#this piece has been in my wips for a year now | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starlitmark · 4 months

Text

Summary: Just as you get back on your feet after a nasty breakup, you see your ex out in public with his new girlfriend. What will you do to avoid an awkward encounter? Pairing: Jongho x fem!reader Tropes: strangers to lovers, fake dating au, Genre: fluff, angst Rating: PG Warnings: mentions of breakups, mentions of cheating, language, a brief moment of nudity (for changing), kissing Word Count: 5,496 Note: for @cultofdionysusnet Mocha Madness event! Thank you to @anyamaris and @sanjoongie for beta reading this and listening to my panic!! This has been a WIP for over 2 years now so FINALLY it's released!

Before You Interact

Prompt: You sit at the table with a random boy you see sitting at a cafe or something alone and say, “Kiss me,” and he replies, “Hi, nice to meet you too. My name is ___,” and then you explain that your ex is right there with the side piece he cheated on you with and this boy agrees ‘cause you to seem really serious about this. Ex approaches and starts questioning you, but somehow, this random guy gets him off your back. You start hanging out, faking a relationship in front of your ex whenever you see him, but the actual feelings develop. - given by @jaehunnyy

You had finally gotten back to going out after your ex left you. It had been a few months, but it took a while to get back in the swing of things with how that breakup went. You had gone to your boyfriend’s apartment to surprise him and found another girl in his lap kissing him. He was so shameless about it, too. He tried to introduce you to her and have you be friends. You push the memory out of your head as you walk down the sidewalk, it’s a beautiful day, and you were going to take advantage of it. You were walking along one of your town’s major routes lined with little cafes, restaurants, and stores. You enjoy the spring breeze and sunshine on your skin, breathing in the sweet smell of blooming flowers. You finally felt ready to face the world head-on and return to a routine. That’s when you saw them: your ex and his new girlfriend. You feel your heart race and suddenly sit in front of a random young man in one of the cafe’s outdoor seating areas.

“Kiss me.” you tell him.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you too! My name is Jongho.” he says with a sarcastic smile.

You sigh, “Please, my ex is walking this way. He’s with his new girlfriend, the side piece he cheated on me with. I don’t want to deal with the confrontation. I’ll pay for your food. Please kiss me, and I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”

He gives you a confused look at first, then leans forward, inches from your lips, “That all depends on how good of a kisser you are.” he whispers.

Suddenly, his lips are on yours, and you nearly melt onto the cement beneath you. You had no idea what to expect from him, so when you feel his soft, pillowy lips against yours, you can’t help but lose your breath. His right hand holds your face gently. They’re slightly calloused but not enough to annoy you. When you pull back, you hear your name called by the last person you want to hear say it.

“Just follow my lead,” you whisper to Jongho, “Hi, Wooyoung!” you fake a smile, “How have you been?” “Pretty good. It’s been a few months now, hasn’t it?”

“Mhm.” you reply with a tight-lipped smile, “Oh, this is Jongho, my boyfriend.”

He holds one of your hands across the table, seeing as how you introduced him. His other hand reached out to shake Wooyoung’s hand. Then, releasing his new girlfriend’s hand, he shakes hands with who he assumes is your new boyfriend.

“It’s nice to meet you. This is my girlfriend, Miyeon.” he smiles brightly, looking back at her.

“It’s nice to meet you.” she sweetly greets you, “Wooyoung has told me a lot about you.”

You cannot help but feel slightly attacked by how she makes her latter comment. She knew much more about you than she would admit in front of your “boyfriend”. She had been a side piece for six months before you found out. She was lying through her teeth, and she and Wooyoung knew it. You subconsciously squeeze Jongho’s hand, and he immediately notices your slight discomfort. He squeezes your hand back, and only then do you notice that you’re squeezing his. He gives you a reassuring smile, and you suddenly feel comfortable with him, as if you’ve known each other for years.

“I hate to cut this short, but we’re in the middle of a date here.” Jongho smiles fakely.

Wooyoung looks taken aback a bit but smiles back, fakely, “Sorry, how about a double date sometime though? You comfortable with that, Miyeon?” she smiles and nods at him, “You too?” he questions you.

When you don’t respond, Jongho tries to gain your attention, “Sweetheart, you okay?”

“Y-yeah.” you stutter, “Sounds lovely. When were you thinking?”

“We were going to have an at-home date later this week. You two want to crash that?” “You okay with that, baby?” Jongho questions you this time, and you nearly melt hearing his low voice calling you that. “Yeah, same address?” “Same address. I’ll text you the details. You have the same number, right?” Wooyoung confirms, with Miyeon clung to his arm much tighter than before.

“Same number… I’ll just have to unblock you first.” you say with a subtle bite.

“See you later then.” he smiles awkwardly.

The moment they walk far enough away, you let go of a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Then, hearing Jongho call your name throws you off. You look back at him and see his worried look. His thumb runs over the back of your hand across your knuckles, letting you take your time to process what just happened. Then, when you fully come back to your senses, you nearly panic.

“Oh my god, Jongho, I’m so sorry! I was just trying to get him to leave me alone, but now you got dragged into another thing with me, a complete stranger.” you ramble.

“Hey hey hey, it’s okay, let’s just take this time now to get to know each other, and then I don’t mind being your fake boyfriend around them. You seem fun.” he smiles softly.

“What’s in it for you?” you ask skeptically.

“I could use some excitement in my life.” He shrugs, “My friend has been trying to get me to go on blind dates nonstop for like a month, too.”

You end up agreeing to his deal. You two stay there and get to know each other for a few hours. You find out he’s currently in university, majoring in early childhood education and minoring in music. He also works part-time at the little hole-in-the-wall book store downtown when he doesn’t have classes. As you continue to talk, you forget about the passing of time. You’re genuinely having a good time with him. It isn’t until a random storm comes rolling that you process how long you’ve been sitting at the cafe. You sit there in shock for a few seconds, just looking at each other until the rain gets heavier. You have a silent conversation then, running into the building, you find yourself at the front counter.

“Oh, let me pay for your food and coffee. I owe you at least that.” you offer.

He smiles at you, and you nearly melt with his gorgeous looks. You knew he was attractive when you sat down in front of him for the first time (you lucked out there), but now, seeing him with a bright smile and hair wet from the rain, your breath gets stolen from your lungs. Your mind returns to just how nice his kiss felt. You can’t help but wish you could feel it again. Of course, it likely won’t happen again, but you can dream.

“Don’t worry about it. I enjoyed spending time with you.” he smiles softly.

“Jongho, I roped you in pretending to be my boyfriend, lying to my ex and his new girlfriend, and kissing a stranger-”

He interrupted you, “And I don’t mind paying for my food. You made up for all that and more by spending time with me.”

You huff, slightly annoyed he wouldn’t let you at least pay for the items as an apology. He chuckles at your reaction before walking to the counter to pay. While you wait, you notice how the rain only got heavier. You had walked here. There was no way it would ease up anytime soon. You seemed to be stuck here for a while now. Finally, you’re dragged out of your thoughts when someone nudges you. Looking over, you see Jongho. He looks at you, out the door at the rain, and back to you again.

“Do you live far away?”

“No, but I walked here, and it takes about 20 minutes to walk here on a light foot traffic day.”

“Do you want to stay at mine for a little bit?” he offers.

“What?”

“Just until the rain stops. I can drive you home after, too. I just live down the street.”

You think for a minute, just looking at him, “How do I know you’re not a creep or murderer?” you say, teasing slightly.

He just chuckles and comments how you were the one who kissed him first. Ultimately, you end up nodding, accepting his offer. You both look outside at the rain and then at each other. There were no words exchanged between you, but somehow you both knew. He took your hand and pulled you out of the cafe into the heavy rain outside. You don’t stop to think or let go of his hand. If anything, you’re enjoying the spontaneity of it all. You feel relatively safe with him despite only meeting a few hours ago. The rain beats down on your skin, and your hair sticks to your body, but you couldn’t care less. Before you realize it, you’re being pulled into an apartment complex. Running inside and upstairs, you laugh in the hallway, dripping wet.

“Oh? Who’s this Jongho?” You hear an elderly woman’s voice.

“Hello, Mrs. Kang, just a guest.” He says offhandedly, smiling at her.

She lets out a slight hum, noticing how Jongho is fumbling with his keys, “Just keep it down.” She teases.

“Mrs. Kang,” he awkwardly chuckles, “it’s not like that. I’m just being kind and letting her stay out of the rain until it settles down.”

The older woman hums as if to suggest something else. Jongho shakes his head, looking down at his feet. Unlocking his front door, he allows you to walk in before him. You feel homey and comfortable in the atmosphere when you step in. The second thing you note is that a large Saint Bernard is fast asleep on the couch. You don’t dare take another step in due to how soaking wet you still are. Jongho steps in just behind you, pulling the door shut. He softly chuckles, seeing the dog and how he snores, still deep in sleep.

“Bear,” he calls sweetly.

The dog slowly blinks awake, its tail flopping loudly and happily against the cushion. It stands up on the couch and stretches before hopping down and trotting over to you both. The dog takes his time but sits down directly on Jongho’s feet when he gets to where you are.

“Hi, boy, you do okay with this rain?” he asks the large canine, petting him, “This is Bear. I know not everyone is a dog fan, but he’s a sweet baby who just wants love.” he explains to you.

You nod and let the large dog sniff your hand and get to know you. Almost immediately, he lowers his head as if asking to be petted. You hear Jongho hum again a split second later, almost in surprise.

“He’s normally timid. I’m surprised he’s already letting you pet him.” he explains, “Oh, um, do you want something else to wear? I’m sure soaking wet clothing can’t be comfortable.”

“I don’t want to impose.” You shyly respond.

He shakes his head at you, “It’s no big deal. Come with me. I’ll show you where the bathroom is and get something for you to wear instead.”

You nod, accepting his kind gesture. He motions for you to follow him down the hallway. Bear following not far behind him, happily trotting. You take note of the various pictures hanging on the wall. One, in particular, catches your eye: a group of guys around your age. All of them are smiling brightly, sitting in an outdoor seeing area. You quickly pick out the man, slowly becoming less of a stranger. The others, though, you make a mental note to ask about later.

“Bathroom’s right there,” his deep voice pulls you from your thoughts, “I’ll be right back with some clothes. I hope you don’t mind me giving you some of mine. I don’t have anything else.”

“T-that’s fine,” you offer with a slight smile, “I’ll need to get used to it eventually if Wooyoung keeps insisting that we do double dates with him.” you add as he starts walking further down the hall.

“You think he’ll do that?” he calls back.

“I dated him for three years. He likes double or group dates much better than one-on-one dates.”

You hear his footsteps grow closer again (and Bear’s nails clicking against the hardwood with him), and not much longer, he’s standing right in front of you. His wet, tussled hair makes you gulp and finally process just how stunning the man in front of you is. Then, you just look at him for a few moments, neither of you saying a thing.

“Um, I put a pair of boxers in there, just in case you wanted something under the sweats.” he notes, avoiding eye contact, “You don’t have to take them. Just leave them in here. I can wash your rained-on clothes, though. It would be rude of me not to offer that.”

“Oh, thank you.” you respond, an awkward chuckle raising your tone.

You close the door, clothes, and towel in hand. At the bottom, there lay the aforementioned black sweatpants and boxers; on the top was an oversized graphic t-shirt. You smile contently without realizing it. It was a kind gesture for him to offer you clothing. For him to provide clothes that you would be comfortable in was even more caring. Perhaps fake dating this man wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

As you slowly peel off your sopping-wet clothing, your mind wanders. At first, it was just about how things between you and Wooyoung went and what you wanted to do differently about the entire encounter. Then, your brain wholly shifted tracks. Jongho was at the forefront of your mind about making up this elaborate scheme to convince your ex and his girlfriend. He vaguely mentioned stopping his friend from trying to get him to go on blind dates, too. That could add a whole new layer of complexity. When you step back and actually think about it, it sounds a little insane. You just kissed a man you didn’t even know, and now he’s pretending to be your boyfriend willingly. Your mind continues wandering down that path as you dry off your body and hair with the towel he provided you.

Then you freeze, looking over at the pile of clothing, and see the boxers he had referenced. Now, the internal debate starts. It would be weird to wear his boxers for multiple reasons, but at the same time, wearing his sweatpants without them would also be weird in various ways. In this case, you had to decide which was the lesser of the two evils. After a few minutes of standing there, fully nude, in a stranger’s bathroom, you finally decided to wear and deal with the item. After fully dressing, you look at yourself in the mirror momentarily. It’s odd; you haven’t worn anyone else’s clothing since your breakup with Wooyoung. Your hair is still damp from the rain; a towel can only do so much. You lack a bra, but at the moment, you couldn’t really be bothered with that. The shirt he gave you was large enough to conceal everything for the most part. Just as you open the door, you find Jongho standing directly before you, also now in dry clothing. Of course, Bear was by his side, happily panting and wanting attention.

“Oh, sorry,” he speaks choppily, “you were just in there for a little while. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

You smile gently, “Yeah, I’m good. Where do you want me to put the wet clothes?”

“Follow me. You can give me the clothes. I’ll put them in the washer for you.” he offers.

You hand him the pile of clothes you had just picked up and follow him as he travels further down the hallway. Finally, he stops in front of a small closet and reveals the washer and dryer stacked inside it. He double-checks with you to ensure that nothing needs to be washed a certain way before he promptly starts the load of laundry and turns to face you again.

For the second time today, you’re absolutely amazed by this man slowly becoming less of a stranger. His hair is still slightly damp and hangs in his face. He looks comfortable in casual house clothing. Seeing him more in his element than at the cafe is nice. It feels like an eternity that you’re just standing there taking in his beauty. In reality, though, you know it’s a mere few moments. You don’t get broken from your gaze until a large dog jumps on you, demanding to be petted. He nearly tackles you to the ground before you can process what’s happening. You hear Jongho make a panicked noise before lifting Bear off you.

“Sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into him today. He’s never clingy with anyone but me.” he sighs before reaching a hand out to help you up.

“It’s okay,” you smile, taking his hand, “I’m happy to know he’s friendly.”

“He definitely is,” he chuckles, “did you want a blanket? We can warm up in the living room and figure out everything regarding our story.”

You hum in response, just realizing that you are actually quite chilly. Jongho disappears into what you quickly notice to be his room and grabs a few throw blankets he had tucked into an armoire. The moment he steps out, he hands you one of the blankets and guides the way back to the couches in the living room. He lets you have the first choice of seating with a quick apology about the dog hair. Once you’re both comfortable, Jongho lets out a light sigh. You give him a puzzled look, and he’s ready to explain once he catches your drift.

“It’s nice to have someone other than Yunho, Mingi, or Yeosang here.” he explains, “It’s been a while since I’ve had someone over that’s not them. This wasn’t by choice, but I wanted to say it is nice to have your company.”

“Thank you,” you mutter out, “Are they the other three guys in those pictures?”

“The ones in the hallway? Yeah, we’ve all been friends since we were young. All of my life, essentially. They’ve gotten me through some really rough times.” He cleared his throat, realizing he was getting too deep too quick, “I guess it would be smart to figure out our story now.”

“Well,” you start, “Wooyoung and I didn’t break up long ago. It was only in February that I found out about Miyeon. So, do you wanna say we started dating in April? Like two months ago?”

“Damn, two months, and you’re already stealing all my clothes.” he jokes lightly, “Yeah, that sounds good to me. How about where and when we met?” “The bookstore you work at?” “Nah, Mingi would flip and blow our cover if we claimed that. He works there too.” he glances over and notices you’re still shivering slightly in your blanket, “Here,” he offers, opening up the blanket around him, “Come sit with me. You’ll warm up quicker.”

At first, you think about declining his offer, but the chills that run through your body urge you to accept. You nod, sliding across the couch to get wrapped up in his arms. You haven’t cuddled with anyone for any reason since before your breakup with Wooyoung. Feeling the warmth of his body against yours underneath this fluffy throw blanket sends butterflies through your stomach that you will away.

“I guess we’ll have to adjust to physical affection, too. I mean, only if you want that, though. I know Wooyoung wasn’t really big on PDA. I guess he is with Miyeon, but with me-”

“Hey, hey, you’re rambling,” he teases, “we can go over all those details as they come up in conversation. Now, about where we met.”

“The cafe we met at today? It’s the truth, just bent a little.”

“I like that idea.” he hums, “Blind date?”

“Seems boring,” you joke, “let’s at least make it interesting if we’re gonna make it up.”

“Hmm,” he ponders, “how about we meet at that cafe? I just saw a pretty girl and decided to pay for her coffee. That’s overly sweet, of course.”

You can’t tell if he’s flirting or just making up the story, but how he said it made your heart flip in your chest. Only now do you realize just how intimate this situation really is. You don’t know what cologne he uses, but the scent entirely surrounds you. Not only are you wearing his clothes, but you’re using his blankets and cuddling up against his chest. You’re wholly engulfed in the scent. The overall atmosphere is so comforting and calm. You absolutely love it. The heavy rainfall mixed with your relatively quiet conversation adds to the ambiance. It’s something you could never quite describe.

“Hey,” he pulls you from your thoughts with a shrug of his shoulder you were leaning against, “You zoned out there. What do you think about that idea?”

“I like it.” you hum back, “I guess we should get to know each other better than just our first names and jobs.”

He chuckles and tells you anything you want to know. Things that were as simple as his favorite color (it’s white) or as complex as his family dynamic. You laugh all throughout your time, cuddled up together, learning all you can. Bear had joined you at one point, resting his head against your thigh. His body flopped across the empty space on the couch you had once occupied. You hadn’t even noticed the passage of time, just happy sitting here and telling him about yourself and learning about him. The rain never let up, though. It remained a constant heavy downpour the entire time. At some point, you both become even more comfortable. His head rested on top of yours, and his arm wrapped ever so slightly tighter around your shoulder. It felt so right despite having just met a few hours ago.

Suddenly, he lifts his head, “How late is it? It’s hard to tell with how rainy it is.”

“It’s,” you start, pulling your phone out of the sweatpants’ pocket, “almost 10 pm. Oh shit, almost 10… I should probably go. It would be rude of me to overstay my welcome.”

“No, no, it’s okay. It’s still raining hard outside. I don’t want to send you home in this storm.”

“Jongho,” you sigh, “it’s fine. You said you’d be able to drive me home.” you remind him.

Just as he goes to answer you, a loud crack of thunder sounds through the sky outside. The rain begins beating down harder, the sound almost deafening against the windowpanes. It’s almost as if the weather itself is telling you to stay, too. He lets out a sigh instead of the words he was about to say.

“I doubt either of us wants to go out in that rain… and honestly, I don’t want to drive in that kind of storm either.”

“I wouldn’t make you do that.”

An awkward silence fills the space between you. You both know what needs to be addressed, but neither of you wants to say it. You hear Bear panting quietly from his bed near Jongho’s houseplant. It’s the only sound besides the rain filling the apartment. Fiddling with the hem of the shirt he lent you, you aren’t sure how to approach the elephant in the room. He doesn’t seem to either. Jongho is busying himself, looking around his living room, trying to find anything to look at.

“Well-” your voice comes out slightly shaky, “I’ll just sleep on your couch until the storm passes. I can walk home after-”

“No,” the brunette cuts you off, “I won’t let you go home by yourself in the middle of the night. I’ll sleep on the couch. You should sleep in a bed.”

“Jongho I-”

“Unless you’d rather share it with me.” he states plainly.

You’re taken back for a moment, having not expected the comment, “Um, I guess I’ll sleep in your bed then…” your voice comes out shaky again.

“Bear likes to sleep at the foot of the bed.” he chuckles, “Just a warning.”

A part of you feels bad for taking the bed. It is his apartment, after all. Another part of you is grateful he gave you the bed. You know sleeping on a stranger’s couch wouldn’t be the most comfortable, and his gentlemanly gesture makes you feel just a bit more comfortable. The greater part of you feels bad that he’s sleeping on the couch in his home.

You try for a while to fall asleep, but you just can’t. Even with Bear eventually coming to lay at the end of the bed, you can’t seem to fall asleep. Your tossing and turning eventually annoys the Saint Bernard, who huffs at you before walking up to lay against your body. You welcome the warmth, but sleep doesn’t come your way. Sitting up, you look at the half-asleep dog beside you. Bear just gives you a look and huffs again. After debating mentally for about another ten minutes, you wrap a throw blanket around yourself and walk out to the living room again.

Jongho is seemingly fast asleep on the couch. One of his arms is over his head while the other is resting against his chest. Yet again, he steals your breath for simply existing. When you step closer, you start to debate with yourself again. You should probably just go back to his room and succumb to tossing and turning all night.

“If you’re gonna stare, at least be subtle about it.” Jongho teases, eyes still shut.

“I couldn’t sleep.” You reply, “I didn’t want to disturb you, but-”

“I can’t sleep either.” He admits, “Come here.��

“What?” You’re confused, to say the least.

“Normally, Bear cuddles with me, but he’s already opted for his dog bed. Come here, we need to get used to physical contact, right?”

You nibble on your lower lip as you think. Earlier, you really did feel comfortable in his arms. His is right, too. If you’re going to be meeting Wooyoung later in the week for a double date, you know he’d be suspicious if you two weren’t physically affectionate. Finally giving in, you climb onto the couch and lay your head against his chest. The arm that was previously resting there moves to be splayed across your shoulders. Suddenly, you feel exhaustion overtake you. Mere moments ago, you were the furthest you could be from getting rest. Now, you can barely keep your eyes open.

You don’t expect to have a dog licking your face when you wake up. You blink slowly, seeing the sun beaming through the window. Then, when you see the pup sitting in front of the couch, you notice that he’s picked up his leash and wants to go for a walk. Jongho is still asleep underneath you. You opt to get up and get your clothing out of the dryer before you head out. On your way to the laundry closet, you grab your phone. You do your best not to let out an annoyed groan when you see a text from Wooyoung.

Do Not Answer ❌ Hey Miyeon and I are heading to the festival that’s in the park right now. You and your boyfriend down to move out double date today?

You leave him on ‘read’ for now. Eventually, you reach the laundry closet and grab all your clothing. Suddenly, Jongho appears in front of you. He’s clearly still half asleep as he shuffles down the hallway.

“Let me walk you back to your place if you’re going to leave so soon.” He offers, his voice still gravelly from sleep.

“I don’t want to be a bother.”

“Let me. It’s not a bother to me at all. Bear wants his morning walk as it is.”

You nod, “I’ll get changed back into my own clothes real quick, then we can go.”

Jongho nods back at you and lets you walk past to change in the bathroom. Everything is fine, peaceful even. You don’t think about Wooyoung’s rather irritating request to change plans. That is, until, he sends you yet another text.

Do Not Answer ❌ Hey… if you would rather come to our place and have the date there we can…

Didn’t think you wanted to be back in our apartment after you stormed out on me like that

If you do though I don’t mind that one bit… hope your boy doesn’t mind though

His comments make your skin crawl. Referring to his apartment as your shared home was already bad; also, saying you stormed out on him only made the bitter taste in your mouth worse. Still, you swallow your irritation and respond.

Do Not Answer ❌

My boyfriend has a name. Be fucking respectful Wooyoung.

My bad… So are you and whatever his name is coming or should I tell Miyeon you backed out?

You talked with him yesterday. His name is Jongho. We didn’t back out of anything… We literally just woke up. I’ll talk to him about it in a second

You don’t check whether he responds once you pocket your phone. When you pop the door open again, Bear is waiting for you. His tail is swishing against the hall rug excitedly. You watch as he trots down the hall when you step closer. You follow after him and see that he stops right at the door where Jongho is ready and waiting for you while looking at his phone.

“I need to ask you something.”

“Hmm?” He asks, putting his phone in his jacket pocket.

“Wooyoung…” you trail off, trying your best not to be annoyed with your ex.

Jongho’s face hardens, “Did he do something?”

For a moment, you feel butterflies coursing through your body. The way he’s asking is as if he’s your actual boyfriend and is showing concern for your well-being. You shake your head to snap yourself out of it.

“He wants to change plans last minute. He always did this shit when we were together too… If you aren’t up for going on a double date right now, I’ll just take the fall of ‘backing out’ like he’s claiming.”

“Where are they? If I can bring Bear with us, we’ll be good.”

“The park near his apartment that has some sort of festival.”

“Perfect! Do you want something else to wear since you wore that yesterday? I know it’s clean, but I’m sure he would say something even though I only met him yesterday. He seems like that kind of person.”

You nod shyly, “A sweater would be nice. I don’t mind wearing the rest of my clothes still.”

Bear walks over and nudges you with his head. He’s already very attached to you it seems. You squat down and pet him for a few moments. Despite his size, the large dog melts into you and lets out a satisfied groan when you scratch his ears.

“What kind of sweater?” You hear Jongho call, “I have plenty.”

“Something comfy! I don’t want to be too cold while we’re out.” You call back, very much still preoccupied with Bear.

You hear Jongho walk back up to you. You look up and see a thicker black sweater with thin grey and white stripes across it in his hands. He’s giving you a gentle smile.

“Here you go, clothing thief.” He smirks at you.

You take the sweater from him, “You offered.” You grumble back playfully before walking back to the bathroom to change again.

The sweater is far more comfortable than you expected. It’s long enough that your hands disappear beneath the sleeves, and the bottom hem hangs low enough to cover your entire butt. When you return, Jongho has Bear harnessed up and ready to go. Something about the entire scene makes you feel warmly domestic with a man you met less than 24 hours ago.

The walk to the park isn’t very eventful, in complete honesty. Most pauses you take are to let Bear sniff something or do his business. Of course, you and Jongho make small conversation about nothing particularly important. You don’t even physically interact with each other. That is, until, you approach the start of the park. You feel Jongho’s strong arm wrap around you while the other still holds onto Bear’s leash. You look at him with a slightly perplexed look; you expect him to hold you, but his grip is rather tight on your hip. It’s almost protective in a way.

“I see them.” he whispers against your hair as if he’s whispering a sweet nothing. “Just play along, okay?”

You nod, “Let the show begin.”

Networks: @kwritersworld @k-vanity @cultofdionysusnet

Tag List: @sanjoongie @jaehunnyy @ericssmile @anyamaris @almondmilkeu @shinestarhwaa @northerngalaxy

#jongho fanfic #kwritersworldnet #kvanity #cultofdionysusnet #ateez fanfic #ateez x reader #ateez fluff #jongho x reader #jongho fluff

572 notes · View notes

zh-lele · 4 months

Text

12-7 ROOM (part two)

Surviving a week to Donghyuck's charms and jokes can't be so hard... Worst case scenario, you end up completely falling for your brother's best friend.

▪︎Pairing: brother's best friend!Hyuck x fem reader

▪︎Genres: poor attempt at rom com, fluff

▪︎Warnings: alcohol consumption, profanity, suggestive jokes, kissing, and some very light suggestive scenes.

▪︎Word count (part 2): 7721 words

playlist | extra content: mc's IG stories

Author's note: hi everyone :') sorry for being so absent and never posting the final part to 12-7 room. But hey, I finally got the motivation to do it. I've been also writing other things but I don't know when I'll finsih them or post them. Anyways, if you want to take a look, the other things I'm always working on are listed on my wips page. Once again, sorry for taking too long to post this and I hope someone can enjoy it anyway. Thank you so much for the love on part 1! Seriously, thank you. This isn't proof read so tell me if you find any mistakes, please and thank you. Enjoy!

Saturday, 08:37 p.m.

"I feel like we're betraying Mark."

"Why?"

"We're having a sleepover without him," you explain to Donghyuck while you extend your left hand to him, and he places his right hand over your palm, so you can continue painting his nails with a black polish. "You know, we're listening to Bruno Mars, eating watermelon–"

"Aren't we supposed to eat watermelon in the summer?" Donghyuck interrupts you to ask.

"Real watermelon enjoyers eat watermelon no matter what time of the year it is–Hyuck!" you scream after he makes a sudden move to grab a piece of fruit from the bowl and half his index finger ends up covered in black nail polish. "Stop moving your hand!"

"I'm sorry!"

He apologizes and stays still in front of your body, legs crossed and knees touching yours. Donghyuck is so close you can feel his breath in your hair, and even though you know it's impossible for him to hear your heart-rate increasing exponentially, you fear the closeness and the intimacy may give you away. Honestly, by this time you thought you might have figured it out: you had to either rethink your relationship and conclude that you were only going to be friends forever, or accept your feelings and confess to him, no matter what the outcome could be.

But you find yourself finishing Donghyuck's nails and looking up to him, who was–as more often as you thought–already looking at you. He smiles to you sweetly, no teeth on sight, and he looks ridiculous. Donghyuck is wearing a sheet mask with the form of a peach, yet you still find the sight in front of you incredibly endearing. The worst part about it is that you're looking as ridiculous as him, with the lemon-shaped sheet mask covering your face. You feel his thumb gently caress the back of your hand that he was still holding even long after you've finished. And as his soft features are illuminated by the warm dim lights of the lamp and the TV, as he holds your hand and looks at you as if you might be the prettiest lemon he has seen, you get that feeling again.

The comfort, the domesticity. The urge to be his companion, to share moments like this and many more. Every day.

Your phone buzzes as you set an alarm to take the masks off twenty minutes ago.

Donghyuck lets your hand go. He lets go of your heart too—but only for a second. He cradles your face, his soft fingertips pet your jaw, then your cheeks, and you can't hold his gaze anymore. You want to look down, drop your head before you start word-vomiting everything you're feeling and you've been feeling for him since the moment you met, since that first time he cooked ramen for you and you decided you wanted it to be your comfort food forever.

Donghyuck won't let you look down, though. He applies pressure with his fingers in the place where your neck and your jaw meet and with his thumbs on your cheeks. Your lips naturally pout under the pressure and you see it. Donghyuck. Your best friend. The guy you've liked forever now, looking at your lips for what you think it's been like the fourth time this weekend. And it's only been hours since the weekend started.

Is it really going to happen? Are you about to kiss Donghyuck right now? On the living room's couch on a saturday night in, under the dim lights, while Silk Sonic's Love's Train plays in the background and you're wearing fruit-shaped sheet masks?

It is fucking romantic.

Yet it never comes.

It doesn't happen.

Donghyuck just says: "It's time to take the masks off."

And you agree because, well, what the hell are you supposed to do? Just throw yourself all over him like you, maybe, have been imagining? Donghyuck takes your mask off your skin and you take his, that leaves his face looking the softest and smelling like sweet peaches. That definitely doesn't help your situation.

You're incredibly frustrated. Upset, even, like a kid who got denied his candy. (You wish Donghyuck was your candy.) You hate this sleepover now and even wish Mark was here to cock-block the entire situation. That would be less upsetting.

"And?" He asks once both of you have your masks off. "Do I look cuter now?"

Oh, so he's aware he's already incredibly cute.

You can't contain a smile. He's only centimeters away from you after he quickly moves back to look for his glasses. You feel the need to poke his cheeks that look as soft as marshmallows and smell like fucking peaches. Actually, you might feel the need to eat him.

But you don't dare say anything. Only trying to hide your smile looking down, as your face grows red, you let Donghyuck think of his own conclusions after your reaction.

Thing is, you're kind of a coward.

Donghyuck says it's time to netflix and chill, and you laugh because the statement is followed by a "Literally. Don't start thinking about something dirty."

He places himself on the mattress on the floor (the one you've been sleeping since you arrived), a bunch of pillows supporting his back, and makes room for you. He's cheeky enough to pat his stomach to tell you to lie there, between his legs and over his body. Just like that, as if you hadn't been melting before just by holding his hand in yours or having your knees touch. And now he wants you to lie on his stomach?

Are you really that close? If so, why isn't he your boyfriend yet?

You open your eyes wider and point a finger at yourself. "Me. Me?" Your voice comes out full of disbelief.

"Not you. Mark," he says with a roll of his eyes. "Of course it's you! Unless you don't want to lay together?"

"I mean…"

How do you make it sound not so desperate, not too obvious?

You just shrug and say, "Yeah, sure."

Aced it.

Donghyuck's body feels like the softest mattress you've ever laid on, like you could close your eyes and sleep trapped in his limbs forever. And because of the closeness, you can sense the vibrations of his voice traveling from his torso to your ears. His tone is quiet and gentle, talking about what to watch to no one in particular because, even though he's talking to you, you're too concentrated on opening your camera and capturing the moment in a video of the two of you.

"Look how cute," you say, moving your arm to his eye level to show him the video. "You talk in pout when you're really concentrated."

When you're conscious of the surroundings once again, you're sure you've replayed the video with a smile on your face like ten times.

"You should upload that."

"I've posted enough about you," you reply to his suggestion, going back and saving the video to your drafts. "People are gonna think you're my boyfriend or whatever…"

"Would that be so bad?" Donghyuck questions with his eyes fixed on the TV screen. When you move your head back to look up at him, he dares to connect eyes with you. "People thinking I'm your boyfriend?"

Sunday, 12:02 p.m.

Donghyuck had always been clingy.

Yet you didn't know he could be this clingy in the mornings.

Mark has been trying to get Donghyuck out of bed for like ten minutes now, but he won't get up. While your brother is pulling his arm out, Donghyuck pulls Mark's arm in, asking him to join him and sleep 'just a little more'.

Yes, your brother found you both sleeping on the mattress in the living room. No, you and Donghyuck were not clinging to each other (sadly). But Hyuck was for sure clinging to your brother now.

"Mark!" He protests in a sleepy tone. "What do you want if you won't come in?"

"We were supposed to have brunch together," your brother tells Donghyuck again, yet he must be too sleepy to process what's happening.

"I won't go." Donghyuck states and doesn't even open his eyes again. The living room is clear enough, as the winter sun has been hitting for hours now. But it isn't an impediment for him to curl up under the blankets like a burrito and go back to sleep.

Mark drops his shoulders and allows himself to sigh, finally defeated by his heavy-sleeper best friend. "I guess it's just you and me, y/n."

—

Fortunately for you, the weather has been amazing since you arrived in the city where your brother lives. Saturday was no different, with a clear blue sky above your heads despite it being winter, and the sun shining just the right amount to touch your skin and leave it warm. A little breeze messes with you and your brother's freshly dyed hair as you sit outside a coffee shop, brunch almost all devoured on the table. Mark hums to a familiar jazzy tune that plays all the way from inside the café.

And the atmosphere is beautifully calm. But you need to get something out of your chest. For once.

"So," you start and Mark moves eyes from his food to set them on you, expectant of your next words with a mouth full of pancakes and fruit. "I think I like Donghyuck."

Mark starts coughing after hearing you, and you wonder if it is because of the shock of your confession or because he really is that careless to get the food stuck in his throat.

"Yeah, I knew," he confirms once it's clear for him to speak again.

"The fuck you mean 'you knew'?"

"I mean, honestly, it's pretty obvious." Your brother can't hide a smile. He drops the fork to properly talk to you this time. "Like, you've always had some kind of thing… I don't know, I thought I had a special connection with Hyuck," he says pointing at himself, eyes wide with what could look like a little bit of shock. "But you two… You two are something else."

"Oh God," you cover your face in embarrassment even though after your brother's words there's no point in hiding anything anymore. "So you've been watching me acting like a fool in love around Donghyuck all this time, and you said nothing."

"I didn't say anything 'cuz I thought it had to come from you." He shrugs. "Wanted you to feel comfy enough to tell me, even though I had my suspicions, obviously."

"May I ask… Why," you hesitate a little before asking for a third-person perspective. "Why were you suspicious about it?"

"Dude, I don't know," a small laughter escapes him. "You just look like you'd be all over each other if you could."

You just groan in frustration hearing your brother saying you might have been way more obvious than you thought you were. Temperature rises to your cheeks coloring them a little red, and not because of the midday sun hitting right from above your head.

"And you can," Mark says, yet you don't get it, the tilting of your indicating he has to clarify. "Like, you can be all over each other. I don't know why nothing has happened between the two of you yet."

"'Cuz I don't know if he likes me?"

"How could you know if you don't try?"

Your gaze drops to your lap, and you realize you've been playing with the rings of your hands, taking them off and putting them on over and over, indicating the conversation is making you a little nervous.

Mark must notice, since he keeps talking. "Just tell him, dude. Best case scenario, he also likes you, you move out together and make me free from Donghyuck's ass."

The way he puts it makes you laugh, yet there's a slight weight to your eyes, as if tears could start falling down slowly at any time after holding your feelings in for so long. So you take a deep breath, blink a few times and look at the sun.

The sun, shining in its maximum splendor in the middle of the sky. And you wonder what he's doing right now. Donghyuck, or Haechan, as his mother used to call him when he was little. Full Sun, because he's always so bright and energetic, like a happy virus (Mark would also call him a pain in the ass, but you see, it depends on who you ask.)

"Worst case scenario, you remain as good friends," Mark continues. "C'mon, you know him, he's not a dick. You just gotta try talking to him."

You gulp and nod at him, now trying to make eye contact with a subtle smile on your face. Another deep breath. "You're right. Donghyuck won't hurt me, no matter what the outcome is."

Monday, 01:43 a.m.

On Mark's phone...

Meanwhile at the livingroom...

"Hyuck–wait. Can't we go slower?!"

"Look at that!" Donghyuck screams pointing at the TV screen, after taking the airpod off his right ear. You do the same with the one you were using, and the music from the game stops playing in your head. "I got a perfect score!" And he continues to do a silly victory dance, moving his hips from side to side with his arms in the air.

You really don't want to be mad at Donghyuck right now.

"This is so unfair," you tell him, stepping out of the frame and leaving the remote on top of the game console. "You didn't tell me you were this good. And you know I can't dance at all."

"You're right," Donghyuck says sincerely, a hand on his chest, right in front of his heart and all. "I didn't tell you I'm a dancing god and took advantage of your poor dancing skills to win the Just Dance."

You really don't want to get mad at him, but sometimes he makes it pretty much impossible.

"You." A hand comes in contact with Donghyuck's arm. Your hand. "Dirty." Another slap. "Bastard." And another one. "I hate you so much!"

"Hey!" He protests rubbing his arm after you slapped it. "Lying is a sin."

"I'm not lying," you say. "I hate you. You put on the fastest choreo to follow."

Donghyuck follows you around to the kitchen and watches your every move. He's right behind you, his eyes following your motions when you fill a glass with water, when you gulp it down, when you clean it and leave it back on the counter. He's hot on your heels when you come back to the common area and take the inflatable mattress out to get ready to sleep. He's still following your moves carefully when you put on the sheets and when you lay on it with the remote of the TV in hand. He only takes his eyes off your body when the Netflix logo appears on the screen and he notices you're about to watch the show you two started together.

You know he's dying for a word from you.

"You don't mean it," he says, now free of all mocking tones.

"I don't mean what?"

"You don't hate me."

You're pretty sure Donghyuck doesn't need you to confirm that you weren't serious. Naturally, he has always shown himself as a very self-assured and friendly person; It's not normal that people don't like Donghyuck. However, when you meet his eyes, wide and expectant of your response, and perhaps wet with a little insecurity, you understand that things are not always what they seem.

"How could I ever hate you, Hyuck?" you tell him to extend a hand in his direction, inviting him to lay on your side on the mattress.

Relief takes over his expression, and a wide smile is plastered on his face. He's quick to get comfortable (maybe too comfortable, not that you really mind) laying his head on your lap, and moving your left hand to his hair that looks like it's got longer over the days. You know he wants you to play with it—Donghyuck loves getting his hair played with. The fourth episode of My First First Love starts playing on the TV screen, and you hear Donghyuck sigh contentedly.

The subtle strokes at the hair on his nape get Donghyuck smiling again and exhaling deeper at your tranquil touch. And, not to be biased, but the colored lights coming from the TV highlight the softest, most beautiful face features you've seen in your life. In an act of courage, you move your fingertips from his hair, to his sharp jaw, to his cheekbones, gently caressing the warm skin.

Donghyuck moves his head on your lap until he's no longer watching TV. Neither are you. You're just staring at each other in silence. He's letting you stroke every part of skin until the tip of your fingers make it to his lips. His plump pink lips that have been tempting you more and more the past days. And he places a kiss there. On the tip of your fingers.

You freeze and grow red. Then he places another kiss, and another, making it three the times you've felt Donghyuck's lips on your skin.

It may be driving you crazy.

He's careful with his movements, so careful it turns almost painful watching him. Donghyuck grabs your wrist and gets up to sit beside your spot on the mattress. Doesn't let go of your hand—instead, he holds it tenderly, caresses the back of it with his thumb, then places another kiss there.

Four times you've felt Donghyuck's lips on your skin. Five. Six—he just placed a kiss on your palm. Wait, another on your wrist. That's seven kisses so far.

But it's not enough. Now you've felt his lips you want them everywhere, all the time. So when he gets your hand closer to keep kissing you there, you grab his face. Feel the skin there, of his jaw, of his neck, and it's really hot. You think you might even feel the rapid pace of his pulse when you press your fingers on his neck (but it could also be your own.) Lastly, you tangle your fingers in his hair that he has let grow during these weeks of winter break. You tug on it a little, just enough to let him know you want him close. Closer, please.

And Donghyuck sighs, more like he fucking moans.

You wonder if you should say something before moving forward. What about all the things you talked to Mark yesterday? Should you tell him about how you feel before kissing him? What does he want? And what would this be after you kiss?

The call of your name interrupts your torment of thoughts.

"Please," he begs in a whisper, eyes closed as your noses brush against each other. "I'll die if I don't kiss you right now."

A laugh comes out of you because he always has to be that exaggerated, but you decide to set all questions aside for a moment to just dive into him.

He starts off very gently, with his slightly parted lips pressing against yours. They are indeed as fleshy and soft as they look, and taste like a cherries lipbalm. Donghyuck repeatedly places small kisses on your lips until you open your mouth a little more, and he captures your lower lip, biting a bit there. It gets another little tug on his hair from you, a sigh of relief after tasting his mouth after years of longing, and everything becomes more needy.

Donghyuck grabs at both sides of your head to deepen the kiss, smashing lips together repeatedly and kissing you sloppily. When you allow him to, he pushes his tongue into your mouth and you push your body closer to his.

He grabs your wrist not neglecting your lips even a second, as if the both of you were magnetized, and places his palm on your waist inviting you to his lap. It makes you laugh out of nervousness, so Donghyuck opens his eyes to watch you straddle him and place yourself on top of him very carefully.

His touch travels from your waist to the sides of your torso, his right hand in a place that you're sure allows Donghyuck to feel your increased heart rate. Your hands cradle his neck, then tug at the hair of his nape as he observes you kind of mesmerized, inhaling deeply, smiling a little and wetting his lips before you're diving into each other once again.

You've lost count of the amount of times you've felt Donghyuck's sweet lips on you by now. But you're sure of one thing: you don't want it to be the last.

"In case you were still wondering," he breaks the kiss to talk to you. "I like you, kinda a lot."

His hair is slightly disheveled from all the pulling, his lips are shiny and swollen, and he looks a little agitated. In his incredibly dilated black pupils you can see the reflection of your smile.

"I also like you, Hyuck," you finally confess to him. "I like you like, a huge amount."

He lets out a sigh of relief, more like a scream, and you're quick to cover his mouth reminding him that your brother is supposed to be sleeping five meters away from you. Yet, you can't help but laugh at his reaction.

He presses your foreheads together as his hands caress your sides, from your knees, to your waist, and to your lower back. Both your thumbs stroke his cheeks gently before you move to place some smooches there, in each of Donghyuck's moles (that is all over his face.) You think of all the times you imagined doing exactly that and find it hard to believe there's a possibility you could have Donghyuck any time you want now.

You only have to talk it out and see how things could progress between the two of you in the future. In the meantime, you'll keep smooching the literal personification of the sun (that might be because he feels hot as fuck right now, or because his smile is bright as the sun, or maybe he could be both.)

(Still) Monday, 01:00 p.m.

Donghyuck has had his head over the clouds since last night. After a heavy make-out session with you and some cuddling, he went back to his shared bedroom to sleep at like four a.m., being the most quiet possible to not wake your brother up and maybe having him asking what the hell was Donghyuck doing with you in the living room until four in the morning. He can’t escape the knowing smile Mark gives him though, when he wakes up and sees Donghyuck already up and working at his desk.

Donghyuck pretends everything is normal, greeting Mark good morning as usual.

“Good morning, Melk.”

“You sound too happy,” Mark groans in response, still sitting on his bed only half awake.

Donghyuck checks the time on the corner of his computer; one p.m. during holidays is like eight a.m. to Mark. Your brother just sits there for a while and Donghyuck goes back to studying for amoment, until the silence of the room gets interrupted.

“Yo,” Mark calls to attract Donghyuck’s attention. “What you did last night was fucking nasty.”

“What–” Donghyuck tries asking, only to have Mark interrupting him.

“I heard you two going at it," he starts with a very serious expression that gets Donghyuck's blood completely drained from his face. What could've Mark possibly heard? "My sister was telling you to go slower and everything.'' Mark makes some gagging sounds to add to his point and Donghyuck grows as equally embarrassed and amused at your brother’s assumptions.

“You think we fucked?” Donghyuck asks in complete disbelief. An exaggerated nervous laugh follows the question. “With you in the house?” He points a finger at Mark.

“You didn’t?”

“Sorry to tell you what you heard was us playing Just Dance. The last choreo was too hard and y/n couldn’t follow it.”

Donghyuck watches his best friend rub the sleep off his eyes and get up from the bed while he denies with his head, looking kind of defeated. “You’re both the biggest losers I’ve ever known,” Mark says, referring to you and Donghyuck.

“Hey!” Donghyuck starts to defend himself, his eyes grow bigger as his brows go up, and the characteristic Donghyuck pout starts to show, like in every situation a discussion is involved. “It was fun! We had a good time, ask her.”

“Losers made for each other, I swear.” Mark emphasizes his point. “So you didn’t fuck.”

Donghyuck doesn't look up from his math notes to answer. There's no way in hell he's having this conversation looking at Mark in the face. “By now, I’m sure I might be a virgin again.”

“Dude, what the fuck,” Mark can’t contain a laugh, though. “That’s bad for your health. Get your dick wet already.”

“I’m just waiting for the right time with your sister.”

“Hey! You can’t joke like that anymore.” Donghyuck knows by Mark’s tone all the bickering has become dead-serious now. It has always been like this when it’s about you. First they joke a little about it, then Donghyuck reminds Mark how much he truly likes you, and lastly Mark tells Donghyuck to just confess to you already because he’s tired of hearing about it. “If you’re joking about my sister I’m gonna beat you up.” Mark reminds him.

“Sorry.” This time, Donghyuck is brave enough to face his best friend. It’s kind of hard for Donghyuck to believe it when Mark tells him he’s getting beated up, though, when Mark’s wearing the pajamas Johnny got him as a gift recently–some blue panty with a moose on the back that says ‘don’t moose with me’. “I’m not joking about her.”

“I know.” Mark covers the pajamas that distract his friend so much as he puts on his jeans. “You like each other so much it’s disgusting.”

Donghyuck can’t hide his smile after hearing that, and it reminds him of all the kisses you shared last night, which makes him grow red in the face. Nothing a little more bickering with your brother can’t hide.

“You’re sooo cruel to me, Markie.” Donghyuck tries to hug Mark before he’s leaving the room, but morning Mark has always been like a stray cat who doesn’t like affection (unless it comes from Yuta, which Donghyuck can’t comprehend very well but he supposes the japanese has something pretty magnetic.)

“Get off of me!”

“Only a lil’ kiss, pleaaase!”

They struggle at the door of the room and into the common area. Donghyuck with his lips millimeters from Mark's face while Mark tries with all his might to get away from Donghyuck, who can be like a tick. They're so caught up in their things neither of them has noticed you're there, observing the entire interaction.

“Why don’t you go and kiss y/n? I’m sure she’ll enjoy it,” you hear Mark say when he finally frees himself from Donghyuck.

It’s at this moment that you know you are hearing too much, so you clear your throat to let them know that you are there too. They both freeze after turning around and seeing you sitting at the kitchen island. Your brother Mark, the great opportunist and master at escaping from uncomfortable situations, greets you good morning and is off to work in a second, leaving you and Donghyuck alone in the apartment.

You watch Donghyuck get closer to where you’re sitting. He hasn’t changed from his sleeping shorts and the hoodie he was wearing last night–the same hoodie you pulled on as you kissed in the same mattress laying meters behind him. Yet you don’t know how to describe the sensation you’re feeling right now. After seeing the boy you like the most fighting your brother for a kiss, your stomach feels… weird? You know the kind of relationship they have–they’re best friends, they bicker and fight and make up all the time. They live based on Donghyuck love-bombing Mark and Mark denying the affection all the time. But they love each other in a brotherly way, it has always been like that.

It’s not like you expected Donghyuck to want to hug and kiss you and only you after what happened last night, but you kind of did expect it.

Were you jealous of Donghyuck’s best friend, your own brother Mark?

Donghyuck looks at you confused when you don't accept his hug right away. You stop his arms midway, and his eyes look defeated, full of worry. “Did something happen?”

You deny with your head. “I don’t know, that kind of felt weird,” you confess to him.

Donghyuck caresses your arms, feeling you relax from the defensive attitude from before, until he gets your hands together. “What felt weird?”

It’s ridiculous, you know it is and you’re embarrassed about what you’re about to say. Yet, you can’t help but:

“I think I got jealous,” you say and watch his brows furrowed together. “You know, when you were trying to kiss Mark…”

Donghyuck only bursts out laughing and hugs you tightly against his chest, leaving you no time to escape the sudden affection. He smells like fabric softener and feels comfortable like a pillow. And you hate that you love the way his laugh resonates through your entire body when he presses you to himself like that.

“You know I never want to kiss Mark seriously, right? That I only do it ‘cause I know he hates it,” he explains once he’s separated from you, still holding your hands in his and looking you in the eyes. “I don’t want to kiss anyone the way I want to kiss you.”

You look down hiding your smile, thinking he’s cute at first and processing his words then, which makes you laugh a little. Donghyuck realizes right away and starts to laugh too, leaving the seriousness behind.

“Was that too much?” He asks.

You nod in response. “But it’s good to know.”

“Good,” he says before planting a kiss on your cheek. He’s only millimeters away from your face when he speaks again. “No need to be jealous then.”

Donghyuck turns you around on the chair, so your back is pressing against the island and he can stand comfortably between your legs. He starts as he did last night, planting a kiss on your knuckles, then your wrist, but you don’t wanna waste any more time so you free yourself from his hands and start cradling his face. His lips look as tempting as always, maybe even more after you tasted them for the first time.

He notices your look so he gives you a lopsided, attractive smile that you desperately wanna rip off his face.

“How can you look this handsome in the morning?” You ask, admiring all his features.

“I mean, technically it’s past the morning.” he answers in a cocky tone.

“Shut up already.”

You don’t give him time to fight back as you’re sealing his lips with a kiss. It’s slow but deep, and his skin feels warm and soft under your fingertips, all the way from his sharp jaw to his cheekbones. When he bites your lip a little bit to get full access to your mouth, you worry about the breakfast you were having minutes ago, but Donghyuck doesn’t seem to mind:

“Mhmm,” he hums, breaking apart and licking his lips. “You taste like maple syrup.” And he steals another quick kiss from you.

“Yeah,” you say as you turn around to face the kitchen island again. “‘Cause you interrupted my breakfast.”

But despite you showing your back to him and trying to finish your food, Donghyuck won’t let you eat in peace. “Oh yeah,” he murmurs against the skin of your neck after he moves your hair to your left shoulder. He plants a soft kiss on your right side, sending shivers down your spine and making it hard to concentrate on your task. “I’m sooo sorry I interrupted you.” His tone is full of sarcasm as his kisses travel to your jaw and all the way down again. “And you hated it sooo much.”

The metallic sound of your fork falling off your hand and hitting the plate startles the both of you. Donghyuck stops sucking on your neck and you fall out of your trance. Your startled face might be somewhat funny, because Donghyuck starts giggling as you both realize you were enjoying his kisses a little too much.

“Let’s go on a date.”

“All of a sudden?”

He nods with a smile on his face. “It’s your last day here tomorrow. It’s not like we won’t see each other anymore but… I want to take you out before your last day here.”

“Okay,” you agree, matching his smile.

“Okay?” He asks once more and sighs contentedly when you nod your head yes. “I’ll go plan everything. Make sure you’re all mine this afternoon!” And he leaves the room after kissing your right cheek.

(The busiest) Monday, 07:37 p.m.

“Hyuck, come on, there’s seriously no way of winning with those machines.”

“Babe, just one more try. I wanna get something for you.”

Donghyuck has been fighting against a claw machine for what felt like half an hour now. Since none of you weren’t able to win any of the games you tried at the carnival, you really appreciate his determination to win a prize for you this way. Yet you arrived here at five p.m., and after two rounds of bumper cars, after testing your strength at Ring the Bell (and both of you failing embarrassingly), riding the teacups, getting scared to death in the haunted house, and going twice into the Ferris wheel (one time for the sightseeing and pics and another time for kissing at the top of it) your stomach growls with hunger.

“We could’ve paid dinner with all the money you spent on this machine-”

“Wait, I’m about to get it!”

“Let’s just go get dinner.”

“But I’m about to get it!”

And you see it forreal this time: the claw holding a big Pochacco plushie and it falling right into the hole.

“Hyuck, you got it!” You scream in disbelief, a big smile taking over your face (maybe because of the cute plushie or maybe because it meant you were finally going to have some food.)

You watch Donghyuck lose his arm through the hatch and get it back, this time with the stuffed animal in his hand. When he’s presenting it in front of you, the stuffed animal is so big that it blocks your view. You admire it for a second, and then take it into your arms to discover a Donghyuck wearing the biggest smile you've seen in a while. He’s all cozied up, his jacket and stuffed hat making him look like a real life teddy bear. Even so, the cold of the winter has caused the tip of his nose and his cheeks to turn red, somehow making him look even cuter.

“I got it for you!” He says, the excitement not leaving his body even for a second.

You can’t contain yourself and, as an impulse, grab him from the jacket with your free hand and pull forward until your lips are meeting his. Just a short peck as a way of saying thank you, I love it (you.)

Neither of you realizes the little crowd you've drawn around the machines, not until you hear the applause and cheering as you're breaking away from your kiss. You’ve never seen Donghyuck get shy when drawing people’s attention, so this might be your first time noticing him trying to hide under his hat and into your embrace. You laugh it off even when you're equally embarrassed, but thank him for the plushie and tell him to run away from there to get dinner.

—

“I think I’ve liked you from the start,” Donghyuck confesses all of a sudden.

Well, maybe not so all of a sudden. While you two were having your dinner, bottle of beer came after bottle of beer. At some point of the night, you thought it was a good idea to start having soju. Donghyuck said something like “it’s our last night together, we should celebrate and get wasted” to justify your decision. So it may be the full stomachs and the alcohol making you be honest with each other.

“I know I’ve liked you from the start.”

“Aaall the guys knew too…” He slurs his words a little when speaking. “I wouldn't shut up about you.”

You can't hide your drunken, enamored smile when hearing him. But something makes a little noise inside your head. “All the guys knew?” You ask and he nods quickly. “Even Mark?”

“Even Mark,” Donghyuck confirms. “I mean, we always kind of had this joke going around that I was always waiting for you.” He pours himself another drink. “But we both knew it wasn't a joke.”

“Oh god.” You cover your face, embarrassed. “My own brother lied to me,” you say and Donghyuck makes a confused sound, which makes you keep explaining. “He pretended to know nothing about your feelings when I confessed to him that I liked you.”

“I asked him not to say anything.”

“Huh?”

“I wanted to tell you myself how much I like you.”

“Oh god,” it's all you can repeat right now, all these confessions and the alcohol making you grow hot everywhere. “It's so hot inside this restaurant,” you say as you take your jacket off.

Donghyuck knows the red on your cheeks isn't only because of the heat inside the place.

“I like you sooo much,” he says as he watches you giggle out of nervousness. Donghyuck calls your name and holds your hand over the table to try to get you to look at him, but you only giggle and hide your face with your other hand. “I'm in love with you!”

“Okay, okay!” You're laughing by now, trying to cover his mouth to shut him up and not attract everyone's attention like you did at the carnival. “I'm in love with you too!”

“Good,” he says with an extremely pleased smile, that one that has always attracted you to him so much.

“Good?” you repeat and he nods.

Your phone screen lights up showing it's Mark calling you. You silently tell Donghyuck you're picking up and he lets go of your hand for you to do so.

“Yes?”

“Yo,” you hear Mark answer from the other side. “We're at Yuta's right now, we're working on some music with Taeil and TY so I think I'm just gonna crash here tonight.”

“Uhm, are you sure you don't wanna go back?” You ask and make eye contact with Donghyuck, who narrows his eyes and tilts his head to the side after your question. You only shrug to him as a response.

“Nah, I'll leave the apartment for the two of you so make good use of it.” Your brother answers convincingly.

“Okay, I'll see you in the morning.”

“All right bet, see you in the morning.” And he's quick to hang up.

You take the phone off your ear and look at it confused for a bit, until Donghyuck breaks the silence. “Everything all right with Mark?”

“Yeah,” you say as you put the phone down. “He said he's not going back home tonight.”

“Oh.”

You think of the words your brother said. “Leaving the apartment for the two of you,” and “making good use of it,” and it hits you. A little bit late, but it hits you.

“Oh…” you repeat, a surprised expression now taking over your face.

“Yeah, oh!” Donghyuck agrees. “We're having a real sleepover tonight!”

But by the excitement in Donghyuck's face, the one a little kid would show when told he's sleeping at a friend's, you aren't convinced he thought the same way you and Mark did.

(The last day at your brother's) Tuesday, 09:12 a.m.

The next morning, you wake up pretty confused. When you open your eyes, you're not sleeping at your usual spot. Your surroundings look very different from the living room where you've been sleeping every night. To your right, you spot Donghyuck's desk, filled with physics books, a pile of comics, and the typical empty Red Bull cans. The mattress also feels incredibly comfortable, soft but firm under you. But the most strange thing is the weight over your body, and a cologne you know very well and like very much flooding your senses. That's when you realize Donghyuck is laying all over you, stretched like a starfish.

You laugh and struggle to take your arms under him, and when you wrap them around the boy over you and squeeze, he starts to laugh too.

"Are the curtains open?" You ask in a voice still full of sleep.

He moves his head up to catch the smile on your face. "No?"

"Then why is the sun so bright in my face?"

The smile spreads on his face and he plants a chaste kiss on your lips. "You're so fucking cheesy." And he kisses you again.

“Get off,” you try to move him from over your face and your body. “I haven’t washed my mouth.”

“I don’t care,” he says, finally moving and sitting at the side of his bed, where you’re still laying in. “I’m not missing a chance to kiss you.”

“You’re sooo fucking cheesy,” you repeat his words.

“And you like me sooo much.” Donghyuck moves to the nightstand and grabs an aspirin and a can of Red Bull and brings them to your mouth. “Take, it’ll make you feel better after all we had last night.”

You sit up a little on the bed to do what he told you, and once you've swallowed the aspirin you let yourself fall back against his pillow. Donghyuck is still sitting on the edge of the bed, exchanging glances with you and holding your hand lovingly. He's wearing the Michael Jackson t-shirt that he likes so much and he's wearing his messy hair, just as you left it after pulling, fixing and messing it up while you kissed him countless times the night before.

You’re leaving today, and it’s like all the feelings you’ve accumulated these past years are hitting right now, all at once.

“I wish I could wake up like this everyday.”

“Hungover?”

“No, not hungover,” you laugh at his question. “With you.”

He smiles and squeezes your hand reassuringly. “We’ll figure it out.”

You sit up in the bed and search for the energy drink on the nightstand. After a few drinks, you’ve figured the morning breath can’t be so bad, so you move to face him properly and grab his face for a real kiss. Donghyuck doesn’t take long to reciprocate and start caressing your entire body. He’s always the first one to take the kisses to other places, so you take the lead this time. You discovered last night that Donghyuck can’t resist the kisses on his neck. You start placing soft kisses, then some licks until you suck a little and he fails to suppress a moan. He laughs it off and calls your name.

“I want to ask something important,” he says, looking you dead-serious in the eyes now, all the jokes and the desire aside. After you nod in response, telling he has your attention, he takes a big breath of courage. “It may seem a little rushed, but after all we’ve shared these years and after this week we’ve spent together, I don’t want you to leave without asking you to go out with me.”

You feel the temperature increase throughout your skin. Is he finally asking you to…

“Be my girlfriend?” As if he knew you from inside and out, he finishes your thoughts out loud.

Temperature reaches your face as well as probably the biggest smile you’ve worn since you got here. You cradle his face, squeeze his cheeks with your hands until a pout is showing and you can’t help but laugh—out of nervousness but also out of happiness, from having the sun in your hands and all for yourself.

“Lee Donghyuck,” you start. “That’d make me the happiest in the world, in the universe.”

“You’re sooo cheesy!” He starts the bickering once again, yet he’s sealing your deal with a kiss on your smile and, of course, you’re returning the affection.

(Later that) Tuesday, 03:30 p.m.

You’re standing in the building’s hallway while your brother struggles to lock the door to the 12-7 apartment. Donghyuck is patiently holding your suitcase, waiting for Mark to be done. They’re going to accompany you to the bus stop that’s coming at four p.m. so you can finally go home to the rest of your family and your normal life—you’ll be back studying and working in a few days, after spending Christmas with the family and Donghyuck, who promised to be there to join the Christmas lunch at your home and—maybe, if he doesn’t chicken out—present himself as your boyfriend to your parents.

“We need to change the door lock before y/n moves in here,” Mark says after finally locking it.

“What?” Donghyuck and you ask in unison. “Moving here?”

“You’re not moving in with Donghyuck? I thought I’d finally be free from him,” your brother answers, kind of disappointed, but not as disappointed as Donghyuck after noticing how bad your brother wants him out.

“But where will you go?” You ask him.

“I made plans to share the floor with Yuta.”

“That motherfucking japanese!” Donghyuck screams following Mark down the hallway, and you palm his back trying to reassure him, but your boyfriend won’t calm down. “I swear he wants to steal my best friend from me! He’s so jealous of my life!”

“What would he be jealous of, Donghyuck?” Your brother asks tiredly, and you know he’s rolling his eyes even if all you see is his back opening the building’s front door.

“Of our last-longing, incredibly unique friendship, of-fucking-course!” Donghyuck answers like it’s obvious.

“I’m pretty sure you just kept this friendship to get with my sister.”

“Mark?! That’s not true. I love you, man. Mark-Mark, come on!”

taglist: @matchahyuck @sundamariis @thesunsfullmoon @babyjenono @chenfleur @bettyschwallocksyee @sundhaelatte @injunier @justalildumpling @lanadreamie @dhyucktopia @143rachafm @minkyuncutie @bbh-kji @minhosprettywife

#haechan #haechan x reader #nct fanfic #donghyuck x reader #haechan fluff #lee donghyuck x reader #zh-lele

414 notes · View notes

ugh-yoongi · 2 months

Text

the very last thing i decide | pjm

(or, the one in which a love exists that's easy and instinctual as much as it is painful and self-destructive.)

✘ PAIRING jimin x f. reader ✘ SUMMARY you learn what it means to love with blood on your hands. ✘ GENRE hitman/assassin au; angst, smut ✘ RATING explicit. minors dni. ✘ WARNINGS they are both hitmen (hitpeople?) so there's all the content that goes along with that: violence, death, mentions of blood (a lot) and weapons, murder, but no explicit gore. everyone is morally grey at best and downright psychotic at worst (especially yoongi). reader gets stabbed. no one knows how to be a functional human being. swearing, smoking, light smut (penetrative & oral sex), miscommunication and unrequited love but not really, i drop a classic tumblr meme in a line of dialogue. ambiguous/hopeful ending!! some of the themes here are kinda heavy and i am not entirely sure how to tag them so if you have any questions pls don’t hesitate to ask! ✘ WORDCOUNT 12k ✘ LISTEN TO manchester orchestra - telepath ✘ THANK YOU i cannot remember everyone i’ve showed this to over the years. @the-boy-meets-evil for looking this over and brainstorming with me today. @hot-soop for always being a help. @effortandmore because you told me an embarrassingly long time ago this was worth finishing. and i’m pretty sure i also sent this to @jihopesjoint at some point too. i did a quick edit of this on my own, but after nearly three years i just wanted it posted and out of my wips so i'm sure i missed things. pls ignore them. ✘ AUTHOR'S NOTE fic drops two days in a row?? who am i?? i started this in may 2021 and it was supposed to be a simple pegging fic. i abandoned it bc i was convinced no one would want to read it. between today and yesterday i have written thousands of words and made it across the finish line. i hope you like it. the violence is a metaphor for love or whatever.

[37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA]

Jimin’s hair had been red the first time he met you.

How fitting, he thinks, considering he’s currently bleeding out on a table.

Well, there’s still a bit of fight left in him. He hasn’t lost consciousness yet, which he assumes is a good sign; he can still hear Hoseok barking out orders quite clearly. The edges of his vision are fuzzy and the pain in his abdomen is sharp and unrelenting, but he still has enough brain power left to wish he’d died instead.

Because you’d saved his life. And now he’s further indebted to you.

(Jimin never leaves a debt unpaid, but he’s not sure how to make even on something like this.)

Jungkook and Taehyung are fetching supplies faster than Hoseok can ask for them. Two pairs of frazzled, spaced-out eyes. Four sets of trembling limbs. Namjoon’s wearing burn marks into the floor, his cuticles bloody and nearly worried to the bone since he can’t keep them out of his mouth.

And then there’s you.

Sitting cross-legged in a chair as you scroll through your phone. Jimin’s blood is still drying on your hands, leaving smears as you drag your thumb back and forth across the screen, and this doesn’t seem to faze you one bit.

Behind you, Yoongi takes a seat at the piano and starts playing Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and Jimin simply cannot die like this. He can’t die on a wooden table in a room with a piano on which Min Yoongi is playing Baroque organ pieces.

“What is this, a fucking funeral?” Hoseok snaps, though there’s a desperation creeping into his tone that Jimin does not like, does not want to hear. “Cut it out, Yoongi.”

Said man staunchly ignores the doctor, transitioning flawlessly into the fugue. Jimin barely hears the tinkle of your laughter but he hears it all the same, and he wants to pretend it doesn’t calm him, bring him back down to earth when he starts drifting too far away. But you do, and it does, and all he can think about is: will you miss him if he dies? Will it take you long to wash his blood from your hands?

Hoseok’s absolutely incensed, pushed to the limits of his stress at the thought of not being able to save Jimin’s life, and Jimin appreciates this, really, but not when Hoseok pushes two gloved fingers deep into the wound in his stomach so hard all he can do is cry. “Yoongi—”

You snort. You don’t even look up from your phone.

Namjoon, for all his leadership and stoicism and poise under pressure, is just as frantic and panicked as the rest. It’s not everyday one of his people is inches from death ten feet away from him. Most people usually die in the shadows. Kim Namjoon has faced down death more times than most, yet watching the life slowly fade from Jimin’s eyes is too much even for him. “Yoongi, please—”

But the fugue keeps going, tempo change after tempo change, the two pillars of this organization spiraling completely by the time the coda starts, unfocused and sweating and praying. To gods they don’t believe in, to hope, to chance—whatever and whoever might be listening. Jimin usually loves hearing Yoongi play. It’s the only thing that humanizes him, and Jimin had spent so many restless nights shoulder to shoulder with him on that exact bench in the blue hours of the early morning, hypnotized by the way the older man’s knobby fingers moved across the keys.

This is it, he thinks.

Jimin’s going to die with Toccata and Fugue in D minor playing in the background.

He’s imagined his death so many times. Stupid not to in this line of work. Violent, quick and painless, in his sleep, drawn out and gory, a message. And in all of those scenarios, it’s either jarringly silent or there’s someone screaming. Usually him, sounding much like he is now, two fingers stuck in his gut. In all of those scenarios, Min Yoongi is never playing Bach as everything fades to black.

You sigh. “Shut the fuck up, Yoongi,” you say, your tone as blasé and inconvenienced as ever.

Shocked at your audacity, one of Yoongi’s fingers slips and hits the wrong key, something dissonant and metallic as it rings out. But the music stops all the same, the silence nearly giving Jimin whiplash. Now he can hear the clinkof Hoseok’s tools, the squelching of his wound, Jungkook’s desperate pleading for him to just be alright, please God, just hang on. He wants the music back. He doesn’t want Jungkook’s crying to be the last thing he hears. Doesn’t want the sound of his own organs imprinted into his memory.

“What’d you say?” Yoongi asks, because no one talks to him that way. They wouldn’t dare. Most people try not to talk to him at all.

But you do.

And, inexplicably, Yoongi listens.

You roll your eyes. “You go deaf in your old age? I said shut the fuck up. Hoseok’s two knuckles deep in Jimin’s fucking stomach and you’re over there having your little Amadeus moment.”

He bristles. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Yoongi repeats, and Jimin can’t see him, but he knows his eyes are narrowed, lips pulled back in a snarl, fists clenched at his side.

“Oh, princess,” you coo, and Yoongi’s fury is palpable, permeates every inch of this place, overrides all the fear and anguish. “I’m talking to you, baby. I know Jiminie’s busy trying not to die and that’s stressful for all of us, but please do try to keep up.”

Jimin hears the flick of Yoongi’s switchblade. Then he hears him say, “Please let me fucking kill her,” in that lazy Daegu drawl of his, like forming full words are beneath him. Not worth the effort when they’re directed at you.

Still seated, you uncross your legs and, through blurred vision, Jimin watches you grab Yoongi by his belt loops to tug him closer, grab the wrist that holds his knife and press it to your own throat. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Yoongi. Be a good boy and make it hurt.”

Jungkook’s near hysterics at Jimin’s side. “What the fuck is wrong with you two? He’s dying!”

Jimin tries to say I’m not, Kookie, I’m okay but the pressure on his abdomen is too intense. He can barely breathe, and Hoseok’s still digging around, still looking for that stupid fucking bullet, had to do something and do it quick so there’d been very little anesthetic and finesse, and he’s silently screaming for someone to just comfort Jungkook, tell him everything’s going to be okay, but instead—

“Serves him right for being a fucking idiot,” you say, words muffled by the knife still pressed to your throat. “What a painful, permanentlesson in not forgetting your fucking vest.”

“Stop it!” Jungkook sobs, fingers ghosting along Jimin’s matted fringe.

Yoongi’s still scowling. “Just say the word, Joon-ah. I’ll make it quick.”

You actually laugh at that. The kind of full-belly laugh Jimin would kill to be able to produce. “You wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid.”

Someone snarls. Probably Yoongi. “You’d look so good gutted on the floor like a fish,” he replies, and if Jimin knows him at all, he knows he’s got that dreamy, faraway look in his eyes. The one he always gets when he’s about to kill—the one that makes him so unhinged and dangerous. “Left there to bleed out and die all alone like the trash you are.”

No one’s survived that look before, but you just grin, as if being on the receiving end of it is nothing more than another simple inconvenience. “Do it, then,” you prompt. “You’re so big and bad, yet here you are, waiting for Namjoon’s permission like some kind of pathetic fucking dog.”

“I’m no one’s dog.”

Your eyes slowly flick over to Namjoon. “No?” you ask, smile widening as Jimin watches you drag your heeled foot up the inside of Yoongi’s calf, his thigh, stiletto coming to rest in the center of his sternum. “That’s a shame, princess. That pretty neck of yours was just made for a collar.”

There’s no doubt in Jimin’s mind now that he actually died back in that penthouse and is now residing in whatever level of hell is watching you give his associate a semi despite him being a millisecond away from murdering you.

Yoongi would do it, too. No hesitation. You’ve been on his shit list for as long as Jimin can remember, and you’ve been daring him to put his money where his mouth is and just kill you already for just as long.

Taehyung groans. “Can you two just fuck already so the rest of us can be spared of this?”

You click your tongue, tone melting like butter. You’re fond of Taehyung, soft on him. “No can do, angel. Yoongi here knows I only have eyes for our Jiminie, and god does that hurt his little feelings.”

Your wicked smile gives away nothing—whether you’re telling a bold truth or just unnecessarily needling Yoongi further—but Jimin’s caught off guard and chokes on your words nonetheless.

Hoseok’s forceps still digging around in his stomach, there’s a quiet hurrah of triumph as he finally locates the bullet. Jimin feels nothing as he retrieves it and plucks it out, a reverberated clank! as he drops it into a kidney dish, your words the anesthetic he’s needed as they play on a loop in his head.

When he finally blacks out, either from the pain or the adrenaline or both, it’s your face that greets him. He never gets the chance to tell you why he forgot his vest.

[64.1466° N, 21.9426° W | Reykjavík, ICELAND]

Jimin’s hair is blue when it happens the first time.

It’s November. Namjoon has sent the two of you to Reykjavik and it’s dark all the time, the midnight hue of his hair blending into the impenetrable nighttime that surrounds you. Jimin works best like this—out of sight, part of the shadows. He’s light on his feet, lithe in ways no one else is, not even you, and he’s impossible to anticipate under the cover of darkness.

That’s why Jimin always takes care of the appetizers.

It’s your job to clean up the main course.

The two of you are two halves of the same lethal coin, working together flawlessly after years of carefully honed practice. Jimin slams an unsuspecting man’s head into a wall and you’re right behind him to put a bullet in it.

It’s just how it goes.

And he trusts you. He has to, otherwise he would’ve gotten taken out years ago. You’re not always in his line of sight, but he always feels you, senses your movements before you’re even on your feet. The times it’s gone wrong—and it’s gone wrong so many fucking times, despite how cautious and skilled the two of you are—you’re always right there to catch him before he even hits the ground. Just like a ghost, as if your only purpose in life is keeping Jimin safe and alive.

(It isn’t, but it sure feels that way.)

Tonight it’s another hit carried out in an overpriced penthouse overlooking the northern shore. You’re in and out, don’t waste a second more than you need to. Jimin doesn’t spare a glance at the carnage left behind. Nothing he hasn’t seen a hundred times before. All blood bleeds the same, but he still wonders, foolishly, if his looks different to you. If it feels wrong when it stains your hands and seeps into your clothes.

Jimin has never been covered in your blood before, but he likes to think it would.

The two of you don’t speak until you’re in the quiet safety of yet another hotel room, chain lock thrown across the door, deadbolt secured. A small arsenal of weapons is retrieved from ankles and waistbands and cleaned and packed away meticulously. Jimin’s the one who makes the call to Namjoon, tells him in code that the job’s done. You’ve barely broken a sweat, but under the fluorescent light of the bathroom, Jimin can see a small smattering of blood just along your temple when he closes the distance between you.

Someone else’s, of course.

Anyone who made you bleed your own blood wouldn’t be a quick, clean kill. Jimin would make sure of that.

There’s less to be done about the half-inch scar in the hollow of your throat—a pearlescent reminder of the twin scar he has just below his navel; a callback to the day your devilish mouth said the words Jimin can’t stop thinking about.

“No can do, angel. Yoongi here knows I only have eyes for our Jiminie.”

Maybe it’s stupidity. Maybe it’s the feral, years-long build up that’s been simmering between the two of you—low enough to keep warm, contained enough to never evolve into a rapid boil. Maybe Jimin’s just finally desperate enough to go seeking out answers to questions he’s far too scared to put a voice to.

(Really, Jimin knows it’s adrenaline. Nothing more than chemicals. The two of you high on it, heads floating above the clouds. Powerless; or, at the very least, indifferent to stop the very clear path that’s unfolding on the ground below.)

But, god, he needs to know.

Needs answers.

Needs to know if there’s even a chance you feel it, too: the magnetic ebb and flow the two of you have been dancing around for years. If you see how fondly he looks at you. If you have any idea how easy it is for him to get lost in you. If you know he’d let someone put a bullet between his eyes before he placed his life in the hands of anyone else.

Jimin knows he loves you. He’s known it for a long time, just like he knows all those other things that are second nature to him. Loving you is easy and instinctual as much as it is painful and self-destructive.

At least that’s what he’d thought. Until your devilish mouth said those devilish words and sent him into a tailspin he’s yet to recover from.

You have to feel it. God, can’t you? The way the air crackles between you. The way his skin ignites with a simple look from you. The trembling of his fingers at his sides, desperate to just reach out and touch you—fingers that have been bathed in blood, that have taken life. Fingers that now just want to graze softly across your cheekbones, catch on your bottom lip. Fingers that want to hand you the world on a silver platter. Jimin would do anything for you, give you whatever you wanted. You wouldn’t even have to ask.

Can’t you feel that?

He needs to know.

Jimin is composed, elegant. He kills with grace and still maintains as much of his softness as he can. Isn’t ruled by emotion the way Yoongi and Jungkook are. But now, as he teeters on the edge of the unknown, all he wants to do is jump. Wants to buck all his training, all his resolve and forethought, and jump.

“Did you mean it?” he asks, voice thick. Fingers curl into the expensive silk of his shirt just so they have something to do—something to keep them from reaching out and touching you. “Back in Seoul.”

You’re the smartest person Jimin knows. When you ask, “Did I mean what, Chim?” he knows you’re fucking with him. Dragging this out. You know exactly what he’s asking and he knows you’ll never give anything away so easily.

“What you said to Taehyung,” he answers.

You tsk, eyebrows raising in intrigue. As much as Jimin trusts you, as well as you know him, know all those dirty, dirty secrets he’d never tell anyone else, he’s never been so bold with you. “That those long fingers of his would look good wrapped around my throat? Yeah, I meant that.”

Jimin’s jaw clenches at your taunt. “Don’t play games with me.”

A smirk graces your lips. “Trust me, sweetheart,” you say, voice sickly-sweet as the affection starts popping at the last seams holding him together, “if I wanted to play with you, there’s nothing you could do to stop it.”

With Jimin pressed into the wall behind you, you turn to meet his eye in the mirror. Another smile, teeth bared as you run your tongue across your lips, and this one is his undoing. Makes his cock twitch in his dress pants. Makes him bold. “Do you want to, then?” He takes a step forward—close enough to smell the gunpowder stuck to your clothes, your hair. Close enough for the sulfur and metal to sting his nostrils each time he breathes you in. “Do you want to play with me?”

You love Jimin. Maybe it’s a trauma bond or the implicit, unwavering trust the two of you have in one another, but you know you love him limitlessly. But you also know you can’t love him the way he loves you, the way he deserves to be loved by someone, which is why your mask slips as you say, “I can’t give you what you want, Jimin.”

You try to make him understand that. Really, you do—because Jimin is the smartest person you know, and you know he’s thought about every possible consequence down to the most minute detail and has decided this is worth it anyway. You want to believe in something the way Jimin believes in you, even though he’s wrong. You want something worth throwing all of this away for.

Maybe it’s Jimin, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just been so fucking long since someone has looked at you with any gentleness in their eyes at all that when Jimin meets your gaze and says, “I don’t want anything more than you’re willing to give,” you take his hand and jump, too.

And there’s nothing gentle about the first time.

It’s all raw, urgent need, Jimin trying desperately to convince himself it’s more than it is while you convince yourself it’s less.

It’s the two of you finally giving up and giving in, letting yourselves be pulled taut by that invisible string tying you together.

It’s Jimin’s sharp intake of breath when you fully step out of your clothes, the sight rendering him immobile. Whatever plans he’d had before seeing the curves of your body, all the scars from years of working by his side, the mottled yellow-greens and purples from the bruises lining your skin—he has no plans now. Can barely think. Wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes away from you with a gun to his head.

It’s the final bricks of the wall he’d built around himself—around his heart, around all those words and feelings he’d never put a voice to—crumbling into ash at his feet. Now he knows he can’t go back. Can’t return to a reality where this isn’t his truth. Where there’s no you and him, him and you. Where it’s just a physical exchange, a give-and-take, tit for tat.

And god, he knows he shouldn’t think like this; knows he’s keeping the truth buried somewhere deep behind lock and key.

…But now that he knows how it feels to move inside you, what else is he supposed to do?

You’re everywhere. Clenched around him. Your taste on his tongue. The feel of you on the pads of his fingers. The smell of you making a mockery of all logical thought. No—no, he can’t do a goddamn thing to stop the avalanche now it’s started.

“Fuck,” he whines, fingers digging into your hips. The soft skin he finds purchase in such a contrast from your hardened exterior, but Jimin knows. He knows you, knows the person behind the mask, sees straight through you each time it slips.

What stared back at him had always been just out of reach.

Taunting him.

Screaming come and get me, come make me yours, come and fucking take what you want.

Until now.

Now it’s tangible. Now it’s breathy, fractured moans that echo off tile walls. Now it’s the sound of his name thatleaves your lips like a prayer. Now it’s the sheen of sweat that covers both of you. Now it’s nails scraping down his back, tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.

(And Jimin won’t tell you this, but those red welts are proof that this is real, this happened, and later on when he’s alone, when his mind is working overtime, he’ll look at them and he’ll smile. Because they’re real. Because this happened.)

Now, it’s the way blue becomes his favorite color. Because he can see his reflection in the mirror as he unravels and comes to his own demise as he spills inside of you; can see the fluorescent lights reflecting off the hue of his hair.

Jimin’s hair is blue when he realizes he’s in love with you.

[34.6037° S, 58.3816° W | Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA]

Jimin is blond when Namjoon sends you to South America.

The details had been scarce: a diplomatic advisor with a rap sheet of human rights violations that have been continuously swept under the rug and his equally-corrupt lawyer. A candid photograph paperclipped to another manila folder, Namjoon a fan of all those old cliches. Likes being a little cheeky that way when he can get away with it, because god knows he can’t get away with much, doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.

It’s a simple job. You and Jimin will have it dealt with in a matter of hours. Less if you’re lucky and the universe is agreeable. But the humidity sticks to your skin, has sweat seeping into your clothes and rolling down your temples, and if there’s one thing you can’t stand it’s the heat. Makes it hard to think. And Namjoon—Namjoon, who makes sure all of his agents want for nothing—is a cheap bastard. Rarely approves nice lodging, says it’s too risky despite your arguments to the contrary, that people don’t care what you do when you have money, so you’re stuck in some shithole motel room with an aircon unit that keeps blowing out stale, warm air.

And maybe you shouldn’t, maybe you should be more cognizant of Jimin and all his feelings, but it’s fucking hot, so you peel your shirt over your head and undo the button of your pants. Sit on the edge of the bed and try to think about anything other than the temperature, how it’s starting to prick uncomfortably at your skin.

Jimin clears his throat, keeps his eyes glued to the disgusting carpet. “Got a text from Seokjin-ssi,” he says, words strained. “Looks like they’ll be solo jobs.”

You groan. Leave it to Seokjin to change the plan at the last minute. “Tell Kim Seokjin he’s a useless piece of shit.”

“Done. Anything else?”

“Tell Kim Namjoon if he ever sends us to South America in the summer again I’ll kill him myself.”

Jimin has a laugh like an anodyne. A laugh that takes all those broken, bleeding parts of you and soothes over them like a balm. “Seokjin-ssi says he’s not passing along that particular message.”

“Tell him he’s a bitch, then.”

“He’ll kill me if I say that.”

“He hasn’t done field work in years and he’s probably too vitamin D deficient to leave the basement. He couldn’t even kill a fucking rat.”

There’s another laugh. More forced, less tinkling. You recognize it right away, the sound of anxiety. Solo jobs aren’t common for the two of you. For Yoongi and Taehyung, sure, but not you and Jimin. You’re a team for a reason, and though you’re more than capable of getting this done and out of the way, it doesn’t feel right. Settles in your gut like something rotten, knowing you’ll be without Jimin.

And you know he’s thinking it, too. How he turns the burner over and over in his hands, as if there’s some combination of words he can send back to Seoul to get Seokjin and Namjoon to reconsider. Plans don’t change often; not like this, anyway. These have been declared solos for a reason, and that’s a thought you can’t linger on too long.

“Are they leaving it up to us?” Jimin nods, still not meeting your eye. “Do you have a preference?”

He shrugs, tossing the phone on the small table in the corner. Nothing else to be done. “Not really. What do you think?”

“Nah, don’t care, either. Just toss me one.”

Santiago Aguirre… 47 years old… Resides in a high-rise luxury apartment in Retiro…

Your eyes skim the file, study the black and white photograph of the lawyer. Read over the list of all his high-profile, degenerate clients and all their high-profile crimes. You read about the previous attempts on his life, the seemingly never-ending list of people who want him dead. Your eyes go back to his photograph, frowning at the smug look on his face. What stares back at you is a man who thinks he’s invincible, who thinks a penthouse apartment on the top floor and a security team in the lobby means he’s impervious to harm. A man who has made money off people just like him: dirty, corrupt, hands stained red.

“Okay?” Jimin asks, looking up from his own file.

He’s so striking. So safe. And you know what he’s done, giving you the hit he thinks is easier, willing to risk himself on a solo mission to ensure you make it out. There’s no guarantees in this line of work, in life in general, but Jimin’s brand of selfless love is certainly one.

So you just nod, knowing someone slimy like this can quickly go sideways, and decide you can do the same.

“I’m gonna get ready,” you say. “The plan is the same as all the other solo jobs. Get in, get it done, get out as quickly as possible. Lay low. Don’t come straight back here.”

Jimin rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Anything else?”

You exhale. Try to quiet the nerves roiling in your stomach. Barely resist the urge to press a lingering kiss to Jimin’s forehead before you swallow hard and say, “Yeah. Stay alive.”

It comes out more like a plea.

—

You’re good at your job.

Rarely feel much guilt over it, either, which—well, you’re not sure what that means. That something is permanently broken in your psyche, probably. Being able to take life so easily and without remorse. It’s not natural.

Kim Namjoon is a man who plays God, is the one who decides who gets to live and who has to die. His word is the only law you adhere to. And that’s… that’s something. Makes it less burdensome, takes some weight off, because Kim Namjoon wouldn’t accept a morally-ambiguous job. He wouldn’t ask you to put your life on the line for some petty bullshit.

This is how you’ve lived for the last four years. Four years of blindly following Namjoon’s word, of being a good little soldier and doing whatever is asked of you. Four years of being responsible for not only your own life, but Jimin’s as well, just as he is for yours. Four years that have served you well, all things considered.

Until now.

Something about this job hits you hard. Doesn’t settle quite as quickly as the ones that have come before. For the first time, you’d looked down at the lifeless body at your feet and couldn’t stop the trembling, could barely quell the nausea. Thought what the fuck am I doing, what kind of life is this for the first time. Thought back to that day four years ago when Kim Namjoon saved your life and offered you a job and wondered, for the first time, what would’ve happened if you’d said no.

Now, as you suck on a cigarette, legs dangling off the roof of a building looking not far from collapse, a new thought:

Would Namjoon let you go if you asked?

He’s taken care of you. For four years you’ve wanted for nothing. Have socked away more money than you’ll ever be able to spend, even if you live to a thousand. You could go anywhere, become anyone, and no one would suspect a thing. There’d just be you and a million lifetimes’ worth of transgressions, alone under the weight of all that burden; alone, except for all the ghosts that come to greet you every time you close your eyes.

Doesn’t matter. Namjoon might be willing to let you go, give you the chance to salvage something from this life in the name of normalcy, but Yoongi would gladly put a bullet in your head before he let you disappear with all his secrets.

Doesn’t matter.

You stub out the cigarette and put the butt in your pocket. Make your way down to the street. Stay under the shadows—just visible enough to redirect any suspicion shot your way. You pretend to take a call, flawless Argentinian Spanish falling from your lips as you tell the imaginary person on the other end all about your fucked up day at work. How your manager never gets off your ass, doesn’t trust you, thinks you’re too fucking stupid to run a simple executable.

No one spares you a second glance.

Not here, on this nondescript street in a nondescript Argentinian neighborhood, and not when you stumble into the tiny lobby of your shithole motel. The poor kid behind the desk doesn’t even glance up, just mutters a good evening, miss under his breath that you return in a voice far too high-pitched to be your own.

Better to be seen and be unremarkable than draw attention to yourself trying to stay invisible, you figure.

The cameras in the stairwell are broken so you take the steps two at a time. Pull the room key from its place inside your boot, happy to no longer have it digging into your skin. Pause just long enough to make sure you don’t hear anything on the other side of the door before you’re unlocking it with your free hand wrapped around the trigger of your gun.

It’s empty.

Of course it is.

Jimin stashed the burner in a place no one but you would think to look. You text one simple word to Seokjin—Hey!—and you get two in return: Who’s this?

You know who it is, you fucking dickhead.

It takes a few seconds, but the reply is a simple—

Sorry.

Then you toss aside the phone and float in the darkness of the room. There’s nothing to do but wait, because you don’t dare to do anything alone. There’s sweat and blood and fuck knows what else stuck to your skin, your hair, but you can’t risk taking a shower. Can’t risk the water dampening your senses. Can’t risk being cornered in a moldy bathroom, only one way out. Can’t risk doing anything alone. Can’t take a fucking shower.

It’s this thought, more than anything else, that has your body flushing with rage.

What kind of life is this?

Namjoon had never mentioned repaying your debt. He’d never insinuated you owed him anything at all for saving your life, but you know something like that never comes for free. Namjoon doesn’t do anything just because. Has no goodness in his heart to do anything in the name of it. Watching Jimin nearly die in front of him had been the exception to his usual nature; a rare slip-up by an otherwise detached, uncaring man.

Still, whatever you owe him has surely been repaid by now. Tenfold, if the bloodstains along your collar are anything to go by.

It’s time for Namjoon to let you go.

—

Something is wrong.

Two hours have ticked by and there’s no word from Jimin. No word from Namjoon or Seokjin, either, which is the only reason you’re still in this nauseating motel room and not out on the streets searching for him. Solo jobs don’t go like this. The two of you are always in and out, tragically efficient. Back to where you started and then back on a plane, nothing left behind except a singular bullet hole and another fragmented piece of your conscience.

You’ve had a lot of jobs go wrong, but never two hours.

You’re about three minutes from coming out of your skin. Sick to your stomach with worry, anxiety weighing you down like an anchor. You wouldn’t be able to go out searching for Jimin like this even if you could, and there’s no point in dwelling on that, examining it further. All you can do is wait.

It’s another hour before you hear the click of the lock. You’re nearly on your knees in relief, but you stay rooted to the flimsy mattress. Try not to think about how you’ll have to sleep on it, even though you’ll be up half the night with residual worry. All those lingering ghosts.

Jimin doesn’t say anything, so neither do you.

[55.6761° N, 12.5683° E | Copenhagen, DENMARK]

Jimin’s hair is orange when you go to Copenhagen.

Not for a job, just to breathe. You wanted to see the city at Christmastime; Jimin’s never been.

You crack a joke. Point out buildings of similar color, have him stand in front of one as you take a picture. Everyone smiles when they pass the two of you on the street, Jimin’s eyes fond even though he rolls them as you pose him how you want. Still stands against an apricot-colored wall and flashes a smile and a peace sign, cheeks pink from the cold. Does a good job of pretending the two of you aren’t here just for fun, that this is something more.

It’s not.

The two of you fucked in a hotel room in Reykjavik and haven’t spoken a word of it since.

You nearly lost your mind over him in Buenos Aires and haven’t spoken a word of that, either.

Instead, his hand finds yours as the two of you walk around Tivoli Gardens. You marvel at the lights and Jimin marvels at you. You share mulled wine and spiced doughnuts. Jimin tries to drag you on the swings but you plant your feet and refuse, laughing through your refusals. As dangerous as your lives are, motion sickness might be the most. He gets his revenge and poses you in front of a giant nutcracker, then again in front of one of the endless Christmas trees.

Jimin pays for the two of you to decorate honey cakes. You’re surrounded by families with shrieking children and palpable adoration, and it’s all you can do not to wonder if anyone you’ve taken out had ever had something like this. Something that makes your soul warm; something that still lingers in your bones years later.

The two of you take a selfie when it starts to snow. It stings when you have no one to send it to, so it just lives in your phone. Maybe it’s enough.

On another day, Jimin holds your hand through Torvehallerne. This time you marvel at him while he marvels at all the food, eyes wide each time he turns to ask if he should buy something. You always say yes and he always shares, and it’s all you can do not to think about why you don’t have to budget yourselves. Why you’re able to walk through the market and buy whatever you want; how you could buy every item for sale and it wouldn’t make a dent.

(You pick up small trinkets for Taehyung and Jungkook. Not because you want to, but because it feels nicer than remembering that you have no one to buy gifts for. Not really. Not anymore.)

Jimin wants to ice skate, so you do. He holds your hand then, too. More out of necessity than anything else, and he has none of his usual grace. Someone hands you a free cup of hot chocolate, just because. Jimin pouts and then it’s his hot chocolate. It’s all you can do not to kiss away the whipped cream on the corner of his mouth.

Back in your lavish hotel, after countless days have blurred together and Jimin’s fresh from a shower, skin flushed, you finally ask yourself if it’s worth putting up such a fight. If it’s really all that bad to care for Jimin and be cared for in return. If it’s all that bad to be someone else, just for a little while: someone with a normal life who makes a normal living and has a normal capability to love. Someone who isn’t damaged beyond repair.

That will never be you. Not fully, and certainly not in this lifetime, but maybe it could be, a little.

“Jimin,” you say, because you need to try. Jimin loves you in ways you’ll never understand, and you want to be better for him. “We should talk.”

Your voice is small and hesitant, and Jimin hates it. Sees trouble where there’s only vulnerability, so he misreads. Shakes his head. Takes a risk and stands between your legs at the edge of the bed—yours, because there’s two—as he tilts your head back, thumbs pressing into the contours of your cheeks. The scar still sits in the hollow of your throat, and that version of you feels so far away. That life feels so far away.

There’s no violence here. There’s no blood, no fugues. There’s just you and Jimin, whose voice is small like yours when he shakes his head and says, “You should kiss me instead.”

The second time is nothing like the first.

Jimin moves delicately. Feels like silk lace, tastes like spun sugar. Moves both his mouth and his body fluidly, no hesitation, yet he still takes his time. Still pauses to look at you with endless devotion; with awed reverence. Makes a map of your body and marks all his favorite places with his lips.

“Tell me what you want,” he says. Speaks the words against the skin just beneath your ear. “Anything. I’ll give you whatever you want, just have to ask.”

What you want isn’t tangible, isn’t possible, so you stay quiet. Thread your fingers through Jimin’s hair, gasp when he mouths along the column of your throat. Jimin reserves all his softness for you. Bathes you in it. Would kill anyone to keep it that way.

So you say, “Want your mouth,” and let slip a quiet moan when he gives you what you’ve asked for. When he situates himself between your thighs and sucks and licks until you’re writhing, making a mess, grasping fruitlessly at the sheets, his hair, his shoulders, only calming when his hands find yours and your fingers interlock.

Jimin mouths at you until you’re trembling. Until you’re needy and desperate, hips moving on their own, fucking yourself against his face. Until nothing exists except the heat in your belly, the stars behind your eyelids, the heady, fucked-out sound of Jimin’s voice as he talks you through it, murmurs praise against your cunt.

Jimin mouths at you until you forget.

This isn’t your life. This is not something you can have.

But, in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? You’ve made peace with death, and there’s only one of two ways it’s going to come for you in the end: by Namjoon’s hand or someone else’s. So what does it matter?

This time, Jimin fucks you slow. Kisses you with your taste still in his mouth. Thumbs over a hardened nipple just to see what earns him a reaction, and what you truly want is more time—something else that’s impossible.

Jimin’s hair is orange when you think you might be in love with him.

[ 48.8566° N, 2.3522° E | Paris, FRANCE ]

Jimin’s hair is pink when—

“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the toilet.

Soaks a washcloth in warm water. Wrings it out. Stands in front of you, and there’s water dripping onto the floor and Jimin doesn’t care, doesn’t seem to see anything in this moment except for you, your hands covered in someone else’s blood, and he reaches out, gently grabs your wrist. Palm up. Someone else’s blood. Everything smells like copper and iron. Looks too surreal beneath the fluorescent lights of this hotel bathroom for your mind to make sense of it.

There is care in the way Jimin cleans your hands. There is tenderness in the way he both refuses to see what you really are and the way he’s the only one to ever see you so entirely, when you look down at the blood he’s washing away and all you can see is stigmata. When all you see is sin.

“I know you don’t love me,” he says, and there is a conviction in his words that stuns you into silence. “Not the way I love you, anyway.”

That tenderness is still there as he says this. As he presses the wet fabric into the meat of your palm, wipes the stains away, and the warmth is as calming as it is undeserved. It feels like something forbidden. It feels like salvation and condemnation all at once, like whatever sick depravity permeates you is contagious, will take over Jimin, too, just from touching you.

Jimin is close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough to see the violence that he exists in alongside you: the rips in his clothes, the scars that decorate his skin. Close enough to know he smells sickly-sweet, just like death. Your hand shakes as it reaches for him and never follows through. Doesn’t want to contaminate him.

“I do,” you finally say. Whatever is in your voice is not conviction. “I can’t.” You suck in a breath, try to steady your breathing. This is where it all comes crashing down, you think, because in all the years you’ve done Namjoon’s bidding, you’ve never cried. You can take life so freely and without thought, but you cannot love Jimin. “Someone like me isn’t capable of it.”

Jimin pauses, the washcloth stuck in the space between your ring and middle fingers. “And who is someone like you?”

Water is still dripping to the floor. Serosanguineous: blood tainting something untouched. Not something one thing or another but both, watery-pink. Looks like Jimin’s hair. “I’ve killed a lot of people,” you answer. “More than I can count. More than I can name. More than the ones that come to haunt me at night.” Your free hand moves to your chest, covers your heart. “There’s nothing here, Jimin. I’m not sure there ever was.”

The washcloth drops to the floor, and all that blood belonging to a man whose name you never bothered to learn before you put a bullet between his eyes finds a new place to rest. “I think,” he begins, clasping your unclean hand in his own, voice dropping to a whisper, “you forget, sometimes.” You gasp as he places your palm to his cheek, drags it across his face, smears a stranger’s blood across his skin. “That we’re the same.”

Jimin is always overwhelming, but the love he has for you is even more so. It consumes you entirely, embeds itself beneath your skin, makes a home, would tear you apart, body and soul, to return to him.

[ 47.4979° N, 19.0402° E | Budapest, HUNGARY ]

Jimin’s hair is lavender when it all goes to shit.

“You’re being followed.”

Seokjin’s voice is garbled through the earpiece, tinny and metallic, and you roll your eyes. Some things don’t need to be said, because you’ve known someone was following you for the last three blocks. Average height, black peacoat, close-cropped haircut. Not the kind of person that’d stand out here, and that’s exactly why you’d sent Jimin in the other direction.

“No shit,” you respond in Hungarian, because you already know the man following you doesn’t speak or understand it. “Give me somewhere to go.”

It takes Seokjin a few moments to run the translation. “There’s a side street up on your right,” he answers. “It’s tight, but there’s an alleyway at the end. You can buy some time if you’re quick.”

“Where’s Jimin?”

You pass a vendor selling lángos and duck into the street behind the stall. Just as Seokjin had said, there’s a small alleyway up on the left, and your footfall is near-silent as you break into a sprint to reach it. “Safe,” is all Seokjin says.

You take a second to steady your breathing, knowing you’re good on time—the man following you was close enough to know where you’d turned, but, if you’re lucky, not much after that. That plays on a loop: if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky. What is luck, what does it look like, in a life left entirely to chance? In a life with no guarantees?

You tuck yourself away, focus on Seokjin’s metallic breaths. Think about his basement in Seoul, why he’s in it. Ask, “What happened in Addis Ababa?” because it feels important to know.

There’s not much you know about Seokjin’s life. Whatever happened in Ethiopia had been before your time, reduced to hushed whispers and gossip fodder after your arrival. No one spoke of it, Seokjin especially, but every now and then something would slip in the same way weeds grow in sidewalk cracks.

A job gone wrong. A bombing at the consulate with Seokjin inside.

His reply is simple, words spoken carefully: “I loved someone once, too.”

He can’t see it, but you nod nonetheless; an answer that doesn’t require a response, because you know. It’s enough to fill in the rest. What Seokjin’s trauma looks like. Why he doesn’t do field work anymore. Why he prefers the solitude of the basement, rarely a sound beyond the electric thrum of the server racks.

Who had gone in to retrieve him, and why Yoongi has the scar over his eye.

“You loved someone,” you conclude, “and he would’ve been willing to die for you.”

“Yes,” Seokjin says, and it’s like the word’s been punched out of him. Sounds like something repressed, something left to rot in the darkest corner of the world.

Love, to Seokjin, looks and sounds the same as death.

“I think most people spend their entire lives searching for a love like that,” he continues, and if you could see him you think he might look dazed, off-kilter. You think he might be an avatar. Seokjin is prying his ribcage apart, unwrapping the barbed wire from his heart, saying I once was in love and this is all I know of it. “But, to me, in this life, it’s a prison. Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? How do you—I kissed that skin. I worshiped it. I pressed my lips to it with whatever softness was left in me. How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled?” He exhales, all tremor. “You can’t. You can’t.”

You know this all too well. You know what it feels like to look at Jimin and know, intrinsically and subconsciously, that you wouldn’t even hesitate. You’d take and give life to keep him alive and safe. You know that when you exit this world at someone else’s hand his face is the last thing you want to see.

You know it’s a liability.

You know it’s a target painted on your back. Between your eyes.

You know there’s nothing left to say, that this particular conversation has run its course. The two of you sit in an amicable silence, and you hope Seokjin can hear the life that surrounds you, however mundane. Hope he can hear the lángos vendor trying to hawk his goods; hope he can hear a city 8,000 kilometers away; hope he can hear these regular, everyday people going about their lives and remember there’s hope beyond his four walls.

I think you’d like it here, you think, but you don’t dare to say it aloud.

Time passes in a meaningless blur. Could be minutes, could be hours. No one’s come to kill you, so you reckon you’ve long since been in the clear. And maybe it speaks to Seokjin’s idea that love is a prison, because you know something’s happened to Jimin long before Seokjin speaks it into existence.

You’re up and out of the alleyway before you’re told to move. Have no idea where you’re going, but you’re racing through the streets of Budapest with a panic you haven’t ever felt in your life. Feels like quicksand; feels like molasses; feels like you have to wade through all the blood you’ve spilled, now congealed, to get to him.

“Where am I going?” you demand. Your lungs are on fire. In the split-second of silence it becomes a desperate scream. “Seokjin, tell me where the fuck I’m going!”

“The—fuck, the wa-warehouse up on your right.” You can’t think about why he’s crying. “I don’t—I don’t know wha-what’s there, you need to be careful. Please, you have to—”

Twenty seconds and you’ll be there, you’ll be with Jimin, you just need to keep running. You need to keep your head on straight. Remember your training. Remember you’ve built a life in a viper pit.

A man in a uniform is unloading a shipment around the back of the building. Faces away from you, bent at the waist. Takes very little effort to smash his head into the stone exterior and knock him unconscious, pocket his badge. You can’t get stupid now. Tell Seokjin to make sure all the cameras are cut, ask what floor when you shut yourself inside the freight elevator, unwilling to take the stairs and run into anyone who might be waiting. All the way to the top, he says, so all the way to the top you go.

—

Over the course of your life, you’ve made peace with death. Have stared it in the eye more times than you can count. Have dealt it out, evaded it, shook its hand.

You are wholly unprepared for the sight that greets you.

Red. Everything is red—the walls, the floor, what used to be a beautiful parquet pattern in the wood. In the center of the room: two bodies, maybe three. Not much that’d be able to identify them beyond a pile of teeth, no saying whose is whose. Slaughterhouse scraps.

And this is not—Jimin doesn’t work this way. Isn’t his MO. Jimin’s kills are elegant and neat, topped with a bow. What you see before you is ultraviolence. It is unhinged, it is fury, it is a complete loss of control. It’s what love looks like to Jimin, because he sits at the very edge of a rotted chair, legs crossed. Face streaked with blood, clothes covered in it.

“Jimin,” you say, because what else is there?

He tilts his head to the side, smirks a little, looks at you beneath his lashes. Eyes that used to find you across a room and calm you. Eyes that have locked onto you in the throes of pleasure. Eyes you’ve seen yourself reflected in, bathed in love and adoration.

Eyes that now contain nothing.

“Jimin, what the fuck happened?”

He removes his gloves with his teeth and doesn’t flinch away from the taste of iron. “They said they hurt you,” he states simply, “so I did what needed to be done.”

“What—” Nausea claws at your throat; for the first time, it’s all too much. This isn’t Jimin. This isn’t your Jimin, who smiled as you posed him against apricot walls in Copenhagen, who took a bullet to the stomach to protect you and never, ever told you. This is not the Jimin who wasted the last of his goodwill on loving you. “What did you do?” you whisper.

He rises to full height and it makes you flinch. You are scared of Jimin for the first time in your life: scared of who he is in this moment, what he’s capable of. And he sees it, lets that brand of anguish overtake him. Reaches for you before he decides against it and lets his hand drop to his side. Says, “I would never hurt you,” as if the words could brand themselves into your skin so you’d never forget.

“No, you’d just—” You squeeze your eyes shut. Don’t think about how one of the men nearly embedded into the floor was the one trailing you earlier.

Instead, you think about Seokjin: Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? You think about: How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled? You think about: In this life, it’s a prison.

You drop to your knees. Let the blood seep through your clothes and into your skin, undeserving of shying away from it.

Namjoon should’ve let you go.

You think about the men in front of you. Who they were, who they loved. The grief all of this is going to leave behind, and it becomes impossible to breathe. You grasp at your throat, think about all the times you’ve been strangled and who’d been there to cut the rope. There is no limit to Jimin’s devotion, and you understand now, how it drove Yoongi to madness. How he loved someone so much he would’ve retrieved their corpse from a building and how that same person can no longer bear to look at the damage they’d caused.

“This isn’t love, Jimin,” you choke out.

He stands in front of you. Stigmata. You’re worshiping at the altar of some kind of devil. At least his hands are clean when he places his fingers beneath your chin, forces you to look up at him. “What is it, then?”

“Destruction.”

A quiet huff of cruel laughter. “See, this is the difference between me and you, darling.” He takes back his hand, runs it through his blood-streaked hair, and your chin sags to your chest without his support. “Because I already knew that. Because I have destroyed myself every single day loving you.” He squats down, eye-level, and he says, “I need you to listen to me when I say this, sweetheart: you do not love me the way I love you, because I would do worse. When it comes to you, there is nothing on this earth I would not destroy to keep you safe.”

He clears his throat. Collects whatever’s in his mouth and spits onto one of the bodies. “If this is enough to have you tucking your fucking tail between your legs, then go, because this doesn’t even scratch the fucking surface.”

You can’t bring yourself to say anything, and sometimes that says it all.

Jimin presses a kiss to the top of your head. Makes a call. Cleaners will be here soon, he says, better get going.

You watch him go.

[ 37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA ]

Jimin’s hair is black when Namjoon calls the meeting.

He takes the seat across from Namjoon’s desk because they don’t meet like this often. Assignments are usually manila folders slipped under doors, hushed whispers in hallways confirmed with a nod or a text on a burner phone. Assignments are not last-minute assemblies in conference rooms and offices.

But the way Namjoon is looking at him, with his clenched jaw and a gaze that’s meant to look barbed to anyone who doesn’t actually know him—Jimin doesn’t need to ask what this is about.

Had he bothered to look, he would’ve known by the way you stood in the far corner of the room, face obscured by the mid-afternoon shadows. Yoongi’s close to you, for some reason: dressed head to toe in black, perched on a lateral file cabinet, using a metal corner to sharpen his switchblade. Just like a harbinger of death. Some sort of fucked up omen, a warning that’s come too late.

Didn’t I tell you this would end badly, he hears Yoongi taunt in his head. This is what happens when you lay with trash.

Easy for Yoongi to say when he doesn’t know what it means to be cared for by you. Doesn’t know how it feels to give in to the freefall and plummet at your feet, stripped back and laid bare. Doesn’t know how it feels to kiss secrets into your skin like constellations, to map his tongue along every unspoken confession.

Easy for Yoongi to say, because he doesn’t have to survive the aftermath. Doesn’t have to feel the heartbreak, the agony of having you and watching as you slip through his fingers. Yoongi doesn’t have to struggle just to breathe, doesn’t have to endure the nights staring at the ceiling, watching as the daylight creeps into the corners of his vision. Doesn’t have to watch you looking so unaffected.

“Jimin.” Namjoon’s tone is flat, needlelike.

Behind him, Yoongi chuckles lowly. “What?” Jimin asks, his gaze trained on the painting behind Namjoon’s head. Looks like one he’d seen in Berlin, the time the two of you had gone just because and spent an afternoon ducking in and out of museums to escape the rain.

When he closes his eyes, he still sees the raindrops stuck to your eyelashes. The beads of water rolling off the sleeves of your leather jacket. How blinding your smile had been. The laughter in your voice as you ordered beer after beer after beer for the two of you in flawless Berlinisch. A brief, fleeting glimpse at normalcy. At the kind of life the two of you could have if you were just… different. Lived different lives. Were different people.

“You’ve gotten sloppy.”

Namjoon’s words are a cold bucket of water. Snap him back to reality, yank him back to the present where he’s forced to leave those river-lined streets behind. You’re silent and Yoongi’s still snorting laughter. “Okay,” is all Jimin can bring himself to say.

Jin had gotten sloppy once, too, and Namjoon stuck him down in the basement to work logistics. Might not be so bad, Jimin reckons. He’d be away from you, spared of this fucking misery. “So you know that’s unacceptable.”

Jimin just shrugs, resigned to his fate, whatever it may be. “I’m reassigning the both of you,” Namjoon continues. “You’ll both have new partners for your next assignments, since you clearly can no longer be trusted together.”

“Who?” Jimin manages to choke out.

Namjoon raises an eyebrow, clearly having expected an argument. “You’re being sent to Shanghai with Jungkook. You,” he says, turning his attention to you, “are going to Moscow with Taehyung.”

She’s fond of Taehyung, Jimin wants to say. But you’d been fond of him too, once upon a time, and that’d only ended in heartbreak, so who fucking cares.

They’re cruel, the tricks Jimin’s mind plays on him. How he convinces himself you look pained. How his fingers wring together at the thought of entrusting his life in the hands of someone else, someone new. At your life being just as at stake; at Taehyung being tasked with keeping you alive. Would you die for him, too, the way you’d always told Jimin you would for him? Would Taehyung take a bullet to the stomach to keep you safe the way Jimin had?

Even more cruel is the way you scoff, pushing yourself off of the wall as you fold your arms across your chest and say, “That’s bullshit, Kim Namjoon.”

No one talks to Namjoon that way except you.

Yoongi’s knife stops twirling. Just like a bird sensing a storm, senses on high-alert as he flicks his gaze over to you. “I’m sorry?” Namjoon says. “What part of Jimin losing his mind and nearly outing all of us seems like bullshit to you?”

“Hm, let me think,” you retort, a manicured finger tapping against the hollow of your cheek. “The part where you’re reassigning me for someone else’s mistake?”

Which part was the mistake? Jimin wants to ask. Needs to know how much you regret. Was sleeping with you the mistake? Falling in love with you? Getting too caught up in all these daydreams and letting reality get away from him?

“This organization is more important than Park Jimin getting his goddamn dick wet,” Namjoon snaps. “Keeping all of you safe—keeping you alive—is more—”

You scoff. Take an entire container of gasoline and pour it right on top of Namjoon’s flammable ire. “Then perhaps you’d be so kind as to explain to me why Min fucking Yoongi can fuck damn near everyone in this establishment, yet I have to sit here and listen to your goddamn mouth—”

Jimin doesn’t think Yoongi even knows his arm is moving.

There’d just been the trading of barbed words. His own name being spoken into the ether. Yoongi’s arm moving away from his body, switchblade clasped tightly between his fingers as he plunges it into your flesh.

Jimin watches it puncture your arm in slow motion. Feels the bile in his throat, the heat in his belly. Looks first at Namjoon whose jaw has gone slack, skin pale, as he stammers over words that won’t come. Then he looks at Yoongi—expects to find shock or guilt but finds only a muted disinterest and flared nostrils.

Finally, he looks at you. Watches the white cotton sleeve of your shirt slowly turn red and sticky-wet. Watches as your lips move around syllables and vowels and consonants Jimin can’t decipher.

“—fucking piece of shit, this is my favorite shirt! I’ll never get all this goddamn blood out of it—”

Jimin thinks he hears Yoongi say you deserve it. But Jimin isn’t really thinking much as he clambers out of his chair and moves in Yoongi’s direction. Doesn’t think at all as he lets instinct take over, lets adrenaline steer him headfirst into yet another bad idea.

He’s always known there’d come a day he’d be face-to-face with the sight of your blood. Had always known it’d come from someone else’s hand. Had always promised himself that hurting you would be the last thing anyone ever did.

Jimin has his fingers wrapped around Yoongi’s throat and he finally understands it—the joy Yoongi finds in taking life.

“What’s the matter, Jimin-ah?” Yoongi taunts. Jimin tightens his grip. Suddenly hates that fucking scar across Yoongi’s eye. “You’re never on clean-up duty. Always make your girlfriend do the dirty work. Finally grew some fucking balls, huh?”

“Fuck you,” Jimin says stupidly. Can’t think of anything more to say. Not that he needs to. Wrapping your hands around someone’s throat sends enough of a message, he thinks.

Namjoon’s still tongue-tied as you yank Yoongi’s blade from your arm, immediately pressing your other hand over the wound to stem the bleeding. The sight of your blood is making Jimin dizzy; the smell of the iron hanging in the air. All he wants to do is choke the life out of the man in front of him, but more than that, he just wants to hold your hand. Wants to comfort you, even though he knows you don’t need it. Not from him, not from anyone, but he still wants to. Wants to press his lips to the sweat at your brow.

And Yoongi can see it, too, because he starts laughing. It’s an odd, fractured noise. Jimin isn’t sure if he’s ever heard him laugh before, decides he also hates the way it sounds. Feels all wrong watching it leave his crooked smirk. Makes Jimin’s stomach plummet to the ground.

“Oh, you’re fucked, aren’t you?” Yoongi teases around Jimin’s slackened grip. “You weren’t just fucking her, you’re in love with her.”

Weird how Jimin is the one with his hands around someone’s neck and feels like he’s the one suffocating.

[ 31.2304° N, 121.4737° E | Shanghai, CHINA ]

Jimin watches the life drain from an innocent woman’s face and feels nothing.

Jimin watches Jungkook cut a man down and feels even less.

When it’s over, he cleans up wordlessly and doesn’t eat for three days.

[ 37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA ]

Jimin’s hair has faded to brown by the time he returns from Shanghai.

The more complicated job had gone to you and Taehyung. Jimin had tried not to take it personally. The Russian hits are always unnecessarily violent and Jungkook still isn’t fully trained. There’s still a phantom pain in Jimin’s stomach that warns him of the consequences of taking on more than he can chew. So, sure, Shanghai had gone fine, but his mind had been nearly 7,000 kilometers away the entire time.

Good thing he’d returned to Seoul unscathed, too, because he’s sure Namjoon would’ve eliminated him without a moment’s hesitation if he’d fucked up again.

But Shanghai had only served to prove the leader right. Jimin can’t work with you anymore. Can’t focus, can’t stomach the violence, can’t keep his goddamn head on straight.

He sighs as he glances at Jungkook to his right. Jimin had watched him murder two men in cold blood not even thirty-six hours ago and now he’s doe-eyed and sucking down his third banana milk of the morning. It really makes his head spin, being paired with this grown-up infant of a man now instead of you, but for all of Jungkook’s apparent shortcomings, he’d kept Jimin alive. He isn’t dead.

And then you walk in with Taehyung and he wishes he was.

Because you’re laughing and Taehyung’s got his arm slung around your shoulder and you look happy. It’s the kind of happiness that should be contagious, bloom warmth in his chest, but it doesn’t. It just takes the last frayed strand of hope he has and sets flame to it.

You don’t look like you miss Jimin at all. Don’t look like you’ve lost sleep or skipped meals.

“Didn’t take you long, did it?” Jimin says, because he’s wounded and lashing out. Not because he means it.

You must know he doesn’t, too, because you don’t react. “Watch your mouth, Park Jimin,” Taehyung warns, because he doesn’t know, and this only sets Jimin off more. You don’t need defending. Or had you, and Jimin had simply thought it wasn’t his place to provide it? That you wouldn’t want it?

“Or what, Kim Taehyung?”

Taehyung is cherubic. It’s part of his charm, one of many reasons why he’s so effective. If you’re looking to die, you look for the guy who looks like Yoongi, not the one who smiles wide and warm like Taehyung. So when he sets his jaw and pokes his tongue into his cheek and says, “Or I’ll cut your fucking head off, you stupid fuck,” your attention is finally piqued.

“I’m so sick of this,” Jungkook wails, banana milk tossed carelessly in the trash. “All of you need to get your fucking shit together!”

Taehyung rolls his eyes at the same time you pretend to inspect your nails. “Is that why you’re so temperamental, Chim?” Taehyung prods, looking every bit the pretentious, murderous angel he is. “Because you got sent to China on a babysitting mission while the grownups did real work?”

“Fuck you,” Jungkook snaps, rising to full height. “I’m not a fucking child.”

“Oh? Could’ve fooled me.” Taehyung’s words are razor-sharp and smell like kerosene. “Tell me, then: were you on babysitting duty? Had to look after our precious little Jiminie while he nursed his broken heart?”

You sigh, full of faux-exasperation, and place a gentle hand on Taehyung’s forearm. Dig your nails in just enough to be a warning, and if Jimin hadn’t been looking he’d miss it: the way Taehyung deflates instantly, anger dissipating like smoke, back in control. Just because you’d touched him. Just because you were there. Jimin knows that touch, how it feels to be under your control, and it makes his chest ache. Makes everything feel like it’s sitting wrong in his stomach, and he’s either going to be sick all over Namjoon’s overpriced fucking rug or wrap his hands around Taehyung’s throat the way he’d done to Yoongi.

He’s out of his goddamned mind; he feels untethered. Helpless. Like it was always going to end like this, and maybe Jimin knew that and had just ignored it. Maybe now he’s paying the price—maybe he’s finally found something he can’t afford.

Jungkook’s still going off, nasty gaze set on Taehyung because he’s the only one playing along. They’re exchanging words Jimin can’t make heads nor tails of. Words he doesn’t care about. Words that ring empty and hollow because they sound nothing like the way you say his name. Shapeless, unlike the way your lips move around those syllables.

“Jimin,” you say, the sound finally registering and bringing him back down to earth. All he can do is stare. “Can we talk?” Taehyung and Jungkook are still trading barbs.

Wonders how he got here. Looks around the room and wonders if each and every one of them is destined for this same fate, this madness. Wants to tell you why he forgot his vest, why he was three hours late in Argentina. Wants to grovel and beg and leave this place and never look back.

More than anything, he wants to know what it feels like to actually be human.

So he shakes his head. Tries not to be haunted by the way your face falls at the rejection.

There is a scar on his abdomen and a scar on your arm that both tell the same story. There is a man in the basement who is in love with a man above ground and is too weighed down by guilt to do anything about it. There is a man here who plays god, has soldiers to do his bidding, and there is very little here that Jimin has only for himself.

The two of you will have that conversation, but he needs to be human, first.

[ 34.6901° N, 135.1956° E | Kobe, JAPAN ]

This is a waste of your fucking time.

Whatever Namjoon had thought would be here doesn’t seem to exist. Yoongi can barely tolerate you on a good day, threatens to stick a dagger in your neck at least twice an hour, but the more time the two of you waste chasing ghosts, the closer he comes to unraveling entirely.

“Stop fucking staring at me,” he snaps, blowing the smoke of his cigarette right in your face.

You tut. “But you’re so beautiful, Yoongi, I just can’t help it.”

He digs his switchblade from his boot. Makes a show of flipping it open. “I can cut your fuckin’ eyes out of your skull,” he intones. “Maybe that’ll help.”

In your ear, Jimin’s laughter rings like crystal.

Ricochets off of all the corners of Seokjin’s basement, makes the echo sound warped through the earpiece. “Please tell Yoongi-ssi to keep an eye on the man with the shaved head. In front of him, roughly sixty degrees to his right.”

You relay the message. Watch as Yoongi transforms—sharpened gaze, rigid posture, disappears into the shadows. More apex predator than man. “And me?” you ask.

“Backup,” comes Seokjin’s voice. “We haven’t found your mark yet.”

You hum. Pick up the cigarette Yoongi left behind and stick it between your lips. Smoke it nearly to the filter. “You got it, boss,” you tease, just because it flusters him.

“I’m—that’s not—knock it off.”

Exhale. Stub out the cigarette. Butt in your pocket. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Jimin says, and his voice is soft, sounds like spun sugar. “Stay alive, all right?”

Jimin’s hair isn’t dyed at all.

if you've read this far: thank you so, so much! i am more appreciative than i can put into words. this is very different from what i typically write, but i hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.

i would love to hear your thoughts if you have any. <3

#jimin x reader #jimin smut #bts x reader #bts smut #jimin imagine #jimin scenarios #jimin fanfic #jimin x you #jimin x y/n #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #bts x you #bts x y/n

330 notes · View notes

starlightkun · 6 months

Text

➠ word count: 22.0k ➠ warnings: cursing, mentions of drinking (there’s a frat party), everything i know about hockey is from internet research for this fic i’m sorry for any inaccuracies i tried ➠ genre: fluff, gets quite suggestive (a heavy makeout scene/near sex scene) but no actual smut, college au, hockey captain sungchan, chronically ill reader (chronic migraines), halloween-themed at the beginning, sungchan’s not a frat boy but he’s like... a frat boy by association ➠ extra info: the ages/relative ages of the members in here are whatever i want them to be, don’t read into it too much. this is a very usamerican take on a college au btw. also i call kunhang ‘hendery’ in here like it’s his government name for a one-line gag bc i think i’m hilarious the reader in this has chronic migraines, which i have. when the reader’s migraines and thoughts/experiences as a chronically ill person are described, that is me writing directly from my own life. i am not generalizing the lives of all people with chronic migraines and chronic illness, but i am sending all my love to any readers out there living with a chronic illness, and here’s a reminder to go take your meds ➠ author’s note: hi so this has been a wip for like a year lol. this one long predates sungchan’s deneofication (and subsequent re-debut in riize), hockey player sungchan just lives in my brain rent free ok. anyway, i hope you like ➠ series masterlist

“You agreed to go to a frat party?” Chenle’s eyes were bugging out of his head as he sat across a high top in the dining hall from you. “Do you remember what happened last time, Y/N?”

“Hard to forget,” you snorted.

“And yet it seems you did, somehow, lost in dreamboat Jung Sungchan’s eyes.”

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24

“Now shoo!” Dr. Son waved the small group of you out of his dimly lit office.

It was Phantasmagorical Phriday, a time-honored tradition going back to your freshman year of university. Dr. Son had been intrigued by the four freshmen who were somehow in his third-year class on Gothic Fiction and actually seemed to “get it.” His “Phantasma Phour” as you dubbed yourselves (a nickname that got quickly worn out, persisting only as the title of your groupchat):

Wong Hendery, who ended up in the class accidentally due to an error on his academic advisor’s part (she had gotten him mixed up with a Wong Henry, a junior Literature major who actually needed to take Dr. Son’s class) and he subsequently changed majors at least three times to your knowledge, so you were genuinely surprised he was graduating on time—he finally settled on Communications;

Jung Sungchan, at the time a promising young rookie hockey player who had now blossomed into your school’s reliable team captain—Biology major, being an athlete meant he could pre-register for classes and he picked Dr. Son’s at random to fulfill a gen ed Literature credit;

Zhong Chenle, an honorary member of both Nu Chi Tau, one of the biggest frats on campus, and the hockey team, as somehow 95% of his social circle were Nu Chi brothers and/or hockey players despite Chenle being neither himself, your best friend and also sometimes you swear a demon sent straight from hell to kill you—Literature major, who bullied you into taking the class; and

You, Chenle’s best friend who used to hate anything and everything Gothic fiction that got bullied into taking it anyway and now adored the genre more than any other—Literature major, who took the last spot in the class on registration day.

Dr. Son would invite you all to monthly extracurricular workshops in his office that built up to this: Phantasmagorical Phriday, a writing competition to see which of the four of you could write the best gothic short story. The stories were actually submitted the prior week, but it was the Friday before Halloween that was dubbed the Phriday in question. The four of you were invited to his office that night after classes (and Sungchan’s hockey practice) to review your pieces: how he thought everyone had improved from last year, discuss the writing process, and to finish off the night, Dr. Son would announce his top two stories. Those in the top two had the chance to send him a persuasive letter about why they should win. They had to be sent to him that night because the next morning, your professor would email the top two individually with the results.

Since this was your last Phantasmagorical Phriday, Dr. Son pretended not to see when Hendery brought out four celebratory White Claws for you all. You still had your warm, unopened, orange-flavored seltzer in your hand as the small group of you left the Literature, Writing, and Foreign Languages building together.

“I still can’t believe you couldn’t find anything classier for our last Phantasmagorical Phriday, Hendery.” You shook your head. “Ever heard of champagne? Literally any wine?”

“So you’re not gonna shotgun that, Y/N, is what I’m hearing?” Hendery teased as you all stopped under the light post right outside the building.

“Is that a challenge or what, Wong?” You scoffed, handing it back to him. “But no, I’m good.”

Sungchan thankfully cut in and changed the topic of conversation, “So are you going to start writing your letter of reconsideration, Y/N?”

This year’s top two were you and Sungchan, the member of the Phantasma Phour you spoke to the least. Outside of the monthly “workshops” (which at this point with your differing majors were just get-togethers of questionable academic value), you never saw him. You obviously saw Chenle all the time, and despite the fact that you considered him a bit obnoxious, you were sort of friends with Hendery, joining him for lunch if you happened to see him at the student union or at the coffee shop on campus. Sungchan was perfectly nice and all, you just found that you never really talked to him like the other two.

You looked down at your watch, taking a quick inhale when you saw the time. You’d stayed in Dr. Son’s office a lot later than you’d realized.

“Oh, no,” you casually waved off Sungchan’s question, readjusting your tote bag on your shoulder. “I’ve got something more pressing right now. Anyway, see you guys. It was a good four years, I’m glad we got to do this.”

Lifting your hand in a wave of finality to the three men, you departed.

“She’s really not going to submit a letter?” Sungchan asked, still watching after you as your figure faded away in the distance.

“Nope,” Chenle shook his head, reaching for the spare White Claw in Hendery’s hand. “Y/N never does.”

“You didn’t know that?” Hendery questioned the hockey player, holding the drink away from Chenle.

“Why not?”

“She’s not in it to win really.” Chenle lunged for the can as Hendery jerked it away at the last second. “Just wants to make stuff.”

“So she was lying about doing something?”

Hendery and Chenle were now running circles around Sungchan in their game of keep-away with the seltzer.

“No.”

“What do you—” Sungchan sighed, yanking the drink from Hendery’s grasp and holding it high above his own head, well out of either of their reaches. “Hey!”

Now with their attention, the hockey captain kept his arm straight up as he returned to his question, “What are you talking about, Chenle?”

“Y/N does have something pressing right now. If I tell you where she’s probably going will you give me the White Claw?” Chenle bargained.

“You’d exchange your best friend’s location for an orange White Claw? Not even watermelon?” Hendery asked incredulously.

“It’s Sungchan, someone we’ve known for like four years, not some creep off the street who’s going to wear her skin.”

“No, Chenle, you don’t have to tell me that,” Sungchan shook his head, offering the can out for either one to take.

The Literature major was able to snatch it first, jumping up in celebration, “Suck an egg, Hendery!”

“I wouldn’t—” Sungchan’s words were too late though, as Chenle had already popped the tab, and the overly-shaken seltzer exploded all over all three of them.

“Zhong Chenle, I’m going to strangle you, you little weasel!”

“Ah! Sungchan, save me!”

“I would, except you got fucking orange White Claw in my eyes and I’m fucking blind now! Goddamn!”

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25

Rolling over in bed the next morning, you let out a big sigh and buried your face in your pillow, fully intent on going back to sleep. Saturday morning. No school, no work. Just you, your bed, and some much-needed sleep.

Then, the obnoxious blaring of your phone came from your nightstand. You groaned, reaching blindly for the object, and barely opening one eye just enough to snooze it. Damn, you really had slept in, to be woken up by your first medication alarm. Well, you weren’t going to die if you took your morning doses fifteen minutes later than normal. You were about to stuff your phone under your pillow when you briefly caught sight of your lockscreen after the alarm disappeared.

Text notification from Jung Sungchan?

Flopping onto your back and bringing your phone with you, you squinted against the harsh light of your screen to make sure you were reading that right. Yep, Sungchan had definitely texted you a few hours ago, separate from the Phantasma Phour chat. At almost 7:00 a.m., too. What the hell?

Curiosity won out over a need to sleep for fourteen more minutes, and you opened the notification.

[jung sungchan: Congrats, Y/N!]

You stared blankly at the text, your groggy mind desperately grasping around for any sort of context as to why Jung Sungchan would be texting you that at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday. Then it struck you like lightning, and you let out an audible “Oh, duh!” as you remembered where you both were last night. Phantasmagorical Phriday. The writing contest. You and Sungchan were the top two. Dr. Son must have sent the email out already, and apparently you had won.

Normally, you wouldn’t check your school email on the weekend until Sunday night, unless you were waiting to hear back from a specific professor—and the Sunday night check was just to see if any of your Monday classes were cancelled. Lord knows you definitely wouldn’t have checked it at seven in the morning on a Saturday. You let out a snort of disbelief as you reread the timestamp on the text. But still, it was nice of him. A good show of sportsmanship, as one would expect from the hockey captain.

You quickly checked your own student email, and did in fact see an email from Dr. Son at the very top with the subject ‘PHINAL PHANTASMAGORICAL PHRIDAY RESULTS.’

‘Y/N and Sungchan:

Thank you again for your submissions. I enjoyed working with everyone these four years.

The winner this year is Y/N. Good job.

Dr. Son.’

An amused smile crept across your face at your professor’s usual blunt email style. But this was also some of the nicest feedback he’d given your writing, even when you had won Phantasmagorical Phriday in the past, or in classes that you’d taken from him over the years. Something about it truly did feel... final.

And so with an odd bittersweetness, you drafted an equally short and blunt email back to your professor.

‘Dr. Son:

Thank you for taking us on these past four years. I will never forget the experience.

Y/L/N Y/N.’

Then finally, you went back to the original reason that you were even doing this.

[you: thanks, sungchan!]

Then, your alarm went off again, making you jump out of your skin. Well, time for your morning meds.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27

A tall figure was nearing the corner table you had claimed in one of the campus coffee shops the following Monday afternoon, and you looked up from your laptop screen, a little surprised at who it was. Jung Sungchan was standing at the end of your table, black flannel over a graphic t-shirt and dark wash jeans, one backpack strap slung over his shoulder. He had an iced coffee in one hand.

You paused the movie playing on your laptop, taking out both your headphones as you looked up at him inquisitively, “Uh hi, Sungchan.”

“Hi, Y/N.”

“Are you here to study or something?”

“Mm.” He couldn’t seem to meet your eyes. “Not really. Just grabbing a coffee and saw you. Do you mind if I sit with you for a bit?”

“Oh, sure. I’m waiting out the storm to leave,” you gestured to the near-constant downpour that had started right after you’d arrived over two hours ago. Noticing that some of Sungchan’s hair and shoulders were damp, you added, “The storm you apparently got caught in without an umbrella.”

“Oh, yeah,” he ran a hand through his hair to push some of it away from where it had been falling into his eyes.

“I don’t mind having some company while I wait.”

To your surprise, instead of sitting across from you, Sungchan plopped himself onto the same bench that you were on, one leg slung over either side so he could face you directly.

You picked up the mug in front of you, your second cup of your drink of choice. You’d gotten a refill after it became clear that the rain wasn’t letting up any time soon. Sungchan was already a third of the way done with his iced coffee as you blew over your hot drink before taking a small sip. He glanced up at you, and you felt like you were going to choke on the uncomfortable silence. So you took a gamble. Turning in your seat to face him as well, you hiked a knee up onto the bench, bringing your mug with you.

“Do you want to ask me something, Sungchan?”

The hockey player startled, having to catch himself from nearly choking on his coffee. Seems like you were right. Sungchan finally stopped sucking down his drink, setting it down on the table and wiping his palms on the knees of his jeans. “I heard that you never sent in a letter to Dr. Son. Any year you were a top two.”

“Oh, yeah, nah.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t seem worth it,” you shrugged.

“What?”

“Every year I participated I wanted my work to stand on its own two legs. After the death of the author, that’s all that’s left, right? The work. It has to speak for itself.”

“Oh,” Sungchan nodded, then squinted his eyes, confusion entirely overtaking his features. “Wait, what?”

“Sorry, I don’t know how much Lit Theory you’ve done. Probably not a lot as a Bio major, huh? Death of the author is both literal and metaphorical. Removing what the author meant to do or say with a text from how you actually interpret the text as the reader. It’s a lot easier when they’re actually dead, but the abstract concept is practiced when they’re alive too. It’s… seeing the text as separate from authorial intent. Mind you, it’s only one tool in a literary critic’s arsenal, but I liked it for our Gothic fiction class. All the authors we read in that class, they’d been gone for a while, we had no way to know what they really meant when they wrote all that stuff. And it didn’t really matter for our purposes. All we did have was what they wrote, and that was enough for me. So the same should be enough for whoever reads the stuff I write. Even if it’s just Dr. Son.”

“Huh.”

“Though I guess I just explained myself a little, oops,” you laughed at yourself, taking another sip from your steaming mug. “I’m getting less and less mysterious by the second, aren't I?”

“Chenle made it sound like you didn’t care about winning,” Sungchan asked, cheek in hand.

You arched an eyebrow at this. “You asked Chenle about me?”

“W-Well you left so fast after we saw Dr. Son, and you two are you know...”

“Oh he’s my best friend,” you clarified for perhaps the ten-thousandth time in your life. “And while others may use any litany of swears for him and Hendery calls him a little weasel, I prefer ‘actual demon sent from Hell to kill me.’”

“What?” Sungchan’s eyes widened.

“He pushes me out of my comfort zone. In a good way, most of the time.”

“Got it. Then what do you do for him? If he’s your yang…”

“I’m entertainment?” You snorted, taking another sip of your drink. After setting it back down, you answered more sincerely, “I’m kidding. Sometimes it feels like that but I did ask him one time a couple years ago, when he was tipsy enough that I believed the words coming out of his mouth but not so drunk that it was unintelligible. ‘A safe place.’ And since then… I can see it in us. That’s my yin to him.”

He smiled softly at you. “That’s... really nice.”

“Sorry, what were you asking me before that?”

“Oh, uh— Chenle said you really didn’t care about winning Dr. Son’s contest, you just wanted to make stuff? That’s why you didn’t submit a letter.”

“Generally, sure. Winning would’ve been great, but I didn’t write what I thought Dr. Son wanted. I took all of his feedback with a grain of salt. Took stuff that I liked from him, took stuff I liked from other profs I had. Mixed and matched to make something that was mine.” You pressed your lips together, then leaned forward like you were about to tell him a secret, “I didn’t live for Phantasmagorical Phriday, Sungchan. You do know that, right?”

“Wow,” he blinked, seeming a bit disoriented. “I’ve never really thought about… you like that.”

“Well to be fair to you, you only ever knew me there and in Dr. Son’s class. Makes it hard not to think of me only through that lens. All you know about me is that I presumably like Gothic fiction and I’m a Lit major, right?”

“Right.”

“So what do you think I was doing here before you showed up?”

“…Reading Edgar Allan Poe.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that, turning your laptop screen to show the paused movie to him, “I was watching Pacific Rim.”

His jaw literally dropped, and you felt the need to save him at least a little. Grabbing a book from your bag, you held it up, “I did come here initially to finish reading this new mystery novel I just got, but then the storm came and I had nothing else to do after I was done with the book.”

“But still… you’re so…”

“I have interests outside the one class we took together?”

“Smart,” he finished, an absolutely adorable expression of wonder across his face.

You weren’t expecting that, surprised giggles bubbling up out of you as you felt yourself growing warm under his awestruck gaze.

“Anyway, your turn,” you tapped his knee with your book before putting it back in your bag.

“For what?”

“To expand my horizons of you. All I know about you is that you’re the hockey captain, and a Bio major who took a gothic fiction class one time like three years ago. Show me you’re a multifaceted individual, too.”

“Uhm, that’s about it.”

“Oh come on, Sungchan.”

“No really, if I’m not on the ice, I’m in class; if I’m not in class, I’m with my team; and if I’m not with my team, I’m studying.”

“You’re here, right now,” you pointed out. “Last I checked I’m not on your hockey team, and we’re not studying. You have to do one thing that’s not for school or hockey. My thing was just watching Pacific Rim this one time, remember?”

“Alright…” he paused to think, fingers tapping along his thighs. “I used to play the piano.”

“Past tense, but I’ll accept it. When did you stop?”

“High school? Around when piano lessons and hockey practice started conflicting.”

“And you chose hockey?” You asked, hoping it didn’t sound judgmental. You really were just curious, trying to understand him.

“Actually, the choice was made for me.” He held his right hand out in front of you, and it was then that you saw his pinky finger was unnaturally crooked as he pointed to the digit. “I broke it in a game without even realizing it. Bruises and stiffness sometimes are normal so me and my parents didn’t know anything was up until weeks later when I was fucking up all the notes at my piano lessons because it still hurt. By the time I finally saw a doctor and got a splint on it, it set up wrong. All dexterity for piano out the window. Hockey on the other hand… guys have done a lot more with a lot less.”

You couldn’t help but curiously run a gentle fingertip over the crook in his pinky. “Does it hurt at all? Now?”

“Not really.” He went to bend and flex the fingers of his right hand, and you saw how the fifth finger didn’t curl up as much as the others. “It’s just a lot stiffer. Doesn’t bother me all that much.”

He brought his left hand up and wiggled the fingers on that hand. “Besides, I’m a lefty anyway.”

“So—apologies if this sounds like a stupid question to you, I don’t know anything about hockey—are there like, different hockey sticks for left-handed and right-handed players?”

Sungchan immediately broke into snickers, and you set down your mug to cross your arms over your chest indignantly.

“Hey, I didn’t laugh at you for not knowing what death of the author was—”

“I wasn’t making fun of you, I’m sorry,” he covered his mouth. “That was just… too cute. Uhm yes, there are lefty and righty sticks.”

You had to bite down your bottom lip to not smile at him calling you cute, and instead keep up your ruse of being offended. “I feel patronized.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” There was still a hint of a giggle in his tone, and you felt your self-righteous façade slip away as he continued, “You should come to a game, then, if you really want to broaden your horizons. The season just started. First home game is this Thursday, actually. 7:00 p.m. and students get free admission with your student ID.”

“Thursday?”

“Fridays are for basketball, Saturdays are for football.”

“Oh. Right.”

“You don’t go to those games either, do you?”

“Oh no, did I make it obvious?” You asked sarcastically.

“A bit,” Sungchan jested back.

Outside the window visible past Sungchan, the rain had let up a few minutes ago, and you briefly glanced over at your laptop for the time. Shit, your next alarm was going to be going off soon. If you left now, you should be home at roughly the right time for your next dose.

Clicking your tongue, you started packing up your things, “Well, looks like the rain’s finally let up enough to allow me safe passage. That’s my cue.”

“Oh.” The hockey player with you looked over his shoulder at the newly sunny day outside before turning back to watch you put your things away.

“Are you heading out too?” You nodded to his empty cup.

“I’ve uh, got some homework to do.”

“Guess this is where we part ways then.”

“Um, you didn’t say if you were going. To the game.”

You tucked your chin to your chest to hide your smitten smile as you put your laptop in your bag. Typically just asking for the details would’ve been taken for a yes, but Sungchan wanted extra confirmation. This boy wasn’t good for your heart, truly.

Turning back to him, you gave him a firm and nearly business-like nod. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

A bright grin lit up his features. “Okay! Great! Uhm, feel free to bring some friends, I know just sitting in the stands by yourself might be lonely.”

“I’ll see if I can drag somebody else out. It’ll be a tall order, though. Literature majors, you know, we prefer our Shakesperean poetry readings.”

“Oh, well—”

“I’m kidding,” you laughed and stood then, slinging your tote onto your shoulder. “Honestly, have you seen Chenle at a rager? Boy can drink twice his body weight I swear. He shouldn’t, but he can.”

Before you could reach for your cup and saucer to buss your place, the hockey captain spoke up, “I’ll take care of your mug, don’t worry.”

“Oh, thanks, Sungchan! I’ll see you Thursday then.”

“Bye…” Sungchan trailed off, watching the door long after it had closed behind you.

He didn’t actually have any homework to do, and scrolled on his phone for a few minutes to make sure you were out of the area before leaving himself. He grabbed his long-empty plastic cup and your mug. His went in the trash, and as he went to put yours up with the other dishes and trays, his eyes were caught by the iridescent glitters left behind on the rim by your lip gloss.

[you: hey what are you doing thursday at 7:00?]

[chenle: depends on what weird poetry reading you’re trying to drag me to]

[you: not this time. Sungchan’s hockey game?]

[chenle: you want to go to a sporting event?? why????]

[you: i told him i’d go please don’t make me go by myself]

[chenle: did you offer to go or did he ask you to come?]

[you: he asked me to? i guess?]

[chenle: haha yeah fuck no i’m not going with you]

[you: why not????????]

[chenle: a guy invited you to one of his games? yeah no way am i coming with you]

[you: what difference does that make? you’re seriously going to make me go to a hockey game by myself?]

[chenle: i don’t know how to tell you this gently so: he wants to fuck you]

[you: bro???]

[chenle: especially hockey? caveman brain is activated, he wants to show off how big and strong he is for you over the other males]

[you: damn can’t believe i just blinked and woke up in 200 BC]

[chenle: i’m warning you, only go if you’re ready for the consequences. i.e., that]

[you: so you’re not coming with me]

[chenle: no <3]

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30

Your chronically early self had gotten there as soon as the doors opened to spectators in order to scope out the perfect spot for yourself. Somewhere not too close to any speakers, where you could still see what was going on, hopefully somewhere Sungchan could maybe see you, but you could make a quick escape if need be. A lot of parameters, hence the need to be early. That meant that you got to watch the visiting team warm up first, and now your school’s team was warming up before the game. Finally the stands started filling up, and you had to do a double-take at the newest figure entering.

“Zhong Chenle, you lying little bitch!” You cursed out your best friend who was approaching you.

He immediately went to defend himself as he plopped down beside you, “Look, I told you I wasn’t going with you, not that I wasn’t going at all. Come on, Lit major.”

He finished off with a solid knock on your head, which didn’t hurt all that much through the beanie you were wearing, but you still slapped his arm away with a glare.

“Are you sure you want to live until graduation day? I can’t tell sometimes.”

“Half the team are Nu Chi guys,” Chenle explained his being there, then waved at one of the players skating by, 23, who gave a salute back. “Jeno.”

“Oh.” You belatedly waved too, but your friend had already turned back to warming up.

Chenle then gave you the run-down on all your friends and acquaintances’ numbers as he spotted them.

“Goalie. Sicheng, 7.” He just blocked a shot from a familiar number, 23. “Already told you, 23 is Jeno. Right wing.”

“Does he always suck?”

“Here’s Ten, number 10. Right defense. He’s never told me which came first, his nickname or his jersey number.”

Sicheng blocked Ten’s shot.

“2 is Mark, center.” His went in.

“66, Donghyuck, center alternate.” His also went in.

“24, that’s Yangyang, left wing—and a miss!”

“This doesn’t bode well that so many of our players apparently kind of suck.” You muttered to yourself, well aware that Chenle was no longer listening to you.

Finally, the tallest of the team was skating up to take a shot. “And there’s your guy, Y/N. Number 27, Jung Sungchan, left defense, captain, your dreamboat—”

“If you don’t shut up—”

“Oh! All net!”

“Isn’t that a basketball—”

“Hey, you got your earplugs, right?”

“Yep, same ones for concerts,” you confirmed, reaching into your purse for them. You hadn’t been able to take your full tote bag into the school sporting event, so you had to condense the essentials into your smaller purse.

“Good, because uh, it’ll get loud.”

“I figured.”

“Yeah, remember how half the team are Nu Chi guys?”

Your eyes widened in realization, “Oh god.”

“Here they come!”

Whipping around to face the same direction he was looking, you saw a horde of about ten to fifteen guys storming the rink, practically shaking the audience section. They were all donned in blue and orange, your university’s colors, various hockey or Nu Chi merch and paraphernalia, and you would’ve absolutely bet money that at least three of them had Nu, Chi, and Tau symbols painted across each of their chests under their shirts. Chenle leapt up to greet them all, the volume of the area immediately rising tenfold at least.

You recognized most of the Nu Chi frat brothers, they were mutual friends or acquaintances of yours through Chenle over the years, and there were even some familiar graduated faces. Lee Taeyong was the first to pick up on your presence, squeezing past Jisung—a new pledge that had glommed onto Chenle in particular—to plop down behind your seat.

“What are you doing here, Y/N?” Taeyong asked you with a tilted head. “Not exactly a good place for you, is it?”

Taeyong was frat president for your first two years of college and his last two. You had an absolute disaster at a Nu Chi party in your freshman year that he was witness to. Ever since then, when you would see him in passing at other lowkey (or as lowkey as frat functions could get) Nu Chi events that Chenle took you to during those two years, you always got the distinct impression that he was keeping an eye on you during them.

“Could be asking you the same thing, Taeyong,” you countered, fully turning around in your seat to chat with the man. “Didn’t you graduate two years ago? You don’t have anything better to do on a Thursday night? Like your taxes or something?”

“Us old-timers who peaked in college like to come back and re-live our glory days vicariously for the first home game,” he entertained your jibe, making you giggle. “And somebody’s got to be these kids’ DD. They always go at it too hard after the first game. Win or lose.”

Johnny, another graduated Nu Chi brother, spoke up then, eyes laser-focused on you, “So Chenle’s finally dragged you out to a game, Y/N?”

You immediately looked at your friend with wide eyes, knowing what the answer was, and exactly what reaction said answer would garner. Chenle, on the other hand, seemed all too thrilled to join in, turning to face you with his hands on his hips and a knowing smirk on his face.

“Oh no, I didn’t bring Y/N. She actually didn’t know I was coming at all. I found her here all on her own,” he announced to all the guys, who were hanging on to every word he said. If literally anything else were happening, you might’ve laughed at how they were all wrapped around his finger.

“No offense, but you don’t really seem like you’re interested in hockey,” Jungwoo, a junior who you’d shared a couple literature classes with, said curiously.

You sighed, giving Chenle a frank look before admitting, “Jung Sungchan invited me.”

They exploded with various hoots, hollers, whoops, and whistles.

With a shake of your head, you turned back around to look back at the players on the ice, knowing full well that there was nothing you could do alleviate—or even really participate in—the absolute chaos that was happening behind you.

Eventually, the game started. Taeyong, who had moved to sit on your other side from Chenle, quietly explained the basics of what was going on to you: positions, plays, scoring, why the referee made certain calls. Chenle was caught between cheering along with the other Nu Chi guys and rattling off hyper-specific stats on individual players to you, so you were truly grateful to have Taeyong giving you your “hockey for dummies” tips and tidbits throughout.

You kept your eyes on number 27, as Chenle had pointed him out to you earlier. The gear made it somewhat difficult for you to really recognize any distinguishing features about Sungchan himself except maybe his height, made even greater by the skates he was wearing. But as much as the intellectual side of you might’ve hated to admit it, there was definitely some part of you that very much enjoyed watching him play; that got some kind of thrill every time somebody tried to check him and he didn’t budge—or when he checked somebody and they most definitely did budge.

Before you knew it, all three periods were over, and you were jumping to your feet along with the others, cheering wildly. Your school won by a landslide.

“Oh, they’re going to get plastered,” Taeyong murmured from beside you fondly.

All of you had been in the cheering section milled around in the ice rink lobby waiting for the team to get out of the locker room.

“That was fun,” you declared to Chenle as the two of you stood off to the side from the larger group of loud Nu Chi brothers.

“Yeah, you didn’t seem like you were listening to a word I said.”

“Because you were telling me sports stats, Chenle, I’m surprised my brain didn’t start bleeding out of my ears.”

“Well I’m surprised your nose wasn’t bleeding watching your dreamboat Jung Sungchan beat up all those other guys,” Chenle teased. “200 BC called, they want their cavewoman back—”

You lunged at him, managing to get an arm around his throat in the beginnings of a questionably friendly chokehold, “I’m going to kill you, you little—”

“No murder in the rink!” Came the chastising voice of Johnny Suh from afar, and you reluctantly let him go.

The players started streaming out of the locker room soon after, and you nervously scanned the crowd for Sungchan. Chenle was easily dragged into the chaos of everyone celebrating, leaving you standing off to the side waiting.

Finally, you spotted him. Sungchan was wearing a simple pair of black sweatpants and black hoodie with your school’s name embroidered across the front, his hair a bit mussed up. He was deep in conversation with Sicheng, brow furrowed. The goalie’s features were similarly serious as they gestured to each other. You stayed put, not wanting to interrupt. Taeyong had mentioned that Sicheng was sort of like a co-captain, you guessed they might be doing something important.

Then you’d suddenly made eye contact with Sicheng, who was facing you. He gave you a casual head nod, and said something to Sungchan you couldn’t quite make out. The captain whipped around, a bright smile coming to his face as soon as his eyes landed on you. You lifted your hand to give him a small wave and smile back.

Sungchan quickly ended his conversation with Sicheng, making his way over to where you were standing by a wall.

“Hey, Y/N,” he was still smiling down at you, his eyes practically glittering even in the harsh fluorescents of the lobby. “So you really made it out.”

“I said I would.” You fidgeted with the straps of your bag.

“And…?”

You tilted your head, “And?”

“What did you think? You know, are your horizons super broad now or something?”

You couldn’t help but laugh. His phrasing was funny, but also remembering how he played and was now giving you his undivided attention admittedly made your chest flutter.

“It was good, yeah. I had fun,” you confirmed. “You uhm, you played really good. I think.”

“Thanks,” Sungchan scratched at the back of his neck, and you swore the tips of his ears were pink, but that could’ve just been the cold. “Did you drive yourself?”

“Walked, my apartment is close.”

“Uh, so, we all go out to a bar after games usually. It’s kind of a sleazy dive bar, and I know it’s a Thursday, but I’d really like for you to come. I’ll buy you a dr—”

“I’m really sorry, Sungchan, but I can’t. I’d love to, but…” You trailed off, wracking your brain for some concise way to explain why he couldn’t buy you a drink.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay,” Sungchan assured you, and you winced at the way the hopeful smile fell from his face.

An awkward silence descended over the two of you. You were chewing on your bottom lip, desperately trying to think of something to say to gloss over your rejecting his offer. You didn’t want to end the conversation on such a sour note, nor did you want to leave him just yet either. Stealing a glance at the clock above you on the wall, however, you knew that you’d need to be going soon anyway.

The hockey player was the one who ended up breaking the silence, “Can I walk you home? It’s late for you to be out by yourself.”

A relieved smile overtook your features, and you hoped he could see the sincerity in it, “Sure, thank you. Let me let Chenle know he’s relieved of his man-shaped friend duties for the night, and we can go.”

You got on your tiptoes to look around for your friend, finally spotting him in a headlock by Jeno, with Yangyang giving him a noogie. They all seemed to be laughing, so it didn’t look too much like bullying that you felt the need to intervene.

“You know, I’ll just text him, actually,” you chuckled, bringing out your phone to do just that.

“Man-shaped friend duties?” Sungchan questioned as the automatic doors parted for the two of you.

“His words, not mine,” you snorted. “But you know, making sure a woman doesn’t walk places by herself at night, that kind of stuff. Having a man just with her makes her safer, as fucked up as that is. Chenle corrected it to be man-shaped since he’s not the manly protective type.”

“I see.”

“But it looks like you’re on man-shaped friend duties for tonight, Sungchan.”

As soon as the words were out of your mouth, you wanted to stuff them back in. Friend. God, that was absolutely not what was happening here and you knew it. Chenle’s previous texts flashed across your mind. You obviously knew why Sungchan would’ve wanted to invite you to his game, and you said yes purposefully. Friend. Foot, meet mouth.

Sungchan blinked down at you, but seemed to take it in stride, “Of course, Y/N. Anytime you need a man-shaped person at your side, just call me up. I’ll bring my hockey stick.”

He patted his gear bag that was slung over his shoulder, making you giggle.

“I’ll keep you on speed dial, then.”

It was a short walk to your apartment, and you and Sungchan mostly talked about the game. You asked him a couple questions that Taeyong hadn’t covered during it— which Chenle might’ve, except you had tuned him out. And as you came to a stop at your front door, you didn’t yet fish your keys from your bag.

“How often do you have away games?” You asked.

“They’re usually about half,” Sungchan shrugged. “It’s a bit annoying missing classes, and the bus is kind of rank on the trip back.”

“Ew…” You wrinkled your nose.

“But they’re always a lot of fun.”

“So, uhm, when’s your next home game?”

His face brightened as he seemed to realize what exactly you were asking, “Next week. Same time.”

“Okay, cool.” You bit your lip.

“Cool,” he echoed.

You looked up at Sungchan, catching his eyes for a heart stopping moment. Both of you were standing on your welcome mat, he was close enough that you could catch a faint whiff of the detergent from his clothes—a college athlete with freshly washed clothes? You might already be in love—and watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed. You had the urge to grab him by the front of his hoodie and yank him—

A garish, blaring ringing going off interrupted your split-second pros and cons weighing that had been going on. Sungchan startled at the noise, reminding you very much of a baby moose in the moment. You groaned as you reached into your bag for your phone.

“Oh my god, stop it,” you hissed under your breath as you snoozed the alarm that was going off on there. Once it was quiet, you looked back up at the man with you sheepishly, “Sorry about that.”

He joked, “Curfew?”

You laughed lightly, “No, just a reminder for something I have to do after I get home. It’s fine.”

“Well, before you go do that, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Nu Chi and the team are hosting a joint Halloween party this year, and I’d really like it if I could see you there.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow, people will probably start showing up after like ten, eleven. It’s at the Nu Chi house, theirs is bigger than ours.”

“Fascinating phrasing,” you snickered.

“I know this is last minute, so I get if you have other plans or something.”

“I… can probably swing by for a bit, yeah,” you nodded.

“Great!” Sungchan beamed. “Oh, it is a costume party, by the way.”

“Costume?” You arched a brow. “What’ll you being going as? And please don’t say hockey player.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, “Definitely not… that would be lame…”

“You were planning on going as a hockey player, weren’t you?”

“Me and Mark have been putting all our spare time into planning this thing, I haven’t had any time to think about a costume.”

“Well you’ve given me 24-hour notice for a costume, so this is your 24-hour notice for one too. When I find you at the Nu Chi house tomorrow, I do not want to see a hockey jersey, Jung Sungchan. Any sports player is off-limits, understand?” You poked his chest with finality.

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded in assent.

Just then, your alarm went off again, and this time you jumped out of your skin. Apparently, another 5 minutes had elapsed. With a sigh, you reached into your bag for your keys.

“I should let you go do that thing,” Sungchan chuckled. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Sungchan,” you unlocked your front door. “See you tomorrow.”

Sitting at your kitchen table a couple minutes later, you were looking down at the vitals displayed on the screen of your blood pressure cuff.

“Jung Sungchan…” you muttered to yourself as you added the reading to your digital record, noting how the line graph jumped up with the new data.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31

“You agreed to go to a frat party?” Chenle’s eyes were bugging out of his head as he sat across a high top in the dining hall from you. You two were grabbing a quick lunch between classes, and doing an obligatory catch-up on how your short but sweet walk with Sungchan went last night. “Do you remember what happened last time, Y/N?”

“Hard to forget,” you snorted.

“And yet it seems you did, somehow, lost in dreamboat Jung Sungchan’s eyes.”

You threw a fry from his plate at him, “It wasn’t like that!”

He ducked, letting it sail by his head and hit the wall behind him.

“Then what was it like?”

“It was more like a big puppy that I couldn’t say no to and—”

You were cut off by loud gagging noises from your friend, and went to kick him under the table, but missed and hit his chair leg instead. He still got the message, quieting down to let you continue.

“I told him I’d be able to just pop in for a bit. I’ll be in and out before it’ll get too bad.”

“Famous last words...”

“Hold on, LeLe,” you grabbed your friend’s arm to stop him on the sidewalk in front of the Nu Chi Tau frat house.

Taking another look into your tote bag, you made sure once again that you had everything you could possibly need tonight. Medications, snacks, water bottle, ear plugs, the usual. After closing the snaps on the bag, you nervously fidgeted with the hem of your costume. Generic witch, it was the last thing the costume store had in your size that wasn’t garishly scary. You understood well and good how college Halloween parties worked: you had to look hot, not terrifying. Not to mention that those horror show costumes were also much pricier than your “Sexy Witch” one.

“You look cute, Y/N,” Chenle reassured you, readjusting your witch hat for you. “Jung Sungchan won’t know what hit him.”

Chenle, on the other hand, was an almost scarily realistic zombie. If you hadn’t spent an ungodly amount of time hanging out on his bathroom counter this afternoon watching him apply the SFX makeup himself, you would’ve thought he had hired a professional makeup artist to do it. He’d always gone ham on Halloween since you two were kids, ever since he figured out how to make a Transformers costume out of cardboard boxes in primary school. You usually participated in partner costumes with him, but you really didn’t want him to make you a gross-looking zombie tonight.

“Thanks.” You gave him as confident a smile as you could muster.

Resecuring your grip on your go bag, you started up the walkway to the house with your friend.

You had been able to faintly hear the thumping bass of the music from outside, but once inside, you were almost immediately hit by a wall of music. Just inside the front door you were faced with a mass of people in bright costumes, flashing lights, corny Halloween decorations of cobwebs, spiders, ghosts, and pumpkins all over the walls.

Chenle looked over at you expectantly, “Y/N?”

“I couldn’t find my concert earplugs, only my noise canceling. I won’t be able to hear anybody unless they’re shouting at me if I put those in,” you replied, having to raise your voice to make sure he heard you. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay…” He sighed and grabbed your elbow. “Come on, let’s find a quieter spot in the house then.”

You gave him a thumbs up and bright grin, already feeling your ears acclimate to the loudness. You could totally do this. It was one night, and you were just going to see Sungchan for a bit then go. Pop in then back out, just like you said.

You didn’t have to wait long to spot Sungchan. Chenle had barely tugged you into the next room over from the small foyer when a familiar head was visible over the crowd, his bright smile focused on you.

“Hey, Y/N!” Sungchan grinned down at you. He was dressed in a suit and tie, what you were guessing was probably his only set, and his hair was parted to one side, styled off of his face. The tie had already been loosened, and the tuck of his dress shirt wasn’t so crisp.

“Hi, Sungchan,” you smiled up at him, amazed that you could hear anything over both the music and now your heart beating so loudly in your ears.

“So you did find a costume.”

“Oh, yeah,” you messed with the hem of your skirt. “Last one at the shop.”

“You look great.” He was still beaming down at you, and you could feel your skin growing warmer. “I’m really glad you could make it.”

“Thanks. Uhm, so what are you? Funeral director?”

“What? No, I’m—” His sentence stopped in its tracks as he looked down at the front of his suit jacket. He started patting his empty breast pocket, then other jacket pockets, then pants pockets, then looked around on the floor. “Fuck.”

“What?” You looked around under your feet, but weren’t able to see anything other than the usual party debris. “Did you lose something?”

Sungchan looked back up at you, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, I was about to say that I’m Mulder from the X-Files. But I’ve apparently lost my fake FBI badge. So it looks like I’m a funeral director now.”

You giggled. “Maybe you can be Mulder when he retires and buys a funeral home.”

“Yeah, the perfect costume. Won’t take too long to explain to anybody, they’ll get it immediately,” he laughed.

“Hey, I’m just glad you didn’t wear a jersey.”

“I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”

“Oh, have you seen Chenle’s makeup by the—” But when you turned around to gesture to your friend, you found that he had disappeared, leaving you and the hockey captain all alone.

“Chenle?” Sungchan asked with a tilted head. “I didn’t even realize he was here yet.”

You shook your head fondly at your friend’s antics. Well, you’d have to thank him later.

“He must have gone to get a drink or something. Either way, it seems I’ve been abandoned.”

“Well, you can come hang out with me and some of the guys, if you want?” He offered.

“Yeah, I’d really like that,” you nodded, readjusting your bag to make sure it was pulled in tight to your body.

Sungchan led you through the frat house with a hand on the small of your back, and you snuck a glance up at him when he went to greet someone who had called his name as you passed by. He kept you tucked into his side as he slowed to give the guy a friendly slap on the shoulder. As soon as Sungchan had stopped to say hello, two more people appeared seemingly from nowhere, eagerly greeting him as well. You faintly recognized one, Jisung, a new Nu Chi pledge. He’d been at the hockey game you went to, and always found Chenle at Nu Chi events that you tagged along to. You looked up at Sungchan’s animated, handsome face again as he continued talking.

“This is Y/N.” Sungchan’s voice suddenly pulled you into the conversation. You snapped your focus down from his face to the other three that were in front of you, and realized that they all definitely knew that you’d been staring.

“Oh, hi.” You gave the three boys a nervous smile.

“Y/N, this is Jisung, Shotaro, and Renjun. Jisung and Shotaro are Nu Chi pledges, Renjun’s a sophomore brother, and he’s—you’re a Literature major, right, Renjun?”

“Yes.” One of them nodded.

“Renjun’s a Literature major too, Y/N,” Sungchan finished the introduction.

“Cool, cool,” you nodded. It had been Shotaro that called Sungchan over in the first place, you were pretty sure.

“Anyway, thanks for the offer, guys, but I already promised Hyuck I would, so we’ve got to go.”

Sungchan ushered you away to the tune of a chorus of disappointed groans from the three boys, and you wracked your brain to see if you could recall hearing any sort of proposition from them. But nope, between the loud music and your prior lack of attention to the conversation, you had nothing.

“What did they want?” You gave up and finally asked Sungchan.

“Beer pong. Hope you don’t mind that I declined. I’ve already had a couple and am not looking to get wasted quite yet.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” you shook your head. Thank god you didn’t have to deal with that yet. “Not really my thing anyway. Terrible hand-eye coordination.”

Sungchan seemed about to say something when someone walked by you with an exceptionally pungent cologne. The whiff shot directly to your head like a bullet, the sharp pain making you wince and hiss. It took everything in you not to cover your nose like Edward Cullen and instead shift to breathing through your mouth for a few moments.

“Y/N? You okay?” Sungchan’s voice was clearly concerned.

The sharp pain was gone just a couple moments after it had registered, and you opened your eyes up again, giving him a reassuring smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, don’t know what that was.”

“Okay, good.” He squeezed your shoulder before dropping his hand back down to your back and continuing your trek through the Nu Chi house.

You and Sungchan finally made it to a room adjacent to the main living room, where there were a couple of beat-up old couches and lots of Nu Chi Tau paraphernalia. The bass of the music playing in the next room over would occasionally make the picture frames and plaques on the walls rattle, and you could hear every word of the songs crystal clear, even though the room that you were in was packed to the brim with partygoers as well. Sungchan stopped you at a group of people gathered around one of the couches, tapping the shoulders of two of them who had their backs to you. Donghyuck and Hendery turned around, immediately parting to make room for the both of you in the group upon seeing you.

Almost everyone in the group was familiar to you either as friends or acquaintances. Your social circle was big thanks to Chenle, who was friends with practically the entire hockey team and Nu Chi house, despite being a member of neither. But now you didn’t have your best friend at your side, just Sungchan and your tote bag, both of which you were keeping close to you.

“Oh shit, Y/N!” Hendery grinned, pulling you into a one-armed hug of greeting. “Damn, it really is you!”

“Yeah, I’m a witch, not a ghost, Hendery,” you retorted jokingly. He was dressed as Prince Eric, if you weren’t mistaken.

“Well, when Sungchan said you were coming, some of us were a bit... skeptical.”

Someone dressed as Venom cut in from Hendery’s other side sharply, “No, I believe you said ‘never in a million fucking years, loverboy.’”

The rest of the group erupted in tipsy snickers and ‘ooh’s, and you felt Sungchan jostle a little as someone had presumably given him a teasing shove.

“Alright, guys. You can cut it out now,” Sungchan spoke over them authoritatively. He then looked down to you, features softening. “Sorry. Anyway, this is Donghyuck, he’s on the team and in Nu Chi—”

He pointed to the boy right next to him, wearing a very classic vampire costume splattered with a little bit of fake blood or fruit punch (you couldn’t tell in the poor lighting), and you wondered if he had also gone to a Halloween store last-minute like you. You knew him both from the game, and from a couple times you’d seen him with Chenle outside of frat or hockey events.

“Mark, frat president and he’s on the hockey team—” He was next to Donghyuck, dressed as Spiderman. You were already familiar with Mark, both from the game, and a group project in a class last year. You wondered if Mark remembered that.

“Ten, hockey and Nu Chi—” Ten was reclined on the couch, a top hat that had presumably been on his head earlier now resting on his propped up knee. Between that and his eyepatch, he clearly was dressed as some character that you couldn’t identify in the moment. You knew Ten outside of hockey, the frat, or even Chenle. He was a Lit major, so you had shared classes and study groups over the years. He raised a friendly hand in greeting.

“Sicheng, my co-captain and he’s in Nu Chi, too—” He was on the couch with Ten, sequestered to one corner as his teammate was taking up most of the space with his legs. Sicheng was dressed up as an angel, fake wings, little halo, and all. And you knew Sicheng through Ten, they’d been roommates since freshman year and could often be found together around campus. He gave you a nod of familiarity.

“Dejun, Nu Chi—” Sungchan had finally reached the man who was dressed as Venom.

“And you of course, unfortunately, know Hendery, Nu Chi.”

“Oh, boo, Sungchan,” Hendery stuck his tongue out at the captain.

You smiled and nodded a little bit at everyone else, but you were finding it hard to concentrate with the music in the background. Did it really need to be that loud?

“Y/N?” The sound of your name snapped your focus up, and you looked around for the source.

A few of the guys had gone back to their own conversations. Sungchan was looking down at you, head tilted inquisitively. Presumably he had been to the one to say your name.

“Oh, sorry,” you tried to give a nonchalant chuckle, but it was getting harder and harder to even articulate yourself with all the stimulation. “The music...”

“Oh!” Sungchan perked up at this. “Do you want to go dance?”

He was offering a hand out to you, and you stared down at it, mouth opening and closing as your brain felt like it was moving through sludge. You quite literally could not process what that string of words actually meant for a good second, and then it took even longer for you to even tie together the right way for you to respond. Cognitive fatigue. Oh this was not good. You squeezed your eyes shut, then open.

You again gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I’m- I’m kind of light-headed right now. Could you get me something to drink?”

His features immediately turned concerned. “Of course. Do you need to sit down or a ride h—”

“Can you just get me a drink?” Your brain was stuck in a perpetual loop now that it had locked onto one task. It took all of your energy just to regulate your tone enough to keep your voice (hopefully) as sweet as possible, despite the fact that you had cut him off.

“Of course. I’ll be right back.” He squeezed your upper arm reassuringly before taking off.

Your eyes were fixated on the spot where he had just been, your vision seeming to continuously zoom in and past your head. Squeezing your eyes shut once more, you took a deep breath through your mouth to try to recenter yourself. But it didn’t help any. Your head felt like a balloon that someone was overinflating, and you knew exactly what was coming next. You swallowed thickly, taking a second to look through the crowd. Nope, you couldn’t wait for Sungchan. Not like you could even verbalize much of anything right now. You had to go take your medication.

So you hurried into the crowd, clutching your tote bag to your chest like your life depended on it—which it really did. Mumbling ‘excuse me’s to everyone you shouldered, bumped into, or stepped on the toes of, you finally made it to a door that you were pretty sure was a bathroom. You tried the handle first, and when it gave in, you still knocked as you opened it, just in case. It was miraculously empty. Maybe there really was a God. Then, the balloon started to deflate, the pressure in your head inverted, becoming a harsh, squeezing pain instead. Nope, nope, definitely not a God. Or at least not a benevolent one.

You locked the door behind you with clumsy fingers and shuffled over to the sink. The countertop was in good enough condition for you to toss your bag up there and start rooting around through it. Bottle after bottle after bottle, then you finally secured the right two. You shook out a pill from one, then a pill from the other. The lights above the mirror were becoming more insufferable by the second. You cracked open the fresh bottle of water you had stored in your bag too, and knocked both pills back in one big gulp.

Tossing the water back into your bag, you could fucking finally flip the switch and turn the lights in the bathroom off. After feeling your way along the wall, you eventually found the bathtub, and sat yourself down. The music was somewhat muffled in here, and you figured this was going to be the darkest room in the whole Nu Chi house. Right now, your plan was to wait in here for your medication to kick in and hopefully stop this migraine before it really got going. Then you could make your great escape, and send Sungchan some bullshit apology text later. After tossing your witch hat to the ground vaguely beside your bag, you gently rested your head against the cool tile of the shower with a sigh. Chenle was right, you shouldn’t have come. Cynically, you thought that you should have timed it. See how long you lasted before you got a migraine. You’d be surprised if that was even 15 minutes.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Sungchan returned to the group with your requested drink in hand and another for himself, frowning when he immediately noticed your absence. “Hey, where’d Y/N go?”

“Oh, shit, uh…” Mark looked around with a baffled look on his face. “No clue dude, she was just here a second ago.”

“I’m going to go find her. Here.” He shoved both drinks into Hendery’s hands.

“Sungchan, come on, take a hint, man,” Donghyuck sighed, patting the taller boy’s shoulder sympathetically.

“What?”

“She asked you to get her something to drink and then slipped away when nobody was looking.”

“Y/N’s not like that.”

“And denial’s a river in Egypt.”

“No, she hasn’t been feeling well all night. I think. I’m going to go look for her.”

“So you’re admitting that you make her physically ill.”

“Dude, you’re just asking to get your shit rocked, you know that, right?” Ten warned him.

“Hey, I’m standing up for women—”

Mark cut him off, “Hyuck, you’re on your own if Sungchan decides to fuck your shit up. I don’t care if you’re my little, I’m not—”

“Oh, wahhh, my big strong big won’t protect me.”

“Christ, I swear he’s only had like four shots and a couple…”

His friends’ voices quickly faded into the din of the party as Sungchan pushed through the crowd. He couldn’t spot you, but found maybe the next best thing.

“Hey, Chenle.” He grabbed him by the elbow, turning him away from the arm wrestling competition between Jeno and Yangyang that he was spectating. Or, he at least hoped this was Chenle, it was a bit hard to tell with the zombie makeup.

“Hey, Romeo!” Chenle greeted him jovially, punching him in the shoulder over-zealously. Okay, definitely him.

“Have you seen Y/N? In the past like, five minutes or so?”

“You lost her?” The zombie asked angrily, cheerful mood immediately soured.

“Uh, yes? Sorry?”

“No, I’m not pissed at you,” he shook his head at Sungchan’s apology. “You go check the bathrooms, I’ll look outside. Don’t bother calling her, she’s not going to pick up.”

“What’s—”

But Chenle was already gone.

You weren’t sure how long you had been sitting in there for, but you could feel some of the overstimulation from the party beginning to slide off of you. Which could be either a good or bad thing. Cognitive fatigue was usually a prodrome and postdrome for you. Regaining some clarity could either mean that your medication was working and the migraine was going away, or you were about to enter the proper migraine phase. The fact that the pain hadn’t gone away was worrying. But at least it was dark, and relatively quiet. Oh, quiet... you could put in your earplugs now too.

Just as you had gone to grab for your bag, there was a knock at the bathroom door. You froze. Shit.

“Occupied!” You yelled out hesitantly to them, wincing at the loudness of your own voice. Okay, ow.

The person knocked again, harder.

“Seriously! Busy in here! Puking my brains out!” You yelled even louder, hoping they got the fucking idea this time. There was no way you wanted to have to actually get up and deal with a drunk partygoer that needed to piss and/or puke.

“Y/N? That you?” A familiar voice came through the door. “It’s Sungchan, can I come in?”

“Oh, sure, hold on.” You clambered out of the tub as carefully as you could in the dim lighting coming from under the door.

Against your better judgment, you turned one set of lights on in the bathroom, then cracked the bathroom door open. Sungchan was in fact on the other side, and you stepped back to let him in. He looked around the bathroom, worry on his face.

You shut the door behind him, saying sheepishly, “So, I was lying about the puking my brains out.”

“But you don’t look okay.” He peered down at your face as you were still wincing against the bright lights. “You didn’t drink anything tonight, what’s wrong?”

You went to sit on the side of the tub, feeling a pain in your eyes now. You gestured to the light switch. “Can you turn that light off?”

“Uh, okay…” He obliged, and the room was dim once again.

Your eyes adjusted quickly, and you could still see the general outline of everything in the room. Sitting back in the tub, you pulled your knees to your chest. Well, no chance for your great escape now. Sungchan climbed into the dry tub with you, facing you. He didn’t fit great in the small space, all gangly limbs, and your knees bumped into each other. But he sat there with you quietly.

“I’ve got a migraine coming on, I had to get somewhere quiet and dark and take my meds.” You told him bluntly, opting to just take the plunge. Not like you could even attempt flowery language at the moment anyway. Sure, some of your speech capabilities were coming back now that there was less sensory input, but you weren’t going to be doing any soliloquies tonight.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sungchan said quietly. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No, no. I actually- I actually don’t want to be alone right now, if that’s okay?” You surprised yourself with your answer.

“Yeah, of course.” He said reassuringly. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“I might not have drank but you did. I’ll be okay here, for the most part. I’m the one who came knowing that I get sound-induced migraines.”

“Wait, really?”

“Mm, yeah,” you pinched the bridge of your nose to alleviate some of the tension there for a moment. “Remember when I said Chenle pushes me out of my comfort zone in a good way most of the time?”

“Right.”

“One of the times it wasn’t... good was when he got an invite to Nu Chi’s Halloween party our freshman year, dragged me with him. And he always means the best when he does stuff like that. I hadn’t made any new friends at college, meanwhile he had a bunch, including some of the pledges at Nu Chi.”

“How he got the invite.”

“Exactly.” You needed to take a pause, resting your head against the cool tile again. After a few deep breaths, you pushed on in the story. “Anyway, we’d been there for a couple hours when the loudness and the music and everything finally got to me and I got a migraine. I had my go bag on me, and went to what I thought was an empty corner of the house to take my meds. But a couple other people saw me knocking back pills and wanted some. My head was hurting like a bitch, and they were trying to grab them from me and anyway, I spilled a bunch of them all over the floor, drenched myself with my water and their beer, and elbowed a dude and gave him a bloody nose.”

“Holy shit,” Sungchan breathed out.

You opened and closed your jaw a couple times to try to relax the muscles and joints there. “I couldn’t even open my eyes because my head hurt so bad. Chenle told me later I was screaming and Taeyong wanted to call an ambulance until Chenle ran up and explained what was happening. They put me, Chenle, and Jeno—turns out that’s whose nose I broke—in Taeyong’s room in the house for the rest of the night. Neither Chenle nor I were in any shape to drive ourselves home.”

“Wait is that how you met Jeno?”

“Yeah, and it turns out he wasn’t one of the ones trying to take my pills, he was trying to break up me and the people who were. Collateral damage.” You recounted it regrettably.

“When Jeno found out I’d invited you, he told me he’d keep his room clear in case we needed it. I thought he was just being a dick.” Sungchan sounded like he was having an epiphany. “Y/N, do you think you’ll be okay to move up a floor?”

The bass was thudding through the door, and you knew that if you stayed here when you transitioned into the throes of however bad this migraine fully got, you’d regret it. Grabbing your earplugs from your bag and putting them in, you gave him a thumbs-up and attempted a smile, but you knew it came out like more of a wince.

Sungchan kept you between him and the wall as you moved through the Nu Chi house, casting as much of a shadow against the garishly flashing lights as possible. Even through your earplugs, the music was raucous, people were practically screaming at each other, and you gripped one hand around his arm and the other onto his suit jacket to keep yourself balanced and to not lose him. When you got to the stairs, he fully wrapped an arm around your shoulders to jerk you out of the way of a drunk Nu Chi member stumbling his way down, and kept it there the rest of the way up. The noise was squeezing around your head like a vice, and you shut your eyes tight at the top of the stairs for a moment in an attempt to clear your head.

Sungchan’s voice was right beside your ear, muffled through the earplugs, “We’re almost there, Y/N, I’m sorry, come on.”

You were vaguely aware of the man with you feeling around on the top of a doorway before jiggling a doorhandle, and finally you were in a blissfully dark and quiet-ish room. Your head definitely hurt more than before, and you practically collapsed onto the bed.

“He was kind enough to stuff all his dirty clothes in the closet,” Sungchan muttered.

You managed a strangled chuckle at that, dropping your go bag onto the floor beside the bed. A moment of silence passed, and you could hear Sungchan awkwardly shifting his weight between his feet at the doorway.

“Sungchan,” you said his name, then patted the empty half of the bed beside you. “You can sit. I know Jeno doesn’t have any other furniture in here besides the bed and his PlayStation.”

“He probably only has a bedframe because it came with the room.”

You snickered, but were cut off by the squeezing pain turning to a sharp, stabbing pain behind your left eye, “Oh fuck!”

“Y/N?!” Sungchan was right beside you, and you felt the bed dip as he sat down beside you.

“Sorry, sorry, it feels like I’m getting an icepick lobotomy! Jesus!” You hissed, cupping a hand over your left eye as if that were actually going to do anything. “It’s normal, I’m fine. Relatively.”

“Okay…”

Still clutching your eye, you rolled onto your side and brought your knees up towards your chest. You blindly fumbled towards the head of the bed, and felt a pillow being pressed into your hand.

“Thanks,” you muttered, tucking it under your head.

“Do you want to lay under the covers?” Sungchan whispered.

“Do they smell like Jeno’s washed them in the past week?”

He laughed breathily at that, “Miraculously they do. I think he was planning on getting laid.”

“He gave up getting his dick wet for me. Jeno’s a real one,” you mumbled, feeling the covers that you were laying on top of being pulled out from under you.

Sungchan gently brought the sheet up to your shoulder, then a blanket too. The stabbing pain behind your eye was still there, and your stomach filled with dread as you acknowledged that your acute medication wasn’t going to be working this time. This was going to be a full-blown migraine, and who knew how many hours it would last.

“Thank you.”

“Is there anything else you need? Water?”

“No. Just uh, let me know when two hours have passed, I can take another dose of my meds that aren’t fucking working then.”

“Oh. Will do.”

You opened and closed your jaw, letting out a distinct groan. Another few minutes passed. Or, you think it was a few minutes, you couldn’t really check your phone for the time.

“Sungchan.”

“Yes?”

“You don’t have to stay. I’m sure the party is a lot more fun.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“…No.”

“I want to stay. I’m not going to have any fun out there knowing that you’re in all in this pain all alone in here.”

You squinted your right eye open, and had to crane your neck to look up at where Sungchan was sitting against the headboard. He had taken his suit jacket and shoes off at some point, now just in a rumpled dress shirt, loosened tie, slacks, and socks. He held your eye contact steadily, head tilted slightly and a frown across his handsome features.

Reaching your unoccupied hand up towards him, he watched it with confusion.

“What do you need? Your bag?”

“No.” You grabbed his hand, giving it a light squeeze.

“Oh.” An adorably radiant grin was on his face now instead.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1

Sungchan knew you’d finally fallen asleep when you stopped muttering swears and curses under your breath, the pained expression fell from your face, and your hand that was holding his went limp. He could still hear the party going strong outside of Jeno’s bedroom, and a glance at his phone told him it was just after one in the morning. He had no want to rejoin his friends, to leave you.

He took his tie all the way off, thinking to himself that if you were feeling better, you might have joked that he looked like Mulder the off-duty funeral director. And he would’ve laughed and watched the cute way the corners of your mouth quirked up when you said something that you thought was funny. He set the tie down with his shoes on the floor beside the bed.

Careful to stay on top of the covers that you were sleeping under, Sungchan shifted until he was laying down too, pillow tucked under his head, facing you on his side, hand still holding yours.

Like usual, you didn’t remember falling asleep, but you did remember shutting your eyes tight and wishing really hard for your head to stop hurting so bad. Or to die. Whichever the Universe felt like granting. And judging by the fact that you were now waking up without a migraine, it seemed like the former.

The first thing you were aware of before you even opened your eyes was that you felt like shit. Sure, your head didn’t hurt anymore, but jeez the morning after wasn’t much better. Tired, achy, and your brain felt like TV static.

The second thing that you were aware of, after opening your eyes, was Jung Sungchan just a few inches from your face. He was still asleep, soft bursts of air passing from his lips and mussing up strands of hair that were falling into his eyes. You didn’t quite have enough in you to coo over his bedhead, but you could give half of a fond smile as you pushed yourself into a sitting position, running a sleepy hand over one side of your face.

Only one of your earplugs was still in your ears, and you looked around the bedsheets for the other one. After securing it, you scooted over to the edge of the bed to put the plugs back into your carrying case before rolling back over and pulling the blankets over you again. You deserved this, honestly. Sleeping in late, a comfy bed, warm blankets, a cute boy next to you, nothing to—

Your happy thoughts were ripped away by the sound of a loud alarm. You shot up, scrambling towards your tote bag to grab your phone from the depths of it and turn your goddamn alarm off before it woke Sungchan up.

“Mm?”

Too late.

Sheepishly, you looked over at him, “Sorry…”

“‘S okay,” he mumbled, flopping onto his back and rubbing a hand over his face. “How’s your head?”

“Better. A lot better, thanks.”

“Good, good.” He yawned, “Morning, by the way.”

“Good morning.”

His eyes were closed as he laid there, a hand resting on his chest, and you weren’t sure if he had fallen back asleep.

“…Sungchan?”

“Hm?”

Taking his inquisitive tone as a sign that you could keep talking, you said, “Uhm, that was the first time I’ve had anybody around for one my migraines in a while. I’m sorry if it was… well, I don’t know. What was it like for you?”

He opened his eyes, rolling onto his side to face you and tucking a hand under his cheek, “Oh, uh, I mean, I wasn’t quite worried, since you seemed like you knew exactly what was happening, you know? But still, I… I was wishing there was more I could do. It was weird knowing that you were in pain but not being able to see where it hurt.”

“I should’ve figured that might be upsetting. Sorry about all that.”

“No, Y/N, it's okay. I get it, you just wanted someone with you when you were hurting.”

“Yeah, yeah, I did,” you nodded, curling one of your hands into a fist in your lap, digging your nails into your palm in an attempt to not cry at how easily he saw right into you.

“I was more than happy to sit with you.”

“I’ve had these stupid migraines for years now. Tried every treatment in the book, been on every regiment. And my friends and family, they don’t treat me like I’m made of glass or anything, which I’m grateful for. Everyone in my life knows I’m a pro at it all: I’ve got my go bag, all my meds, my alarms, I’ve been going to doctors’ appointments, testing, everything for years. But like... they still hurt. The migraines still fucking hurt.” Your voice cracked over the word, and your nails dug in deeper. “And I just… think they forget that part sometimes? I don’t know, I guess they hear the word ‘migraine’ thousands of times over the years it sort of loses its meaning. They kind of forget what one actually is. But it hurts Sungchan, my head just hurts for hours or even days, sometimes so bad I throw up from the pain. I can’t do anything but lay in bed in the dark and cry. Last night’s wasn’t that bad but still… thank you. I needed for it to all be real to somebody.”

Sungchan pushed up into a sitting position, and through your watery vision you could see that his brows were furrowed. You followed where his gaze was locked, and watched as he gently unfurled your fingers. You used the thumb of your other hand to rub at the divots that your nails had left in your skin.

“The migraines are why I’ve been all weird, by the way.” You added, trying to ignore the strain in your voice.

“What?”

“When you wanted to buy me a drink after the game. One of my migraine medications that I take, I can’t drink alcohol on it. It just felt like a weird and long explanation to have to give in the moment. And when you asked if I wanted to dance with you last night, the music would’ve made the migraine come on quicker than it did, but explaining it to you then, again it felt like it would’ve ruined the moment even more.”

“Oh… don’t worry about it.”

There was still one big thing you hadn’t smoothed over. But it looks like you’re on man-shaped friend duties tonight, Sungchan. Stupid, stupid.

Pushing through the discomfort prickling at your skin, you asked, “Sungchan, do you want to go on a date?”

“A…” He looked you dead in the eyes for a moment, mouth parted, and blinked once, twice before he was absolutely beaming at you. “Yeah, yes, I do.”

“Okay.” You couldn’t help but giggle, nerves buzzing through you as your chest was airy and you were lightheaded for two reasons now, “Okay, good.”

“Is it bad for me to say that I’m relieved? That you have migraines? Well, not that you have them, because obviously they hurt, but like, that this is what it was? I seriously thought I was being stupid, like mixed signals or something. Like, you came to my game but then you didn’t want to go to the bar.” He ticked the instances off on the fingers of one hand.

“Medication,” you nodded.

“Right. Then you let me walk you home after, but you called me your friend.”

“That was just plain stupidity,” you admitted with a groan at having to relive that moment again.

“And you said yes to coming to the party, but then you didn’t want to dance with me,” Sungchan had now run out of fingers and dropped his hand back down to the bed.

“The music...”

“And when you disappeared, I thought you left because you didn’t like me. I just… felt like I was going crazy.”

“It’s not awful of you to be relieved about this. I’m sorry, Sungchan. Migraines aren’t conducive to romance, apparently.”

“Oh, bullshit.” He pushed back immediately. “They’re just not conducive to drinking and loud parties. That’s not romance.”

“Alright, fair. I’m wont to agree with you.”

“And you need to stop apologizing for your migraines. It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose.”

“Well, I did come to a loud ass party knowing I’d probably get a sound-induced migraine.”

“Okay, aside from that— which, I’m very flattered by and will never ever ask you to do anything like this ever again.”

“Okay.”

Suddenly the door handle rattled, then there was a banging on the door. “Hey! Are you two done in there?” Jeno yelled through the wood. “You better not be having post-headache sex on my bed!”

“Seems like he didn’t get laid last night,” Sungchan muttered.

“If he keeps up that pounding I’m going to get a rebound headache and he’s going to wake the entire house, please let him in,” you groaned.

The boy with you quickly moved to do so, unlocking the door and throwing it open to whisper aggressively, “Jeno! Shut the fuck up! People are still sleeping!”

“Oh. You’re dressed.”

You rolled your eyes at your friend, “I don’t know what you think a migraine is like, but getting my back blown out is pretty far down on my to-do list for immediately after.”

“How are you feeling?” Jeno was nice enough to ask as he rooted through his closet.

“Like shit. While you guys nurse actual hangovers today, I get to nurse a migraine hangover. Same awful morning after without the fun night before.”

“That sucks.” He secured a rumpled shirt and inside out pair of sweatpants. “I told Chenle you were crashing here last night, by the way. He didn’t just abandon you for shits and giggles.”

“Oh, thanks. He was sober enough to drive?”

“Mark had a Breathalyzer and everything.”

“Wow…”

“Now I recommend you two get the fuck out before everyone else wakes up and sees you sneaking out together.”

“Right,” Sungchan nodded, sitting on the edge of Jeno’s bed and pulling his shoes on.

You quickly gathered your shoes, phone, witch hat, and go bag before giving Jeno a short goodbye and following Sungchan out. The Nu Chi house was thankfully quiet as everyone was still asleep in their own rooms, save for the partygoers and brothers who had passed out on the couches in the living rooms. Once you were on the front porch, the two of you dared to speak again.

“I’ll drive you home, Y/N,” Sungchan offered.

“Mhm, thanks,” you squinted against the bright sunlight, reaching into your bag for the spare pair of sunglasses you kept in there.

He gestured to your bag. “So what all do you have in there?”

“Everything but the kitchen sink.” You sighed, finally securing your sunglasses and putting them on. They did help, but you knew there was no way you were going to avoid a rebound headache today. Realizing that Sungchan might actually have been genuinely asking and wasn’t just trying to be polite, you decided to give him a sincere answer as well. “Uh, my meds, my blood pressure cuff, earplugs, sunglasses, some snacks, other miscellaneous non-migraine related stuff like an umbrella.”

“Blood pressure cuff?” He stopped in front of a sedan parked on the street, and opened the passenger door for you.

Even through your unpleasant migraine hangover, you couldn’t help the giddy smile that crossed your lips at the gesture.

Once the both of you were in the car, you explained, “One of my medications affects my blood pressure. I have to check it every few hours, or whenever I feel kind of funny. That’s partially what the snacks are for too.”

“Really?” He started the car and pulled out into the street.

“Most of my meds I need to take with food, so keeping snacks on me makes it easy. The sweet ones are in case my blood sugar drops though.”

“Blood sugar too?”

“A different medication affects my appetite, secondary effect is on my blood sugar. Fun fact, it’s the same one that keeps me from drinking alcohol. Anyway, if you’re ever craving something sweet, I keep gummies and stuff on me usually.”

Sungchan let out a deep breath. “Wow…”

“Oh and water.” You perked up as you realized you’d forgotten something, and reached in for said item. “I've got my water bottle. I need water to take my meds, obviously, but I also need to drink water to make sure I don’t get kidney stones from my medication.”

The car had stopped at a stoplight, and he looked over at you in disbelief. “What the fuck.”

“Hey, it’s this or be entirely unable to participate in society.” You explained. “I used to get five or six migraines a week, with really bad or mild headaches constantly in between. I couldn’t do anything, they were disabling. Clearly, they still are now when I do get them, but I only get one or two a month.”

“I can’t imagine— I… yeah…” He trailed off as the light turned green, a deep frown etching itself on his features as he clearly was trying to imagine what a huge shift in his life that would be. And was having a hard time doing so.

“People without chronic illnesses usually can’t, until they get one,” you shrugged. “I know I couldn’t imagine it either. Then I got my first migraine. Then my second, and my third. I think the ‘chronic illness’ part really hit for me when I had to order my first sharps disposal bin for the monthly injections I take.”

“You’re…”

“Do not say that I’m so strong or any live laugh love type shit right now.”

He laughed, shaking his head, “No, no, not what I was going to say. I was just thinking… you’re really cool.”

“I just info-dumped about my migraines, medication, medication side effects, and treatment to you for ten minutes straight and that’s the conclusion you came to?” You asked in disbelief as he pulled into your apartment complex, and it dawned on you just how long you had been talking about yourself for. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been that detailed with someone other than your neurologist or your mom about your condition and treatment.

Sungchan put his car in park to turn and look you in the eye. “I’m looking at the bigger picture here: You’re a Lit major, you like Gothic fiction, you’re good at writing, you’re smart and know things like death of the author and stuff, you like Pacific Rim, you’ve come to one of my games, you’re funny, and you just info-dumped to me about something personal for ten minutes. So yes, I think you’re cool. Actually, cool might be an understatement.”

“Jung Sungchan, you…” Your cheeks were hurting with how wide you were grinning. Whether it was the migraine hangover or truly from how warm and happy his words made you, you couldn’t formulate a proper response, “Congrats, I’m speechless.”

“I think that's good?” He laughed again. “Anyway, you told Jeno earlier that you felt like shit, so I won’t hold you up anymore. Rest well today, Y/N.”

“Thanks. You too, Sungchan.” You wrapped your hand around the door handle but stopped just short of actually opening it. “Oh, and uhm, I don’t know if this too eager or whatever, but I’m free tomorrow.”

His face lit up with recognition at what you were implying. “Me too. But are you going to be okay? Like, recovered?”

“Yeah, I’ve got all day today to sleep it off.”

“Okay.” He grinned.

“Okay.” You repeated. “Text me?”

“Yes, yes. I will.”

“Bye.”

And with that, you got out of his car, making sure to take your go bag that had been on your lap for the whole drive.

Halfway to your front door, you turned around to give Sungchan a final wave goodbye, and he waved back through the windshield. Once you’d finally disappeared into your apartment, he looked over at his now empty passenger seat. Well, not completely empty, he realized. Your witch hat was on the floor of the passenger side, you’d forgotten to grab it on your way out. He picked it up, gently setting it on the seat beside him. He’d just give it back to you when he saw you again for your date tomorrow.

“A date,” Sungchan sighed happily, feeling his chest swell and nearly burst with joy. “A date, a date, a date.”

Putting his car in reverse, he looked through the rear window as he muttered, “Suck an egg, Donghyuck. Man-shaped friend, my ass.”

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2

Sungchan picked you up at 7:00 p.m. on the dot for your first date. You made sure to take your nighttime meds early and silence your alarms so there was nothing to bother you that night. Migraines notwithstanding, of course. You still had to bring your go bag just in case you needed anything acute, but you didn’t think twice about leaving the majority of it in the car, tucking just a couple individually packaged tablets into your pocket before accepting Sungchan’s hand that he offered to you after opening your car door for you.

Walking into the movie theater with him after he bought your tickets, you were about to start off in the direction that the usher had pointed you when your date stopped you.

“You want anything from concessions?” He nodded towards the long line of other couples, families, and groups of friends.

“I’m not big on overpriced popcorn,” you shook your head with a smile. “Thanks though, Sungchan.”

“You sure you don’t want a soda or candy? How’s your, you know, blood sugar?”

It was then that your polite smile morphed into a genuine, touched one, and you squeezed his hand that you were holding. “I’m doing good, promise. I made sure I ate before. But thank you, seriously. You’re really sweet.”

“Okay, but let me know if you need anything.”

“Sungchan, can I tell you something?” You ducked your head in towards him conspiratorially.

“Yeah, of course.”

You gently shook one side of your jacket, and a muffled rattling sound came from within it. “I snuck a bag of Skittles in,” you whispered to him.

He chuckled as you dropped your jacket back down and smoothed over the inside pocket inconspicuously. “Two steps ahead of me.”

“I just didn’t want to ruin our date if I got low.”

“It’s very thoughtful, thanks.”

“So are you!” You tried to reassure him.

The two of you entered where your movie would be showing, and picked your seats. The previews had already started, so you had to drop your voices to whispers.

“But you’re going to be good with the bright light, and the sounds?” Sungchan double-checked with you.

You nodded insistently. “You’re the one who made me compile a list of stuff that I could do, remember?”

“I know, but you also came to that party knowing that it was like 100% guaranteed to give you a migraine. So I think I’ve earned some skepticism.”

“Okay, fine. You got me there,” you sighed. “But I get nothing out of suggesting things that will give me migraines other than cutting our time together short. Which I don’t want to do.”

Sungchan shifted in his seat, and when you looked over at him, you could see a small, bashful smile on his face. “Good. Glad we got that cleared up.”

The previews finally ended, and the entire theater quieted down, including you two. You settled in to watch the movie, scooting closer to your date, looping your arm under his, and resting your head on his shoulder. He hesitantly leaned his head against the top of yours.

As you left the theater hand-in-hand with Sungchan, you two were deep in discussion about the movie, and in the back of your mind, you realized with a panic that you had far too much that you wanted to say that wouldn’t fit into the short ride back to your apartment. Not to mention that you didn’t want your night with him to be over yet.

“Hey.” You called for his attention as he opened up the passenger door for you, stopping before you got in the car.

“Hey.” He offered you a lopsided grin, still holding the door open with one hand and now caging you between him and the open car door.

If the parking lot wasn’t literally swarming with other movie theater patrons, you swore you would’ve grabbed him and kissed him stupid right there and then. But a family of five walked by at that moment, so you swallowed down the itch.

“We should go somewhere,” you suggested, trying to sound equal parts nonchalant and hopeful. Which was a weird combination, you knew, but you didn’t want to come across as too desperate. Again, a ridiculous sentiment, but it was engrained in you with social conditioning or whatever.

“We just went somewhere,” he pointed out knowingly, and you swore that was a smirk that you spotted on his face in the shadowy lighting afforded by the parking lot streetlamps.

“We should go somewhere else.”

“Like where?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, despite how desperate you felt on the inside to just be around him right now. “Somewhere. Are you hungry?”

“Are you?”

You pressed your lips together in a thin line. “Well—”

Finally, he smiled, nodded towards the car, and said, “I know somewhere. Get in.”

Sungchan closed the car door after you before walking around to get into the driver’s side. He didn’t offer you any information or clues as to your new destination as he left the movie theater parking lot. The hockey captain drove with one hand casually holding the bottom of the steering wheel, the other tapping out the rhythm of whatever song was playing over his speakers onto his thigh. You dragged your eyes from his fingers to the passing scenery.

Honestly, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d been on a good date. Even the last date you’d been on was a distant memory. Lunch with some CompSci major your freshman year, a blind date set up by a mutual acquaintance. He just talked over you the whole time. You didn’t deign to go on a second date with him. It wasn’t that your migraines made it impossible to date—they hadn’t even come up at the date with the CompSci major (mostly because he didn’t give you the opportunity to say much of anything)—but you knew that it was always going to be something to get out of way. Either up front or at some point down the line. And it was exhausting enough for you to have to completely restructure your life around them, how could you really ask some stranger who barely knew you—or didn’t at all—to consider doing the same? It felt like it just made your dating pool even narrower, an added standard that you didn’t even get to pick.

But with Sungchan, it had happened in the worst way possible, you disappeared on him because you were having a migraine, without even having told him anything about them. And not only was he more than chill about it, he stayed with you through your entire full-blown migraine. Listened to you explain every ailment, medication, and medication complication that you have, and just tucked all that information away to keep track of your wellbeing. Taken it all in stride and made it look easy. And that was before your first date. It almost made you angry. Not at Sungchan, but at the fact that other people had ever made you feel like an inconvenience.

The car slowing to a stop knocked you from your thoughts, and you didn’t even realize that you had been silent for the entire trip. Sungchan didn’t seem to mind, though, as he hadn’t tried to start a conversation either. He put the car in park as you looked around, trying to gauge where exactly you were.

“Are we… on campus?” You turned to him with an eyebrow raised.

He was already out of the car, though, jogging around to get your door. As he opened it for you, he tilted his head innocently, “What was that?”

You stepped out, taking in your surroundings. “Are we at a campus parking garage?”

“Specifically, the top floor of Evergreen Parking Garage,” Sungchan clarified, rolling the passenger window down.

Evergreen Parking Garage was a commuter-only parking facility, meaning that this level was empty this late at night. It was also located at the furthest reaches of the north block of campus, which bordered a nature preserve, meaning that while on one side was your university campus, the other side was entirely evergreen trees. Hence the name.

Sungchan had parked on the side that faced the nature preserve, and as you turned to question your date as to why exactly he’d taken you to campus, you were instead greeted by the sight of him hunched over to lean into the open passenger window, seemingly messing around with the audio controls of the still-running car.

You tilted your head to one side, then the other as you just watched him struggle for a moment before finally speaking up. “What uh… What are you doing, Sungchan?”

He banged his head on the frame of the window as he went to stand back up. “Fuck! Ow…”

Covering your hand to muffle your giggles, you waited patiently for him to turn around and answer you.

Still clutching his head, he said with a sheepish smile, “Just give me a sec, sorry. Technical difficulties.”

And with that, he opened the door to properly sit in the passenger seat, futzing with his phone and the car radio. Finally, there was music playing from the speakers as opposed to the radio station ads, and he turned the volume up before getting back out of the car and shutting the door. With both the driver and passenger windows rolled down, you could hear the song clearly.

“I was originally going to try to take you to this lookout, but there were other cars there, so I had to keep driving by it and oh my god why did I tell you that—” He scratched the back of his head nervously. “Anyway, since we didn’t get to dance at the party…”

Sungchan offered his hand out to you, and you set yours atop it. The upbeat song that had been playing finished just then, switching to a much slower, softer one. You stepped in closer, smiling up at him as you looped your free arm around his neck. His other hand settled on your hip, and he slowly started leading you in an uncertain sway of sorts.

You let out an airy chuckle, “Was this really the kind of dancing you had in mind for a frat party?”

“Would you believe me if I said yes?” He questioned.

“Would you believe me if I said that I believed you?”

“No.”

You snickered. “Smart man.”

“But this is good, too. Better, even.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, there’s not a bunch of other drunk, sweaty, loud people everywhere knocking into us. I don’t have to worry about somebody spilling beer on me, or other guys looking at you, or the DJ picking something bad. Or you getting a migraine.” Sungchan slotted his fingers with yours. “I just get to think about you.”

You rested your head on his chest, eyes zoning out on your linked hands. It was his right hand, so his pinky finger couldn’t quite fold down along with the others. “Yeah. I like this, too,” you agreed softly.

A cool breeze gently blew across your cheek that wasn’t resting on Sungchan’s chest, and you were glad for the warmth of him pressed against your front. Your feet awkwardly bumped into each other, making you chuckle, and he apologized with a nervous laugh.

“It’s okay,” you reassured him. “I haven’t exactly taken any ballroom dancing classes. Have you?”

“Well...”

You jerked your head back to look him in the face. “You have?”

“You know how Greek life has those formals every year?”

“You’re not in a frat...”

“No, I’m not. But freshman year, Nu Chi had pitched in for this dance teacher and— God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” Sungchan said regretfully, tilting his head back to look up in embarrassment.

“Sungchan, come on!” You pleaded.

“Hendery swore me to secrecy...”

“Well now you have to tell me!”

“Hendery’s date couldn’t make it to one of the lessons, so he asked me to fill in for her...”

Your jaw dropped with delight, “Was his date an Amazon? How did that work? He couldn’t have possibly dipped you! Or twirled you!”

“She was taller than him, to be fair,” he admitted. “Nothing that couldn’t be adjusted for with some thick soles, but, you know...”

“You’re such a good friend, Sungchan,” you said through a couple of giggles, imagining the two of them attempting the aforementioned twirls and dips.

He dropped his head, shaking it. “Right, thanks.”

“So I guess I should be leading then, hm?” You teased, your feet bumping his again in that moment.

“I feel like you’d lead us over the edge of this parking deck, Y/N,” he joked.

Before you could make a retort, he stepped back from you to gently twirl you around by the hand, and a cross between a surprised yelp and a laugh tumbled from your mouth. As he brought you back into his chest, you could barely think over the joyful buzzing in your head that resonated out to every square inch of your body.

“Okay, okay, I guess you can lead,” you surrendered, looping your arm back around his neck again.

After some time, the songs had picked up tempo again, but you and Sungchan were long past actually dancing to them. You were more so just holding each other, leisurely swaying, and from here you got to listen to the sounds of his breathing. He’d taken to rubbing absentminded circles into your hip with his thumb, and the fingers of your arm that was around his neck had dipped below the material of his collar, resting on his bare skin.

“Sungchan?” You murmured.

“Yes?” He responded, his voice rumbling right under your ear.

“Thank you for not making me do this in front of a bunch of other cars at the other lookout.”

He let out a couple quiet laughs, his chest shaking with each. “You’re welcome. I figured all of the teens making out in their cars also didn’t want to watch us do this either.”

You mock gasped, pretending to sound scandalized, “You were going to take me to a lover’s lookout? On the first date? Jung Sungchan…”

“Who are you, my grandma? Nobody calls it that anymore.” He pinched your side. “And only because it’s actually got a great view over the city and—”

“I’m kidding, Sungchan.” You pinched him back, lightly, on the nape of the neck. “Besides, I wouldn’t have been opposed to a trip to a lover’s lookout with you anyway…”

You heard the breath hitch in his throat, then Sungchan swallowed and inhaled through his nose, before he finally spoke, “Really?”

His grip on your hip tightened, sending a bolt of electricity along your skin out from the contact point. You brought your head out of his chest and used your arm around his neck to draw him in even closer.

“Really,” you echoed, blatantly staring at his lips now that they were centimeters away from yours. “And it looks like we’ve got our own right here.”

Then Sungchan was using his hold on your hip to push you back step by step until your back was against the side of his car. Your own arm around his neck kept him anchored to you as he stood hovering over you, blotting out any light that would’ve come from the light post above you. Your noses were almost touching, your breaths mingling in the negligible space between your mouths. You were looking at Sungchan’s eyes now, usually a warm, deep brown, now all inky blackness in the dark of night, and staring down at your own mouth. Your tongue instinctually darted out to wet your lips, and that seemed to be the final straw.

His mouth on yours was desperate, but not desperate to get laid, like your previous lover’s lookout banter might imply. Like he was just desperate for you. He stole kiss after kiss from your lips, but never forced his tongue into your mouth, nor moved his hands anywhere else. Despite leaning more and more of his weight forward onto you, utterly pinning you to the car, he kept his bruising grip on your hip and never let go of your hand.

You parted your mouth with a bedraggled gasp of his name, and he finally took this as an invite to slip his tongue into the mix. You shifted to rest the hand that was laced with his above your head, on the roof of the sedan, giving his hand a squeeze. He squeezed your hand back.

Turning your head and breaking the kiss, you hoped he’d get the idea as you continued laying there half-spread out under him. He did, thankfully, kissing from the corner of your mouth across your cheek and down your jaw and neck.

“Sung…chan…” You breathed out his name, stroking the back of his head with your free hand as his lips latched onto a spot at the base of your neck.

Trailing your hand down further, you snuck it up under the hem of his shirt, feeling over the expanse of his chest and stomach. Oh fuck yeah, hockey players. You pulled the article of clothing up towards his head insistently, and he detached from your neck for the two of you to jointly strip him of it. Oh fuck yeah, hockey players. You truly didn’t know if he looked or felt better, but you couldn’t ogle him for long, because he was back on top of you as soon as he’d thrown the shirt into the front seat via the open passenger window beside you. His lips were so warm on yours, his skin even hotter under your touch now as you unabashedly felt up every inch of it and the muscles underneath.

But soon that wasn’t enough either, and you were fumbling at his pants button. He groaned into your mouth, the sound vibrating down into your own chest, as his hand snapped around your wrist.

“Ahh…” He hissed regretfully.

“What?” You looked up at him with wide eyes.

“I can’t get my dick out in public.”

You glanced at the car behind you, with its tinted windows, then back at Sungchan. He met your eyes, then shrugged. “That’ll work.”

It was a mad scramble to get the door to the backseat open, so much so that you accidentally smacked Sungchan in the leg with said door. After lots of apologies through giggles, both of you were in the backseat with the doors closed and locked. Sungchan had the task of awkwardly reaching forward over the console to roll the windows back up first, during which you made a couple observations about his backseat, which you hadn’t seen much of before. His practice bag for hockey was back here—which was different than his gear bag, as you’d already been told. The gear bag actually had his equipment that he needed to play with like mouth guards, sticks, and all of that, while his practice bag had more personal stuff like changes of clothes or hygiene products. You figured his gear bag was either in the trunk or at the rink, as he didn’t always need to carry it back and forth with him. But other than the practice bag and a couple of reusable grocery bags on the floor, the backseat was pretty clean. You were genuinely impressed, especially because he made it sound like he tended to chauffeur a lot of his teammates/roommates around frequently.

Sungchan eventually reentered the backseat fully, focusing a content, closed-lip smile on you. You’d taken it upon yourself to lay down on the seat, your knees propped up by your feet. He settled in to kneel on the same cushion as your feet, but just rested an arm on your knees and his chin atop that forearm to gaze down at you, still smiling.

“What? What’s that smile for?” You asked, starting to feel a bit self-conscious.

“Nothing, I just—” He reached both his hands out towards you, fingers spread, and you got the idea, linking yours with them. “I hope you don’t get the wrong idea. I want this to be a real thing, Y/N. Like, I don’t just want to sleep with you. I don’t even do this kind of stuff—car sex on the first date in a campus parking garage?—literally ever. I’m just kinda crazy about you. I know for most people usually it’s the opposite; you know, they save it for later for really important people. They try to make it special, but I know it’ll be special just because it’s you.”

“Sungchan... I’ve never done something like this either,” you admitted, squeezing both of his hands tight. “I think I’m just kinda crazy about you too.”

“Okay. Cool.” He beamed at you, and you felt your insides turn to mush in that moment. You didn’t think they’d ever un-mush again.

“Now can you please take my clothes off before I spontaneously combust?”

“Fuck. Yeah.” He nodded, immediately turning serious as his brow furrowed and he leaned forward to lock his lips with yours again, propping himself up with one hand to hover above you.

You let your knees fall apart to give him room to settle in between your legs. He pulled at your jacket first, and you sat up to help yank it off, dropping it to the floor with his practice bag. With you no longer laying down, he could use two hands to get the next part, your top. His fingertips skimmed along your skin as he grabbed the hem. You broke the kiss so he could start pulling the clothing up your body—

A loud knock against the driver’s side window quite literally made you scream, and Sungchan jerked up and hit his head once again, this time on the roof of the car. You tugged your shirt back down to cover you, ducking to lay flat on the seat as Sungchan looked at you with panic in his eyes.

Another knock came at the window, this time accompanied by a man’s voice, “Campus security! Roll the window down or I’m going to ask you to turn the car off and step out!”

“Just a second!” Sungchan yelled back, a noticeable crack in his voice. He had a difficult time maneuvering his lanky body over the console fully into the driver’s seat again.

“Now!” The man called out again. “Three! Two!”

Sungchan didn’t have time to put on his shirt before ‘one,’ and he rushed to roll the window down. A flashlight was immediately shone into the car, and you didn’t doubt your own visibility to the security officer. You were remaining laying down for your own mental wellbeing at this point. You didn’t think that you could deal with looking this man in the eye right now.

You didn’t know if it was wisdom or embarrassment that kept your date from saying anything, but he thankfully didn’t speak until spoken to, not offering up any incriminating information. After five entire seconds of silence, the officer let out an audible sigh.

“No overnight parking in this garage,” he said, his tone making it very clear that he knew that was not what was going on. “I’ll be back in five minutes and if you’re still here, you’re getting a ticket.”

“Yes, sir,” Sungchan replied.

“I’m sure that the captain of our hockey team wouldn’t want to get put on probation at the beginning of the season.”

“N-No, sir.” His voice cracked again.

The security officer grunted, but said nothing more. You heard Sungchan roll the window back up, then the sound of another car driving away. Slowly, Sungchan turned around to look at you over the console with wide, horrified eyes.

“He knew who I was…” He whispered. “That was the most terrifying 45 seconds of my life.”

“You’re famous, Sungchan,” you teased, sitting up in the backseat now that the coast was clear.

“Yeah, and fame has got so many perks so far.”

“Almost got into your first scandal already.” You clicked your tongue disapprovingly. “Caught with a girl in your backseat. What will the fans say?”

“Considering my fans are all frat bros, probably something along the lines of wolf whistles and incoherent, congratulatory lewd jeering.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, able to picture that perfectly considering you’d already gotten a taste at the first home game you’d gone to. “Sounds about right.”

“Anyway, I should take you home before that guy comes back.”

“Good idea.” You slipped your jacket back on.

“Are you going to come up here or am I your chauffeur?”

“I suppose I’ll sit up there with you,” you sighed, opening the backseat to get out and into the front normally since there was no security man around.

Back in the passenger seat, you handed Sungchan’s shirt back to him, “Here, have some decency. You’re the captain of the hockey team, you know.”

“I’m sorry, who was going to spontaneously combust if we didn’t get naked in the next 0.2 seconds?” He scoffed, pulling his top back on.

“I don’t recall.”

“Sure.”

“And who’s still hard in their jeans right now?”

“Don’t remind me, I have to drive like this,” he groaned, taking the car out of park with a shake of his head.

As Sungchan drove with one hand, the other reached over to take yours, lacing his fingers together with yours.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6

Just a few days later, and you were at the rink again, eagerly watching the hockey game in front of you. Chenle was beside you, continuing his constant sports commentary on every play that happened. You still mostly tuned it out, but you were pretty sure you at least understood most of the basic rules that Taeyong had explained to you before. You kept your eyes on Sungchan, cheering him on along with the other various Nu Chi brothers around you and other fans in the stands. It wasn’t as full of a house as it had been for the first home game, but you were perfectly content to have a slightly quieter environment.

Sungchan happened to skate by your section as everyone was resetting their positions, giving you a wave through the clear barrier. You gave him a slightly bashful but nevertheless bright grin as you waved back.

“So are you two like... dating now?” Hendery asked from your other side, leaned forward with both of his elbows on his knees as he watched the game. He looked back at you over his shoulder with a shit-eating grin, though, one that made you roll your eyes.

“I don’t know. We’ve been on a date. I mean, there was the Halloween party, but I got a migraine so I don’t think that really counts, so— I don’t have to explain myself to you!” You scowled at him, shoving him away by his shoulder.

He laughed as he let himself get jostled around in his seat from the push, holding his hands up in surrender. “Just curious. Unlike your bestie over there, I think you two are adorable.”

“What?” You looked over at Chenle, who Hendery had pointed at.

Chenle had apparently been listening enough to be able to jump in to defend himself. “It’s not what it sounds like. I think you two are great, promise.”

You turned back to your other friend. “Then what the hell are you talking about, Hendery?”

“He just doesn’t want to lose,” the Nu Chi member explained. “I pegged Sungchan’s huge crush on you on day 1 of Dr. Son’s class. Once the Phanta Phour stuff started, I knew that boy had no chance. Chenle just didn’t think you’d ever... hold on, how’d he put it... be into uh, ‘Neanderthal frat-bro-in-law types.’”

“I was maybe a bit tipsy...” Chenle added in.

“So you made a bet on if Sungchan and I would get together? In four whole years?” You looked from left to right between them.

“Loser has to buy winner a 12-pack,” Hendery confirmed with that same grin. “When Phantasmagorical Phriday ended this year, I really thought I’d lost. But then you turned up at the game last week and I figured Sungchan just might score himself a buzzer beater.”

“You two need to get better hobbies,” you declared with a snort.

“This so counts as sudden-death OT, but whatever,” Chenle scoffed under his breath.

You smacked him across the chest. “And don’t call my dating life ‘sudden death’ either.”

“Hey.” He said softly, grabbing your arm, and you turned your head to meet his gaze. “I really was worried about you going to the Halloween party with your head. I swear.”

“I know, LeLe,” you nodded, giving him a reassuring smile. “You did some great wingmanning once we got there.”

The brief flash of sincerity you got from your best friend was over as quick as it had come, as you heard the crash of helmets on the ice, and both your focuses were drawn back to the game. Two players had collided into each other and the clear barrier right in front of your faces. You grimaced sympathetically as you tried to identify the player from your team. 23— Jeno, ah, he’d be alright. And you were right, he took off almost immediately as the other guy was left behind still dazed.

At the end of the game, with the buzz of another win in your veins and the anticipation of seeing Sungchan thrumming along your skin, you bounced on your heels as you waited in the lobby. You weren't paying attention to the ecstatic, dramatic recollections that Chenle and the Nu Chi brothers were giving of specific plays around you, your gaze entirely focused on the locker room exit.

The very first player to leave was Sungchan, his eyes already scanning the crowd. Without a second thought, you darted over to him, ignoring the couple of whoops and whistles you two got from your friends.

Sungchan beamed down at you as he went to pull you into a hug, and you were immediately enveloped in the smell of the freshly washed clothes that you’d caught last time. This time, though, there was the distinct, crisp smell of ice rink ice under it as well, reminding you of when you’d go ice skating with friends.

“Hey,” you smiled up at him as he let you go, but didn’t step back very far. “You played really good again. I’m pretty sure. A bit more sure than I was last time.”

He was still grinning, looking down at the floor then back up at you before he responded, “Thank you. And I don’t really expect you to become a hockey pro or anything if all that doesn’t interest you. As long as you don’t expect me to remember what death of the author is.”

“This was only my second game, have some faith in me!” You cried out indignantly. “And no, I don’t expect you to become a full-blown literary critic either.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he apologized through a couple of poorly suppressed giggles. “I do believe in you. I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to learn boring sports stuff for me.”

“I do want to be able to follow the basics of a game without Chenle or Taeyong annotating it for me, at least.”

“Oh, yeah, you can definitely do that. Might need to come to a few more games, though...”

You nodded giddily. “Just let me know when the home games are and I’m there.”

“Yo!” A voice had called from the gaggle of guys heading towards the exit. You didn’t even realize that the rest of the team had left the locker room in the time that you’d been talking to Sungchan.

While you couldn’t tell who had gotten your attention, it was Donghyuck that asked, “Are you two coming or are you just going to keep making moony eyes at each other all night?”

“Yeah, Sungchan, you’re our ride!” Yangyang yelled out from somewhere.

“DD!” Jeno cheered.

“I’ll drive you two,” Mark offered with a shake of his head.

“Shotgun!” The two of them immediately dibs-ed in unison.

“Sorry, bitches, I’m his little,” Donghyuck declared. “That means eternal dibs on shotgun in Mark’s car.”

The frat president scoffed, “You only give a shit about that when it directly benefits you.”

“You guys go ahead,” Sungchan cut into their bickering. “We’re right behind you.”

After they had all filed out, he looked back down at you, a nervous smile worming across his face. “Sorry about that...”

“It’s okay,” you said. “So... you ready to go?”

The two of you had already discussed going to the after-game celebrations with the team before this. Sungchan texted you last night to check in and make sure you’d be okay with going from the loud game to a noisy bar/pool hall with a bunch of frat guys after. You’d assured him that you’d be okay as long as you sat away from any music speakers at the bar, and he’d in turn made you promise to tell him if you needed to leave early.

However, he now halted you as you were slowly turning towards the exit. “Wait, I want to try this again.”

With a sneaking suspicion of what he was about to do, you assured him, “Sungchan, you don’t have to—”

“Let me do this. Please.” He gave you those same eyes that had convinced you to go to a frat party in the first place, and you were squaring your shoulders back to face him, giving him a firm nod.

“Okay. Go for it.”

He asked casually, “So, did you drive yourself?”

You had to hold back a laugh, covering your mouth to straighten your face before replying coyly, “Oh, me? I walked. My apartment is close.”

“So, the team all goes out to this bar after home games. It’s a pretty sleazy dive bar, and I know it’s a Thursday night, but I’d really like for you to come with me. I’ll buy you a... soda.”

“I would love to come, Sungchan,” you giggled, adjusting your purse strap.

“Awesome,” he grinned, wrapping an arm around your shoulders.

As you walked up to the passenger side of his car with him, you suddenly realized something. “Wait, did you have your car last time, too?”

“Maybe?” He rubbed the back of his neck, reaching for the door handle to open it for you.

“Then why did you walk me home?”

“To spend more time with you?”

You stole a quick kiss before ducking into the passenger seat.

Squished into one side of a booth with Sungchan’s arm around you, you chatted happily with Chenle, Ten, and Sicheng, who were sitting opposite from you. The team and cheer section were spread out between a couple booths and tables near each other, a few of them up playing pool too. You sipped on your soda between discussions about tonight’s game, upcoming games, classes, or whatever else struck you all. Currently, you were locked in a conversation with Ten about the most recent assigned reading in a class that you two shared together this semester.

“I thought that scene had a lot of great allusions back to the earlier one with her mother and the pie baking,” you gushed.

“Really?” Ten tilted his head curiously. “I was seeing it more as a continuation of the cannibalism-sex-love metaphor, since they were eating figs, you know.”

You nodded knowingly. “That’s true. Everything’s about sex—”

“Except sex.” You two finished quoting your professor in unison.

“And then with figs, there’s the Bible interpretation, of course,” you continued.

“Always the Bible.”

“We can never escape what John Milton did for Christian fanfiction, truly.”

“But I do like the pie scene connection the more that I think about it, actually.” Ten knocked back the rest of his cocktail. “And, tying her mother into the cannibalism metaphor could be a fascinating angle, too.”

Your eyes widened as you were practically vibrating your seat with excitement now. “Yeah, her earliest memory being of food, parental love, and harm...”

“Anyway, I need a refill.” Your friend shook his glass of ice with a smile. “Be back. Good chat as always, Y/N.”

Chenle and Sicheng scooted out of the booth to let Ten out, the former heading off towards the restrooms while the co-captain followed his roommate to the bar, leaving just you and Sungchan. You continued musing over the new connections you’d just made in the text as you turned your gaze back over to Sungchan beside you. He was already looking at you, a fond half-smile on his face.

“Hi.” He said quietly.

“Hi,” you replied, just as quiet.

Sungchan took a swig of his drink, then eyed yours. “You haven’t drunk any water since we get here.”

He’d been sure to not only order your promised soda of choice, but also water, and as you now looked over at your two cups, you could tell that the water had not been touched at all while the soda was practically empty.

“Oh uh, I guess I haven’t.”

“Drink some.” He pushed it towards you insistently. “Can’t have you getting kidney stones on my watch.”

“Okay, okay.” You acquiesced easily, switching your straw over to that glass and chugging a quarter of it in one go. “Better?”

“Much.” He nodded in satisfaction. “So what were you and Ten saying about pies and sex or whatever? Sex isn’t about sex?”

“Oh, it’s just something one of our professors says a lot. ‘Everything is about sex except sex.’ For lit analysis. In literature, pretty much everything is about sex. Or can be. You can turn like, anything in a piece of text into an innuendo or euphemism if you wanted to. Except for sex. Like, if a sex scene is included in a piece of literature, it’s not actually about the sex that’s being depicted. The sex is meant to represent something else. Like politics, or social structures, or whatever other themes are present in the work. Unless you’re just reading porn. But even then, there’s artistic merit to erotica, and plenty to be learned about the social structures at the time it was written, too.”

Sungchan hadn’t blinked the entire time you’d been rambling on, and upon you finally stopping, blinked in rapid succession as he seemed to come to from a daze. “Wow. Uh, interesting. Filing that away with death of the author.”

“Sungchan...” You leaned in to whisper, placing a hand on the inside of his thigh, just above his knee. His leg jumped, knocking his knee into the tabletop. Your hand had narrowly avoided being smashed too, saved only by its position curled around his leg instead of directly on top. You didn’t move it up or down now though, simply tapping your index finger against the loose material of his sweatpants as you giggled. “What are you thinking about?”

He cleared his throat a couple of times. “How you still have three-quarters of that glass of water left to drink.”

You laughed, slumping to relax into his side and pulling your hand back up to a more casual position on top of his leg. With your other hand, you grabbed your water. “Alright, fine.”

Not too long after your water had been drained, Sungchan was driving you home. Some of your other friends had taken off as well, and you didn't put up too much of a protest when he offered. As your familiar building came into view, you suddenly remembered something.

“Oh, visitor’s parking is over there. Sorry, forgot to mention before.” You pointed to a few parking spots painted with yellow lines instead of white, further away from the apartment entrances than the resident parking. “They’re a bit picky. Chenle got towed after like, five minutes one time.”

“Got it. Thanks.” Sungchan smoothly turned the wheel to pull into one of the open visitor’s spots.

Your reason for showing it to him was two-fold. One, to let him know you hoped he’d be coming over more often, so he’d need that information for future reference. And two, for perhaps less innocent ulterior motives tonight. Truly, your apartment complex only towed people after dark. Overnight visitors. Chenle’s five-minute tow had been a fluke.

“I’ll walk you to your door,” he said with no prompting, and you had to hold in a sigh of relief.

Instead, you gave him a genuine smile. “Thanks, Sungchan.”

“I don’t think I thanked you for coming tonight. To the game.” He slowly meandered up the sidewalk with you, hand holding yours.

“Thanks for inviting me again. I had a lot of fun.” You squeezed his hand.

Your front door loomed in the not-so-distant distance.

“Uh, are you busy this weekend?” He rushed to ask. “I have Saturday morning practice, at 7:30, but it’s over at 9:00, and after that I’m free.”

So that’s why he had texted you at seven in the morning to congratulate you on winning Phantasmagorical Phriday.

“No, I’m not busy. I’d love to do something, just pick from the list I sent you. Surprise me, hm?”

“Will do.”

You were finally on your front welcome mat, and watched his face fall as he seemed to be drawing a blank about how else to prolong your night. But you had an idea.

You didn’t let an alarm or anything else possibly have the chance to interrupt you, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling his mouth down to yours. He stumbled forward at you suddenly yanking him off-balance, catching himself with one hand on your front door and the other on your doorframe. Then, he dropped a hand to the small of your back, drawing you in even closer as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss.

Disconnected just enough to murmur against his lips, you asked, “Do you want to come in?”

“Please?” He replied with a nearly sheepish chuckle.

“So polite,” you quipped.

You gave him one more peck before turning around to unlock your door and drag him in by the arm.

➠ sequel | series masterlist | blog masterlist

702 notes · View notes

disneyprincemuke · 19 days

Text

time to rockʸ and roᵒll * female!driver(s)

“how does it feel to be back?”

the girl in the maroon racesuit smiles at the woman behind the camera. she tilts her head to the side to stretch her neck and adjusts the velcro of her race suit. “i feel amazing. it’s honestly good to be back,” the girl scrunches her nose as she fixes her hair. “so, grill the grid, right?”

“yep. we’re gonna start off with a pop quiz,” the older woman trails off with a teasing smile and looks down at her clipboard, flipping over a piece of paper, “on account of seb.”

“seb?” the girl asks, blinking with her eyebrows furrowed and head tilted. “like sebastian vettel? retired german race car driver now race engineer for the new team on the grid sebastian vettel?”

the older woman nods again. “you ready?”

“pop quiz?” the driver reiterates, throwing her head back in shock. “do i get a prize?”

“i believe so.” she lifts her head with a friendly smile and nods. “you ready? i heard you’ll really like the prize — even if you get it wrong, i believe.”

that’s not something you hear every day — walking away a winner as a loser. “really? i still get a prize even if i get the answer wrong?” she takes a deep breath and sighs with a grin. “okay, i’m ready. ask away.”

“what’s the name of the new team on the grid?”

“andretti cadillac… racing? they don’t have f1 in their team name… i don’t suppose…”

“oh, that’s a really good start!”

“i wasn’t sure.”

“what are the names of the 3 rookies on the grid this year?”

“can i ask you a question as well?”

“sure.”

“there’s 3 rookies on the grid this year?” the producer nods. “all in different teams?” she nods again. the driver puffs her cheeks out and puts her hands on her hips, tilting her head as she starts to think. “i know mclaren acquired the australian kid — oscar… and alex saying something about logan’s promotion late last year… but a third rookie? another team went for a rookie this year?”

“it was all the rage when they announced it in late january. where have you been?”

the girl throws her head back with a laugh, “i’m not very up to date with racing news.” she bites down on her bottom lip as she gets her brain to work again. “wow, i’ve really got no idea. i wanna go on a whim and say fred? maybe got felipe out of the aston martin reserve spot?”

“wrong,” a disembodied voice speaks. someone jumps out from a coveted spot in the studio with something in their hands, a wide smile spreading their lips and a thud bouncing off the walls as their feet meet the ground. “it’s me.”

the girl in maroon drops her jaw, eyes widening and back straightening. “rocky!”

the girl in purple squeaks and hops in the air. “roo!”

notes: listen,, the only time i'm putting my notes at the end of my fic is now (also because it's giving me wattpad core because that's how i used to do it lMFAO) anyway, @angsthology and i have always talked about rocky and roo linking up and this has been in the wip forever and i'm soooo excited to finally post it

also because this is that universe where i keep saying mocky will end up toGETHER SO HERE WE GOO YEAHHHHH

@33-81 @darleneslane @namgification @localwhoore @happy-nico @nikfigueiredo

#f1 x reader #f1 female driver #f1 fem!driver #formula one x reader #fem!driver #female driver #disneyprincemuke #disneyprincemuke imagine #disneyprincemuke imagines #disneyprincemuke f1 #disneyprincemuke roockyverse

197 notes · View notes

wikiangela · 18 days

Text

fuck it friday 💗💜💙(7x04 coda?)

tagged by @tizniz 💖

hi! how are we feeling after 7x04 bc I feel like I'm dreaming and I've been crying the whole day today, my bi heart is sooooo happy😭😭 I wasn't gonna start new wips until i finish the cheating fic, but I opened a new doc and things happened lol - idk what this is, where I'm going with this, or if I'm even gonna continue, I just wanted to peek into Buck's head for a moment haha

___

Oh. Oh. Oooh. So that’s- that’s what it was. Huh.

That’s the first thing going through his mind as Tommy kisses him. It’s like- it’s like a piece of the puzzle finally sliding into place, after years and years of searching, looking for something to fill that space with, that feeling of something being missing. It’s almost weird, really, how easy it feels, how he’s more relieved than freaked out. Because this- oh, this makes so much sense. He’s into guys. He’s been into guys. And right now, at this moment, he’s into Tommy.

Holy shit, he’s into Tommy.

Buck’s mind has been a whirlwind of chaos and confusion and frustration for days, but now, when Tommy kisses him, it all silences. Just to start anew as they part, butterflies in his stomach so intense he feels like he might float, as a slow smile spreads across his face when Tommy pulls away.

This is the part of himself he’s been looking for, he’s been denying himself, he’s been silencing for so long. He doesn’t know why now, why Tommy, what it all means and where it’s leading. But he knows that now he feels almost... complete, feels like himself, feels at ease. Feels like Buck.

He feels giddy when Tommy asks him out, and finds that as soon as the door closes behind him, Buck already can’t wait to see him again. Jesus, he has a crush. He’s a grown man in his thirties, just now finding out he’s into guys, and he has a goddamn crush on a guy, and that’s why he’s been acting like a teenager. It makes so much sense now, and Buck feels- well, he’s embarrassed because of his idiotic behavior, and guilty for maiming his best friend, but most of all he just feels relieved. Because he knows now, knows why he’s been so bent out of shape about this whole situation, and can put a name to those feelings. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted off his chest, that he didn’t even know was there.

___

no pressure tags: @elvensorceress @gaydiaz @thebravebitch @canonbibuck @shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @watchyourbuck @eowon @loserdiaz @evanbegins @ladydorian05 @wildlife4life @diazpatcher @lover-of-mine @monsterrae1 @thewolvesof1998 @neverevan @weewootruck @loveyouanyway @spagheddiediaz @rainbow-nerdss @epicbuddieficrecs @pirrusstuff @spotsandsocks @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @nmcggg @rogerzsteven @hippolotamus @giddyupbuck @sunshinediaz @honestlydarkprincess @underwater-ninja-13 @exhuastedpigeon @911-on-abc @jesuisici33 @steadfastsaturnsrings @theotherbuckley @buddieswhvre @dangerpronebuddie @diazsdimples @daffi-990 @bidisasterbuckdiaz @fortheloveofbuddie @hoodie-buck

#fuck it friday #bi buck #7x04 coda #bi buck fic #<- ? idk what to tag this or if there's gonna be more idk (I do have a little more but idk how much more im gonna write lol)#ngl i'm not the biggest fan of tommy or bucktommy but i like him as buck's first guy if that makes sense lol #and that kiss was so hot and what buck deserved as his first guy kiss haha #trying to make it about buck's bisexuality more than tommy but also he does have a crush rn so #also i'm still not convinced he knows exactly who's attention he wanted but let's let him figure it out haha #fic snippet #wikiangela writes #my writing #my wips #911 fic #911 abc #911 spoilers #not tagging it as buddie bc it's not lol it's aaallll about buck rn 🥺

163 notes · View notes

art · 1 year

Photo

Creator Spotlight: Pablo Lobato

Pablo Lobato was born in Trelew, Patagonia, Argentina, in April 1970. He studied graphic design at Universidad Nacional de La Plata, as well as Painting and Engraving. He moved to Buenos Aires to work as a graphic designer in the editorial field. After five years, he got bored and decided to give one more chance to his true love: portraits. Represented by Anna Goodson, he started working as a collaborator in magazines and newspapers: Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Wired, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, and The Village Voice, among others. His work has been featured in Illustration Now Vol.3 and Portraits! by Taschen editorial. Lobato has taken part in numerous collective exhibits in Argentina, the United States, Italy, Chile, and Portugal.

Check out our interview with Pablo below!

Can you take us through a day in the life of working on a project like Wendell & Wild?

I worked on this project during the lockdown because of the COVID pandemic, so I was home all of the time. My days consisted of zooms with director Henry Selick, work, play with the kids, work, make dinner, watch a series on Netflix, work, and more work. While everyone was trying to figure out what to do with their free time, I was working like never before.

What was the inspiration behind the character designs in Wendell & Wild, and which character was the most challenging or interesting to develop?

Each character was inspired by different people or things. Wendell and Wild are caricatures of Keegan Michael Key, and Jordan Peele. The inspiration for Kat was a blend between the Afropunk movement and ancient African masks. Manberg could be an Israeli Marlon Brando.

What do you wish you had known when you first started out creating art that you know now?

How to be a character designer!!! This was my first time, so I had to learn in the process.

What is one habit you find yourself doing a lot as an artist?

I find myself looking for new things all the time, finding new directions to go in, and making mistakes.

How many unfinished/WIP pieces do you have? Care to share a sneak peek..?

Hundreds!!!!!

How has your style developed over the years?

At the beginning, my work was very sketchy—very rough. Then, I started using the computer, and everything was cleaner and more geometric. Now, I think I’m going back to more organic shapes.

What does your work set up look like?

It’s a mess. Please don’t ask me for pictures. I will never show it.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work?

It was a big change when I first started using the computer. But technology keeps growing, and I’m using the same old software as 20 years ago.

Who or what on Tumblr inspires you and why?

I appreciate the diversity that Tumblr has. Thousands and thousands of different art projects popping in front of your eyes. It’s like a brainstorm on your screen.

Thank you so much for stopping by, Pablo! Check out his work with Netflix’s Wendell & Wild over at @netflix!

#creator spotlight #artists on tumblr #pablo lobato #wendell and wild #netflix

1K notes · View notes

franklyimissparis · 2 months

Note

hi there can i ask what are your favourite fics??

ahhhhhh this was so hard to narrow down since i think i have something like 300 beatles fics bookmarked on ao3 (plus a ton saved from livejournal but i’ve only included ao3 ones here). at first i was gonna pick a top 5 or top 10 but that was too hard so here are my top 24-ish i think? could have picked a lot more tbh. i only included fics that are completed, even though there are a lot i love that are either WIP or abandoned. also didn’t include any modern AUs though there’s a lot of those that i love as well! if anyone has any specific requests for other fic reqs i’m always happy to suggest more :)

on our way back home by kathleenishereagain

this fic has the most kudos in the fandom for a reason! old paul time travels back to the touring days and his relationship with john changes from there. love the way they integrated the magical realism into this and it’s just such a beautiful, touching story.

knowing that the sun is there by tarenas

john comes out after brian dies. lovely look at john’s individual relationships with all of the beatles and cynthia (but especially his relationship with paul of course)

cutting water with a knife by savageandwise

may’s perspective on john and paul. love love love. heartbreakingly realistic and so poignant. feels like it could have been a cut chapter out of loving john.

i’m so tired, my mind is set on you by dornfelder

god how i wish this is what would have happened in india. i’ve read this fic so many times, it just feels so real i keep coming back to it.

india, actually by inspiteallthedanger

jane notices that john’s india tapes are all of paul a la love actually. love jane in this and paul and john’s dynamic is great.

grow old with me by inherownwrite

john and paul in scotland in the 80s - paul breaks his arm and gives john a fright. such a tender picture of what could have been had things not ended how they did.

i was a younger man then (now) (post hoc) by fingersfallingupwards

using the time traveller’s wife premise in quite literally the best way i have ever read. the way it unfolds is…. stunning.

having coffee by dornfelder

old paul and john reflecting on life and being outed in the 80s through an interview. lovely.

to lead a better life by downtothelastdrop

1966 ringo mistakenly thinks john and paul are together, leading to a revelation of paul’s own.

going nowhere by inspiteallthedanger

fix-it where after surviving the shooting, john moves back to england.

if i could choose my own name, it’d be the one that falls best from your lips by kandakicksass

one of my favourite reincarnation fics ever. i really enjoyed how simple it was, how the pieces just slid into place so naturally.

the birthday party by merseydreams

everyone reunites for ringo’s 40th in july 1980. an excellent look at the dynamic between all the bugs and how things could have gone.

something old something new by inspiteallthedanger

john shows up to pattie and eric’s wedding causing a beatles reunion for the first time in years and some shenanigans and talks with paul. this fic is hilarious and THIS is my george, i love him so much

1967 by please_dont_wake_me

paul and john stay in paris after their 1961 trip. they return to liverpool in 1967 as a couple. this feels so real, the way every minor character is written… the dynamics between them all - every detail is excellent.

the beatles holiday au series by econhomework

an AU that follows john and paul (and george/ringo) being a committed couple in the 60s/70s and having their children via surrogacy. i’ve been subscribed to this series for years now and it’s a lot of fun getting an update that builds upon the last around every holiday, giving a little snippet into their lives as the kids grow up chronologically. (they also have other fics set in this AU in their beatles fic requests series)

the brother dearest series by javelinbk

jim and mimi get married, causing john and paul to become step-brothers (sort of). interesting premise and an even better execution of it. not to mention the idea of jim and mimi getting together will never fail to make me laugh (but also sort of makes a lot of sense???)

how much was mine to keep by mynamesbetty

paul is ‘unstuck in time’ and lives his life out of order a la slaughterhouse five (one of my favourite novels). done very well.

take a sad song and make it better by javelinbk

1980s paul moves his ex-boyfriend into his house because he’s an idiot but i love him. great fix-it.

christmas lights (keep shinin’ on) by distinguished_like

paul invites john to the mccartney family christmas party, leading to some discussions between the two. very cute early years fic.

here today by herspecialagent005

december 1980 except john and paul are hosting a dinner party for some friends in scotland, with magical realism elements. ugh loved this so much, especially linda and just all the little details of john and paul settling into a life together.

kissing the blarney by tikk

paul is the blarney - this turns into a superstitious ritual in the band which emotionally complicates things but ends very satisfyingly.

writing letters (on my wall) by 15clubsaday

70s paul writes to john under a pseudonym while they aren’t speaking. newly finished and wonderful!

the jumper by merseydreams

john sees denny laine wearing HIS jumper and flies back to england to retrieve it. this fic has everything: miscommunication, john being a dumb shite, jealousy, confused denny laine, paul in all his 70s glory, and lesbian linda. truly could not ask for more.

back to where you belong by sleeprettydarling

george on johnandpaul throughout the early years. i’m a big sucker for the george & johnandpaul dynamic and how complicated and devastating it can be so naturally i loved this.

#sorry this is so long anon! but thanks for the ask hope you found some new fics to check out! :)#asks #mclennon #beatles fic #john and paul #beatles rpf #john lennon #paul mccartney #the beatles

118 notes · View notes

hunterxmilo · 16 days

Text

Turnabout Pokemon Reunion: 1

While taking a small break from researching some Pokémon crime cases, Miles Edgeworth is enjoying his time with his Pokémon until an unfamiliar voice calls his name and he finds himself in the presence of an old friend from over 10 years ago!

Previous (Main Page) Next

Finally got the first page done which means there's no turning back now! Do I have the ending sketched or thought up yet? Nope! But I'll make sure to have a happy conclusion for this sudden comic idea that has come to light!

(If you would like to support the works I make, see the wip sketches and early art you can support me over on my Patreon! But again the likes and reblogs you all have been giving has been great motivation to continue my works! ((Love the funny and cute tags you all have been adding to my recent pieces XD)) )

90 notes · View notes

pauking5 · 21 days

Text

my heart calls your name

Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x reader

Genre: modern life mutual pining, friends to lovers, there's spice, smut, fluff, Zoro is a normal being with feelings and reader has personality

Word count: 20.1k+ (new recount)

Part 1

A/N: This is the sequel to New Year, New Me :) Firstly, I would suggest reading Part 1 before this one. Secondly, I started working on this as soon as I finished the first part and it has been a wip for 3 months. It was supposed to be a Valentine's gift but my writing went into a slump. But, I pushed through and wrote it. It went through so much editing, simply because I wanted to get Zoro as right as possible. He's everything to me so I wanted to give you an almost perfect piece of him.

Lastly, prepare for a long rollercoaster of everything. Literally everything.

Now playing: Did It Again - Shakira, we can't be friends - ariana grande, Sometimes - MUNA, Eres Mia - Romeo Santos, Only Love Can Hurt Like This - Paloma Faith, All Night - Beyonce, La La Lost You - NIKI, pretty boy - M2M

(because I couldn't pick just one song :') )

Early morning of January 1st

Heels and green-haired man on your arm, you walked around looking for a place to eat at. The sand between your toes felt warm, welcoming the first glimmering rays of sun, the sea just as excited to wash away the old and bring new tides afloat. Though early, the air buzzed with the atmosphere of the previous night, faint music still playing from the houses nearby.

You passed by multiple cafes and diners but they all closed early in the morning to go on holiday. Every knock on the door was met with an apologetic smile, sending you out to venture further down the beach in hopes of at least finding a vendor that was still selling food.

Just when you thought all hope was lost, you spotted a restaurant that was still open. Today's menu was plastered out on a board outside with the schedule that said they're still serving for a bit. Just enough to grab a bite.

Picking out a table overlooking the azure sea, you went to pull out a chair when Zoro stopped you to do it for you. Shaking your head with a smile at his gentlemanly mannerisms, you sat down as he pushed it closer to the table before sitting down on the opposite side.

You scoured the menu, stomach twisting in hunger at all the food combinations. Salmon on a bed of baked wedges, mussels boiled in white wine, even your usual chicken tenders - this place had everything. It was hard to pick just one thing, but you had to make up your mind before your insides started digesting themselves.

Zoro didn't have it any easier than you. He perched the menu in one hand while the other sat on his chin as he contemplated what looked awfully like the drinks page. From the way he bit his lip in thinking and the way his sleeves were messily made up to his elbow, he himself looked appetizing enough for you.

"Something tells me you're not that hungry," he flashed you a knowing smirk under the pretense that he was looking at beverages.

"I am," you stated, sheepishly diverting your eyes back to your own menu.

"Then why are you browsing me instead of today's special?"

At that you closed your menu and sat back, folding your arms over your chest. So, audacity is indeed a manly thing.

"You are scrumptious, I'll give you that," you admitted, narrowing your eyes at him.

"Only that?" he wiggled his eyebrows from behind his menu and you couldn't help but break into a giggle at his playful behaviour.

Is this the same man I drank a whole bottle of champagne with last night? I'm pretty sure he slept less than I did but he seems more energetic than anyone could ever be this early. Interesting.

"We'll see," you said, pulling your lips into a thin line to prevent a grin that would give away most of your thoughts about him that were, let's say, more than scrumptious could entail.

The waiter came over and took your order with a little flirting around you. Though sweet in his remarks, you had to admit he had nothing on the man sitting in front of you. But, you engaged in it simply because you wanted to gauge an innocent reaction. And you did.

Seeing Zoro's hand tighten on the tissue box like it was one of his mortal enemies, you smiled internally. So, he's territorial too. Poor paper crunched under the strength of his fist, knuckles white from making sure no corner escaped its crumpling demise. Once the waiter was gone with your orders, he let go and leaned back in his seat looking out at the sea.

Your eyes landed on him accidentally, being met with a different side of him. One so different from the man you were used to seeing so rough and isolated in his corner at the club. Because right now, he looked so at peace, like this was his natural habitat - close to the sea dancing in the glimmer of the sun with the golden sands in the background.

The soft morning breeze caressed through his green locks, moving them in waves mirroring the calm ones out on the shore. His golden earrings jingled around each other like they were singing their own tune cradled in the arms of the wind. His shirt was now fully dry from your late night splashing game, a few more buttons let loose giving you a peak of his chest. Palm curled around his chin, there was not a thought harbored behind those deep brown eyes.

A heavenly dream walking planet Earth.

The small twinkle reflecting in the corner of his eye made you look out to the water too, curious as to what was so fascinating out there. Though this time, it was his turn to sneak a peek at you while you weren't looking.

His jacket was still snugly wrapped around you, long sleeves neatly rolled up to the cusp of your forearms. Your hair was thrown in a messy bun with a few loose curls falling over your collar bones. Though tired circles rimmed your eyes from staying up with him the night before, talking about everything and nothing at all, your lips were pulled into a soft smile. As if you had the most restful sleep. In his arms of all places.

And that made something bloom in his chest. Something so unknown yet so familiar, almost like the anticipation of what could be if he let his walls down. Only god knew that he was ready to let them all fall down if this was the beginning of something good. Something that he's been waiting for a long time.

It wasn't long until your food arrived. After a long debate, you settled on a creamy shrimp pasta because who doesn't like pasta? You could eat pasta at any time of the day and your stomach would thank you. Although, Zoro's fried chicken wings looked so much more inviting for some reason. Maybe it was the way his eyes closed in delight at the taste on barely his first bite or how he gobbled on them with all the sauce streaming down his lips like they were the very essence of immortality. But those wings looked divine.

He saw you ogling his plate as you mindlessly poked a shrimp around and was about to ask if you wanted one when you just reached out and stole one. You dipped it quickly in the sauce and stuffed the whole thing in your mouth, sighing in the same delightful manner he did. Those were some amazing chicken wings.

"I was just about to offer you one."

"Food tastes so much better when you steal it away," you said, licking your fingers off the leftover sauce. They were just your regular chicken wings but something about them being placed neatly on his plate made them taste so much better than they would have if you ordered them yourself.

You turned back to your pasta and forked a shrimp. Before it could reach your mouth, a firm hand wrapped around your wrist and your fork was redirected to Zoro's lips instead. He bit the shrimp off of it, imitating the sound of delight you previously let out after stealing his chicken wing.

"Hey! That was the shrimp I kept for last."

"That's too bad," he said with his mouth full. "It looked too good to be left for last."

"Then I will have this one," you stole another chicken wing. "And this one and that one and-"

"Then these little shrimps are mine!" he took your whole plate of pasta away leaving you with the stolen wings hanging in the air.

That's how you ended up sitting next to each other to share your dishes together. You kept poking at his as he did with yours, thing that became a custom for you in the coming month.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between, they were all consumed together in each other's presence.

Among a few other things.

Grocery runs whenever your fridge was empty, since he liked crashing at your place more often than you could count.

Movie nights spent debating all the romcoms you could find where he would give you a piece of his mind on how much of a douchebag the main lead was and yelling at the tv 'stop being an idiot and go get the girl' on the usual. The neighbors ended up at your door sometimes, asking you to have mercy on their ears and keep it down.

Whenever romantic scenes came on screen, your fingers would always find each other on top of your couch, tangling together just slightly. But he would never admit that he was a romantic at heart, even when his hazy eyes, soft hands and raising heartbeat gave that away. Even when your own beat wildly, inviting him in.

You even went to the gym together a few times, though that endeavor ended as quickly as it started.

"Come on, push it. Bend your knee more. One more time!"

"I'm really trying to, but this is heavy as fuck!" you pushed the leg press feeling the weight thrash your ham strings apart.

"Your body will thank you tomorrow."

"Not if I die today," you gritted out.

"Tell you what. You do three more and you can flip me off all you want."

"I can do that without breaking my knees. What's in it for you?"

"You grant me a wish when I ask for it."

"What kind of wish?" you perked an eyebrow up in suspicion.

"You'll find out when the time comes."

Determined to get your rights of the bet fair and square, you pushed with all your might and completed one. With some struggle and curses, you managed one more push before you felt your knees give in, accepting defeat. That was probably your last leg press forever since you deemed it the demon's machine.

Your legs dropped like dead weight on the floor, heaving breaths as if you ran a full marathon. Disappointment hit you that you lost while the man beside you broke into the biggest grin you've ever seen on his face. It felt almost magnetic to see him like that, a nudge pulling at your own lips that you tried to hide. What loser is happy when his opponent wins?

"You owe me now."

If he was a girl he would've squealed. He was literally beaming with joy.

"Spare me the pride bullshit and give me water."

He handed you his own bottle as he crouched down next to you, patting the sweat on the side of your face with a towel making sure to swipe dry even your baby hairs that were sticking up on all sides.

When you told him you wanted to try working out with him, though you weren't big on physical exercise, he was over the moon. Studying you as you laid on the bench, drenched in sweat and with your cheeks filled with water, you were a sight to see. He knew you wouldn't believe him if he told you, but you were glowing brighter than the bright sun outside.

"I'm proud of you,"

You turned to look at him. He wore his gear but did not make a move from beside you the whole time you were at the gym. He trained you on his usual routine, toned down to your own pace, but it turned out to be way harder than he made it look.

Even so, he was there coaching you through it all the way. When you felt like you couldn't do more, he helped you put a little bit more into it with little encouragements like these.

"You're gonna have to carry me home," you breathed out, stretching your aching limbs. "You know that, right?"

"I know," he accepted his demise. "That will be my exercise."

"Are you saying I'm as heavy as the dumbbells you're lifting?"

"You said it not me."

"You little shit."

You were the biggest homebody that's ever homebodied but somehow he managed to do the impossible and get you out of the house. But as romantic as the outings seemed sometimes, he acted like it was just two good friends hanging out.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And that bugged you. Because this wasn't friendly behaviour.

Friends don't take you out on a walk at 2 am when you can't find sleep, twirling you around to let loose in the dead of night, with a lone streetlight lighting your way. Friends don't hold your hand as jazz music plays in some edgy café you wanted to try, playing with your fingers that always end up caged between their longer, bulkier ones as you talk over steaming coffee.

Friends don't look at you like that.

Like you could be more, mean more, feel more.

Maybe you were being selfish, but the more time you spent with him the harder it became to part ways. Even if you saw each other the next day, it just wasn't enough for you. You wanted him to stay a little more. Hold your hand a little more.

As slow January turned into warm February, your feelings evolved and you craved to have him around in more than just one way.

Slowly but surely and a little against your will, you found yourself falling for the green-haired guy you kissed on new year's.

And boy, you fell hard.

Present Day

It's Valentine's Day. Oh, how you dreaded this one too. Maybe even more than New Year's.

It was the over-exaggerated displays of affection from strangers on the street, plastering kisses on each other's swollen lips like they would die without getting into a heated make-out session every five minutes. Or the way the florists had heart-shaped balloons tied to bouquets mixed in pinks, whites and reds in every single window. Or the fact that most chocolate was on the best sale price you could get it just because it was a special occasion.

All of it was just a ploy to say love exists and that the world will stop at nothing to capitalize the living hell out of it.

But that was just part of the reason you carried an anti-romantic persona around today. This time you had a reason. There was a love interest on your horizon and you were annoyed that he was too lost drifting in his own world to notice how enamored you were with him.

It was crazy how quickly you fell for him. You promised yourself that fast love wouldn't be the norm anymore. That you would take your time to keep it steady, consistent and cautious. Until he crash landed into your life ripping the safety net that you've threaded for so long at the seams so skillfully, little by little, until you were free-falling.

You needed him. As simple as that. The flirting, the sweet-talking, the teasing. It was all just Cupid's stash of poison arrows aimed and shot deeply into your heart every time you saw him. To make you fall in deeper into an unfamiliar ocean where you couldn't see the top of the water.

You needed him. Before you would go and make a fool of yourself and ruin the great bond you already had for some feelings. Before he would sew his existence onto your soul, your conscience, your very being completely and it would become too much to bear.

You needed him. To see how loving him could feel like.

The digital clock on your bedside table read 2:30 pm. You sat in bed most of the day, whizzing through tv channels faster and faster with every romance movie playing, every news channel talking about this wretched day and how lovers planned to spend it, every love song playing on the radio.

Romance was everywhere and you couldn't do anything to escape it.

Sick of the world and the pure existence of love, you shut the tv off throwing the remote to the other end of the bed and watched the seconds on the clock trickle away, wishing for this day to finally end.

You flipped on your back, letting out a long sigh as the empty ceiling gave way to thoughts of him again. Sighing, you closed your eyes trying to think of something else. But all roads led back to him.

You kind of expected him to make some plans with you even if it was something small like going to get coffee and walk around, though you knew he wasn't one to do things like that.

It wasn't even a minute that he crossed your mind and your phone screen lit up with his name. Cursing telepathy thinking and the universe for loving to bask in your misery, you picked it up finding a surprisingly nervous Zoro on the other line.

"What's up-"

"You, me, tonight. Pick you up at 5?" he rambled quickly and out of breath.

"What?" you asked, trying to make sense of his words.

"I want to take you out tonight," he repeated, a bit more composed than the first time.

"That sounded a little better," you smiled, turning around on your belly.

"Can I take you out tonight?" he asked again, voice way softer and determined than the usual playfulness you grew accustomed to.

What happened to overly cocky Zoro?

"I don't know," you drew out, playing with the hem of the duvet to smoothen the material out, pointer finger spelling the outline of his name absentmindedly on top of it. "Can you?"

You heard him sigh exasperatedly on the other side as you took your sweet time replying. A little payback for waiting so long would hurt no one.

"Jesus, woman. I really want to take you out someplace nice tonight so get dressed as comfortable as you'd like and answer the door at 5. That sound better?"

"It sounded great. I'll be waiting."

"Okay." You could hear his smile through the phone. "See you at 5."

"See you at 5."

The call ended and you stared blankly at the ceiling again, hugging the phone to your chest. His words started seeping into your brain and the realization that he finally asked you out on what was possibly an official date made you grab a pillow to scream into.

"OH MY GOD I'M GOING ON A DATE," you yelled. "Okay, play it cool. Play it cool," you took deep breaths to calm down before something else threw you into panic. "What the fuck am I gonna wear?"

You ran to your closet, throwing it open. Racking through it in a haste since you didn't have the luxury of time, you threw whatever you could find that looked somewhat put together on the bed. Clothes came flying on and off your body as you did a whole catwalk show in front of the mirror. Huffing out in desperation at the mess around your room, you came to the conclusion that none of the outfits looked fit for the occasion.

You needed something to make his eyes pop out of his sockets. Something that would make him see what he's missing and to take that extra step to you. Something...

Tapping your cheek in thinking, you spun around to your closet with a gasp. You ran back to it and sorted out through more hangers, digging all the way into the back until you finally found it. A dress you bought specifically in case you ever got a date that was worth putting in the effort for.

The heart stealer, you called it.

A flowy deep-red satin dress falling just below your knees. It had a sweetheart neckline and straps to hold your jewels better than a bra ever could, the bodice hugging your middle perfectly. Elegant, sexy and comfy, all in one. Plus, the ends twirled around so nicely every time you spun around, imitating a petticoat effect, and the length complimented your height.

She's the one, you smiled.

The time on your phone read 4:57 pm, three minutes before your agreed pick-up time. You've been struggling to put your earrings on for a while now and were growing slightly nervous, thing that wasn't really helping as your hands shook with a burst of impatience. Putting the earrings down before you accidentally pierced your ear, you let out a breath and looked in the mirror. Which made it all worse.

Your eyes jumped around to analyze the way your hair was down and curled unevenly, if you squinted, to how your eyeliner on the right looked slightly more winged than the one on the left. Even the dress straps sat on your shoulders a little too uncomfortably. Suddenly, your confidence faltered and you questioned everything about your outfit.

Is the dress too comfortable?

I'm underdressed, aren't I?

Where is he even taking me?

I look like a walking cherry. Why do I have so much red on me-

A soft knock echoed through your apartment. Your date was here. Taking a deep breath for reassurance and fixing yourself in the wall mirror one more time, you let it be and moved to open the door.

At the door, you were met with the man that plagued your every waking thought. He wore a loose shirt that looked vintage with a few buttons left open and casual dark navy blue tailored pants, falling loosely from his waist. They gave the impression he was taller than he actually was. The way he dressed without as much as batting an eye, you would raid his wardrobe any day.

He leaned forwards to place a courting kiss on your cheek, the closeness engulfing you in his musky vanilla scent you grew so fond of. You could scent him in a crowd of people like a wolf looking for his lost mate. His lips lingered enough to have blood rush to your cheek, feeling it singe as soon as he pulled away the slightest. It surprisingly made you feel calm, forgetting what you were even stressing about in the first place.

Shaking yourself out of the daze, you stepped aside and invited him inside. Something in his hands completely stole your eyes away from him before he even got the chance to offer it to you.

"ARE THOSE MILKA HEARTS?!" you shrieked as he meekly handed you the chocolates. Your heart raced at the gesture, cradling the box closer.

"I have never seen anyone be so loyal to just one brand of chocolate. It's literally all you eat."

"Because they are amazing and they're not too sweet or too expensive. They have so many flavors, even biscuits, ice cream, hot chocolate. Anything you could ever dream of that could be made out of chocolate, they have it. They're just right and perfect," you smiled as you spun around with the box held closely to your chest like it was your most prized possession, the ends of your dress slightly swirling around you.

"Oh, I know," he chuckled at your obsession with the chocolates. "You literally lick the hot chocolate mug clean after you drink it."

"Can't blame me for having a sweet tooth. Thank you for these." You placed them on the counter, deciding against opening the box just yet.

"Do I get something in return for delivering them to you?"

You saw his plan from a mile away - he was chasing a kiss, this time coming from your own initiative. Before you thought it through, your lips were on their way to connect with his cheek in a short but sweet peck.

"How does this do?"

Before you let go, he tensed and you felt it, grinning mischievously on the inside. If he thought you would shy away, especially tonight, he had another thing coming. Two can play this tango.

"Your sweetness is rubbing off on me."

He's saying that as if you didn't catch the slight twitch of his lips and the faintest tint of pink on the tip of his ears before he turned back to being his serious self.

"Is that such a bad thing now?" you countered.

"To be assessed," he piped up, leaning against the counter as he watched you pace around the apartment to finish getting ready.

"Tease."

"You love it."

"I actually hate it."

"You're such a bad liar."

"Maybe, maybe not" you giggled to yourself.

Truth be told, you enjoyed his teasing a lot even if it was overwhelming sometimes. On most days, it made you forget your worries and he managed to pull a smile so genuine out of you that you didn't even know you had.

"You, uh... look nice by the way," he rubbed the back of his neck, taking in your attire from top to bottom properly this time.

Nice wasn't even the word he wanted to use. Beautiful, gorgeous, sexy, those sounded more like what he had in mind. The more he looked at you in that red dress, the more he had the urge to close the distance between you, press you against the mirror you paced in front of and smudge that cherry tint off your lips with his own, all the while his hands tangled in your curls.

That... that felt like more than what nice could ever encompass.

"Thank you," you said, the surprise present in your voice cracking him out of his thoughts. "So, what's the itinerary for tonight?"

"It's a secret."

"Is it now?"

"I want you to have a nice time and not overthink it too much. So, you'll just have to wait and see."

"Okay, mister Kinder Surprise. I'll just follow your lead on this one."

Normally, he would come up with an idea and you would plan out the itinerary down to the smallest detail. You weren't sure what he had in mind for today, but at least your outfits matched in comfy and classy levels.

Going back to the mirror, you took another look at yourself and realized he was right. You did look nice. You were just overthinking it. Funny how he already knows what sets you off from enjoying yourself.

Grabbing the earrings again, you tried putting one hoop in only to have it slide to the other side. The closing was just too narrow for your small ears and it annoyed you greatly. You were ready to just leave without them when Zoro stepped in the mirror frame next to you. He held his palm out to you looking at the earrings and you obliged with a sigh.

Placing your hair behind your ear, he wiggled the golden hoop around your ear lobe as you watched through the mirror. The proximity sent your heart thundering. You willed it to stop and take to a regular rhythm before he took note and teased you even more.

Looking for something else to focus on, you found his reflection in the mirror, holding the earring with utmost care and attention. Your eyes flew to his and the tug at his lower lip, the concentration on his face making you blush. He was determined to get those earrings on your ears no matter what.

"My ears are just too small for girly shit," you said, looking down to avoid his intense gaze.

"They're not. You're just a really impatient being when it comes to doing things properly for yourself," he said, successfully clipping the earring in. "There. See?" he tilted his head to look at you with that twinkling glint in his eye. "Pretty."

I could kiss your lips right now. And your eyes and your nose and your lips again. I don't think I could stop.

"Dork," you pushed him away, conscious that you were running behind on time. "Come on, I can't go out with only one earring in."

"Give me a second, Speedy Gonzales."

He put the other one in for you as well and rolled them around so they were both facing the same way.

"Look at you," he checked you out from head to your unheeled toes. "You look like you came out of a shop window."

"Oh, yeah? Which shop window?"

"The supermarket."

"I can change into my pajamas sooooo fast and you can just go out by yourself," you patted his chest grinning wickedly. "How does that sound?"

"Okay, okay. I'm just messing with you," he handed you your bag and held out his arm to you as a peace offering. You rolled your eyes at him and put your heels on using the sturdiness of his arm for balance and fixed yourself up one more time. "Ready to go?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

He walked you out front to his car, opening the door for you as he held his arm to his chest like a butler while you did a little curtsy before you got in. A little running joke between you since you always ended up being the passenger princess. His passenger princess.

Everything about his car was so Zoro. He drove a dark green jeep, convertible when needed but currently patched up since the rainy weather of early spring was more frequent now. A raspberry Charmander air freshener dangled from the rearview mirror, where you put it on your last grocery run. He constantly argued with you over the fact that its too cute for his car.

"My car is a military tank. Not the Kids' Express," he would say.

"If anything, it's giving the Fun Express now."

But you knew he silently loved it. He had a habit of poking it with his finger each time he got in the car so it would spin around, spreading the fresh smell of berries around.

He got in the car placing the key in ignition and poked it. You smiled turning to look out the window. Kid.

As he drove, the scenery changed from the chaotic city jungle of cars evading rush hour to the more peaceful part of the coastline. The sun was just starting to set, bright orange and yellow painting the sky in lively hues. Some pop song played on the radio making the whole scene look even more tropical.

Zoro rolled the windows down, letting the air flow through and put the song a little louder. You caught up on this habit of his pretty early on - if he heard a song he liked he would make sure you knew it too. Even when you were sitting in heavy traffic and everybody looked at you weirdly. If he knew the song, he might even mumble a few lines with a grin. That made your little crush on him even stronger.

Hope that you will wait for me You'll see that you're the only one for me ~

The lyrics blared over the speakers, emotional yet comforting about falling in love. He leaned back in his seat and snuck a few glances at you. Your hair was blowing in the wind, falling on the back of your seat. Arm laid flat on top of the window frame tapping along to the beat, you looked at the view of the seaside with a smile on your lips. Your other hand sat on your knee, a little too lonely for his liking.

All I really want is to hold you tight Treat you right, be with you day and night Baby all I need is time ~

Adjusting a hand on the wheel, his other one stretched to get a hold of yours, intertwining them together to the beat of the song. Your heart skipped a beat at the sudden contact turning warm atop your thigh. Looking down at your entwined hands, you noticed how his thumb covered yours in guarding, a routine you grew familiar with every time they met in the same space. His eyes were trained on the road but the small smile tugging at the corners of his lips was solely directed at you.

You will be the death of me, Roronoa Zoro.

Parking the car turned difficult considering everyone was out and about tonight. You barely found a spot somewhere next to the beach. Once parked, Zoro got off and came to your side extending a hand to help you down, heels landing safely on the sidewalk.

You were getting a little impatient and you hoped your nerves wouldn't get the best out of you when the air was still so clear between you. But the questions itched on the back of your tongue until you couldn't hold them back anymore.

"So, what's the plan? How much longer are you gonna keep me in the dark?"

He turned to you with a mysterious grin, debating on whether he should tell you or not.

Someone seems to be enjoying themselves at the expense of my sanity.

"The plan for tonight is just fun."

Well that explains everything I needed to know.

"The amusement park up ahead kind of gave that part away," you pointed out to the Ferris wheel bathed in strobe lights, standing tall ahead in the middle of dozens of games and food stands.

Walking side by side, you followed the crowds of couples into the mayhem still suspicious of what the plan actually entailed. Your gaze wandered down to the ground where you found another thing that calmed you. Unknowingly, your steps matched each other's in a balanced rhythm as you followed his lead. Your lips pursed to hide another small smile.

"That's not the only thing I have planned out for tonight," he informed you, checking his watch. "First, let's go loosen up a little."

Your first stop on tonight's itinerary was the club where you first met. It's been a few months since you both laid eyes on the other, circling the dance floor for nights on end to make your mutual interest known.

Months since your little crush born out of seeking real love took off and made space for feelings. Feelings that nowadays chased you to the brink of madness. You could only hope a trip down memory lane would settle them and give you confirmation that your heart isn't tangled in yet another unrequited love story.

It was Latino beats night. The extended terrace was cleared for an outdoor dance floor, stretching all the way to the end of the beach touching the overlapping waves. Fairy lights hung above from tree to tree, warming up the atmosphere in a golden glow. The drinks at the bar had mini red umbrellas to match the theme.

A bartender came to serve you as soon as you sat down at the bar, pointing you to all the Valentine's recommendations. The cheesy names on the cocktails made a shiver run down your spine in repulse so you turned to the normal range instead since you already knew that one inside out.

"What would you like to order?"

Some sweet liquid courage would do me well tonight.

"A piña colada for me," you ordered.

"A mocktail of that for me," asked Zoro, almost as quickly as your own order rolled off your lips.

Mocktail? That sounds unlike Zoro.

Lifting a curious eyebrow at his request, your eyes narrowed on him for a quick mood scan. You barely saw it but it was definitely there. Tension. He was on edge, rapping his fingers on the wooden bar restlessly, foot tapping to the tempo of the current song playing. Impatient sounds more like it.

"Not drinking today?"

"I will. Just not yet," he smirked, as if he had more opportunities to drink lined up later. Well, frankly, you didn't know what followed later, so you asked for more glasses of alcohol.

The song changed to a slow, sensual bachata as the crowd took to the dance floor. Some pairs looked experienced, busting moves in perfect sync with the strings like this was their regular night out to serve some class. They must be fun at parties.

Others could barely get their feet coordinated, unable to decide who would be the one to lead. The changing rhythm, slow at first then rising faster, had them spinning out of control, gripping onto each other for dear life as they laughed it off and tried again together.

Your relationship with Zoro was kind of like that - uncoordinated in your dance to reach each other's heart with normal steps. Every time one got way too close to the other you took detours, going back to square one. But you kept trying. Together.

Zoro saw you looking at the couples with a longing he's seen before, during your first nights at the club. He wasn't an idiot. He knew that longing himself though he didn't know how to express it. But a tight-lipped curl of your lips at the ground had him pulling on your hand in an instant, eyes motioning to the dance floor. Confused at first, you slowly got a rough idea of what he was suggesting and shook your head.

"I'm not drunk enough to dance yet," you lied, trying to get him off your case. You were too sober to trust your heart that close around him just yet.

"Isn't that the beauty of it?"

The tension washing off of him just moments ago wore off into mischief and playfulness. There he was. Your Zoro.

"Are you sure that was a mocktail?" you quipped, suspicious at his sudden change in mood.

"Yes, it was a mocktail." The look he gave you, full of intensity and certainty was enough to tell you he was dead serious. "I just really want to dance with you."

"Okay, fine."

His hand grasped yours as you hopped off the bar stool, pulling you deeper into the moving crowd. Once he found a spot, he tugged you to him in a twirl. Your back landed against his chest, his deep, steady breaths falling right at the tip of your ear. Swaying from side to side, his palms wandered down to your own, lacing your fingers together, squeezing lightly. His touch turned your insides sticky with something akin to desire. His familiar scent overpowered your senses, musky vanilla turning tropic from that mocktail he had, lingering to the depths of your soul. His presence behind you, assertive, dominating and reassuring at the same time, lit up your whole body with fiery tingles.

He lifted your arms up, getting impossibly closer to you as the pads of his fingers reached up to yours, dancing down to your shoulders in a flow of their own where they fell with the rise of the chorus, briskly spinning you to face him. He placed your hands on his shoulders as you stepped back and forth, bouncing up and down to the music, eyes solely trained on you and no one else, nothing else.

In the synergy of the moment, he finally saw you.

It took him a while to understand but you were his rhythm. He couldn't lose you after he finally found it - the frequency of your heart beating to guide his own. If he lost track of you now, he would lose himself again. Among all the other hearts beating in hundreds of other tempos next to yours, he only wanted to move with yours.

You swayed right a little too hard, leg flying next to his hip. His arm shot out to catch it as the on on the small of your back pulled you close, breaths mingling in a flutter harmonious to the one in your stomach, multiplying it tenfold.

Upon releasing your leg, his hand trailed over the thin material of your dress, from your thigh all the way to your waist, where it got a better grip. One that wouldn't let you sway that hard again. Goosebumps burned on the path he carved into your skin and you found yourself closing your eyes on a shaky exhale.

You were shuddering in his hold and he barely did anything but hold you. When you opened them, he was still eye to eye with you, unmoving, patient, waiting for you.

He drowned out everyone else. The chatter, the music, the alcohol pumping through your veins. You couldn't take your eyes off him even if you tried and frankly, you didn't want to.

No words needed to be said as you let your bodies do the talking. The smaller the space grew between you, the simpler things seemed. It was clear as day your heart kept calling for him in a million ways and you denied it enough.

You wanted to have his eyes on you at all times. To have his lips all to yourself. To get the confirmation that he felt exactly what you felt. That he wanted all these things you wanted too.

He spun you out, reeling you back in against his chest. He looked down at you. You looked up at him.

They were close - those damned lips of his. Pink and soft laying on pink and even softer. Just a breath away. Until he broke your gaze.

Whatever bubble you were in popped and all too suddenly, the reality hit you again. They weren't yours to kiss. They were no ones. Forbidden.

The music filtered in your ears way too loud. People bumped into you from all sides. It was too much in too little of a moment to drown in your insecurities again, when his warm touch asked for your attention and his eyes met yours again.

"Wanna get out of here?" he rasped in your ear.

"You read my mind."

The sky announced the coming of night, faint purple clouds flying above the blue. You headed to your next destination, the amusement park. Looking at all the attractions, you had your first pick on the bumpy cars. They were childish, but they were fun enough to pull you out of your misery. At least for a while.

Hopping into the rink, you were barely strapped into your bumper when he rammed into your back at full speed, rattling your seat hard. He really is a child. But you were a bigger child. You didn't hold back either, chasing and cornering him, only to crash straight into the front of his bumpy car, cackling like a maniac.

At one point he disappeared into the crowd of cars as the lights grew dimmer. Keeping your guard up for a sneak attack, you rounded the sidelines cautiously, trying to avoid being caught in the middle of other people's warfare. Just when you stopped to turn and search the rink again, he marched up to hit you from the side only for you to dodge it like a pro. His car rammed into the edge of the rink, jaw dropped in shock as you bellowed with laughter at him.

His driving pride got shaken a little from your bumpy car skills, but you were smiling again. That's all that mattered to him.

Once your time was up, you were pulled to another ride, this time of Zoro's pick. Knowing him, it would be something too adventurous and risky to ride. You realized where he was taking you way too late - the highest roller coaster in the area. Instantly, you shook his hand off, backtracking behind him. That thing looked like what nightmares are made of.

"Hell nah, I am not getting on that."

Thinking you had a choice was a mistake since he pulled a wildcard on you. A wildcard you wished you never agreed to in the first place if you knew it would come back to bite you in the ass.

"Remember that bet we had at the gym that you lost?" Motherfucker. "I think it's time you make that wish come true."

And to think he gave you the impression it would be an innocent wish back then. All men do is lie.

"That's not fair," you argued, trying to think of a way to convince him to use his wish on something else. Something that didn't involve your stomach switching places with your other organs. Coming empty handed, you slumped your shoulders like a child being denied their favourite toy and got in the line with him.

Your leg bounced up anxiously with each pair admitted for a ride in front of you. The screams of the people on the rollercoaster screeched in your ears. You took a gulp of air to calm your nerves just as Zoro's lips brushed to your ear out of nowhere, almost giving you a heart attack.

"Nothing's going to happen to you. I'll be there to hold your hand."

Is he taking the piss? Hold my hand? How about you hold your balls secure before I kick them to the fucking sky-

Your thoughts were interrupted when something clicked fixed around you. The straps to the ride seat. You squirmed around uncomfortably to find a better position that felt safer, but being in that seat itself was not safe in any way. The straps were safe and secure but not safe enough.

"Zoro, I'm getting off."

To your disappointment, the megaphone called out that the next cart was going up and the ride started moving. Despite having multiple piña coladas at the club to calm your nerves, you still felt the panic grip you a little and grabbed a tight hold of the security holds keeping you in place, shutting your eyes and praying that this torture would end sooner.

"Hey, hey, hey." His voice called out to you softer than you've ever heard it before, willing you to focus on him. "Look at me."

"No, thank you," you chuckled uneasily. "If I open my eyes I will see my impending doom," you continued, feeling your heart thrumming in your chest as the ascent began quicker than you expected it to.

"Then give me your hand."

"I want to smack you over the head with it." Tremors took over your hands slightly, aware of how high you were going. "Why did I agree to this?"

"Because you like keeping to your word and it's something I admire about you."

He does? Oh, that's sweet- Wait I'm still mad at him.

"Please don't give me the compliment bullshit right now," you groaned through deep breaths.

"It's true though," he said, keeping his calm composure.

You cracked one eye open at him to see him looking only at you, anchored to your eyes like you were his view of the safe harbor in the tempest, the eye of the storm far away from reaching you.

Suddenly, everything was fine. All was good. It was just you and him on the same boat going in the same direction. Nothing could rock your boat.

Until you felt the ride stop and the urge to look around grew and despite all efforts, you gave into it. You were standing on the highest point, overlooking the whole park. You stopped breathing just looking around at the point ahead on the horizon where the sky met the sea, surprised to see the moon and the twinkling stars peak through the cover of clouds. The view would've been spectacular if it wasn't a few seconds till the train would drop.

"No no no, don't look-" he tried to warn you before you did the opposite.

"WE'RE GONNA FUCKING DIE!" you screeched.

"-down."

"If we don't die now, I will kill you myself when we're back on the ground for choosing to make such a stupid wish. I swear to GOD-" you were cut off as the train fell down into the drop.

Against your wishes, you grabbed onto his hand and held on for dear life, screaming as loud as your lungs could let you. You let out everything you've been holding inside for the past month in one strong yell. Zoro let out a few surprising yelps too, holding tighter onto your hand. The whole thing was over and done with before you knew it and you found yourself actually enjoying it. Not one hundred percent but a good amount of you did.

All that work to curl your hair only to get a blow out when you got back to the ground. It stuck up all sides, curls dismantled from the sheer force of the drop but still standing. Your hands patted it down with a pout, making Zoro take the matter into his own hands, brushing through your hair to fix it. His hands felt so soothing on your scalp, taming your earlier rage at being dragged to that death trap.

"You acted all cool only to yelp like a school girl during the drop," you giggled, his yelps still fresh in your mind.

"No, I didn't," he argued.

"I think the people that sat behind us would beg to disagree. At least own up to the fact that you were a teeny tiny bit scared."

"I don't fear anything."

"Oh yeah? Look behind you."

"What could possibly be so scary behind me- WHAT THE FUCK!" he yelled as he came face to face with a person dressed as a clown, carrying around balloons. He almost punched them on impulse.

"I don't fear anything my ass," you looked at him as he put down his fist and apologized. Once he was certain they left, he straightened his posture and cleared his throat.

"I was just startled," he said, trying to assure you that the statement he made was true. But you got used to seeing through his bullshit.

"Sure you were. Wanna try the haunted house over there then?" you pointed to the shack where a few people just ran out from, some full on sobbing. A scream came from inside, his eyes going wide and that was all you needed to know. Roronoa Zoro did have fears.

"Absolutely not."

"You sure? Nothing's gonna happen to you. I can hold your hand," you teased him like he teased you before the rollercoaster ride.

"Did you say you want popcorn? I'm gonna go get us some popcorn," he laughed, looking for an excuse.

"Okay. Meet you by the benches?"

"Sure."

Walking around, you stumbled upon a long queue of couples lined up to go on the Ferris wheel clogging most of the circulation around the park. If you were being honest, the rollercoaster was much more fun than waiting for hours to see an overpriced five minutes coast view could ever be. Besides, you could drive up the road and see that for free too.

You walked around some more when one of the stands stopped you in your tracks - throwing darts. It wasn't the darts game itself that piqued your interest, but the fluffy beige bear smiling brightly, hanging above the targets. His brown eyes matched those of your green-haired man, warm chocolate infused with honey, too sweet not to stop and stare.

For some reason you found it really lonely sitting by itself up there. All the smaller prizes were won and replaced on the daily, but by the looks of it he's been there for a while, waiting for someone. No one seemed sharp enough to play the game to the end and take him home.

You wanted to take him home with you.

If only you had the darts talent running in your veins. The price for just a set of three darts was way too much and it took seven perfect shots in the bullseye of the targets to win the bear. Perks of having an amusement park next to one of the most popular beaches on the coast meant complicated games that no normal human could aspire to win.

Sparing it one last look that made your heart ache, you turned and went to sit on a bench, waiting for your date that just so happened to see you stop by the darts booth. More precisely, he saw that pout on your face as you looked at the bear hung up high above the targets when it clicked. You wanted that bear.

Zoro knew you wouldn't ask him to get it for you. You didn't like asking for things and he knew that you might not even accept it if he offered it. But the way your shoulders slumped as you walked away told him how much you wanted it.

Darts wasn't his best sport, but he was good with his aim and had a patience that could kneel most at his feet. So, he marched to the booth, placing the popcorn tubs to the side and started tracing his targets to see just what he was dealing with.

"Feeling lucky tonight?" asked the manager of the booth, a sly smile on his face at finding another victim.

Little shit. If only he knew Zoro had the power to send his little business into bankruptcy right at his fingertips. A grin of his own graced his features making the man's smile quiver at the seams.

"Oh, I'm feeling more than lucky."

He rolled up his sleeves showing he meant business and placed a wad of cash on the dirty table, picking up his first set of darts. He was dead set on getting you that bear no matter how much money he had to blow on throwing tiny arrows around.

Anything to not see that pout on your face ever again.

Shuffling your heels over the dust and rocks on the ground, you drew random patterns to busy yourself. A lot of things were weighing on your mind. You were questioning why you went out in the first place. To give this a chance, your brain told you.

To feel something, said your heart. Well, with Zoro, you felt the whole damn universe in one sitting.

There was no telling how this night would end anyways. But you were slowly starting to think Zoro ditched you there since it's been a while he left to look for popcorn. You sighed again, feeling your world tilt, when a pair of shoes stopped in front of you. You knew those shoes.

"I thought you left to get popcorn not to shake hands with the mayor-," you lifted your head up only to stop mid-sentence. Staring at him like he grew a third eye, you took in the way he balanced two tubs of popcorn under his arm and a big plushie in the other.

The fluffy bear.

"I did. They were out so I went to find another stand. And this is for you," he offered you the bear with a smile that made his dimple pop out.

That small indentation in his cheek that showed up when he puffed them on the inside, usually at times when he did something he was proud of. A pit you could hide in whenever you wanted to without him knowing.

"Buddy looked a little lonely up there," he added, tilting his head back to the booth behind him.

Looking into those plastic brown eyes, you took the bear and hugged it close to you. It was even fluffier than you thought a plushie could be. You snuggled into it noticing that it lightly caught his scent, besides the sugary theme park smell.

You teared up a little. Not out of sadness or anything, but because you were touched by the gesture. Because he noticed, which was a rare thing to come by nowadays. Zoro cared and he showed you time and time again, never once falling short to notice. To make you feel seen.

Sensing a change, he placed the popcorn down on the bench you were sitting on just moments ago, grabbing a gentle hold of your arms.

"Hey," he spoke softly, trying to reassure whatever storm pried onto you out of nowhere. His palms stroked your forearms up and down, earlier glee in his voice morphing into worry. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," you shook your head looking away. It was stupid to have a crying session right now of all times.

"You look like you're about to cry. Did I do something wrong?"

"No, no! Gods, no. You didn't. You're amazing," you smiled. In an instant, your arms reached out to wrap around his waist hugging him as tight as you hugged the fluffy bear.

"Thank you, Zoro," you nuzzled your head into his chest in deep appreciation for more than the bear, hands holding tight onto the back of his shirt.

Your sudden display of affection made his ears grow pink. He silently hoped you couldn't hear the way his heart was beating from how your head was pressed to it. He wasn't sure how to respond at first but hesitantly, his arms wrapped around you too, squeezing you closer for a moment. His chin sat on top of your head as he let out a deep sigh at the comfort it brought him. If only he could hold you like this all the time.

There weren't enough words in the world to express your gratitude to him. For how well he treated you. For everything he did to make you feel happy. You just wanted to do the same for him. At least even for a little bit if this wasn't going to last.

"You're welcome," he smiled softly at you as you pulled apart from the hug. "Now, what are we naming this little guy?"

"Well, he definitely isn't little," you barked a laugh holding the bear up next to your hip. Now that you were seeing him closer, he was half your size. "I'll name him Lovey and I will be his Dovey."

"Does that mean I have competition?" his arms crossed on his chest, playing jealous. "He does seem like a worthy opponent."

"I didn't realise you were a runner-up, tough guy," you patted his chest to calm his coyness down a notch.

"Did I not make it clear enough?"

I think you and me have very different definitions of clear.

"I don't know," you teased. "Did you?"

"Guess I have to go for Plan B," he said, checking his watch again.

He checked that watch of his hundreds of times tonight. Was he in a rush? Is his prince charming cover going to dissipate like Cinderella at midnight or something?

"What's Plan B?" you asked confused, hoping he would let some information slip.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he smirked tauntingly.

This man is an ore of surprises.

You've been waiting for Zoro in front of the park for a little over half an hour. He left to look for his car a while ago and there was no sign of him yet.

Huh, funny how I keep waiting for him. Both physically and emotionally. When does it end?

The sky turned darker and grey clouds rolled over. You felt uneasiness creep up on you, especially since he mentioned a Plan B. If the club and the amusement park were Plan A, what did Plan B look like in his book?

Five more minutes passed and Zoro returned, surprisingly by walking instead of driving, car keys swinging around in his hand.

"Zoro, where's the car?"

"So, uh, bad news. I lost the car," he smiled apologetically, pressing his hands together.

"What do you mean you lost the car? It's a huge jeep. How hard can it be to find a huge... jeep," you motioned around only to stop as you realized most of the cars around looked exactly like his. "Oh."

"Yeah, charm of living on the coast. But good news is that we are in walking distance from my place which was final destination. Though that surprise is kinda ruined now."

"I don't know what exactly you have planned at your place though," you stated, fishing for details.

"You have a point. Well, I can just come and look for it tomorrow."

He says that as if it's a daily occurrence for him to lose a jeep to the hands of sense. Though that made you think. Just how many times did he lose his car around here? But you'd rather not ask. So you asked something else.

"Won't you get a ticket?"

"Most parking around here is free."

"That's fine then," you shrugged, getting up with Lovey under your arm. "What about Plan B?"

Come on, dude. Give me a clue. Just one hint.

"It's on the way," was all he said as he extended his arm to you.

Okay, then no clue.

"Shall we?"

"We shall."

Of all the places you expected to make a pit stop at, Home Depot was the last thing on your list. Zoro had to pick up a bulb for his kitchen light that has been in his shopping notes for the past two months. Two. months. This is exactly why you make the lists on your grocery runs. He always forgets something.

In one hand you held your new fluffy companion close, while Zoro held onto your free one while you padded through the departments to reach the light section. Like any self-respecting humans, you stopped by the furniture section to look at a few sofas and test their softness together. They were so comfortable to sit on but you already had one in your apartment and from what Zoro let on he had one too many. Now, you wanted to reach final destination sooner.

A bit more waddling around floorings and hardware and you finally reached it - the beauty that was the light section. Bulbs of all kinds for all purposes, orientally decorated lamps and simple to more lavish strings of lights hung around each rack, one calling out more than the other.

The section extended into an extra part that seemed to have been arranged more recently. It called to you so you left Zoro looking for his bulb as you went to explore it more.

Following the multicolor trail bouncing off the racks, you came to a makeshift panel widening into the middle of the department. It was built to look like an arch of some sort. Like the kind you would see in extravagant wedding settings.

Fairy lights and crystal chandeliers of all shapes dripped down to paint the grey floors in a myriad of colours. You ventured under it, looking at all the ambient and decorative designs on display. A few lamps were so beautiful you seriously considered redecorating. Although, the warm golden light of a chandelier in the middle of the ensemble drew you in, its intricate framework sending rays of light reflecting from all lamps everywhere.

Zoro found the bulb he needed and turned around to find you gone from his side. He had to put a tracker on you at this point.

Following his instinct, he took just a few steps down the lights wing and found you right away. His breath hitched. There you were, revelling in the warmth of the light of a crystal chandelier. Its main frame made out of goldenrod supported dozens of glass flowers cascading from each side to create a bigger rozette above. The other lights reflected into the glass, shining a warm gold tone all over you, romanticising your features.

You looked like you stepped out of heaven. A fallen angel. His fallen angel.

You were curiously tracing the details of a crystal flower when he stepped closer to you, musky vanilla invading your senses. Turning to him you ended up nose to nose once again tonight, foreheads almost touching in that confined space. He was so close yet so far again. What was he waiting for?

Kiss me, you wanted to scream.

Kiss my lips dry.

Kiss me like I'm yours Zoro.

You were ready to beg. To have him close the distance faster and end this yearning.

He leaned in, breath ghosting your lips almost painfully.

In your daze, too focused on him finally showing a response, you backed up into a lamp that nearly knocked out everything else behind you. You turned around just in time to catch it, steadying it back to its place, saving dozens of installations from being crushed to bits and pieces. When you turned back around, his eyes closed in denial, letting out an exasperated breath.

And he pulled away. Just like that. He initiated the moment and he ended it too.

Now what the fuck.

"Did you get the bulb?" you exhaled, still in shock that the moment was gone as quick as it came.

"I have," he inhaled, straightening his posture, cocky smirk flying back to his lips.

Like he didn't just have me begging for a fucking kiss in the Home Depot lights section.

"Do you need anything else?"

"Nope," he got a hold of your hand pulling it between you, thumb softly guarding yours. "I have everything I need right here."

You're such an anomaly, Roronoa Zoro.

All you could think about was his place. Which was unexplored land to you. Your visit there wasn't too early of a feat in your relationship considering how much he loved your place. You just pondered on what was waiting for you there.

An open invitation to become more? A private tour of his home? A one night only limited edition Zoro? The possibilities with this man were endless.

A small stinging sensation brought your attention to your leg. Your ankles. Not having worn heels in a while, you didn't think it would be this bad if you left them uncovered and just slid into the heels for the night. Until it was that bad and trying to walk in a way that didn't give your discomfort away was hard. Every step down the concrete sidewalk had your the shoe brush like a bristle comb against your ankle.

You stopped to lean your weight on a fence, lifting your leg to be met with the new blood crescents forming on the ridges of your heels. Ouch. Rubbing your ankles to soothe the ache proved to be only temporary relief. You tried putting it back in the shoe only to scrunch your nose at the new wave of pain.

You've been walking for quite a while already. Who knew how much longer you had until you reached his place?

Before you could even register what was happening, Zoro dropped to his knees in front of you with a grunt. You blinked, bewildered at his behaviour. His wide back stretched, laid out for you. You didn't notice until now that his shirt was slightly see-through, the glory of his lean, strong shoulders fully in your view. No view of the coastline could compare to the one you had in front of you. Kneeling at your feet of all things.

You just stared for a while still confused but digging it, until his voice echoed like a wake up call in your ears.

"Get on."

"I can walk."

He turned his head around, pining you with an are you serious right now look. He was trying to be a gentleman but your hugely independent persona wasn't having any of that. Well, that and you were still mad about the home depot thing.

The kiss that never happened. The pulling away after railing you up all night, with a desperate sigh on his part, as if he felt the same. If he felt the same he would've said or done something to cement it. To make you stop feeling like a damn fool.

"I know you can," he added, voice turning so mellifluous to sweeten the mood that your knees almost turned to jelly. "I just don't want those red demons to scar you more than they already have."

He was sweet-talking you again.

He turned back around and made grabby hands over his shoulder for you to hurry up. You bit your lip annoyed that he was right. The heels would only scar your ankles more.

"Fine," you sighed and got on, closing an arm around his neck as the other wrapped the bear's arms around your own.

Certain that you got comfortable, Zoro got a hold of the back of your thighs to lift you up. The spot he touched behind your thigh tickled and you tried your hardest to keep stable and not move around too much. You did kick forwards in instinct once, earning a disgruntled huff from your humble transport.

"Is there a place you aren't ticklish in?"

"I'm sorry, I just can't help it."

You took a strand of your hair and tickled his cheek on purpose as he tried to blow it away.

"I will drop both of you if you don't stop that," he warned.

You leaned closer to the side of his head, the rim of your lips brushing just the tip of his ear, voice playing sweet whispering in the same way he did to you all night.

"Stop what?"

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, jaw clenched, tensing under your hold before slowly reconfiguring his pace. You hit a chord. You grinned in victory that it affected him when your smile fell as you caught sight of the corner of his lip twisting upwards. He welcomed your teasing only to reply with a remark of his own.

"Are you testing me, angel?"

Angel. That was new. So new that your heart fluttered.

You kept your composure unsure of how to respond. This was one of those times his teasing got too deep inside of you and tickled a chord you didn't even know was there. So you just deflected from it, securing your hold on him better.

"Drop me and I will end your entire bloodline."

A deep rumble of a chuckle that he tried to keep inside but failed, boomed under you. The heaviness between you dissipated little by little, unserious, and you giggled along with him.

"You're precious cargo. But I just might," he teased again, readjusting his hold on you.

Yet, the truth was he wouldn't. In fact, he would do anything in his power for you to be comfortable. Even if that meant carrying you and a midsized bear all the way to his place sprawled on his back like a sack of potatoes, with your red feet killers swinging in his hand as your warm giggles filled the night.

Though it was a far reach, the possibility of nights like these becoming a regular thing made his heart soar. Maybe there was a chance for more.

Entering the lush part of the coastline, palm-hidden domains morphed into villas upon villas of the rich and the elite in all kinds of styles running along the lap of a hill. Halfway up the steep hill, your humble transport climbed a set of stairs and stopped in front of a villa.

Your mouth hung open. There's no way this was his.

Your eyebrows reached the heavens when he fished around his pocket for the keys and jingled them in the hole, pushing the door open. This was his.

Once inside, he bent down for you to get off, placing your heels down, putting his own shoes next to yours. You hopped off taking in the place. Each way your head turned you were instantly hit with his scent.

"You're telling me your house was this close to the club and we spent new year's sleeping on the beach?" you asked, twirling around the place.

Walking in further, you came to a dip in the ground going into a spacious living room. Two medium couches and an armchair in a deep forest green laid around facing each other. He does have a couch too many.

"Well, I didn't want to hit third base that early," he said, walking into the kitchen area. "You did take me for a psychopath just for taking you to the beach."

Taken aback at his words, you turned around trying to recall when that happened.

"Pffft, I did not."

Stopping his ascent on a small ladder to change the broken bulb, he placed his hands on his hips and looked back at you then proceeded to utter the exact words you said to him on your first night together.

"Is this the part where you kill me or something?"

He even had the tone right. You laughed remembering his first impression. Oh, how wrong you were. He turned out to be way more than that.

"Fair enough."

Fixing fluffy Lovey on a couch, you walked around some more. The huge space was used so well, beige and green motives spreading all around, combining in neutrals with the dark grey oak wooden floors. Beyond the modern aesthetic and messily discarded trinkets it was so cozy. Compared to your apartment, this place was an oasis.

"You have a really nice house."

"Thank you. It's not much really."

Not much? He's not being real.

He fiddled some more with the lightbulb, lean forearms working to click it into place. Extending his hand to you, he motioned you to the flip switch to test if it works. You obliged and turned it on. The bulb glowed, turning the beige kitchen golden, just like the chandelier you saw.

Moving into the cooking area you realised even his kitchen was something out of the paradise of architectural design.

You leaned your elbows on the marble top, head resting on top of your knuckles, waiting for him to finish. Once he was satisfied with his work, he stored the ladder away and came to sit next to you, mirroring your position. Feeling his prying eyes on you, you turned to find him a few inches away, hip brushing yours, looking at you with a smile.

"Hi," you said softly, smiling back at him.

"Hi," he replied, the crescents around his eyes deepening.

You could sit there looking at each other until time would end. If it wasn't for your stomachs singing in unison demanding some attention.

"I thought that instead of going to spend loads of money on a restaurant, we could cook something ourselves," he suggested.

"You went grocery shopping without me?"

"Yep," he popped the p at the end looking really proud of himself.

You had to give him credit for planning the whole day out ahead of time. It's the most anyone has ever done for you.

"So, what are we cooking?"

"Well," he threw a towel over his shoulder, "your wish is my command tonight."

You loved his determination. Zoro could cook. Just enough to save his life if need be but nothing too grandiose - if that included omelets and fried rice with some creativity to reinvent the dish for every day of the week. Thing that required talent.

So, you thought of one simple thing no one could screw up. Something that would be easy, fun and quick to make that would fill you both. You settled on the pinnacle of good food.

"Then pizza it is."

"Had a feeling you'd say that."

He walked to the fridge and pulled out some of your favorite toppings and a jar of the tomato sauce you swore by. You gasped, holding a hand over your heart in fake excitement.

"You know me so well."

"I try my best," he said, making a bow.

You got to making the dough, mixing the ingredients while he connected his phone to a speaker. Jazzy, romantic music played and you craned your neck at him to see that playful smirk. He wasn't acting like the Zoro you knew.

"Dean Martin? Seriously?"

"What's wrong with it? It's-"

"Romantic."

You never saw anyone cut the music so fast. It gave you whiplash.

"Then what about this?"

The track changed to ABBA's Dancing Queen. You threw your head back with a laugh, shaking it at his questioning music choices.

"Friday night and the lights are low ~," he sang off key, sending you into another fit of giggles. He continued singing as laughter rolled out of you to the point you were holding your stomach in pain.

Cruising around some more, he finally let a pop playlist run in the background as you worked on the dough and he got busy with chopping stuff up. You snuck a few glances at him and stilled - that golden light bounced on his tan complexion, making his focused posture appear so snug and cozy, almost husband material. The amused twinkle was back in his brown orbs, resembling irresistible pralines.

He looked like home.

Feeling your cheeks heat up, you turned back to the dough, sprinkling flour on the table top and rolling it out to spread it as wide as you could eat it. Too focused on it, you didn't notice a floured finger coming to paint your face until the white powder was already smeared across your cheeks.

"You're such a child," you let out before you painted his nose with flour too.

"I think that makes two of us."

He cupped the side of your face, brushing his thumb over the flour covered bits. Though that only smudged the flour more, your heart beat accelerated to an uneven rate. He was too close again. Too close to let go again.

"You made me beg for this date so much," he spoke lowly, brushing your cheek in circles. "I don't do begging."

"Can't blame a girl for wanting to torment the guy she's interested in."

Before he could reply, your stomach grumbled again, annoyed that there was still no food present in it. His hand fell from your cheek, though his touch still lingered. Warm, singed, stamped on your cheek.

You finished decorating the pizza with everything you both liked and once it was in the oven, you crouched down to see it cook. Zoro followed on your side, knee touching yours.

"You know, it's not gonna cook faster if you stare at it," he mused.

"I know," you turned to look at him. The gleam from the oven light coupled with the kitchen light above played tricks on you because you could've sworn that hard, playful gaze of his turned softer. "I'm just surprised you can cook something other than basic military canned food."

"Oh, shut up," he laughed, playfully shoving his shoulder into yours.

You made small talk until the oven dinged that your pizza was ready. Letting Zoro deal with it, you ventured more into his living room like a cat looking for her next napping spot.

You walked all the way to the glass windows acting like an outer wall. Finding a handle, you pulled on it expecting it to be just for décor only to see that the glass slid open to give you access to a private beach front. Your jaw would crack if this man shocked you more tonight.

He has a private beach. Who the hell just has a private beach? And he said it's not much. Dude, I can move here if you don't like it.

Pushing the door open all the way, you took a seat on an extended wooden ledge overlooking the stretch of water you started liking so much. The sky was still cloudy, covering up the moon, yet some stars still sparkled through the white glare. A few birds played around in the trees, chirping as brightly as they would in the early morning. Waves lapped calmly at the shore, smaller than the naked eye could see, crashing into each other before they could make a sound on the sand.

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath of the salty air, letting it sink deep into your lungs. Calm enveloped you like a warm blanket comfortingly there for you. It was more than an oasis. It was how Zoro made you feel. Though most times it was accompanied by chaos, you would always find yourself waiting for this serene peace.

"I see you've found your favorite spot already."

Zoro was quickly at your side with the pizza sliced, a bottle of wine under his arm and some glasses. He sat down next to you working on the bottle before anything else.

"Favorite doesn't even begin to describe it."

Hungry from all the dancing and walking, you dove into the pizza first. The dough melted on your tongue, nodding to yourself as the good tomato sauce hit your taste buds, among with all the other toppings.

"Is it edible enough?"

"It turned out way better than I expected."

"Hand me one," he opened his mouth, waiting for you to feed him a slice.

You picked up a smaller one. Careful not to smudge any of the toppings on his shirt, you held it out for him to take a bite. He stopped fiddling with the cork to take in the taste.

"You're right, this is heavenly. I didn't know my oven could cook like this."

You choked, slapping his arm.

"That's what ovens are for, dummy."

Red wine, darker than your dress, danced in the glasses as you clinked them together. Taking a sip, the sweetness hit you before it lulled into bitter cherries, spilling on your lips like the promise of love on this chilly February night.

"Look out," he pointed out towards the sea.

You looked everywhere. All you could see was a few boats out on the water, the sky clearing some more and the sea. You even squinted, thinking you weren't looking properly.

"I don't see anything."

He checked his watch to see he was too early. For someone who was always late in making decisions, he still had time. Huh, how the tables have turned.

He counted the leftover seconds in his head, leaning back to look at you the way he did on new year's on the beach. Your back was in his full view, covered by your dress and your hair that grew a bit longer. He still has that impulse to trace your spine with the pads of his fingers.

"Look now."

Right as your eyes fixed on the boats, fireworks lit up the night sky from far out on the water. Pink and red spun around in different shaped hearts.

Seems like the surprises keep on coming.

Too engrossed in the light show decorating the sky in cute and heartwarming messages, you didn't notice Zoro slipped from beside you until you heard slow music playing from the speakers. He sat behind you, hand extended your way.

"Can I have this dance?"

"Another one?"

"You can't blame me for wanting another dance with you when you look this beautiful tonight."

"Only tonight?" you questioned, raising an eyebrow in suspicion.

"All the time," he corrected himself as he pulled you closer.

You stepped left and right under the warmth of the lights and the fireworks, holding the man you've always wanted in your life. Suddenly, you were taken back to that night where you let it all go to have fun with a stranger. A stranger that became something more so fast.

Who knew you'd end up mending each other's solitude and fill up the cracking pieces in your hearts. You were both aware that you meant more to each other than you let on, but the words just didn't seem to find their way out to communicate that. That was your only fatal flaw.

The need to know where you stand was more powerful than anything right now.

Somehow, everything was perfect.

Maybe too perfect.

"This is so fucking cheesy," you quipped.

"What's cheesy?"

"Everything. This night, the food, the wine, the fireworks... you."

You've kept the uneasiness at bay all night but something made it explode everywhere in your body and it definitely wasn't the wine. Or the way he was looking at you with those deep brown eyes like he could tell what you were feeling. If that were true he wouldn't waste any more time than you already did.

"What is this really about?" he asked, hands falling from your waist to rub comforting circles on the inside of your wrists.

If it wasn't crystal clear until now, he knew what made you tick. And something pushed a nerve by the looks of it and the way you were avoiding his eyes.

You wanted the ground to swallow you up for letting your mouth run wild without any basis besides that nervousness. But you might as well just bite the bullet and tell him everything and be honest with each other at least for once. You avoided talking about it way too long.

"It all feels a little too perfect to be real."

Thinking that voicing your thoughts out would give you some semblance of balance was a wrong assumption. As soon as those words left your mouth, he let go of your arms, taking a step back. Once again, you let your inhibitions take over and reel you away from a great thing.

You got lucky by meeting him. But you still couldn't help but think his heart wasn't yours for the taking. Because he wouldn't let you take it. That you couldn't be more than friends with him because more would destroy the already amazing thing you had going on.

By the way his face fell, brown orbs more preoccupied with the wooden floors, you realized you probably fucked up even more.

Frankly, he did all this tonight for you. He was never the type to go out of his way for people, even the ones he had an interest in because he wasn't one to play the feelings game. To chase and court and shower in affection.

But he knew where you were coming from and why.

He didn't make it clear that you've been the sole object of his attention ever since he saw you that first night you came to the club. For him, that was just another night lost to endless glasses of alcohol to numb himself even more from the world.

Until you showed up.

Hair thrown into the same messy bun you always sported, uncomfortably shifting in your clothes as you nursed a different array of alcohol yourself, trying to do exactly the same thing he was doing. Numbing the feelings away. Keeping them at bay. Fighting them with everything you had in opposite corners of the club when you could've embraced them together from that first look that connected you.

The more time he spent with you the more he let those suppressed feelings in and realised that they didn't bring him any pain this time, but solace, comfort, hope.

The hope that he might just have a great thing in front of him worth changing his ways for.

While Zoro was having a revelation, you were having a war with yourself.

There was this monstrous fire harbored inside of you for so long. Zoro woke that fire and there was no telling of the destruction it could cause this time, especially with so many unsaid things lingering in the air. So many unshared feelings. Because he stood still like the sea washing on the beach instead of doing something. Anything.

Please, Zoro, your eyes begged but he wouldn't look at you.

He was danger, screamed your mind. The danger that you got too comfortable. That this was wrong and you put up the 'no vacancy' sign on the doors to your heart way too soon.

Let me in, your heart screamed, blood in your veins trembling in anger.

One rapid thump of your heartbeat drowned in the silence.

Two more passed and he stood still, gaze set on the ground.

On the third one, you made your mind up.

Before tears could well up in your eyes, you turned around with the intention of bolting out through the same door he carried you through not that long ago.

Sensing movement, he caught sight of you shaking your head, that pout he hated back on your lips. He hurt you. Because he was a fucking idiot who couldn't do words.

But he could do actions. He was willing to do even more to prove to you that this was right and it wasn't all just in your head. That he felt it too.

It only took you taking two fast strides in the direction of the door for him to make up his mind too.

"Then let me make it real," he caught your hand and pulled you to him, crashing his lips onto yours for the first time since that night at the club, kissing you like his life depended on your very own lips moulding to his own.

You felt the desperation, the anguish, the need. All of it to have you close and to feel you in more ways than one. Everything you've been feeling for the past month, hope, passion, the beginning of love, spilling from his lips onto yours. He was telling you everything he kept to himself with each desperate tug at your lip and you received every word.

The last time he kissed you was over a month ago, pressured by the new year's kiss tradition. Back then, he tasted like alcohol and his cologne. But now, he tasted like everything you've been waiting for. And you had a hunch he waited just as long for it.

Once you were past the shock of it, you kissed him back even harder, lips finally moving in sync with his. He got a rough hold of your waist and pulled you even closer to deepen the kiss. One of his hands tangled in your curls exactly the way he wanted to since he saw you at your apartment.

He wanted to be selfish. Let that monstrosity of his heart pour out all of those feelings to you. But he reminded himself he had to take it slow with you. So he let go with a small tug at your lower lip, spurring the eagerness inside of your tummy for more.

You pulled apart but remained close, foreheads touching in bliss. Though short, this kiss was sweeter and more meaningful than any chocolate box you could ever get. It was everything you needed to know what his heart held inside and how much more of him you still had to see.

He let you in.

"I wanted to do this for so long," he breathed haggardly, like you stole away all the air in his lungs with just one kiss. A kiss that was so long overdue.

"Why didn't you?" you voiced the question that's been hanging by a thread all night.

"I didn't know how you felt about me."

"You're such an idiot. But you're my idiot."

Shaking your head against his, you pulled him closer by the collar of his shirt and kissed him again, this time with more fervour. You wanted to make sure he understood where your feelings stood, where you wanted this to go and that you let him be in total control of it. Because losing control with Zoro was surrendering to a higher power. One that your heart loved being handled by.

You carved your own feelings into the way you held onto his cheeks and nibbled on his lips in unsated hunger, trying to put the torment, want and devotion you felt for him over the past month and a half into a language that he could understand.

And he understood.

Tapping your thigh, you got the message and jumped up into his strong arms that wrapped around you like a curtain of safety.

Your safety net.

He ripped yours apart to become it.

He held you to him so easily as he navigated through the furniture maze in his living room, taking off into a long corridor, all the while his lips discovered new grounds with yours. He didn't want to waste any more time if it involved you.

Zoro didn't care if this would end up being a fucked up disaster on his part, but he held back enough from showing you how he really feels. It was time he made things right with you.

You.

It was only you.

There didn't need to be anyone else for him.

Just you.

His hold tightened around you as he rounded a corner, not for security but to brand the feel of your being in his hands, to realize that he was finally holding you, feeling you where you were supposed to be all along.

Heavens, how much he longed for this. Your presence wouldn't dare to leave his thoughts just like he never left yours. Oh, he knew of the ardor your eyes held inside and was well aware of what ran around in your head because he let those same movies play in his own around the clock, early day into late night. Maybe he didn't let it be known, not like you did in wistful glances or pink tinted cheeks, but there were signs.

In the way his jaw ticked in disgust at every man who set their eyes on you every time you went out shopping, to the point he was ready to have an MME match if they stared too long. Or how his hand twitched to grab yours whenever you sat too close, the need to lace them together and press you flat against the couch in your apartment overriding his senses. And his mouth. Oh, his mouth. It wanted nothing but to taste every inch of you, everywhere you touched him and riled him up, every time your eyes drifted down to his lips, until there was nothing left to taste.

Hell would freeze over before that happened.

Kicking the door to his room open, he shut it just as swiftly, maneuvering your back to the nearest wall, moonlight the only thing illuminating the room. The cold wall cooled your burning skin, a breathy gasp leaving your throat right into his mouth with a kiss. He let go of your back, hands searching for your palms, pushing them against the wall beside your head. His mouth never left yours, exploring every depth, rise and sigh escaping you.

He hooked you higher up the wall with every kiss, atoning for every missed opportunity over the past month. Your legs tangled harsher around his torso, tugging him even closer as he pressed against you with all his might, feeling all of him and none of him at the same time.

Close just wasn't enough for any of you.

You needed closer. Attached. Intimate.

Soul on soul.

Patience wasn't your virtue at all tonight. You clawed at his hands, needy unlike anyone has ever made you. Except Zoro. Your head was filled with him. You were breathing him in and it still wasn't enough.

In one breath you were unglued from the cold wall and put down on the comfy edge of his bed, separated from his lips and from him. You whined at the loss of feeling him against you, ready to argue that having him kiss you mattered more than whatever had him lose the tempo. Although that need turned into anticipation just as fast once your eyes focused on his kneeling form before you.

Roronoa Zoro, on his knees, for you, eyes darker than the blackness of the night. That vulnerability looked lethal.

Those eyes. You could drown in them for a lifetime if they asked you to.

"Zoro," you sighed, chest rising up and down, expectant of his next move.

Oh, how he loved the sound of his name rolling off your lips. Usually so contained in the form of a sarcastic remark or to warn him to watch it.

Now, it was tuned to demand for his attention. And he wanted to make sure you got all of it.

One of his hands extended to your leg, calloused fingers trailing up the arch, circling mindfully around your wounded heel to hold it up to his lips. He pressed them to the inside of your ankle, slow and steady, eyes fixed on yours as you took in a sharp breath. The intensity of his unwavering gaze alone made heat pool between your legs.

Flutters rose in crescendos inside your belly at each kiss and there was no stopping them from roaming free. Not when he was watching your every response like your body was the eighth wonder of the world.

Your hands fell beside you, feeling the softness of his duvet to ground you as you closed your eyes to relish in the moment. Focusing on how plush his mouth felt on your skin on two different extremities. Wondering how they would feel on the rest of your body.

Unspoken but present in the air, that wish was his command.

His fingers trailed higher, past your calf, under your knee, roughly tugging you closer to the edge. Your dress bunched up your thighs as his fingers continued their perusal to reach the small of your back. Slowing his pace, he traced the dip in your spine all the way between your shoulder blades, your back arching involuntarily. Still on his knees, he moved closer between your legs as those fingers circled on your nape, pulling you down to meet his mouth halfway in another kiss, more fiery than the last.

This one sputtered with flames of passion. So much that you couldn't contain yourself anymore.

Your hands shot out to undo the buttons of his shirt. Frustrated with the top ones you just dug your fingers in the holes and pulled it open, poor buttons flying to the floor with a pang, interrupting your fast breaths. He broke apart from your lips to assess the damage only to find his chest half-exposed to your itching hands.

"That was vintage."

"I'll get you another one but I want it off, now," you muttered in a breath, grabbing his face to devour him. You couldn't get enough of how he tasted and every breath for air asked for another taste.

Hooking one hand around your back, he lifted you up and hauled you to the middle of the bed. His lips connected with the side of your mouth, dragging the bottom lip you liked biting so much between his teeth. He was just as annoyed at your dress, desperately looking for ways to feel more of you as he fisted the ends until they creased.

"I want this off too," he groaned, pulling on the skirt impatiently.

Said and done.

You sat up, letting the straps fall off your shoulders, pulling the material over your head to leave you in your undergarments. He licked his lips taking you in. The ferocity of his stare alone drinking you in like his normal glass of whiskey made tremors dance on your skin.

And he didn't even properly touch you yet. You weren't even sure you would survive his touch. The good thing was, you were about to find out.

"What now, loverboy?"

The nickname came out way more playful than you intended it to. It was enough to provoke him in ways that will damage you for anyone else. Ways that will tie his existence to your very own, unable to ever untie it.

"I'm gonna have you like no one has ever dared to before and no one will," he spoke, so deep that your buds prickled against the air at the gravel in his voice. "By the time I'm done with you, you're gonna wish you didn't test my patience for so long."

That turned you on even more. At the need present in him matching the same level of want flowing in your body.

He kicked the rest of his clothes off. Your eyes stopped at the huge package that laid under his clothes, a Greek god in the flesh and balls. They then lingered from the sculpted thighs you were so envious of, to his defined middle where you lost count of his packs and chest, going up to the arched bow of his collar bones, stopping at the plump lips that rushed to capture your own again. This time, he bit your lower lip for access to explore the rest of your mouth, tongues tangling in a dance of their own on the same rapid rhythm your hearts were beating in.

A hand sneaked under your back to lift you higher, pressing your chest flush to his, feeling all the shapes of his muscles against your own. His lungs breathed with yours. Your hearts came alive.

His lips left your mouth, moving down your jaw, prodding under it, heading to your collar bones in hungry fire. They left a burning trail in their wake, stretching tingles even to the edge of your shoulders where he pressed softer ones.

Kiss, lick and bite was his mantra that he repeated against your skin. He wanted to claim you tonight, more viciously than a wolf in heat would claim his mate.

Trailing down, he laid small and large kisses on your sternum, between your mounds. His palms sat on either side of your waist, rubbing circles to tease you more. Damn his teasing.

Feeling his lips, his hands and his torso pressed to you all at once turned your breathing erratic, saprking electric shocks inside of you. He was everywhere, taking your control away. Your eyes darted closed to find some kind of anchor besides fisting his sheets.

"Eyes on me, angel," he commanded and in a second your eyes snapped back to his.

He stopped just above your navel, waiting for you to catch your breath. That was a luxury. Once he was sure you were following, he continued all the way down to your lower stomach where the band of your panties stuck to you uncomfortably. Your breath hitched when he stopped there, blowing above where you needed him most, only to move down to your inner thighs, nipping on the softer skin with that amused smirk of his gracing the outline of his mouth.

He was trying to push you over the edge on purpose.

Fuck that.

One swift push and he fell backwards on the bed. You climbed on top to take the reigns and gain some control back. Little did you know that having you straddling him like that bid the beast inside of him alive.

You moved butterfly kisses from the crook of his neck, down his toned pecs. His hand latched in your hair, grabbing a tight hold around your curls, destroying them like he wanted to do all night. The pressure on your scalp pulled a moan from you just as you bit into his abdomen heaving a groan from him, his other hand digging into your waist as he raised up to meet your neck. He bit and pulled on it too, turning your insides to mush.

Sitting up with you on your kness, he hooked a finger on each side of your panties and ripped them apart down the middle with that shit-eating grin. You choked on every remnant of sanity as he threw the shreds to the side leaving you naked, fully naked, exactly like he wanted you.

Grabbing onto his shoulders, you moved to his lap, legs parted to cage him into your space. One look of confirmation that this was still what you both wanted had you sink down on him at once.

He was big. Collosal almost. He felt bigger than you thought you could take. Eyes closed, it took you a moment to get your bearings back but once you did, you felt him everywhere. His upper thighs supported the rest of your weight. His hands circled around you, both grabbing and holding you upright. His cherry wine-infused breath fanned the side of your neck.

And his eyes? Waiting for you as you opened yours. One look at them and your hips started rolling on autopilot. Every swing buried him deeper, further, closer to where your being called for him. And he let you have it. Letting you ravish his gear the way you liked it, feeling him stretch you sore.

His mouth went back to his mantra. Kissing the crook of your neck, licking it right in the middle and biting it hard enough to leave a bruise. To mark you as his. His and his only.

You gripped his shoulders, shifting to get a better position as your hips started getting tired. Silently, you cursed yourself for ditching gym with him because you didn't know how much stamina riding him would take out of you.

You were close and from how he gripped your waist to help your rhythm, pulling them faster front and back, he was too. He stopped nibbling on your neck, moving to your lips to swallow your quiet moans. He had to make them louder.

You rolled your hips until you couldn't find the energy to push into him anymore. He took that as his chance to take over again.

He pulled out, turning you around as he spread you on all fours. Your hands landed on the bedpost to support you as he climbed behind you. He laid kisses from your lower back all the way to your left shoulder where his lips brushed your ear just as his tip lightly caressed your opening. His warm breaths foreshadowed sin on your skin, making you wetter by the second.

And he entered you. One, two, three pumps and he got accustomed to your tightness just as you did with his size stretching you out. He bit the side of your neck with every thrust, sending your conscious into oblivion, chasing that high together.

Every moan you withheld from him earned you a deeper thrust. He wanted to hear you in all your glory. Wanted to know how badly you wanted him, not just like this but in every way.

In your lost haze, you ended up on your back closer to release. Entering you roughly, he pounded in you so fast you were seeing stars, head rolling to the side in complete ecstasy. His hand grabbed your jaw, tilting your field of vision back to him.

His free hand grabbed your hand for the millionth time tonight, placing it on the messy sheet beside your head, fingers smoothly sliding through yours as he kissed away all of your sighs. Your other hand climbed from deep down his waist to his upper back, hard rock muscles rippling under your touch like a stone thrown on the surface of a still river, disturbing its peace, turning it turbulent and wild. Waking up every primal urge in him as he groaned in your neck.

He accelerated, twitching inside of you and you came, letting your insides explode into a mess as he continued chasing his own high. He wasn't done with you yet, thumb rushing to rub another climax out of you as he was close to his own. His mouth bit into your breasts, grazing your buds one at a time, pulling on them in a way that added to your pleasure way more than the last one.

You gripped him again, tighter, and in no time you both came furiously, spilling everything you held back out onto that mattress. He pulled out, letting his seed fly onto your stomach.

You tried to catch your breath. It was gone somewhere between ecstasy and what laid beyond euphoria. He left to clean himself up, returning with a token of aftercare for you. He wiped his mess off of you, gentle and attentive to get everything off. Once he was done, he got in next to you, pulling you close.

You both just sat there for a while, reflecting on everything that happened. You still felt him inside of you, on you, above you, behind you. He managed to ruin you.

His voice cleared the quiet, making you focus back on the real world for a bit.

"You okay?"

"I just got fucked to oblivion. I would say fantastic but I can't feel my legs."

He chuckled. He would never fail to love your sarcasm. Even in moments like these.

"Did I go too hard?" he asked, not sarcastically but wanting to know if it was too much. If he went harder than he should have.

Looking at the vines of love bites he left on the entirety of your neck, the smudged makeup that looked almost natural, and your tousled messy hair, hard couldn't encapsulate it better. You would've said "you could've gone harder" but that meant urging him on another round and you were spent for tonight. So, you laid your head in the crook of his neck and closed your eyes, releasing a content breath, a silent confirmation that you were okay.

A single thought passed through your head - this was all kinds of right. Your once in a lifetime right time right place, as cheesy as it sounded. Maybe cheesy was good.

He was in his head thinking everything through in his own way, breaking down the once intense feelings into little flurries of emotion buzzing inside of him. That passion masked itself as denial for way too long. But tonight, you held his face and took that mask off, giving him clarity and he was able to feel something else.

Something close to love, he thought, chuckling to himself.

You cracked one eye open, taken aback at his sudden cheerfulness. One look at his face bathed in the glow of the moon and you saw him beaming.

"What are you so smiley about?"

He just shook his head, smile widening like a Cheshire cat that's been caught up to no good.

"Nothing."

Taking it upon yourself, you got up from his side with slow moves and straddled his waist, getting his attention back on you.

"Tell meeeee," you stretched, poking your fingers through every dent in his abs until he told you.

"What are you gonna do for it?"

Not this again.

Actually, this time, you knew what he wanted. A kiss. So, you just leaned over and caught his lips sweetly, smiling into it. His hand came to cup your face, smiling back. He pulled away, soft praline orbs gazing at you warmly.

"What if I still don't want to tell you?"

"Zoro, stop playing with me," you complained, slapping his chest.

"Okay. Okay," he held his hands up in surrender.

He sat up to lean on the headboard and get a better look at you - his ruined shirt hugged your smaller form, running all the way to your thighs. The marks of his feelings that he still couldn't utter decorated you everywhere. You sat back on his lap, arms crossed on your chest, waiting for him to speak.

"I'm not one to do feelings," he started, eyes darting down in thinking. "But you changed that."

Your eyes stayed focused on him, softening at his words.

You knew that he was a reserved person, keeping to his corner rather than reaching out into other people's. Until he found something worth thrusting his hand out at full speed to get it. Something worth hanging onto with his teeth.

As he connected his eyes with yours, brown blazing fire burning as bright and consuming as yours, it dawned upon you that something was you.

He was trying. For you.

"You were right. I am an idiot," he paused, fiddling with the ends of his shirt beside your calf. "It took me so long to figure it out but now I know."

Your heart started running when his hand held yours and brought it to sit on top of his own, running just as fast in his chest. Though the rate of yours spiraled out of control at the honesty of his incoming confession.

"I think I'm in love with you."

Your head spun, blinking in confusion at him.

"Am I hallucinating or did you just say the L word?"

"Yes. I did just say the L word," he nodded, confirming that he felt the same for you.

Before you could breathe it through, you leaned in for another kiss. He deepened the kiss trying to reach every corner of you. Wanting to both take his time and rushing to taste every part of you.

Breathless. Serene. And everything in between.

"I take it you love me back?" he asked, needing you to say those words back to him.

Your heart did flips at the way the word sounded coming from him. It dripped with honey and warmth.

"A little more than love," you grinned. "You do realise that I won't be able to stop it, right?"

"I don't want you to."

"Great," you clapped your hands together. "Because I will become so annoying."

He howled a laugh, throwing his head back, the sound you loved so much making you laugh too.

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

You leaned down connecting your lips for the millionth time tonight. But you still couldn't get used to them or to the fact that your heart called out his name and his answered back calling out just as loud.

Falling forward into his arms, you sank like a ship happily waiting to meet its end in the depths of the ocean that was him. Because no ocean was deeper and so familiar to swim through than your Zoro.

He kissed the crown of your head, pulling you closer. Happy felt like an impossible destination until he held you to him like this, safe and warm in his embrace. He felt a tinge of it and he wanted more.

"Are you tired-"

Before the question even left his mouth properly, his eyes drifted to the steady rise and fall of your chest, drained body curled into him tightly, head tucked into the crook of his neck, chest pressed to his.

She's drooling again, he chuckled to himself, moving some hair away from your face so you wouldn't inhale it. You sat like a baby coddled in its mother's arms, but your position looked a little uncomfortable.

He pulled your feet from under you to get you in a better posture. Moving his arms around you, he got more cozy, drawing the covers over the both of you and let the night come to an end.

Birds chirped announcing a new day, with the sea singing the same tune as its waves crashed in a swirl outside. The morning sun peaked through the curtains, its soft rays caressing the top of your head, willing you to wake up.

The first thing you felt was your cheek pressed against something plush. A pillow. The pillows I fell asleep on last night were way better.

You rolled around the bed trying to find some more sleep when the thought of last night sparked your brain like the tip of a vinyl record player, making memories play faster than your sleepy mind could catch up to.

Lips kissing on every part of your skin available to sight, carving themselves on the hidden ones. Hands caressing your body like a holy prayer, thought but never uttered. Eyes making secret promises with yours in the darkened moonlight.

You turned on your back and opened your eyes, letting them adjust to the light in the room. The fluffy duvet fell to your lap as you sat up, stretching your sore limbs with a groan. Everything ached but in a good way.

Pulling the covers away, you folded them neatly on the bed and took in the space in the light of day. The beige and green from downstairs broke off into a two-tone sandy beige and a cotton white on the floor and the walls. It truly felt like home. And smelt like it too. That musky vanilla you liked so much enveloping you, mostly from his shirt.

After a steamy shower that your skin welcomed fully, you stopped in front of the mirror to see just what he drew on you last night. You traced the red marks down your body, feeling the ghost of his lips like he was kissing and biting those places again and again. He didn't need any words after all.

Rummaging through his wardrobe, you stole a t-shirt, fitting like a dress on you, and a pair of pants that barely wanted to stay on your waist. You had to roll them up and double tie the strings for them to sit still.

Taking to the long corridor, you followed the sunlit path and looked for your partner in crime. You found him in the kitchen, handling an egg carton, preparing for what looked like the Zoro Special - omelete with a bunch of side dishes and orange juice - or Champions' Breakfast as he called it.

He had his back turned to you, busy chopping up some tomatoes. You sneaked behind him, trying to be quick and silent on your feet, planning to jump him. You rounded the marble top of the island, grinning that stealth was on your side, only to get caught between his arms. He already sensed you from when you entered the kitchen so your surprise attack was doomed from the start.

Unpredictable like a breeze of the wind, he picked you up, placing you on the island as strong arms planted on each side, caging you in his space. He took one look at you, recognizing his clothes draped loosely on you, messy bun on top of your head and his heart did flips again.

"Fancy seeing you here," you said, shying away from his gaze. It looked hungry and not for any damn food.

"I could say the same," he spoke, raspy voice sending tingles down your spine. He studied you some more, lips perking up in amusement. "Trying to sneak up on me?"

"Maybeeeee," you played with the hem of his shirt. "What are you making?"

"My special-"

His words got caught in his throat as you laid your chin on the crown of his chest and looked up at him with the softest eyes he's ever seen, all his resolve crumbling to the depths of the fucking universe.

It was truly a wonder to him - how you could go from one extreme to the other, being both adorable and sexy at the same time.

"Can I be your special?" you asked, voice sweeter than candy.

"I wouldn't mind that," he smirked, leaning down to capture your lips in a slow morning peck quicker than you would've liked it to be.

As if on cue, your stomach made a noise of complaint that the pizza you made together last night got digested.

"Let's get some food in you," he said, patting it tenderly.

"Do I get to assist on the special?"

"You get to watch the special," he rubbed his hands together and got started.

Pre-heating a pan on the hob, he held a knife in one hand and an egg in the other. Your eyebrow lifted up in curiosity as he held the knife horizontally to put the egg on top of it, balancing it side to side. With a confident grin your way, he flicked the handle and launched the egg in the air swiftly turning the knife sharp-edge upwards, just in time to catch the egg right in the middle, separating its contents from the cracked shell successfully. The egg sizzled in the pan while your mouth sat agape, shook at the skills he was pulling.

"You really are the gift that keeps on giving."

"So I've been told," he said cockily, flicking imaginary dust off his shoulder. You hopped off the island and elbowed him playfully, settling beside him to watch the magic omelet take shape.

Once enough eggs were cooked, he arranged the plates. He cleaned up his working space and leaned in for a kiss you dodged on purpose. That brought an ambush of kisses on your face, from your forehead to your cheeks, your eyes, your nose, your jaw and your lips. Everywhere he wanted to leave his affection on you.

You managed to shimmy out of his grip and bolted out in the living room, through the open glass door on the beach. The wind blew cold, waking you up like coffee, making your heart thunder. He followed right behind you just like the night you met, leaving your footprints in the sand. Though this time he caught up to you way quicker, whisking you up in the air and spinning you until your stomach hurt from laughing.

The sound of your laugh filled his ears in the most beautiful way possible. And something else clicked in his head. He wanted that to be the first thing he heard every morning, every day, until you got sick of him.

He placed your feet back on the sand and brought you closer, waves crashing next to you like the beat of his heart. He had to give it a shot no matter what. So, without letting any other thoughts cloud his decision, he just asked.

"Do you want to move in with me?"

OH, boy.

Thank you for reading :)

#my heart calls your name #roronoa zoro #roronoa zoro x you #roronoa zoro x reader #opla zoro #opla zoro x reader #i need a roronoa zoro #one piece x reader

98 notes · View notes