handle this, you should get home.” You wouldn’t be heading home until tonight. You’d be bringing Sol to your workplace, leaving her in the day-care beside it even though she always cried and screamed, not wanting to be left alone again for the second time in the day. Even though it practically ripped your heart apart to see her face wet with tears, your work demanded you to be in the lab the entire day and it wasn’t safe to bring a child there.

While you were looking for other job opportunities, working at your current job was paying the bills, putting a roof over your head, and letting you live relatively comfortably for the time being and you couldn’t give it up no matter how much you wanted to.

You took Sol’s bag from her, kissing her cheek and like clockwork, she returned a sloppy one on yours, wrapping her tiny arms around your neck before you both held hands and walked away from the classroom. Yeosang just stood there beside his own mother, feeling a little out of place before she smacked his arm lightly and motioned him to follow you, which he did but not before kissing her cheek goodbye.

You didn’t even realize that Yeosang was following you until you got to your car, and he tapped on your shoulder. You acknowledged him with a polite nod of your head before looking back at your niece and opening the car door.

Once you were sure she was sitting comfortably in the car seat and buckled her in, you switched on the car and played the soundtrack to frozen to keep her occupied, “Sol-ah, auntie needs to talk to her friend for a minute. Are you okay with waiting until we’re done?”

She looked a little concerned for a moment before you reassured her that you’d be right outside the car and then timidly nodded, glancing at Yeosang before looking at her lap. You gently shut the door, glancing at her as she rocked her legs to the rhythm and smiled softly.

“Sorry about that. Thank you for coming here, your mother is really kind for calling you, but you don’t really have to do anything. I’ll tell her that you couldn’t really do anything to help me.”

He raised a brow, “How about you tell me what you need help with so I can make that judgement for myself?”

You seemed unsure and he could tell by the way your hands tightened around the strap of your purse before you glanced back at Sol sitting in the backseat, giddily singing along to ‘Do You Wanna Build A Snowman’ and sighed.

“It’s kind of a long story.” You admitted, glancing up at him but his stance was steady, not representing any rush to get away quickly and like this was all just one big formality.

He glanced at the girl sitting inside the car that seemed content with just listening to the songs from her favourite movies. Even though you made sure it wasn’t playing too loudly, the car was still vibrating lightly from the beats of the songs.

“She doesn’t look like she’s in a rush.”

You chuckled and nodded, “Well, first off, I’m (Y/N) (L/N) and that’s Sol, my niece. She’s my sister’s daughter. My sister and I were close growing up but when I turned twenty, she kind of went MIA. She rarely visited and barely ever called or texted. About 2 years ago, one night, she showed up at my apartment. She was a little frantic…...”

Frantic could be considered an understatement when she showed up at your house at in the middle of the night with a large bundle of blankets cradled in her arms. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her face was pale and sunken like she hadn’t eaten in months.

“Listen I don’t have a lot of time to explain but you’re the only one I could trust.” She rambled, stepping into your apartment and even though you tried to sit her down and get her to explain, she was in shambles and couldn’t even get her thoughts straightened out enough to explain her situation.

She shoved the blankets into your arms and your eyes widened when you realized that within the cloth lay a baby girl that remained fast asleep even though she was being jostled around. She threw a bag on the couch, and you noticed a birth certificate belonging to the baby among other things inside it.

“Her name is Sol and she’s my daughter.” Your head snapped towards her in shock, but she didn’t look fazed, only staring at you back with determination, “I need you to take care of her. Please.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” You frantically said, anxiety building up from the way she was pacing and suddenly saying all these things that you couldn’t comprehend.

“Her father is a horrible person. A mafia boss. And he’s looking for her and I. I’m going far away, but I need to keep her safe. Don’t contact the police, don’t look for me, and please just look after her and keep her far away from her father. I beg you.”

That was all she said before she ran out the door and slammed it behind her. You hesitated for a second, mind short circuiting from all the information you received in the last few minutes before you thought to run after her.

Unfortunately, the baby chose that minute to wake up, screaming her lungs out from being woken up and you were left trying to calm her down. She was inconsolable, wailing loudly as her face slowly turned red from the amount of screaming and now overwhelmed and flustered, you couldn’t help the frustrated tears that began running down your cheeks as you wept beside her.

“…I tried looking for her without notifying the police but it’s like she dropped off the map and no one has seen or heard from her.” You explained.

“You know that if she’s gone off the grid for 2 years after running away from the mafia, there’s a huge chance she’s—”

“Dead?” You prompted when he trailed off, not wanting to upset you, “I’m coming to terms with that. But that isn’t the problem.”

“Then what is?” Yeosang asked.

“Her father is looking for her. There have been people poking around my workplace and apartment, asking around about my sister. I’m scared that once he finds out that I have Sol, he’s going to take her. And I can’t let Sol go to him, I just can’t. But I don’t know what to do, or to whom to go.” You explained, suddenly feeling anxious about the whole thing. Saying it aloud now was staring to make everything feel real, even though you were trying to avoid it.

So far, you were content living in the imaginary safe world that you set up for Sol, so she didn’t have to live in fear of a scary man finding her and taking her away from her auntie, but it seemed like you were also starting to believe your own act.

“Do you know who he is? Or what gang he’s from?”

You shook your head, frowning, “She didn’t tell me anything. Listen, Yeosang, I know I’m asking for a lot, and you have no reason to help me but I’m really in trouble here and your mother tells me that you can help. I’m ready to do anything to repay you, can you please just consider helping me out?”

When it came to Sol, you weren’t beneath grovelling. In the 2 years that you spent raising her, you had come to value her above anything and everything else in your life and even the thought of her being in danger could have you selling your soul to anyone that could keep her safe.

Yeosang looked at you while you were staring at your shoes while clutching the door handle of the car tightly, but he still noticed the way your fingers slightly shook from the grip. You were bearing your soul to him during your first meeting, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little overwhelmed by it.

“I’ll look into it.” He said, suddenly remembering how his mother had clasped his hand so tightly and requested him to help you. He didn’t want to disappoint her again.

You breathed a sigh of relief, smiling widely as you fished through your purse and grabbed a business card to hand to him, “That’s my phone number, in case you want to contact me.”

Luckily, the soundtrack seemed to finish at that moment and Sol was lightly tapping on the window with her tiny fist, “Auntie!”

You spared one last smile at Yeosang, asking him if he wanted a ride anywhere which he declined before getting into your car and pulling out of the parking space. He watched you drive away, pulling out his phone to write down your license plate number before deciding to take his leave.

He chuckled when he noticed the little girl staring at him from the window just as you drove away from the preschool.

***

Your life was all about adapting to change. Like when you were 22 and fresh out of college and you got employed by a chemical company, you had to change your inspiration and interest in the field when you realized that your job did not in fact include blowing up things in chemical explosions.

You grew up attached to the hip with your sister and close to your family but since your parents’ retirement when they moved to the countryside and your sister cutting off contact, you had to learn to rely on yourself when it came to day-to-day things.

And then, the most important of all, when Sol came into your life, you had to change everything. Your bedroom became Sol’s as soon as she was old enough to have her own and you were stuck using the pull-out couch. You had to prepare all your meals in advance and in bulk so after a long day of work, you could immediately give her dinner, give her a bath, and then put her to sleep before tending to yourself.

You had to wake up earlier so you could get her ready and then drop her off at kindergarten. Your lunch breaks were spent driving her to day-care after kindergarten let up before shovelling down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich you made yourself and Sol for lunch. Pay checks were put into the bank for the future and her school fund and whatever you managed to save for spending were all to take her to the newest Disney movie or a children’s fair.

And finally, the most important change that happened was in your work ethic. Usually, you were on top of your work, finishing on-sight work and immediately filling out the report that very day. However, now you let weeks of reports build up and punch the clock in the lab. Then when the time finally came to submit them, you would inform your supervisor that you’d be working from home to finish them.

Sol would miss a day of preschool as well and you’d spend the entire day together, with you working on the reports before she woke up and after she slept and during any time in between.

It wasn’t the best situation, you’d admit. But every night when you tucked her in and turned off the light, you’d feel reenergised just watching her peaceful face as she cuddled her penguin plushie. Yes, your muscles were screaming and yes, your stomach had been grumbling for so long that it eventually gave up, but it was so worth it to see her grow up.

When you first met Sol as a two-year-old, she had an unattractive choppy bob, was wobbly on her feet, cried loudly and constantly. It took weeks for her to stop crying for her mother and get used to the fact that you’d be consoling her now when she woke up in the middle of the night and that it’d be you who fed her. It wasn’t like you were the only one who had challenges, no, the trauma of her mother leaving her stuck with her even as she grew up.

You didn’t know why though; you had talked to her paediatrician about it, but she said that it wasn’t your fault. You loved her enough to compensate for her mother and took care of her exceptionally but her sudden severance of her first relationship had understandably made a mark on the way she made relationships in the future.

You could tell; she was attached and feared strangers. She never let you leave without telling her how long you’d be gone and where you were going. Hence the reason you stopped going for drinks with your friends after long days of work. Instead, you met them for lunch while Sol tagged along.

Sol wasn’t very demanding, that you were thankful for. She didn’t need constant attention and rarely felt neglected when you weren’t paying attention to her. For her, it was enough that you were in the house with her, and she was laying in your lap while she watched a movie on the TV, and you typed noisily on your computer.

Today was such a day, your adorable niece was watching ‘Tangled’ while she happily munched on the fried rice with sausage that you had cooked up for lunch. You took your eyes off the screen only for a few seconds to make sure she was eating her vegetables along with her lunch and not just pushing it to the side.

Sol clumsily sang along to the songs, and you chuckled. A lot of those snooty mothers at her preschool turned their noses at you because you let her watch so much TV, but she was the only 4-year-old in her class that knew big words and developed skills for understanding the meaning of words from context just because she heard it in her favourite movies.

Considering you had no friends and Sol didn’t have any friends that could drive over here, you were alarmed when the doorbell rang. Sol on the other hand, who only ever heard the doorbell when you ordered takeout, looked excited.

When you opened the door, Mrs. Kang’s son was standing there with a blank expression and lingering slightly awkwardly in the hallway.

“Hey! You! You’re at my house! And I don’t remember giving you my address?” You rambled, not opening the door too much and he nodded, the image of cool even though you were slightly freaked out.

“You don’t remember my name, do you?”

It’s true; you had absolutely no idea. Which actually made you feel kind of pathetic considering you knew all the names of the Winx Club fairies, their elemental powers, and the magical land they came from. And yet you couldn’t remember the name of the guy who could likely help keep your niece safe.

“Sang…Yeob?”

“That’s an actor.”

“Still doesn’t explain how you’re here.”

“I hacked into the kindergarten’s database and found your home address.” He replied, acting like that was completely normal which slightly concerned you, “Don’t worry, it wasn’t difficult. Kindergartens don’t really have a firewall.”

“Yes, because that’s what I was concerned about.”

Now that you were saying it, you were kind of concerned about it. Maybe Sol should transfer? Before you even realized you were already spiralling, and you held the door almost close to turn around and spare a glance at Sol who was very calmly eating her lunch.

“Listen, I’ve got some information about the guy you’re trying to find. May I come in?” You almost thought of saying no and closing the door in his face but then you remembered how Mrs. Kang told you that her son ‘knew his way around computers’.

“Uh, sure.” Cautiously, you let him in and lead him towards the dining table. He had a bag along with him that he opened as soon as he sat down. You hovered a little awkwardly by the door and Sol seemed to notice the presence of someone new in the house.

She quickly paused the movie and padded over to you and hid behind your legs to peek at Yeosang who grabbed a thin laptop from the bag. She looked up at you with wide eyes before mouthing ‘Who’s that?’

You didn’t want to alarm her and say it was just a stranger and make her feel a little insecure with an outsider in her home, but you also didn’t want her to feel so comfortable with him that her judgment may be impaired if they ever met without your supervision.

“Uh, this is auntie’s friend, Yeosang.” You whispered, crouching down so she wouldn’t be looking up at you. She nodded contemplatively and looked back at him who continued to pretend like he couldn’t hear you talking about and staring at him. Children weren’t really the experts in subtlety.

“Like Mi-nah?” She whispered back, trying awfully hard to keep her voice low but he definitely heard her, considering the way the corner of his mouth crooked up in amusement. Mi-nah was her “best” friend at kindergarten who took Sol’s blue play-doh without asking and you didn’t like her, but you assumed you couldn’t do much about it.

You wiped away a grain of rice stuck to the corner of her mouth and nodded. Satisfied with your explanation, she went back to the coffee table in front of the television and continued to eat. You made a mental note not to let her watch TV while eating dinner because she was taking too long to finish.

When you stepped beside the dining table to see what Yeosang wanted to show you, you were reminded of the burning of your stomach in hunger. The pot on the kitchen counter with the remaining fried rice called your attention and you smiled a little shyly at the man sitting at the table.

“Do you want some lunch?”

And that’s how you both ended up eating fried rice and sausage from plastic bowls themed with the Bare Bears (Yeosang with Ice, You with Panda and Sol with Grizzly) while he discussed his plans with you. He unintentionally laughed when he realized that you cut the sausages to resemble octopi with little sesame seed eyes. But both you and Sol agreed that they tasted better when they were cut that way.

“Alright so I don’t really have much because you haven’t really given me a place to start. I need all the information about your sister and whoever this father is.” He said and you nodded, grabbing your laptop from the living room, only sparing a few seconds to chastise Sol for not finishing her lunch still and telling her that it better be finished before the movie gets over.

“I found out that the hospital that my sister had gone to during the first few months of her pregnancy was different to the one she went to from around her third trimester to when she gave birth.” You informed, recalling the time you had done your own investigation shortly after Sol was put in your care.

You found out the hospital she was born in from her birth certificate and upon asking them about your sister, they pointed you to her first hospital from where her files were transferred. The first hospital told you that she came there for monthly check-ups and ultrasounds with the father of the baby until one day she stopped showing up and a request for her file came from another hospital.

“She used to show up there with the father but since it was way before the birth, his name wasn’t logged on. Or maybe he requested for it not to get registered. Something must have happened during her pregnancy that drove them apart for her to transfer hospitals and show up alone. Then Sol is born, and my sister goes on the run for the next year, give or take before finally giving her to me.”

You made sure to keep your voice lower than the sound of Rapunzel and Eugene singing ‘I See The Light’ in the living room so that Sol wouldn’t get curious as to why you were talking about her and then not leave you alone.

You had your sister’s legal name but just the name and nothing else makes a person difficult to track so you scoured through whatever files you had compiled during your own search of your sister that came up short. You gave Yeosang the frame of time that Sol was given to you as well as your sisters social security number.

When he pulled up the servers for all the airports in the city and then something that looked similar to the source code, with countless lines of numbers and letters you couldn’t understand with a bunch of random symbols in the middle and all in the classic ‘hacker’ style font.

“I don’t know how I feel about you hacking into government servers.” You admitted, feeling nervous about all of this. He was going to do something very illegal and in your house. Wouldn’t the authorities be able to track you from your IP address or Wi-Fi or something like that?

“Don’t worry, I already hacked into them years ago and set up a backdoor for me to enter without alerting anybody and do as I please. They check the codes every once in a while, for maintenance, but I set up a polymorphic code to change its location and make it blend in so it’s undetected during checks. Pretty smart right?”

You ignored the fact that you didn’t understand a word he said and just nodded, sheepishly muttering a few words in agreement before you voiced your concerns to him once again.

“Just think of it as a library. All I’m coming in to do is read the information. I’m not doing anything to the books, just reading them.”

“If that was the case then it’d be available to everyone.” You replied curtly. You recalled a chapter from one of the many parenting books that were on your bookshelf about teaching your kids right from wrong and when to show leniency; you made a mental note to research how to deal with situations when the ends justify the means with Sol.

“Yes, but that’s the reason you haven’t found anything in two years. Now do you want my help or not?”

You sighed in defeat and nodded. He quickly opened up the database of all of the airports from the past 2 years of travel and then used a programme to filter all the saved results and find anything that might resemble your sister.

Nothing came up around the time that she left, meaning that if she had left the country then she hadn’t used a plane to leave from here. That made your heart sink; even though you definitely hadn’t kept your hopes up, you did kind of pray that Yeosang would be the key to all your problems.

He changed the frame of time to 5 years and ran the programme again.

This time a couple results came up.

During the time your sister would have been pregnant with Sol, she travelled somewhere and then came back right before Sol was born. Meaning that if she hadn’t travelled alone, her companion was most likely the father. Luckily, the flight information was still saved and Yeosang opened the passenger list from the same plane and extracted the passenger information from it. He eliminated any ineligible candidates and then showed the compiled list of people that could have been the father.

“I’ll do a background check on them after I head home.” He said, beginning to pack up his stuff.

“Why can’t you do it right now?”

“You’re sweating buckets because I hacked the airport, and I don’t want to know what’s going to happen when I hack a police database.”

So that’s what was running down your back.

Finally, you stopped hearing the TV in the background and Sol padded into the kitchen with her thankfully empty bowl and placed it by the sink. You really weren’t in the mood for her to have a fit when you forced her to eat her vegetables and then give you the silent treatment until you promised her dessert and then watched ‘Tangled’. Again.

She tiptoed at the table, peering up at Yeosang’s face with an inquisitive look and you knew what was going to come after. Damn, children are so difficult to work with; do you shut her down now and hinder her curious nature for the sake of social cues or do you let her be a little quirky and ask questions?

“How old are you?” She asked, innocently.

“26.” Yeosang answered simply and even though it was pretty normal, she gasped at his answer and her eyes began twinkling, startling him just a little bit, “Wow, you’re so big!”

You laughed under your breath and a smile grew on your face at his expression which was a mix between amused and befuddled. That was something that adults couldn’t quite understand about children, and you had been caught off guard by her questions many times before. Children were smart enough to know when things were different to what they knew and how to ask questions about it, it was just that they were a little inexperienced when it came to obvious answers.

“Did you finish school?” She squeaked out, staring up at him with wide eyes and an excited smile.

Yeosang thankfully took her questions in stride and just laughed good-naturedly before nodding. Though you could see that he was still a little uncomfortable.

“Can you sit in the front seat of the car?!”

He smirked and booped her nose with a finger, “I can even drive one.”

She gasped and scampered over to your side, patting your thighs excitedly, “Auntie, he’s so cool!”

You smiled at her and nodded, patting her head gently, “You wanna know something? He’s actually Mrs. Kang son.”

Sol gasped and looked at Yeosang for confirmation, who just nodded. Then her face scrunched up in confusion and a pout formed on her face, “I thought childrens have to be small?”

“Well, they’re small at the start but then after a few years they become big like Yeosang and I. You’ll become a big girl one day too.” You explained and you noticed Yeosang beginning to take his bag to leave. He felt a little out of place, which was understandable, so you cut your explanation short and promised to talk about this again over dinner before you led him to the front door.

“Thanks for everything today.” You murmured, opening the door for him and he shook his head, “Do you want me to come over after I get the results or just call you?”

“Depends, my schedule is pretty full. If you find out when I’m busy, then I’d prefer just an email so I can look it over after work.”

Sol lingered by your legs, letting the two of you talk without her interrupting but you could tell from the way she began shuffling from one foot to another that she was getting impatient. She was getting a little groggy, you realized that you’d have to put her down for a nap and mentally prepared yourself for the fight she was going to put up.

“You work a lot, don’t you?”

“Yeah, things in my life continue to be a little unexpected so I figure saving money for a rainy day would be good.” You explained, being incredibly careful not to mention anything that would make Sol think you’re talking about her.

He nodded empathetically and it was weird how much relief his understanding brought you. It was difficult to find someone in the same boat you were, considering your circles in your career and how you didn’t have time outside it for anyone else other than Sol. So, someone who understood that you were doing the best you could muster was something you really craved for.

Of course, Sol was worth it, but it didn’t hurt to hear once in a while. Even though he didn’t actually say it.

“I’ll be going.” He said and suddenly Sol piped up like she had been rehearsing her line for a while, “Bye!”

He spared her a kind smile, “Bye, Sol.”

Her cheeks turned red, and you shut the door after nodding at Yeosang. She was smiling shyly at her shoes, and you weren’t sure whether you were entertained or deeply disturbed by how she was suddenly taken by Yeosang. You had a crush on Robert Downy Junior when you were kid, it wasn’t weird. Except it was.

Guess you knew what you’d be researching on several parenting blogs after you finished your work.

Yeosang was still standing outside the door when he heard you call out “Sol-ah, nap time.”

A smile grew on his face before he realized it when it was followed by a loud whine, “But I don’t wanna!”

***

Yeosang had certainly gotten more comfortable with you since you had last met him. Even though you told him you had a pretty busy schedule, he usually showed up after Sol was asleep so you both could talk in privacy. So far, the search had been going pretty well, considering before you met him, you were absolutely clueless.

You were simply happy that it was going somewhere.

Out of the men that were with your sister on the plane, a couple of them had priors but not one of them had anything extremely incriminating that would make it obvious. So, he was resorting to finding other means to track down what your sister had been doing a couple of years before she got pregnant.

It was another late night for the both of you. You were drinking tea and trying to catch up on all the unopened mails and paying any due bills. Yeosang was pretending to enjoy the tea you made him while trying to track down any credit or debit cards your sister might have registered under her name.

Around one-thirty in the middle of the night, a doorbell rang, and you shared a glance with Yeosang.

“I’m not expecting anybody.” You whispered, feeling something similar to dread and panic fill in your stomach when you noticed the alarmed expression on his face. Whoever was behind the door began knocking incessantly, bordering on bangs that made the hinges shake.

“Stay with Sol.” He whispered to you before reaching behind his back to pull out a gun. Your eyes widened, “Why do you have a gun?!”

“Do you really want to know?” He replied in a harsh whisper, and you glared at him, “Have you been bringing a gun into my house while my niece is here?”

“Do you want to continue arguing about this or do you want me to answer the door?”

The barrage of knocks on your front door had weirdly tuned out when you were having a whispered fight with Yeosang. Now it seemed like it got louder, matching the harsh rhythm of your heart and you nodded before getting up and hurrying to Sol’s room. You locked the door behind you, cowering by her bed and making sure she hadn’t stirred.

It was like a horror movie began playing out in your own apartment. The door even emitted an eerie squeal when Yeosang finally opened it and you heard a couple bangs and thuds like they were fighting. You flinched at every sound, finding whatever comfort you could in the sight of Sol sleeping peacefully, relieved that she hadn’t woken up. No doubt, she’d be in tears and frightened if she saw how anxious you were.

Then it was silent.

A soft knock came at Sol’s door and your stomach churned, “(Y/N), open up.”

You sighed in relief at Yeosang’s voice, rushing to unlock the door and meet his eyes. His hair and clothes were a little messed up and his gun was still in his hands, but it was his expression that scared you; it was steely and cold with a touch of alarm. Usually, he was hard to read, keeping his expression stoic but you had gotten the hang of sensing his emotions in the few times of meeting him.

He was usually calm with a touched amused and you had yet to see such an expression from him and now that you have, you realized that something had gone very, very wrong.

“Get Sol. We need to get out of here, now.”

A thousand questions were rushing through your head. Who was at the door? What had happened to him? Why did you have to leave? Where would you go? But you kept your lips sealed, rushing to Sol’s side, and bundling in her blankets, pulling her into your arms.

She woke up now that you were carrying her, looking up at you groggily, “Auntie? What’s happening?”

“We’re going on a little trip, Sol-ah.” You told her, forcing a smile on your face to keep from scaring her, “Go back to sleep, baby. I’ll wake you up when we’re there.”

“Where are we going?” She asked, slowly beginning to fall back asleep as you rocked her gently, “I dunno. Yeosang is taking us somewhere. Go to sleep now.”

You handed her to Yeosang that was standing in the doorway of her bedroom. He was startled for a second, holding her tightly against his chest on instinct and you rushed through the apartment getting your hands on whatever you could and stuffing it into any bag you could find.

Sol’s favourite plushie and a few of her clothes, all your passports and such, grabbing a pair of shoes for her before you slipped on your own and grabbed your car keys. When you rushed out of the apartment, you took a moment to glance over the railing in the corridor and your stomach hollowed out when you saw the silhouette of what looked like a body on the ground floor.

Still, you didn’t ask Yeosang about it, not wanting to know and just led the way down to the parking garage.

You sat quietly in the front seat while Yeosang drove to wherever he was taking the two of you. Sol was buckled up in her car-seat, her blanket snug around her and you stole a glance of her before looking out the window and staring at the lamp posts that passed the car.

Yeosang called someone while you just tried to wrap your head around everything that had just happened.

“Hey, Mingi. I have a—” He spared a glance at your shaking form in the passenger seat and chose to speak very carefully, “Situation that I need you to take care of. I’ll send you the address. Try and get it done in the next hour. Yeah, thanks.”

When he set down the phone in the cupholder, he noticed the way silent tears were slowly dripping down your cheeks. You were cupping your mouth shut, trying to get yourself to calm down but you couldn’t help but cry. This helplessness, this feeling of not knowing what was coming next; it was the exact same thing you had felt when Sol was dropped off in your apartment all those years ago.

You had done everything in your power to keep from ever feeling like that again. You read a hundred parenting books, you made sure to keep Sol comfortable enough with you so that she grew up with a healthy relationship with her caretaker and you had spent every waking moment thinking about what was best for her so much that it border lined on obsession.

Because it was these moments that made you wonder why you were doing this in the first place? Why were you letting yourself go through something so terrible and taxing and putting yourself through so much grief for something you never even asked for? You never asked for this, you never asked for all these hardships to come into your life, it was just given to you.

And it would be so easy to just give them up.

These were the horrible, disgusting thoughts that often invaded your mind when you found things to be difficult. That it would be so easy to just take a step away from this chaos and then never come back. It would be so easy to just do the bad thing.

So, overwrought with guilt and something dark inside you, you cried silently in the seat beside Yeosang, trying so hard to keep it together and not jump out of the moving vehicle that instant.

Yeosang sighed and pulled up to a drive-thru in McDonalds, ignoring the surprised look you sent him when he lowered down the window.

“Can I have like a shit ton of nuggets, fries, all the sauces you have, two hot chocolates and whatever sweet cake or donut thing you have? Oh, and please give us a lot of napkins.”

He then turned back to you, “There’s no easy way to say this—” You held your breath, “But I really don’t like how you make your tea.”

Yeosang didn’t really get to appreciate how hilarious you looked when the incredulous laugh left your mouth, face red and blotchy from the crying with sunken eyes that seemed to sparkle because of the tears that were held in them.

***

Yeosang had taken you back to his friend’s home. He lived in an apartment not too far from it, but he thought keeping the two of you in the Hongjoong’s home would have been safer. You had arrived at around 3 a.m. after Yeosang had explained what was going to happen from this point on in the parking lot of a McDonalds while you ate chicken nuggets.

He had been surprisingly responsible and ready to take you and Sol in. You don’t remember ever being able to rely on someone in the last 2 years. Hell, some of your co-workers were unable and incompetent when it came to their own jobs, so you had been bearing the brunt of work independently for a long while.

But now, Yeosang was starting to become a supporting figure in your life, and you were trying so hard not to rely on him completely because you knew that one day the rug would be pulled out from under your feet, and you would end up just as unprepared and burdened as you were the first time when your sister had dumped Sol on you in the first place.

You didn’t want to take that chance.

For the moment, you were going to stay in Yeosang’s assigned room in Hongjoong’s house where he sometimes stayed over. It was a pretty empty and minimalistic room aside from the arrangement of computers in the corner and the extendable desk that extended till the bed so he could quite literally work until he fell asleep.

He woke the two of you up bright and early, well it was early for you but since Yoon-ah had a good night’s rest, she wasn’t nearly as tired as you were. You wanted to sleep in, emotionally exhausted and extremely dehydrated from all the crying you did last night but Yeosang didn’t let you, going as far as to yank you in a sitting position and force feeding you a cup of coffee while Sol cheered for you to wake up.

It wasn’t until after you washed up (where Sol threw a tantrum about brushing her teeth because the toothbrush that Yeosang bought from the convenience store wasn’t the same as her own with the Disney princesses on it) that he told you that he was going to introduce you to his friends. You had quickly understood that his friends did the same kind of work as him.

“Are you sure Sol should be meeting them?” You fretted as he showed you around the entire mansion. This place was so unnecessarily big that you couldn’t even imagine ever being able to find your way around. Luckily, the bathroom and kitchen were not too far from it so hopefully, you’d never have to venture any place else without Yeosang.

“They’re not scary people, (Y/N). And besides, this is more for Sol anyway. She should know their faces at least in case they would ever need to pick her up.” He told you, leading you back to the main room that was beside his own.

“Why would they ever have to pick her up without me?” You asked pointedly, widening your eyes at him at his implication. He didn’t reply and you sighed, making sure that Sol wasn’t wandering around and getting distracted by the other rooms.

When you entered the room to find nine new faces staring at you, Sol ducked behind your back, clinging onto your coat. It was no surprise that she would react like this, she was very timid and reserved when it came to people her own age but being in a room with so many people that she didn’t recognize that were way bigger than her made her feel scared.

“This is (Y/N) and her niece, Sol.” Yeosang introduced, and you tried your best to give them a smile, bowing your head at them. You had already met Hongjoong last night when you entered his home. He, along with his wife, had seen you with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose after sitting outside the car in the cold and crying for nearly an hour.

The hacker introduced them all by name to you and you had to admit that he was right. You were expecting giant men with huge scars and face tattoos and machine guns and leather jackets but if you hadn’t known any better, they just looked like random dudes. The beanpole, who was named Yunho, was even wearing a fluffy lavender sweater and you were reeling at just how normal they looked.

You heard your phone ring in the other room and realized it was probably your boss who was calling to find out just what emergency had you using all of your vacation days without any notice. You gave the rest of them an apologetic smile before excusing yourself.

Sol, who had been hiding behind your back, had now been exposed to the rest of them and upon realizing that they were all looking at her, scrambled behind Yeosang’s legs, wrapping her arms tightly around his thigh and smushing her face against his jeans.

He chuckled awkwardly, shooting a glare at Mingi and Wooyoung who gave him teasing grins before looking down at the girl who seemed close to tears. It was the first time you had left him alone with her, no doubt you were still out of it, considering everything that happened in the past few days.

He gently pulled her away from his leg before kneeling to look her in the eye with a tender smile, “You want to meet my friends? They’re nice, I promise.”

She looked uncertain, holding onto the front of his shirt in tiny fists as she glanced back at the rest of them. They all gave her the warmest smiles they could muster but she still looked a little frightened.

Yeosang gently patted her head, “It’s okay. I’ll be here the whole time.”

With that reassurance, she silently nodded, holding his hand tightly as he led her to the rest of them.

***

“His name’s Logan Nam.” Yeosang informed you, turning the computer to show you the screen. A picture of a man who couldn’t be more than 5 years older than you stared back. At first glance, he looked put together, with his hair slicked back neatly and his clothes were crisp and clean. He looked more like a rich, mysterious CEO type character that you would see in a drama.

But something insidious was hidden in his dark eyes that made your skin crawl as you felt like he could somehow see you through the screen.

“The guy that came by your apartment was a criminal for hire. I got his phone and most of the communication was deleted aside from a significant amount deposited to his bank account before it happened.” He told you, passing the phone so you could look over the text message. You kept your hands tucked underneath your thighs, not willing to touch something that was most likely stolen from the pockets of a dead man.

The memory of his cold body at the bottom of the balcony had your food creeping up your throat, leaving a sick burn of acid behind. You knew it wasn’t your fault and he more than deserved it, but you just couldn’t believe that you were okay with killing somebody. Your stomach curled and twisted with guilt.

You nodded at him with a stoic face.

“The money came from one of Logan’s burner companies. I can’t confirm if he’s Sol’s father or your sister’s partner but there’s a huge chance that it’s him. His accounts are so encrypted that I can’t check anything myself, but I cross-referenced any police charges he has. He got a ticket for a fender bender in Thailand the same time that your sister travelled there. Then he got charged for a DUI a couple months later after she was back here.”

If this was Sol’s father, then it relieved you that they looked nothing alike. No, the sweet girl in the next room had taken after your sister with cute, round features and wide eyes that made you think that she had stars suspended in them. She looked nothing like the emotionless man that you had just seen.

The thought of him getting his tainted hands on her precious, pure skin made your stomach fill with sticky, molten, disgust.

“So, what now?” You asked meekly. You now knew the face of the person behind your life ending up in shambles, but you still had no idea how to fight him. If Logan Nam was a missile, you were a pen; completely unrelated, worthless, and weak and yet you had more responsibilities and expectations.

“We figure out his schedule and plant a marksman? Sooji’s been getting pretty good at sniping lately.” He wondered out loud and your eyes widened.

“What?! No! Have you lost your mind?! I’m not comfortable with killing another person, Yeosang!”

He looked perturbed, like you were suggesting something completely illogical when all you were asking was to follow the law. ‘No killing people’ was a pretty big rule, and the mere thought of someone losing their life at your command had your skin pricking with cold sweat and your heart racing.

It was too much because you knew that this wouldn’t be it. How could it be? The weight of what you had done would swing over your head for the rest of your life. You’d always be looking over your shoulder and this one decision could even be a can of worms. You knew, if you went through with this, your life as you knew it would never be the same and it would be like watching your entire world erupt into flames before you.

“(Y/N), we need to fight fire with fire.” He replied.

“No, you fight fire with water.” You replied haughtily and even though you were trying to keep your cool, you were realizing that you were on the verge of a panic attack. Your sweaty hand gripped the fabric of your skirt tightly and you could feel the tremors you were trying hard to ignore.

“(Y/N) …” He prompted gently but you shook your head, feeling sweat bead at your hairline. Your pupils were shaking and the more you tried He reached for your hand that was clasped tightly by your side and his skin felt cool against yours.

You scrunched your eyes shut, “Please, let’s have this conversation later.”

He nodded before whispering to you, “Okay.”

***

Kids can really take some things for granted. You realized that when Sol suddenly started regarding to Yeosang as the smarter one between the two of you. It was downright insulting. Here you were, putting a roof over her head for the better part of her life using money that you earned from a job that you earned after putting yourself through many years in university and she didn’t think that you were capable of reciting the names of the planets.

It wasn’t that she thought you were stupid, you realized that, but rather just thought of Yeosang as extremely smart and you’d be lying if you said his smug smile every time, she asked him a question first wasn’t frustrating. But you tried to reason with yourself, saying that it was just because he was new and pretty, that Sol was fixating on him. You were sure, that he would turn into old news soon enough.

You were making the bed after breakfast while Yeosang typed away at his computer. He had insisted that there were staff that could handle the housekeeping, but you were beginning to get a little stir crazy, and you needed to keep moving or it felt like you would just die.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sound jealous.” He said and you could practically hear the smirk in his voice and rolled your eyes, tucking the sheets in tighter.

“I know you think you’re so smart, but you’re sadly mistaken.” You replied haughtily.

“Oh, so you’re not upset that Sol thinks you’re an idiot?” He quipped with such an infuriating gaze that made you want to chuck a pillow at his head, but you scoffed instead, spotting Sol as she strolled back into the room. Like expected, she went straight into Yeosang’s arms.

“Yeosang! I have another question!”

“What’s up, sweet pea?” He asked, placing her on his lap and ducked your head to hide a smile, pretending like you were smoothing out any wrinkles in the sheets. He was getting so much more comfortable with Sol, even looking after her while you showered or needed some alone time and every time you looked at them together, your heart felt just a tiny bit lighter. Like maybe, even for a few seconds, he could hold onto some of your burdens and make it just a little easier for you.

“Where do babies come from?”

The look he shot you was all the retribution you needed, and you couldn’t stop the blatant laugh that left your mouth when his expression dropped. Sol, who thought you were making fun of her, pouted before turning back to Yeosang and tapping his shoulders insistently.

“Who’s the idiot now?” You cackled.

***

“Since I couldn’t hack into his bank account without alerting him, I had to hack the bank and do a manual check of all his transactions.” Yeosang told you, pushing up his glasses that slid down the bridge of his nose. You realized a little late that you had gotten distracted by the view of Yeosang with fluffy hair and thin glasses that you hadn’t been processing anything he was saying.

“And, well, he makes a monthly payment and I wondered what could possibly require monthly payments but also would be done using legal banking.” He rambled on and you nodded, not quite understanding why he was telling you about this.

When he was wearing cute sweaters and shuffling around the room in socks with a cup of coffee in his hands, it was hard to believe he was part of the mafia. He always looked so domestic, you often found yourself feeling like a small family when you would walk into the room to find Sol asleep in his lap while he typed away noisily.

It was moments like those when you tried extremely hard to snap yourself out of it. This wasn’t a game, and you couldn’t trick yourself into pretending to be his little wife. He was the only thing stopping your life from crumbling apart before your eyes. The last flimsy string that remained strong on a tearing rope as you hung helplessly off the side of a cliff.

You weren’t letting yourself rely on him too much, you wanted to remain strong so that when the moment came, you’d be able to part ways and go back to normal. It only made sense, he was never here for you to begin with, he was doing this as a favour to his mother and even though you knew his fondness for Sol and empathy for you made him work hard, you knew that once Sol was safe, you wouldn’t be in each other’s lives anymore.

You still let yourself keep that little bud and glimmer of wistful longing in your heart. As long as you kept it to yourself, you could admire him for his hard work and his intelligence and his beauty. You hadn’t felt about anyone this way in years. When Sol had come into your life, you had continued to date for a while, but no one wanted to be in a relationship with ‘a single mother’. You tried to argue that she wasn’t yours and you were no mother, but you could understand why to them it would make no difference.

That had been the last fragment of your old life that you had been hanging onto with a tight grip; that Sol wasn’t yours. She wasn’t your child, and she wasn’t your responsibility. You were just looking after her in your sister’s absence but as it became harder and harder to ignore that just because she wasn’t your child, didn’t mean you weren’t her parent.

So, you slowly let go of things that reminded you that your life wasn’t the same. You stopped seeing guys, stopped meeting friends, stopped going on little dates by yourself. Your life slowly became completely and totally Sol’s possession and any semblance of your own identity melted away.

But on those lazy mornings when you aren’t quite awake yet and Yeosang hands you a mug of coffee before you even leave the bed and looks over your shoulder to make sure Sol hasn’t stirred, you could just picture him as a boyfriend you met in your college years and stayed with. You could picture that your biggest problems were that Yeosang would rather play video games than go on a date.

But you’d keep that little piece of delusions to yourself.

Because if there’s one thing that hadn’t let you down in your life, it was the safety of your own mind when you needed a moment to breathe.

“Yeosang,” You interrupted him in the middle of his long-winded explanation, “What exactly are you trying to say here?”

He gave you a pained expression, “(Y/N), he’s been making monthly payments to a columbarium.”

***

With Yeosang insisting that his friends weren’t as bad as you were expecting, you agreed to loosen the reigns a little, allowing him to invite them over while he looked after Sol. Such was the case today. While you were away, Yeosang and Sol were joined by Wooyoung and one of Sooji’s three dogs because Sol just loved animals.

They weren’t doing much, just sitting around the coffee table with pieces of paper in front of them. Sol was working on her own, drawing a house while Wooyoung and Yeosang played tic-tac-toe. When Yeosang lost the game for the fourth time, Wooyoung looked up to find him staring at the piece of paper with more concentration than necessary.

“You okay man?”

Yeosang looked up at him, realizing that he had been pointlessly scribbling the O till it was just a huge dot. He sighed, leaning back on both his hands, “Yeah, just worried about—” He stopped himself before saying your name, glancing at the girl beside him and relieved that she didn’t notice.

So far, she hadn’t begun missing you yet, too wrapped up in her drawings to even realize that you were missing from the house, and he tried hard to make sure it would stay that way, distracting her quickly whenever she began wondering where you were. He let Sol watch whatever she wanted during breakfast, spent nearly an hour messing up the kitchen while cooking chocolate chip pancakes because neither of them knew your special recipe. He even watched the same Winx Club movie with her twice in a row because apparently kids have no sense of monotony and tedium.

He was already making plans to take her to the backyard after she got sick of drawing so she could play with the 3 dogs and tire herself out, but he knew that if you weren’t back in time to put her to bed, she would throw the world’s biggest tantrum.

“You’re getting awfully involved with her.” Wooyoung brought up casually, drawing the box to start another game.

“I mean, I’m just trying to help.” He murmured, knowing just where this conversation was going but for some reason, he couldn’t stop himself from pussyfooting around the topic. His best friend gave him a look, “No, you’re going way beyond ‘just’ helping at this point.”

He rolled his eyes in response though he knew what Wooyoung was accusing him of was true. He didn’t think he would end up getting this attached to little Sol and you. His mornings used to start out the way his nights ended, sleep deprived and half unconscious at his computer. Yeosang’s life was very much bound by his screen, and it was often that he would go weeks without interacting with anyone.

This was what was expected of him, when he had a job, he had to put himself into all of it and more often than not it felt like this was the only purpose in his life. Sure, his friends were so close that they were practically family, but he had no one relying on him and his existence felt very virtual and temporary. There were many times while he was trapped in between four walls when he would just think if anything in his life was worth it.

He pushed himself very hard, but he felt like he had nothing to show for it, no meaningful rewards to reap from it.

But something as small as you are smiling at him first thing after you woke up or Sol involving him in conversations as though you were a family had his stomach pooling with honey-sweet sustenance and belonging. It was crazy, he knew that. He was an outsider, looking into your perfect little family from beyond an invisible boundary. He was just here to help you get back to that perfect place and he couldn’t let himself be deluded into thinking that maybe there would be a place for him.

Even if he wanted that, it wasn’t the best for you or Sol. He was a mafia member, the very reason his mother stopped speaking to him in the first place. Even though he knew you held no bad feelings against him, Yeosang would be lying if he said that he didn’t see your hands shake from fear and anxiety whenever he spoke of this part of his life.

He sighed, drawing another hash after he lost the game for the sixth time, “Just drop it. It’s just a passing feeling, it’ll go away.”

He didn’t know what exactly he was talking about, the feeling of inexplicable love every time he looked at the little girl beside him or the desire for nothing but your happiness whenever he looked into your eyes. Sol innocently watched them playing tic-tac-toe and an idea struck her, flipping over the paper to use the blank side, and trying to draw the hash so she could join them.

She attempted to draw a straight line when her hand trembled and it came out bumpy and crooked. She erased the line and tried again only to come out with the same result. After a couple more tries, Yeosang glanced over when he heard a sniffle, startled to find her wiping tears from her eyes.

“Oh, what’s wrong?” Wooyoung looked up at the surprisingly soft tone, thinking he was talking to him and was even more surprised to see Yeosang quickly pull her into his lap and wrap his arms around her. He was concerned for his friend. This was the first time in years that it looked like he was actually taking care of himself.

Wooyoung knew that Yeosang wouldn’t admit it but when his mother had cut ties with him, it had hit him hard. This was the first time that he had ever seen Yeosang look so fulfilled and he wasn’t sure what worried him more, that it could be ripped very quickly from him once he was done helping you and you would walk away, or that it could be ripped even faster from him if he couldn’t help you.

“I wanted to draw what you were drawing and play with you, but I can’t do it!” She whined into his neck, and Yeosang cooed, patting her back.

“It’s okay. We can still play the game together. I like your version better anyway.” He said, patiently waiting for her to stop crying before he delicately wiped away her tears, “You want me to teach you how to play?”

When she nodded, he turned her around in his lap, still keeping an arm around her and grabbed her pencil.

***

You stared at the marble urn in the shelf with an empty expression. A small, framed picture of your sister was beside it. She was smiling brightly, taunting you with the carefree look in her eyes. The sun glimmered like gold in her hair and her skin glowed like honey.

“You selfish bitch.” You choked out, feeling like you were sinking. You tried to look at her face while saying it, but all your eyes could focus on was your pained reflection staring back at you from the glass.

And all at once it felt like you were breaking. The dam had collapsed. The seams had ripped. Your knees were far too weak to support you and you tumbled to the ground, clutching your head as you wailed into your lap.

“I’m sorry! I’m so so sorry! I tried! I really did!” You sobbed out, not even bothering to wipe the streams of tears that were leaving your eyes. Why bother when they were quickly replaced.

“I just— Sometimes, I— I feel like—” You tried to tell her, but the words kept getting caught painfully in your throat. You couldn’t admit it to her, no matter how hard you tried. You knew she couldn’t hear you, couldn’t respond and couldn’t do much to help but still you couldn’t admit it.

Your heart felt like it was tearing itself into shreds, your stomach twisting so tightly that you could feel acid climb up your throat. You could barely breathe in between sobs, and it felt like every single cell in your body was hurting.

You had grown apart from your sister when you both had become adults, it was inevitable that you did. You weren’t teenagers that shared a room anymore, you both were now grown-ups who had to live their own lives. You got busy with your own career and your sister was the same. You would see each other at family dinners and special occasions but eventually those became few and far between.

Looking back, you couldn’t really put all the blame on her, you had missed many dinners due to work and your heart clenched in your chest at the thought that your absence might have pushed her to this person.

Regardless, she was still your sister and you loved her. And now, she was just, gone. You thought back to the last time you had seen her, she was so haggard and worn. Did she die in the same way? Tired, desperate, and alone? She had so much to live for, a daughter, your parents, and even you and it killed a part of you to know that someone you loved was now reduced to a pile of ash in an urn.

You cried for what felt like forever before leaning against the opposite shelves and staring up at her column. Your head was blank for the first time in years, and you couldn’t think of anything no matter how hard you tried to. There were things that needed your attention, like how you would break the news to your parents, how you would keep Sol safe but every time you thought of either, it would evaporate into nothing until you were just blank.

You had no more fight left to give, nothing more to provide, nothing left to give away. Whenever you cared for Sol, looked after her, loved her, you had been borrowing energy from your future elf. Somewhere, deep down, you kept hope that your sister would one day return, and you could just go back to being her aunt. But now it felt like there would never be an end and you had hit a wall.

It was sick, you knew you were, that you felt some sort of resentment towards a small, innocent little girl. She had done nothing wrong, and you knew that but sometimes whenever you looked at her, all you could see was something that was holding you down. Sometimes you thought about giving her up for adoption or handing her to her grandparents and when things got really bad you would think about packing a bag in the middle of the night and just leaving.

You loved Sol, so much but you were always trying to keep her at arm’s length and now that you couldn’t justify it anymore, the horrid, disgusting feelings of resentment, of rejection came bubbling up and you couldn’t help but feel repulsed by yourself.

“I don’t know what to do...” You whispered helplessly, looking at the picture of your sister. She was a splitting image of Sol, looking more mature and her features were more angled, but it was still her.

When it felt like you had cried it all out, you stood up once again, ready to leave. The sun was setting outside which meant it would soon be time to put Sol to bed and you’d rather do it yourself than force Yeosang to do it.

You looked at the ground as you were leaving the building, emotionlessly staring at the tiles when a pair of glossy, black shoes came into your vision. Startled, you looked up and realized you were an inch away from a broad chest. When your eyes met the man’s, your blood froze in your veins, and you took a step back.

Logan Nam smirked at you and your eyes widened in fear.

He took a step closer, and you mirrored him, putting as much difference as you could between you.

“When the reception notified me that someone was visiting my wife’s ashes, I had a hunch it would be you.” He said, taking another step toward you. Your heart was beating madly in your ears, and you swallowed thickly.

“I’ll make this simple; I want my daughter.”

Your heartrate ticked up, breath stuttering in your lungs, and you were overwhelmed by the sudden urge to just cry. You still couldn’t bring yourself to say anything, your throat constricting painfully. Immediately, you were filled with hostility. You didn’t know why; you had never met him before and had no reason to mistrust him other than your sister’s words, but you would never go against the last thing she told you before you died.

Whatever she had felt about him, whatever he had done wasn’t important, but you die before ever considering

“Not happening.” You finally replied, finding your voice.

“I wasn’t asking.” He replied coldly and before you could even blink, his hand was around your throat, and he slammed you against the wall. The wind was knocked out of you and the back of your head throbbed so hard that your vision had spots. He wasn’t even applying much pressure, but the hit was so powerful that you had trouble breathing.

He was crazy, downright psychotic. You gasped for air and thrashed around but he didn’t loosen his hold on your throat, pressing down harder until you felt your windpipe collapse from the pressure. Then the panic got real when you couldn’t take any more breaths. Your eyes filled with tears in response, and you tried prying his fingers off you, but he was too strong.

“Maybe I should kill you right now,” He murmured, more to himself than you. His gaze was steady on you, but it looked like he wasn’t seeing you, “I’ll be kind, you can have the spot next to my wife.”

You struggled in his grip, wanting to throw up from the force on your throat but he didn’t relent until you scratched your nails down his face and poked his eyes as hard as you could. The grip on your throat loosened and you took only a moment to catch your breath before running down the hall and trying to get out of the building.

His footsteps picked up behind you and your frantic eyes darted around the halls, spotting a fire extinguisher that hung off the far war and immediately sprinted towards it. He was faster than you expected and slammed you into the wall just as you reached it. The extinguisher hit you badly in the ribs and you groaned in pain but grabbed onto it with a vice-like grip.

It was too heavy for you to throw at him, regardless of how much the adrenaline pumping through your veins was pushing your body and, in a panic, you pushed down the lever and were startled when foam sprayed out of the nozzle with such a high pressure that it was enough to knock him off you. You managed to catch him off-guard, throwing him offbeat and didn’t wait for him to gain his senses before you dropped the cannister and ran.

You made at out of the building, nearly giving yourself a whiplash as you tried to spot a taxi, not stopping your sprint for even a second. You could hear him behind you but to your relief, he was farther than he was last time. Just as you were about to leave the enclosure, you heard a gunshot and shrieked, ducking away from the shards of glass that exploded from the streetlamp that he shot.

Your heart getting tired, and it was beginning to hurt from how hard it was beating against your ribcage. You were panting heavily, and a cold bead of sweat darted down the length of your back. You made out Logan’s silhouette against the blurring of tears in your eyes, recognizing the smoking gun he was pointing directly at you.

“That was a warning shot. Move and the next one won’t be.”

There was a beat of silence where you contemplated what to do. Your body flinched and you involuntarily took a step back and you saw something flash in his eyes as dread set into your bones. He was going to shoot. You ducked away, almost missing the police car that raced at you with blaring lights and a loud siren and screeched to a stop between the both of you.

“Get in!” Screamed the driver and without wasting a second, you threw open the door and jumped in. She didn’t even wait for you to close the door before she was speeding out of there and merging into the main road.

When the driver was certain that you both were far enough from the columbarium, she looked at you through the rear-view mirror, “I’m Detective Jeong Tae Eul.”

“(Y/N).” You responded, completely out of it. Your body was shaking, and you were terrified that you’d turn around to find Logan staring you down with his crazy eyes and dangerous weapon.

“I’m going to drive you to the police station, okay? We can file a police report together.” She explained with a soothing voice, but her words only caused you to panic more.

“No! We can’t file a report!” You exclaimed and her brows raised in surprise, “Why not?”

Your hands were shaking pathetically in your lap, and you had no explanation for her. If she found out that he was Sol’s biological father and you had no legal custody over her, she might end up turning the tables against you. Sensing your fear, she put the vehicle in park at a traffic light, turning around to look you in the eye.

“It’s going to be okay. Just tell me what happened, I promise nothing will leave this vehicle unless you want it to.”

So, you told Tae Eul everything. In the end, she made a promise to introduce you to one of the best lawyers she knew and promised that her friend, Cha Young, would give you a consultation pro bono and if she thought there was a case, she’d help take it to trial.

***

It was almost two thirty in the morning when you finally got back home, and your body felt so worn out that you felt like you were so close to withering away that second. You weren’t even down the hall before Yeosang intercepted you.

“Where the hell have you been! Why was your phone switched off!” He had barely started his rant, fully intending on chewing you out with how worried he was but his eyes flickered down to your neck for a second before they completely zeroed in on the bruise around your throat.

He paused and it was like you watched all the emotion die out from his face before he was glaring at you darkly. With all the terror you had been through only a few hours ago, you couldn’t even bring yourself to feel afraid anymore, all your emotions and thoughts had vaporized and vanished like the wax of a candle.

He reached his hand out and you shivered as his fingers delicately grazed against the purpling bruise against your skin. You gripped onto his arm for stability, and he finally raised his eyes back to yours, unbridled fury swimming in the depths of his eyes. You could never picture Yeosang as a mafia member, not when he was failing in all his attempts to braid Sol’s hair or when he happily munched down the breakfast you made him, but in this instance, you could understand how he managed to fare for so long in this world.

He looked downright terrifying, and you would’ve been shaking in your boots if you didn’t know that he was angry for you, not at you.

“Who did this to you?”

Fuck. He couldn’t look at you like that and say things like that and expect you not to melt into a puddle of absolute mush. You sighed shakily, ignoring the butterflies in your stomach and the absolute state of euphoria and warmth that was rushing through you that you were finally home and safe with Yeosang.

“I ran into Logan.” You explained, trailing off when his eyes widened, and it seemed like you had just lit a fire inside him.

“That bitch!” He seethed and the veins in his neck popped out but even then, the tender touch of his fingers on your neck never got even a fraction more abrasive or forceful. A rush of things passed on his face, mostly rage but then it finally washed away, and he was the kind, domestic Yeosang you had always known.

“Are you alright? Does it hurt?”

You shook your head silently and he released a shaky breath before pulling you in for a hug. He gently caressed your hair, and you buried your face into the crook of his neck, wrapping your arms tightly around his middle and inhaling the smell of home. The material of his sweater was bunched tightly in your fist, pulling yourself so close to his body that you could be considered as one.

“You’re safe now.” He whispered, holding you and even though you didn’t believe him, you nodded and then breathed in deeply.

After a few minutes, you spoke up, not bothering to move your head and Yeosang shivered when he felt your lips brush against the skin of his neck, “Where’s Sol?”

“I put her to bed hours ago. She went down no problem.” He responded in perfect sync, and you sighed in relief.

“Thank you,” You whispered, kissing whatever piece of skin you could reach in gratitude and even though you thought he would flinch or freeze, he said nothing and rocked you back and forth like a pendulum, “For everything.”

***

You stared at Sol’s sleeping form, the moonlight peeking through the curtains being enough for you to recognize her features that you had memorized. This precious, little girl was your everything. She was your mornings and your nights, and she was completely worth all the hard work and the burdens you had to go through.

You loved her so much and she wouldn’t ever know the surface of the struggles you went through trying to raise her, but you would continue to do so.

You were trying so hard to deflect the burden from yourself, claiming that Sol wasn’t your responsibility, since she was your sister’s child but if you won full custody over her, she would forever be yours. You had always tried to run away from fully accepting her because you were scared, terrified even to the changes it would bring to your life.

But in the silence of the night, you looked at the sweet girl and realized just how much you had changed without realizing. Mornings would begin with a kiss on the cheek in greeting the same way the day would end. With Sol, even things as little as cooking or bath-time could turn into a fun activity and you remembered just how many times you could feel full just from looking at her.

Yes, you didn’t have anyone to depend on and yes, it was difficult. My goodness, it was so difficult. But you couldn’t say goodbye to the good moments, no matter how strenuous the bad ones were. You had seen her first steps, her first words and had been there for every milestone that she had been through.

You weren’t her mother, but she was your child. In every sense, in every thought, in every language, in every moment. She was yours.

Suddenly overwhelmed with so much emotion that you felt tears prick at your eyes, you leaned over to brush a few hairs out of her face before kissing her cheek, “I love you so much.”

The door clicked open, and you glanced over to see Yeosang pad in with a cup of tea. Smiling lightly, you shifted over on the bed and gave him room to sit beside you. Now with a steaming cup of tea in your hands, you were able to soothe your throat that was throbbing and scratchy from the amount of crying you had done through the day.

He was right, he made tea way better than you did.

“She’s cute, right?” He whispered and you chuckled before nodding.

“She gets it from you.”

***

You glanced between the 7 men apprehensively, watching as they awkwardly lingered around the doorway. Aside from Yeosang, of course, who made himself at home on the couch immediately, grabbing the bowl of popcorn that Sol had been hogging.

“Um, I thought you said you had a guy’s night?” You asked, biting your lip. Yeosang had informed you about their night a couple days ago and you thought it was a great idea. After filing the lawsuit for custody against Logan, any attempts of abduction had stopped as well since it could reflect badly in the legal fight. Since then, you had returned to work and Sol had been going back to kindergarten even though Yeosang’s mom had strict instructions to call him first and not you in an emergency.

You were worried that you were beginning to rely on Yeosang a little too much and though you were still living together on Ateez’s homebase, you thought he deserved the much-needed break and some time to blow off steam with his friends. You were more than prepared for him to come home absolutely wasted. You had even courteously decided to sleep on the couch so he could have his own bed back for a night.

Yunho blushed, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket and handing it to you. When you unfolded the paper, your cheeks heated up in embarrassment.

‘Dear tall oppa, I am keeping a movy nite on Sunday nite! It’s at 7 pm so don’t be late!’

There were way too many stickers around the sides of the paper and a few of the letters were in the wrong direction. You could clearly tell that there was a lot of thought put into this, considering that the stickers were off a giraffe and a smiling puppy, which you were sure that she associated Yunho with. You ran a hand over your face, trying to hide your embarrassment and face that had darkened with a blush but doing an awful job.

“I’m sorry you guys, you don’t need to attend, you already made plans. I’m sure Sol will understand.” You said, feeling ashamed that they were guilted into attending because Sol had a cute face.

Sol, having heard what you said, immediately began protesting and climbed into Yeosang’s lap and wrapping her tiny arms around his neck. He was quick to move the bowl of popcorn away, nearly missing Sol’s foot to his crotch and cradled her so that she was sitting more comfortably.

“No! I wanna have a movie night with everyone.”

You sighed, feeling your neck heat up, “Sol, please, they all have plans.”

She whined, wrapping her arms around Yeosang tighter, and burying her little face in his neck.

The others smiled kindly at you, and you felt grateful albeit still quite embarrassed, “It’s okay (Y/N), we don’t mind.”

They all began shuffling in the door and you realized they each brought their own movie snacks and before no time they were all crowded around the TV. Delighted that everyone was there to join her, she beamed at Yeosang, practically shaking with joy in his lap and he gave her a fond smile, glancing at you and patting the empty spot beside him.

“So, what movie are we watching?”

“Winx Club!”

Everyone groaned.

“(Y/N) if I have to watch this movie again, I’m going to shoot myself.”

***

You couldn’t remember the last time you had let loose this way. When you got home after winning the custody case, you were immediately handed a drink that Wooyoung called his ‘Magic Potion’. A few magic potions later, you were giggling madly into Yeosang’s neck.

Thankfully, Seonghwa was looking after Sol for the rest of the evening, so he was able to give you his undivided attention just as the fourth drink began to hit you. You had already played hide-and-seek and even hidden many things like Chayoung’s briefcase and Wooyoung’s Apple watch.

“Okay, I think you’ve had enough drinks.” Yeosang said, grabbing the glass that Wooyoung was holding out to you and immediately you pouted, wrapping your arms around his neck, and releasing a pathetic whine.

“Nooo, I want to drink some moreeee.”

He could smell the alcohol on your breath, and you could barely take a step without stumbling. With a steady arm around your waist, he guided you away from Wooyoung who began chanting that he was no fun since he became a dad (Yeosang promptly ignored that part, even though his neck was getting uncomfortably hot). While he did want a drink too, he really thought that only one of you should be hungover the next day.

“You can have a glass of water.”

“But I don’t want water!” You exclaimed, stomping your foot and he sighed, mentally comparing you to Sol when she threw a tantrum but you were still easy to manoeuvre toward the bedroom so he could put you to bed before you ended up passing out.

Your energy level plummeted the farther you walked and by the time you both entered your room, your head was lolling, and you were breathing deeply as though asleep standing upright.

“Did I ever tell you how much you mean to me?” He heard you ask quietly and froze in his steps. You turned to look at him with a sober gaze that startled him. You looked so damn serious about it, like you were genuinely asking him rather than just going off on some drunk tangent.

You gave him a wobbly smile, “I’m sorry that I’ve been relying on you so much lately. It feels really one-sided, and I’m actually terrified that you’ll think of me as a burden.”

He didn’t know what to do. You were definitely drunk, and it was most likely the reason you were suddenly bearing your heart to him but with each word that came out of your mouth, another nerve began buzzing with electricity.

“Maybe if everything was normal, I could just ask you out like I want to, but I don’t have the balls because I’m worried it will ruin everything.” You laughed at yourself, running a hand down your face and his stomach hollowed out, hundreds of flurries of butterflies flapping incessantly so far up his throat that it felt he couldn’t breathe. You wanted to ask him out?

“And isn’t it so funny that I can only tell you how I feel when I’m drunk out of my mind?” You laughed out but your voice was tight. He knew you were scared but your inhibition was hindered, he knew that.

“Because I know you’ll pretend like it never happened the next day if you don’t feel the same. Because I wasn’t in the right state of mind. Hah, even when I’m telling you that I love you, I’m selfish. I’m so pathetic.” You laughed brokenly and his heart tightened in his chest.

Yeosang stared at you with widened eyes, watching the way your eyes glimmered and the slight tint to your cheeks from drinking too much.

“W-What?”

You giggled at his startled face and took a clumsy but deliberate step toward him before raising a hand to cup his cheek, “I’m in love with you. And it’s not only because you’re the only one who supports me. It’s because you’re funny, and you’re nice but in a funny, backhanded way, and you care about me like I care about you, and sometimes when I look at you, I feel complete. Like how I feel when I look at Sol. I’m very happy when I’m with you.”

The way you were looking at him. The things you were saying too him. It was all too much. Too much for his frail little heart to handle. Yeosang was undoubtedly the least emotional one from Ateez, it was easy for him to emotionally disconnect. In his line of work, it was important for him not to get extremely sensitive toward something.

But the way you were touching him, like he was a tender flower instead of the burdened steel he has always been made his heart race in his chest. It had been way too long since he had felt so adored and had been even longer since he had adored someone as much as he did you.

Too dazed from your confession, he didn’t quite react when you leaned in to capture his lips in a soft kiss before pulling away. You looked at him with a steady gaze, “I’m in love with you.”

You kissed him again and this time he returned it. His arms coiled around your waist, holding your hips firmly and you threw your arms around his neck, kissing him eagerly. Yeosang sighed against your mouth, his heart getting bigger with each second that your lips touched his. You were sweet, so sweet that he felt dizzy but wanted to taste more of you.

He gently teased his tongue against yours until you were short of breath, and you raked your fingers through his fluffy hair just as he sucked your bottom lip into his mouth.

The two of you stumbled back in a daze, not breaking the kiss until the back of your knees collided with the bed and you tumbled to the mattress, pulling him down with you. His reflexes worked quickly, keeping himself from crushing you with his arms framing your body as he continued to graze his tongue against yours.

The lingering taste of alcohol on your tongue reminded Yeosang that you were still drunk, and he pulled away with a sigh, knowing that he couldn’t let anything happen if you weren’t in the right state of mind.

“Sang—” You whimpered, trying to pull him back to you by wrapping your legs around his waist and his resolved weakened just a bit when he felt his stomach drop with need and his neck get hot, but he gave you one last kiss before he pulled away just enough to kiss your forehead.

“You’re drunk.” He replied, expecting that to be enough of an explanation but your head was still spinning from the heavenly kiss and all you wanted was to be close to him. He tried to move off you, but you panicked and grabbed his shirt before pulling him closer.

“Don’t leave me.” You whispered, distressed. He kissed your temple before pressing another one to your cheek, pulling away again so he could look you in the eye.

“I won’t. I’ll be right here.”

“I’m sorry.” You apologized and neither of you were sure for what, but he silenced any fears you might have, pulling you in for a hug before he lowered your head onto a pillow and pulled the duvet up to cover you.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Just get some rest, I’ll be here in the morning.”

It was dark, but he could still see your features despite it. Yeosang briefly wondered if it was because he spent every waking moment thinking of you. Of your bright eyes, of your glowing skin, of your gorgeous hair, of your sweet lips.

Now that he had finally gotten a taste of them, a taste of you, he couldn’t begin to dream of letting you go. He just couldn’t. A part of him churned with uncertainty, fear, and insecurity. Did you really mean what you said? Or was it the liquor talking? While he wondered about that, he tried pushing down those horrible, intrusive thoughts that would trouble him whenever he had something good.

Those awful thoughts that would remind him that it wouldn’t be too long until he ruined it.

You were so beautiful, so pure, how could he even think of tainting you with his own colours? It killed him to think that if he pursued something with you, it would only end badly. You and Sol had become such a big part of his life, would he be able to survive without you?

Those thoughts that he struggled to push away no matter how hard he tried reminded him that he wasn’t asking the right question.

Would he be able to live with himself if anything ever happened to you?

***

It was well into the day when you were rudely awakened by the insistent sun. Your head was throbbing lightly from how hard you fell asleep, but you didn’t feel too hungover. Sighing and groaning, you finally found the willpower to sit up straight and when you glanced at the nightstand you couldn’t help but chuckle at the ‘Feel better auntie!’ written on a post-it note with a heart drawn beside it. Yeosang must have told her you weren’t feeling well when you didn’t wake up to drop her off at kindergarten.

After brushing your teeth, you returned to the bedroom even drowsier than you were when you first woke up and considered pulling up the covers and falling asleep again when the door clicked open and Yeosang poked his head through.

And in that instant, everything from last night came flooding back to you. Suddenly, it felt like every nerve ending sparked alive, rushing through your body like a wildfire as images flashed behind your eyes faster than you could process. Your lips tingled with the memory of the kiss, and you felt shocks crawl up your waist where his hands were.

You could only faintly remember the feeling of his hard body pressed against yours and immediately you were filled with immense longing to feel it again. God, it had barely been 20 minutes since you had woken up and you were already craving for him like a hormonal teenager.

It was hardly your fault though, how were you meant to concentrate when he was wearing a tank top that revealed his distracting arms and with the neck cut low enough to see his chest? Honestly, he was too attractive for his own good.

A steady heat climbed up to your cheeks when you realized you had been staring at him for a good minute and you pursed your lips, trying to kill the sparks that began to sting.

“Hi.”

He smiled gently, handing you a bottle of water along with an aspirin and you took it without qualms, “How are you feeling?”

“Not too terrible, that heavy dinner really helped.” You replied, patting your stomach and he scoffed, “You’re welcome.”

It was silent again and even though you could simply pretend like last night hadn’t happened to make the atmosphere bearable, you felt the need to set things straight with him.

“About last night, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything.” You told him, staring at the bottle in your hands and playing with the wrapper.

“I half expected you to have completely forgotten about last night.” He admitted and you almost laughed. The kiss had been everything except forgettable. It was the type of kiss you’d think about even in a couple years and still feel something.

“I didn’t drink that much.” You replied, trying to bring a little mirth in your voice and he chuckled before nodding, “Yeah, but my luck usually turns out to be like that.”

There was another beat of quiet, an awkward tango where you weren’t sure who should speak first but eventually you opened your mouth again, “We can forget about it if you want, I really don’t want things to get awkward between us.”

He remembered the words you told him last night, how you confessed that you were terrified that you’d be a burden to him. He felt the same way. You both had such important things in your life right now that another priority might feel burdensome, he could understand if you felt that way about him.

But Yeosang never thought of you as a burden, more like a rewarding anchor to the world when he felt like he might be sinking down too far.

The silence was beginning to get awkward, and you shifted in the bed, tempted to take another sip of water, “It’s really not a big deal, Sang. We can just forget about the whole thing—”

“Are you drunk right now?”

You paused.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you drunk right now?” He repeated, just as plain as the last time and your brows pinched together, trying to figure out just what angle he was playing.

“……No?”

“Good.” He said, leaning in so he could cup both your cheeks in his hands, and you stared at him wide-eyed, “Because I sure as hell want you to remember this.”

And then he was kissing you like he had roamed the desert, and you were a glass of cold water. He kissed you like a fresh rain shower after a year of drought. He kissed you like every song you had ever heard and every book you had ever read.

Kissing Yeosang was all too much and at the same time not enough. You felt his tender lips against yours and the air in your lungs managed to disappear in a quick second, but you didn’t falter for a moment, tightly wrapping your arms around his shoulders just as his hands slid down to your lower back.

Your breathing stuttered as his tongue gently traced your mouth and your stomach lurched with such undeniable need that you felt your head get foggy. It hurt, it physically hurt from how much you needed to be close to him at the moment. So much that your body trembled with pent-up energy.

With a hand to the back of your head, he lowered you down to the plush pillows, not wanting to part from you for even a second. Everything was getting fuzzy in the best way possible and when Yeosang broke the kiss for a moment to pull his shirt off, it felt like something in you just snapped.

To say he was startled when you suddenly wrapped your legs around his waist and rolled on top of him was an understatement, but he didn’t even get to say anything before you were kissing your way down his neck, nipping, and licking at every spot you could.

He squirmed underneath you, now very aware how close your heat was to his dick and moaned shakily when you sucked at his pulse point.

His hands ran down your back and grabbed your ass, “W-Wait, I want you to have fun too.”

You raised your head from his neck, smirking at the light marks that began to form, “Who said I wasn’t having fun?”

You were both surprised at the loud moan that left his mouth when your teeth sank into the spot where his neck met his shoulder. Soothing the mark with your tongue, you moved a little lower, kissing down his pecs. Even though you were nowhere near finished, you let him guide you back into another kiss.

He flipped the two of you over, giving you a smirk that had butterflies erupting up your throat and hiked your shirt up his wrists, delighted to find that you hadn’t put on a bra yet.

“My turn.”

Breathy moans left your mouth as he teased your breasts with nimble fingers while his talented mouth left pretty red marks along them. One of his hands pressed against your back, arching your chest into his mouth while the other left featherlight touches along your stomach on its way to the waistband of your pants.

Tufts of his hear peeked from between your fingers as you gently tugged and he groaned, reaching to kiss you again when he began tugging your pants and panties down the length of your legs. You helped him throw them off you and shivered in excitement when he grazed your inner thighs.

You were sure there would be more times for him to be rough and for you both to be captured in moments of intense passion but for now you both were taking it slow which had your heart beating in your chest so hard from anticipation that he could hear it.

You let out a content sigh when the tips of his fingers caressed your lower lips. Yeosang was occupied with sucking on your tongue when his thumb began rubbing slow circles against your clit. You gasped, throwing your head back against the pillows and mewling.

He chuckled, “Feeling good?”

“So good.” You whined, brows furrowing together when a finger poked at your entrance. Your thighs would have clamped tightly around his wrist if he wasn’t holding them open.

“How many do you think you can handle?” He asked you and even though your eyelids felt like they were magnetically shut, you wrenched them open to see his soft smile at your confused expression.

“Fingers?”

He huffed out a laugh, “No, orgasms. Don’t wanna overstimulate you if you aren’t ready.”

You inhaled sharply when he shallowly thrust two fingers into you, gripping his biceps tightly, “To be honest, I don’t think I can take more than one today.”

The smirk on his face turned a little dark and he felt your pussy clench around his fingers, “I can do that.”

He swallowed your loud moans with a deep kiss and moved his fingers quickly, alternating between thrusting into your dripping hole with a breaking pace and rubbing his wet fingers against your clit. The knot in your stomach wound tighter and tighter with each flick and you felt yourself getting closer to the edge.

You were so close you could practically taste it, squirming in his grip as you inched closer to ecstasy when he stopped his movements.

Yeosang pulled away from the kiss specifically to hear you groan while he peppered kisses against your neck, “Why’d you stop?”

He licked at the hollow of your collarbone, “You said you’d only be able to handle one. Gotta pace yourself, baby. I’ll make you cum.”

“But I was so close.” You whined, the end of your sentence coming out as a moan when he moved spread his fingers slightly, feeling your plush walls push back against them.

He kissed the spot between your brows, making you aware of your scrunched up face and you relaxed, “I know but you’ve only given me one chance to rock your world and I’m not letting you cum anywhere but my cock.”

A hot blush crept up your face at his frank words and you stared up at the ceiling in embarrassment.

He laughed, and sped up the pace of his fingers slightly, “You’re naked in my bed and you’re feeling shy from my words?”

You hid your face, “Now I’m feeling embarrassed about both.”

His nose nuzzled your cheek lightly, thumbing your clit until you were close again and then abruptly pulled his fingers away from your heat while you whined in disappointment. When you peeked at him between your fingers, he popped the soaked digits in his mouth, growling at the taste of you.

“Fuck, can I eat you out?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, “If you plan on making me cum.”

He shrugged, “Next time then.”

You felt the weight of his body disappear while he pulled off his pants before he crawled back over you, using one of his arms to hold his weight while he reached in his nightstand to pull out a condom.

You raised a brow at the silver packet, wondering just why he had a supply of condoms in a place that wasn’t even his, “How many girls have you brought here?”

“It was a gag gift from Wooyoung. Who’s laughing now?” He muttered in an explanation, hissing as the rolled the rubber on. You giggled when he leaned over you with a wide smile, pecking your cheeks quickly and you cupped his face this time before bringing him in for a sweet kiss.

“Ready?” He whispered against your lips, and you nodded, gently playing with the short hairs on the back of his neck. You panted against each other’s mouths when he finally pushed in, groaning in unison.

The way he stretched you open when he buried himself deep inside you had your eyes rolling to the back of your head as you moaned his name wantonly. The deep groans he was letting out reverberated through his chest and you could feel the feeble vibrations against your own chest pressed to his.

Yeosang felt dizzy at the sound of your sweet moans, at the feeling of your nails scratching lightly at his scalp, at your perfect body and your perfect curves pressed against him. Suddenly overwhelmed with so much stimulation, he shakily exhaled into your neck, pausing for a moment before he began moving his hips and by reflex, your legs wrapped themselves around his waist, sending his head spinning even more.

He rocked against you steadily, quickly licking away the bead of sweat that rolled down your neck and you whined at the pleasure, gasping when snapped his hips with more power. Eager from the long wait, he began relentlessly thrusting into you, groaning loudly at your pussy clenching around him at random beats.

You swore you saw stars attached to the white ceiling when the head of his cock brushed up against that one spot and you released a high-pitched moan, “Fuck right there, please.”

He pulled away from you for just a second to readjust the position of your legs before he continued pounding into you and it felt like your soul had left your body for a second when he hit that spot perfectly each time and you were sent hurtling over the edge, cumming with a loud moan.

He finished soon after, keeping his pace until you both came down from your highs, kissing you sweetly. He didn’t pull out just yet, waiting until you both had caught your breath before he did.

You automatically curled into his side when he lied down beside you, placing your head on his chest and his arm wound around your waist. You didn’t speak for a while, didn’t sleep, didn’t move, just stayed there, pressed against each other, and basking in the afterglow.

“Are you sure you want this?” Yeosang finally asked and you raised your head with a confused pout, “Kind of late to ask that question, don’t you think?”

He rolled his eyes, “Not that, I meant me. Are you sure you want a relationship with me?”

“What do you mean?”

You tilted your head in the most adorable way that his heart began racing again. His mind willed him to be just silent, to just enjoy the sight of the gorgeous, naked girl in his arms but he spoke once again, “I’m part of the mafia, (Y/N). And you’re part of the tax-paying, righteous, beautiful public. Are you sure you want that?”

You paused and it felt like time had stopped for a year for Yeosang. He made up his mind then. Whatever be your answer, he would accept it, no follow-up questions, no attempt to convince you and he swore that he wouldn’t make you feel bad for it. Afterall, you both had made your choices about the kind of life you want to lead.

He was determined not to make you feel guilty for rejecting him. Afterall, you were just trying to do what was best for your family.

But then you smiled at him, kissing the corner of his lips, “I used to think that everything was black and white, but you’ve showed me differently. And I want this with you, I really do love you, Sang.”

His heart squeezed in his chest, all the questions he wanted to ask you disappeared like weightless clouds in the sky and he pressed his lips to yours, “I love you, too.”

You sighed happily, gently tracing figures onto his bare chest while his fingers drummed a random pattern on your hips, “I wish we could just stay here forever.”

He spared a glance at the clock and groaned internally, “We have to leave to pick up Sol in like an hour.”

You abruptly sat up, holding the covers to your chest, and stared at him with wide eyes, “We have to change the sheets!”

With a mischievous grin, he scooped you up in his arms and ran to the bathroom while you let out a startled laugh, “Shower first!”

***

As soon as you stepped outside the car to pick up Sol, you had realized that something had gone incredibly wrong. You stopped Yeosang before he could take another step, turning to him with a panicked gaze, “Call the others.”

“What? Why?” He questioned but still pulled out his phone without missing a beat and sent an alert to the others.

“Hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly.”

It was then that he realized what you were saying. It was absolutely silent, no sound of the excited children chattering with their friends, or of the teachers fondly saying their goodbyes to the students, no honking from the cars of the other parents as they tried to find a parking spot.

You shared a wide-eyed gaze before sprinting to the door. Yeosang pulled out his gun, signalling you to keep quiet before you both entered the building and you nodded, breathing in deeply as you both stepped past the door away as silently as you could.

You stayed behind him as he crept towards Sol’s classroom and just as his hand inched toward the handle, the door slammed open and there stood Mrs. Kang, staring at you with a pained smile. Yeosang started, straightening up when he realized he was still pointing the weapon at her.

“Mom? What are you doing? Where is everyone? Where’s Sol?”

She smiled nervously and you could see her body shake, “I sent them all home early.”

Your brows furrowed, “What? Why? Where’s Sol?”

She stepped aside and if your body hadn’t frozen with horror, you would have screamed.

Logan Nam sat sinisterly in Mrs. Kang’s seat like a throne and perched in his lap was Sol, face stricken with tears and duct tape plastered to her mouth. Your eyes immediately glossed over, and you swallowed painfully at the sight of her terrified face and the knife that he held to her throat.

Yeosang stepped in front of you protectively, aiming the gun at Logan. His hands were clenched so hard around the Glock that you could see them shake with absolute fury. It looked like he could light this whole place on fire with a single glare and if looks could kill, Logan Nam would have been mutilated right before your very eyes, “Let. Her. Go.”

He laughed, “Why should I? She’s my daughter. I have the right to do this.”

There it was, that beat of helplessness masked with fear that you felt when you saw his arm tighten around Sol and a fresh wave of tears streamed down her cheeks, cries muffled by the tape.

You clutched your hands tightly at your sides, biting your tongue to keep yourself from crying at the sight of her weeping in terror.

“This is why you should have given her to me when I asked you so nicely.” He said, stroking her hair and you almost scoffed at that. He hadn’t asked, he had demanded, and when you refused, he almost choked you to death.

“She deserves this, you know.” He said nonchalantly but you knew of his psychotic tone. It was the same tone he used when he threatened to kill you and your body shook with emotions you couldn’t explain, “She took her away from me.”

You clenched your jaw so tightly you could swear that you felt a tooth crack.

“We used to be in love, she was my soulmate. But then this bitch was conceived.” He said with such sick hatred and Yeosang bristled at him cussing at Sol, “And little by little she loved me less, her attention was taken from me. Suddenly it was all ‘the baby this’ ‘our baby that’, she took her away from me, she deserves this.”

“You’re sick!” You spat, eyes burning with fury and your nails dug so hard into your palms that it hurt.

His eyes widened and he laughed, in a crazed, manic way that had your heart stuttering in fear. You needed Sol out of there, no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice, “I just wanted to love your sister, my wife. We loved each other more than anybody else but then she changed. She began loving ‘this’ instead. She took back her words to only love me, so I made sure she wouldn’t make any more mistakes. I killed her, so that she couldn’t love me less.”

You had never felt more wrath than you had now. Your body was trembling with anger and your hands itched to wring his neck, but you stayed in place, extremely aware of the knife that he held loosely. Yeosang didn’t have a clear shot at him, he feared that any move he made could hurt Sol, so he kept his finger on the trigger, hoping for a miracle.

“I’m going to get my revenge.”

There was a moment of static silence where neither man made a move, but you pounced quickly.

You grabbed Yeosang’s wrist and pointed the gun at the ceiling above him, shooting at the light and a loud bang echoed through the halls. Logan was startled just enough for his grip on the knife to loosen as the ceiling tiles nearly crushed him and Sol.

Sol rushed out of his lap, running toward you and you saw her kidnapper attempt to grab her again, but you ran and slammed into him. The knife clattered to the ground and the both of you collided with the wall. You yelped when he grabbed a chunk of your hair and slammed your head against the corner of the desk. You groaned in pain, trying to kick him off you but he would not budge.

“(Y/N)!”

“Sol first!” You shouted back and he wasted no time in complaining, scooping up the wailing child in his arms and wrapping an arm around his mother, taking them out of the building.

The man in front of you attempted to follow them but you stood up once again, ignoring the spots in your vision and jumping at him. Once again you both crashed into the wall, ricocheting against multiple surfaces like pinballs while he tried to rip you off him. The breath was knocked out of you as he violently slammed your back against the chalkboard, but you didn’t relent.

He used his strength to pry your arm off him, twisting it so painfully that you felt something pop and you screamed in pain, tumbling to the ground. He turned to face you with an expression that you would continue to see in your nightmares for the rest of your life and you backed away in fear.

“I should’ve snapped your fucking neck when I had the chance.” He whispered darkly and your hands tried to search for something, anything and your palm grazed against the handle of the knife he dropped earlier.

Your hand wrapped tightly around the blade and your resolution hardened like cold metal. The next few seconds passed by in slow motion. Logan charged for you, but his hands did not get the chance to touch you.

Blood splattered on your face and clothes.

You had slit his throat open.

***

When you arrived at the hospital where Mrs. Kang had taken Sol, you were frantic to see your baby girl. You had wiped as much blood as you could on the car ride there while you filled in the rest of Ateez on what had happened. They were filled with a newfound respect as well as pity for you when they found out what you had done.

You and Yeosang rushed to one of the cots in the emergency room, having heard Sol’s loud and panicked cries as soon as you entered, and your eyes were flooded with tears at the mere sound. You ripped open the curtain and bundled her up in your arms along with the blanket she had wrapped around herself.

Sol wailed and screamed into your chest while you wept in utter relief and despair that she had been through this. The waves of fear were still passing through the both of you and even though you wanted to pull yourself together for her sake, you couldn’t stop yourself from crying along with her. Just as you had the night you first met her.

Strong arms wrapped around your shoulders and your head rested against Yeosang’s neck. He pulled Sol to his chest, cradling her tightly against his body, closing his eyes and thanking whatever god that had been listening. If the knife hadn’t been there when you needed it, if Logan had been faster, if he hadn’t waited for the both of you to come before killing Sol; those were thoughts he didn’t even want to venture.

Instead, he screwed his eyes shut and raked a gentle hand through your hair as your cries died down. Eventually, the both of you began to soothe Sol, holding her in between the both of you so she could finally feel safety now that she was back in your arms.

Mrs. Kang glanced at the small family on the hospital bed. She watched the way her son tenderly pressed his forehead to yours before kissing you lightly and the way you held onto him for dear life. And then she glimpsed at the frail, little girl sandwiched between the both of you. Her tiny fingers were clutching onto both her parents’ hands tightly while she cried.

She watched her son who she had only then realized had grown up so much as he pulled his little family into a tight hug before she slid the curtains shut, giving you the privacy that you deserved.

***

1 year later

Family vacations used to be small outings that you could afford to take along with Sol. You didn’t need to keep track of much since you only had a small girl to take, and she was usually satisfied with simply going to the fair or even the beach.

But since revealing her existence to your parents, you had made many trips to the countryside, so they had time to meet and play with Sol. She was ecstatic that she had grandparents who lived on a farm, always going with her grandfather to pick fruit and vegetables or with her grandmother to look at the animals.

You had taken Yeosang along with you this time to spend the weekend along with your parents. He had mentioned it to his mother without thinking much of it and she had immediately called you to see if she and her husband could join as well.

And before you knew it, you were having a big family vacation at your parents’ house. It hadn’t been this full since you were a child and a part of you was overjoyed to have that lively environment and energy.

You were curled up on the patio couch beside Yeosang, both of you keeping a close eye on the little girl who was currently coddling a baby cow. The atmosphere was relaxed, your mother was baking a fresh pie and your father was crocheting a beanie for his darling granddaughter. Mr. and Mrs. Kang were also content in their own seats, smiling at the sight of Sol giggling when the calf licked her hand.

“Are you two planning on getting married soon?” Asked Mrs. Kang and you laughed at the immediate groan that left Yeosang’s lips, hiding your giggling face in the crook of his neck. The topic had actually come up after a family dinner when Sol had proclaimed that when she grows up, she wanted to marry him. You had never seen Yeosang more embarrassed in his life.

You both had agreed that you would want to get married sometime but there wasn’t any rush. Afterall, you lived together, raised a child together and spent every waking moment in each other’s company. It wasn’t like much was missing from your life.

“Mom…” Your boyfriend groaned, tilting his head back and missing the way you stared up at him in adoration, but his mother certainly noticed the sparkling stars in your eyes as you looked at her son.

“What? I want more grandbabies.” She defended, watching as Sol began running back to all of you, satisfied with the amount of animal cuddles she had gotten. She climbed into her teacher’s lap, happily telling her all about the cows and wrapping her arms around her neck.

“Sol-ah, don’t you think your auntie and uncle should get married?” Mrs. Kang asked and you almost burst into laughter when she turned to you with a betrayed look on her face.

“B-But I wanted to marry him!”

#ateez fluff #ateez #ateez x reader #ateez x you #ateez smut #ateez fanfic #ateez mafia au #kpop mafia au #kpop imagines #kang yeosang x reader #kang yeosang #kang yeosang imagines #kang yeosang smut #kang yeosang fluff #kang yeosang angst #ateez yeosang x reader

3K notes · View notes

cinnamonest · 2 years

Note

OMG I WAITED MONTHS TO SEND YOU AN ASK I LOVE YOUR BLOG 💕🛐🛐 an anon mentioned like an end of the world scenario where women were a very very scarce percentage of the population and I really wanted you to expand on that 😭🙏 there could be a girl dressed as a boy who joins a camp full of men (Childe + Scara the fatui) but they figure out her disguise pretty quickly— or another lone traveller like Xiao, Razor, Albedo, Kazuha or Diluc snatches her up on the road like a precious treasure. Maybe women sell for a lot or they are just like 😳 free wife. Diluc especially thinks you won’t survive out here on your own so you should be grateful he “saved” you :)

YESSSSS I love that concept!! I mentioned Fallout there but I'm sticking to a more general idea here... although one day I should make HCs for an actual Fallout AU

Also I went way overboard with this pls enjoy my fellow sexism kink degens

//obvious heavily gendered themes, not just like misogyny (although there's a lot) but also some generalizations about gender both ways for the sake of the scenario.

//Mentions of things like feminine body shapes/voices/hips/breasts, physical strength differences, and other physical markers/indicators as determiners of sex! Please make note of that as I know this can be really uncomfortable for some! Also general fetishization of sexual dimorphism (physical/behavioral differences between binary sexes)!

//also human trafficking, slavery, all the good stuff

But yes SEXIST WORLDBUILDING?? My favorite it's been a while since I got to do this bless

I actually watched a video on something like this once if the sexes experienced like a major population imbalance of like 5-10% : 90-95%... it mentioned that like, given the obvious physical strength difference, disposition tendencies, AND simply being so outnumbered, it might not be such a bad deal for the dudes -- they could likely retain power and essentially market themselves very little violent altercations, not so much violent competition either.

The girls in the alternate universe would be... a lot less fortunate. Not to mention, things would get a lot more violent thanks to the power of Testosterone™. Ultimately, they're sold as sort of a resource, like a luxury good, or an expensive pet. And, of course, reduced to property status. If we're going with the idea that girls simply have a very low birth ratio (as in like only 1 out of 10 births are girls), a lot of times families, especially non-elites, would try to hide them to prevent anything bad from happening, which would inevitably lead to some form of legislation or mandate that they have to be surrendered to higher powers, both for their own safety and the stability and wellbeing of the population as a whole. So that they can be properly utilized, of course.

You would have things like markets, both officially and licensed and underground. The former is more elite -- you have to be licensed to sell, have to have permits and paperwork and all that, and it would inevitably become one of those things that elite circles manage to exclude others from by ensuring only people within their upper circles can buy or sell. The latter is thus created, sort of black markets, which exist to be able to sell them at cheaper prices to people who otherwise couldn't afford them, this way small-time traffickers that manage to get their hands on a few can still make a good deal of money. You can choose by a wide variety of things, such as background, body shape, disposition, etc. It's a better fate, most say, to end up sold to one person, so long as they're not awful. At least it's better than ending up one of the unfortunate ones that ends up public property, either in government-sanctioned brothels or set to operate glory holes for the general public to fill men's needs. To keep society running, you know.

And on that note for most guys, just getting their dick wet ever is a dream they know they'll likely never obtain, or one they have to pay just to obtain for a precious few minutes depending on the legality of brothels in their nation. Actual private sessions cost way more than glory holes, but even then, it's not like the girl will remember his face or care about him in any way, and they're way too busy to allow any after-time -- as soon as you cum, you gotta be out the door so the next one can come in. Sure, some establishments offer sessions where you can actually have a full night with them, talk to them, have some vague imitation of intimacy, but the prices are astronomical. It's not realistically obtainable. And sex is one thing, but to actually get to impregnate a girl is even more unimaginable. So while options exist, it's just not... fulfilling.

The desperation of the situation is what makes everything so much more tense and dangerous -- every bastard wants some for himself, so protectiveness is through the roof for the guys fortunate enough to have wives. A lot more men out there are willing to risk the consequences just to get a spare crumb, and much more brutal about the extents to entrap a girl, should a very lucky bastard manage to find one unprotected out in the world.

But this also increases cheating paranoias as well, which in and of itself is a mate guarding practice. There's so many men out there and so few of you, so every man becomes much more suspicious of any behaviors, since you have so many more men that would have all their attention directed towards you at a given moment. They have to ensure you have no opportunities to cheat, trust isn't enough anymore, they have to ensure you can't even if you wanted to. Even boys who would have already been highly possessive and jealous become even more so. Also the whole concept of war trophies becomes an even bigger deal than it ever was, too. In any sort of wartime (which occurs more often given individual unresolved frustrations), there's much motivation and incentive for it. I mean, instead of paying years' worth of money for a wife you can go get one, just walk right into an enemy village or something and kinda pick one up and go (I mean, it's not that easy when they're kicking and screaming, but you get the jist).

------------

Now... as for our boys, well we have obvious candidates for little rich boys that would get their own little slavewife. Xingqiu's family buys him one for a birthday, it's sort of a tradition, that's how his mom came along too. Officially, of course, a real licensed auction. His dad lets him pick one out, he bribes them at the door to let him browse a bit so he has a good idea of which one he wants before auctioning even starts. His eyes meet yours, in that tiny little crate they shove each of you into, and he smiles. You try to smile back, twitching a bit -- he's young and cute, and you know the alternative is being sold to some gross rich old man, so you might as well shoot for the best you can get. He only gets to talk to you a little bit, asking you questions that you try to give answers to that you think he'd like, try to make yourself sound cute, and he promises he'll get you -- pats you on the head through the bars. He's been around females a little bit, such as his mom of course, his brother has a wife too, and having grown up in rich circles, he's seen more wives than the average young man, although they're always quiet and clinging to their masters, are generally told to look at the ground if they're going out, and really are more often than not kept inside, away from where someone might see them and want to steal them. Still, considering the average young man doesn't even see a human female except their own mother (who of course stays locked inside all the time), that makes him more used to the presence than most young boys.

His dad does end up haggling for you, some other dude keeps trying to outbid him, but he would only have the best for his son, you know? So in the end he pays a larger sum than expected, but it's worth it, he thinks. Thankfully, they took two separate carriages, that way he can leave the two of you alone on your own, he knows his son isn't patient enough to wait all the way until you're home to at least play around a little bit.

------------

Mondstadt has similar markets, but thankfully some places allow you to just pay up-front without any back-and-forth bids. Crepus would definitely seek that sort of establishment out, it's much favorable to bidding. He knows his son well enough to pick one out for him, though. It's a very awkward ride back, he doesn't take the ties off your wrists just yet, lays out the house rules and your responsibilities and all that.

Unfortunately, given the aforementioned desperation of the average man, the house staff present a bit of a problem, Diluc doesn't want any of them getting any ideas about laying hands on you. Thus, whenever he can't be around you himself, you're given one or two servants to accompany you at all times... eunuchs, of course, which is a thing society has returned to having solely for the purpose of being guards. You have absolutely no privacy. You're taught the very strict rules from day 1 about how you can't talk to anyone who isn't him, too.

Alternatively, yes he absolutely would be one to find a stray or a runaway to fulfill a savior complex. You poor, poor thing. Some bastards out there are so ungrateful for the rare gift that is having a wife, mistreat and abuse them, surely this is the background you come from. You don't hate being owned by a man in general, even if that's what you say, you're just lashing out because you're traumatized and used to being treated poorly, you need to get used to having a good master. Of course, he still needs to know exactly what the past ones were like. In detail, along with how many masters you've had, if you were ever public property of any kind... usually, ones who have ever served as public property are treated as being unfit to be wives (too addicted to cock and all that), but he is kind and understanding, not like the others. Still, he wants to know... he becomes much more paranoid of you searching for alternative sources of sex when he's gone, no matter what you tell him. Maybe it's best to keep you locked in a room by yourself when he's busy.

------------

But of course, there are some that try to flee, often by attempting to disguise themselves. This is a challenge, considering feminine boys are already often rounded up and sold like girls too (desperate times desperate measures, you know how it is), but if people see you walking around they might just assume you narrowly passed the test. Not that it all won't go to hell the moment you get found out, of course. When legislating these matters, they thought of all sorts of possible scenarios, and so those who manage to evade subjugation and are caught doing so are treated with a "finders keepers" sort of policy.

Thus, should you try to evade and live life in disguise, you are accepting the potential consequences of that. Joining an organization of any kind, especially one like the Fatui or the Knights of Favonius, is beyond "playing with fire," it's practically playing with a lit stick of dynamite. Among lower ranks, you tend to operate in group formations -- meaning group showers, changing rooms, and the like. You have to try your best to sneak off when changing, or come after dark to shower. You find yourself falling behind in training, unable to perform the same physical feats to the same degree as even the scrawnier dudes...

The Knights handle it somewhat well. The Captain is good at motivating people, tries to help you with your burdens, hoping you just need to bulk up a bit. He tries to get close... a little too close... maybe starts noticing a few things that are off. Sometimes when you speak, he kinda furrows his eyebrows at your voice, he seems to sometimes scan your body up and down in confusion when you notice your posture is a little too feminine, and quickly correct it. At one point, your heart nearly jumped out of your chest when he put his hands on your sides, ran them over your hips, and laughed, making a comment about how you have girly hips. Well, based on the interactions he's had, which isn't too many, he didn't really have a mother growing up or anything.

He's a perceptive man. He gets it, eventually, although at first he's so shocked he thinks he's imagining things, there's no way, right? Once he becomes certain, he wastes no time calling you in for a private meeting, you know something's wrong when he locks the door and stands between you and it. Still, he goes about calmly exposing you, but chastising you for being so dumb. Don't you realize the kind of danger you were in? Tsk tsk, so naive, thinking you could go on like that forever, you're lucky he's intent on saving you from a much worse fate. He realizes you're probably reluctant to be owned, since you were clearly avoiding it to begin with, but he's convinced that you just have the wrong impression of it. You'll love it, you'll be happier, because he'll be good to you. You'll see. Now, you just have to come over here, let him get your thumbprint stamp (even if he has to hold you down kicking and screaming) so he can sign over the legal ownership forms.

------------

The Fatui have their own means of handling the imbalance, though, managing to keep troops from so much sexual frustration that they get into fights or just kill each other. They keep their own group slaves, with one girl assigned to a unit to serve all the men's needs and keep them happy. It's a really effective system! The ratio depends on your ranking. The lowest of grunts usually have to share a slave with 30 or so others, higher rankings share a girl with maybe 10 others. Of course, it only makes sense, then, that harbingers get one to themselves. It's a special mark of their status.

The only catch is that they have to go get one. They don't get assigned one or have it handed to them. It's kinda considered a mark of their competency/qualification to be able to get one within a certain amount of time after being appointed. Be that stealing one during an unpleasant 'housecall' (read: hit) to some rich old bastard's house, fucking her in front of him before slinging the poor thing over his shoulder to leave, or finding one hiding out somewhere, or... finding one hiding in plain sight.

Childe would really get a kick out of sniffing out some stupidly brave little thing, thought she could disguise herself as a regular Fatui soldier... he's perceptive enough to notice how you lag behind in terms of athletic performance, picks up on even the slightest indicators in voice, facial structure, posture, etc. He doesn't immediately lunge in, though, he likes to psychologically torture the poor thing. Drops little hints, makes comments about how "y'know, you have girly (insert trait)" or pointing out how sometimes there's something off about you, watches the blood drain from your face and how you stiffen before laughing it off and pretending it was nothing. All up to a certain point, before he goes out of his way to arrange and set up an "accident" of some kind. "Oh, what's this...?" He says something to the effect of who would have thought, but the mocking tone makes it rather obvious he guessed pretty early on. Rather brave of you, really... every day you undoubtedly walked right by those poor communal fucktoys, knowing you could have just as easily been in their place with just one wrong move. But don't worry... you must have had it rough, but now you can rest easy, not having to bear the hardships of being property to multiple people, nor having to try and push yourself past your physical limits, but instead being able to relax and spend the rest of your life in luxury as a little lap-toy to breed.

------------

Scaramouche is a little more immediate, though, and it's a genuine accident. He thinks himself too good for such needs, or so he says... Really he just hasn't had the opportunity yet, so he leaps onto the first chance he gets. Stumbles into one on the road who was looking at the ground and runs into him, all wide eyed and tries to run the moment she lays eyes on him. You're evading international law, huh. Well, the Fatui isn't exactly law enforcement, but... He can think of it as fulfilling his title and finally having some status. He's slow, doesn't run after you, just manages to hunt you down once you finally think you're safe and try to sleep while hiding.

He reminds you what should happen to runaways -- they should be returned to their proper owners and given the punishing they deserve, which, by the way, he makes sure you know if you ever even think about running from him, he'll make sure to give you one you'll remember for the rest of your life. So you should be grateful that instead, you're being given a much better life than what you could have possibly had before, given that he's such a kind master that you will undoubtedly soon understand is better than anything you've ever had before. Provided you keep your manners and know when to bow your head and say yes sir. If necessary, though, you can be taught.

--------

Kazuha also randomly encounters one on the road, one of the girls trying to hide by staying in the wilderness -- at a distance out by a wilderness path, poor girl thought no one was around and decided to bathe in the river. He's shocked at first, blinks and wipes his eyes to be sure he's seeing correctly, but is instantly hard when he makes out the shape and parts -- he's seen girls before, but never naked ones up close. Hormones override any empathy he might have had.

He knows you don't want to be owned but... It's only the natural order, right? That's what all boys across Teyvat are taught from the time they're young, it's ingrained in his mind. Besides, he's nice, so, she'll like him when she gets used to him, he thinks.

He's so sweet though, for real. Much like Diluc, if it's a runaway, he thinks surely you just had bad owners. Or maybe were public property, how cruel, he understands that must be so hard. He'll be good to you, he promises! He'll keep you safe from the others that would harm you, with time you'll understand he's one of the good ones, even if he has to keep you by his side with force at first.

------------

Mondstadt offers a special option, being a place of "freedom" and all that, for young girls, should they request it... if you don't want to end up a wife or a breeder or risk becoming public property, you can become a nun. It's limited spaces, first come first serve, only a few dozen spaces available to the luckiest trying to avoid spending the rest of their lives getting their holes wrecked on a daily if not hourly basis.

How did it ever come to be? Who knows, especially given that the archon disapproves of that system. That's what he gets for giving the land the reputation of freedom, sigh. Venti laments such a thing, it really is such a waste that such perfectly breedable girls go their whole lives sexless, and he doesn't even get any benefit, despite it being dedicated to worshipping him. How can he allow such an atrocity to go on? Well, simple, he doesn't. All it would take is one quick 'divine descension' and an appearance in godly form to relay the very important message that Barbatos wants a sacrifice -- no no not like kill someone, he just wants his pick of those cute nuns! After all they are supposed to devote their lives to him right?? Obviously it is a priority. Sure like 90% of the Mondstadt population will never know the touch of a female but obviously that shouldn't apply to the archon right? So he can just have one, y'know, to set a hopeful example for people to live up to.

But hey, it's great really. You get godhood status and become sort of a goddess of legend. Even statues of you and folk songs about you. Not for any accomplishments or anything, but being the model example of wifeliness, one that just accepted the honor of being chosen by a god and acted in complete subservience (even if that's not exactly what you did, that's what gets recorded anyway).

----------

And speaking of gods, some just... demand it. Morax was certainly that way, back in his day. I mean, obviously he deserves it, gets to take the one unfortunate enough to be chosen by the people as a sort of sacrifice. He expects you to have already been properly trained in the customs of being a spouse in this universe's Liyue culture, but even if you don't know how to properly greet him and address him, keep your posture, hide your face in front of others, and all that, he just sighs. Well, he should have expected they wouldn't do it properly, so he'll have to do it himself... Can't have the wife of a god behaving in any other way than complete obedience. Gods forbid they sacrificed a defiant little thing... That's what happens, he supposes, when there's so few of you, you become spoiled and think just because you're valuable and coveted means you can behave as you wish... An attitude he'll have to get rid of, one way or another.

------------

Xiao already doesn't interact much with or see a lot of women even in a normal setting, so it's made a lot worse when they're very rare. He knows even less, and he certainly wouldn't have the experience of living at an inn owned by a woman (poor Verr is just like all the other wives, nice and tucked away out of sight). Occasionally, incoming inn guests will bring wives with them, usually wealthy and heavily-guarded, but he can catch a glimpse here or there... he ends up only seeing one really close by pure coincidence. A random human on the road at night being attacked by something... even right at the start he's a bit caught off-guard by the high pitch of the screams, how unusual. And usually humans are so grateful after being saved, but this one is hiding their face with their arms or a hood over their head and bowing their head in thanks... you're just trying to run off as quickly as possible before he notices anything... even he isn't that dense, though, grabs you by the wrist before you can bolt away. So weak, it barely feels like anything even though you look like you're pulling back with all your might.

It's not as if he can just let you go (which was, of course, your primary reason for trying to bolt), but you quickly begin to question if you were better off wherever you were before, having run away from one situation only to end up in another, since he quickly seems intent on keeping you. It's... awkward, even in a slightly cute way, were you not terrified. At least he seems considerate enough to inform you -- most captors, in your experience, just kinda assume you're smart enough to understand, but he feels the need to announce that he's come to the realization that you're female and that you need to not fight back, just come with him. He also makes sure to tell you that he's not taking you to the Millelith or back to your old owner, and instead, being smart as he is, thinks it's instead the best idea to tell you exact what he has in mind. So stop squirming so much, why are you still squirming even though he clearly told you he's just going to lock you away with him forever where you'll be safe? Hmph. No wonder the human men put these things on leashes. Truly, these creatures as just as complicated and difficult to understand as he's heard it said.

------------

However, Razor doesn't really grasp the whole imbalance thing. Wolves have a perfectly even ratio as always. He's heard humans tell him before that the females are rarer, but doesn't really get why that's a big deal. All that means is the strong ones get to reproduce, just like wolves. He does worry a bit that it might be hard to find one, though.

So when he finds some poor girl in hiding in the middle of the woods, he doesn't actually act mesmerized or in shock... just pleased. He has gone a while and never seen one, so he was beginning to wonder if he ever would. He is, however, smart enough to realize that he can't just let this opportunity go. But there are problems. One, he's not very good at tying knots. Two, what if humans come and find his mate and take her away? Both of these present issues, but luckily he has a friend with some insight. He also realizes that Bennett will probably want to share... hmph, well, he can do that if it's for a good friend.

Poor Bennett, normally so morally upstanding, but in this universe the poor thing is a bit more desperate, so he's willing to... maybe do some not so great things... people notice he makes a lot more trips to the woods now. He apologizes all the time when he fucks you, constantly asks if the ropes are too tight or if you need anything, even convinces Razor to let you stay with him every now and then in a nice, real bed. The transports are hard, he has to kinda cover you up and bring you into Mondstadt through the side entrances to the city and hope to not be seen taking you back to his place. It's a nice change from the woods, although you have to go back in a few days to being stuck in caves all the time.

------------

So, it's hard to find females, right? Not a lot of them naturally exist, so, if you can't find one... make one. That's the strategy Albedo ends up taking. Rhinedottir made him (and then promptly fucked off after realizing making a male creation in this universe was probably not the best idea, Albedo gets abandoned in every universe sigh), so he decides he can make a humanoid too. Just with some... specifications. Biologically programmed to be unable to speak to anyone but himself, and to be afraid of others, so that way she'll only love him. It's a flawless plan, really. Except, of course, he decides that for the general purpose of keeping her to himself, and ah, ethical concerns the Knights may have (or rather, fear that they'd demand he make one for all of them too), he tries to keep her existence hidden. Doesn't last forever, of course, unfortunately he's pressured into making at least a few more for some higher-ranks.

Some people implore him to start a business off of it -- he could make a fortune making synthetic girls for poor lonely bastards -- but he refuses, after all, how could he ever keep up with the demand of such a market? That would give him so much less time to spend with his own little customized wifey! That would be unthinkable. So, no, he's content with just keeping his own, sweet little thing he tailored to be nice and sweet and obedient, to keep with him day in and day out.

#i actually loaded up fallout 4 for an hour or so after making that thing the other day bc i missed it #eventually ill ramble on about fallout AU #.miso #reminder thats the new tag #lena's asks #scheduled post #.mmau

788 notes · View notes