#I could not scroll past without doing the thing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

asahicore · 8 months ago

Text

fast forward - pjs

pairing. jay x fem!reader

synopsis. After yet another romantic disappointment in the form of one Jake Sim, you go to the well you’ve always believed to grant wishes and ask for your one and true love to appear. That night, you go to sleep in your bed but wake up in a strange house. When you head downstairs, you find a man washing the dishes and telling you your favorite meal is waiting on the table for you. You’ve spent hours glaring at the back of that head, you could recognize it anywhere—it belongs to none other than Park Jongseong, your high school sworn enemy... and future husband, or so it seems.

genre+warnings. high school au, the type of e2l where they never really hated each other to begin with, they act like they're academic rivals even though they're not particularly academically gifted, jay has a thing about german the language, sunoo and kazuha besties, heeseung is a loser, jake and sunghoon are assholes sorry, ive liz is german, 02z get into a white-boy locker-room fight, attempts at banter etc, they're a little bit silly

word count. 26.6k

a/n. had the idea for this listening to fast forward by somi LAST SUMMER... and only wrote it this summer and only posting it now <3 i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it !!!!! jay is an absolute cutie here pls love him as much as i do.... as always let me know what u think and remember to vote for @zreamy president in the upcoming elections, shes the only one i trust to beta-read and hence to run a country <3 no it doesnt matter that shes scottish put this woman in the white house

There is only one thorn on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life.

Every morning, you wake up feeling refreshed from eight hours of restful sleep. You go downstairs to the kitchen, a boiling cup of milky Earl Grey tea already waiting for you, and eat breakfast with your brother Jinwoo and father. Your mom dashes in, placing a kiss on your and Jinwoo’s foreheads, and on your dad’s lips, saying she’s late for work but will see you in the evening. “Have fun at school,” she bids every morning without fail. Your dad teaches Korean Literature at your school, so the three of you drive there together. He watches amusedly as you and Jinwoo bicker light-heartedly on the way there—even in the pits of his puberty, you and your brother get along like two peas in a pod. He still tells you about everything he learns at school and fills you in on the drama in his class, up-to-date with everything even though he pretends not to be interested.

You’re always one of the first to arrive at school, so you scroll through your feed or finish up some homework as you wait for your classmates to file in. Your friends circle your table and you chat about the last episode of the show you’ve been watching until the bell rings and they leave you for their assigned seat.

Class starts with your teacher handing out the math tests you took last week. “Jay and Y/N, great job, keep it up,” he says as he walks past you and the boy in front of you, and hands you your paper. Relief floods your body as you take in the bright red 82 in the top right-hand corner—not the best of the class, but enough for you to be satisfied.

Good friends, good grades—nothing extraordinary, but it’s a life you dare say any high school senior would want.

There’s just that one thing. The thorn in your side that won’t stop poking.

You glare at it as it whips around in its seat and takes a peek at the grade on your paper before you get to snatch it away from view. It only gives you three seconds to rejoice over your grade.

“Aw, Y/N. Good effort! Maybe you’ll do better next time!” Jongseong coos, holding up his test for you to see and glare even harder at. 85. Not that big of a difference, but it makes you want to punch the faux sympathetic pout off of his face.

You’re about to spit something just as petty back at him, but someone whispers your name, and you turn your head in their direction. Beside you, Jake is smiling at you as he asks what grade you got. Your attention is swiftly taken off of Jongseong, whom you don’t even notice dramatically rolling his eyes, huffing in annoyance, and turning around.

“82,” you whisper back, holding up your paper for Jake to see. His friendly, absurdly handsome smile makes your ears burn. “You?”

The corners of his lips fall down into a sad pout—the kind that makes your heart melt rather than gets on your nerves like someone else. “68,” he says. Leans in over the gap between your tables. Your heart jumps uncontrollably around your rib cage. “Do you wanna go over it together during the break? I think I need some help.”

One-on-one time with Jake Sim? You don’t need to be asked twice. You nod silently, almost mesmerized by Jake as his grin widens. He leans back in his chair. “Perfect. I’ll see you in the library, then.”

“Library, yeah,” you echo dumbly, but thankfully, your teacher tells you to all quiet down and starts the lesson.

You’re antsy all throughout the rest of your morning classes and lunch break, so nervous that you barely manage to finish your yogurt. Of course, your friends, Sunoo and Kazuha, have a field day with this, and even you can’t help but laugh along as they jump between reassuring you that it’ll be fine, slapping your shoulders with excitement and making fun of your uncharacteristic quietness.

Jake arrives at the library five minutes after you, looking around the room before he finds you at the big round table in the back of the library. Your brain is too riddled with anxiety for you to make more small talk than “Hey,” “Hey,” “How was your lunch?” “Good, yours?” “Good.” And so you just jump straight into it.

You’ve only had a couple minutes of quiet explanation on your part and heavy nodding on Jake’s when Jay appears at the entrance of the library. He spots you and Jake immediately, and without any hesitation whatsoever heads towards you and sits down at your table, right across from the two of you.

“Hey, Jay,” Jake greets in a friendly manner, but Jay only responds with a nod of his head.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he says when he notices you glaring. “I won’t bother you.”

As if he could be anything other than a bother, you think, but courteously keep to yourself. The childish rivalry you and Jongseong have got going on has no business spoiling a rare hour of alone time you get with Jake. As you go over the exercises he had the most trouble with on the test with you, your eyes often drift over to Jongseong as if to check on him—you’re cautious like he’s a spider in the corner of the room that might spring on you at any moment.

And indeed, the moment your gaze leaves him for more than a minute as you explain an intricate theorem to Jake, he’s out of sight, and panic shoots through you. Where the hell has he suddenly gone off to? you wonder, but not for long.

“There’s a much easier way to do this, really,” says a voice from behind you, and of course, it’s none other than Jongseong himself, quite literally butting his way into your tutoring session. Right between you and Jake, he bends over and rests his elbows on the table, taking Jake’s pencil from him and describing the theorem in a way that isn’t that much simpler. Your eyes shoot bullets into the side of his face while he, unbothered, explains this and that to Jake, who glances at you a couple of times but otherwise does not seem so perturbed by the sudden change of tutor. Either Jongseong doesn’t notice your glare or doesn’t care, because he doesn’t budge.

Just when they’re done with the exercise and you think you’ll get Jake to yourself again, another voice appears from behind, a much higher, girlier one. You notice the hand on Jake’s shoulder first, until slowly, your eyes drift to the face—you recognize Yunjin, head of the cheerleading squad, and she’s smiling at you, a smile that at once tries to cover and betrays her surprise at seeing you and Jake together. She doesn’t acknowledge you any more than that, gaze going back to “Jakey,” asking him if he wants to head to class together. You check the time—five minutes before the first bell rings. What do they need so much time getting to class for? It’s not like any room in this school is more than a three-minute walk away.

But Jake doesn’t even look back at you, just says “Sure!” with far too much enthusiasm for your taste as he packs his stuff. “Thanks, you two,” he says, looking at Jay first, then at you. You think his eyes linger on you for a second, but just like that, he’s gone, him and Yunjin walking side-by-side.

You watch them leave—they look good together, the cheerleading captain and the soccer team’s star. The white Vans she’s wearing have a bunch of red love hearts on them that look drawn on, and you think, Of course, Jake is the type to date someone cute, someone fun, someone who would draw on their shoes. Not someone like you, whose idea of a good Friday night is lighting up a scented candle and reading your favorite novel for the nth time. When they’ve left the library, you slump in your seat, crumpling the sheet of paper you had drawn a bunch of graphs and formulae on to make things clearer for Jake. Jay awkwardly clears his throat and finally returns to his seat, looking at you with his lips pressed in a tight line.

“Y/N?” he asks tentatively, and the sound is too much to bear, so you pack your things and head to your next class early, too. Your mind is racing with a million thoughts a minute—who is that girl to Jake, how come you’ve never seen them together before, how come he was so eager to leave with her, what was that smile she gave you about? In the fifty-five minutes of your biology class, which you uncharacteristically don’t pay any attention to, you’ve convinced yourself that they are crazy in love and that none of Jake’s actions or words towards you had ever meant anything, that you’d liked him so much you’d dreamt up the possibility of his liking you back, too.

Your next lesson starts—the smile Jake gives you as he walks into History is so bright, it dissipates any clouds hanging over your head. You do believe in male-female friendships, but despite yourself, you can’t help but think that anyone in a relationship wouldn’t give someone else such a perfect, warm smile. It just wouldn’t be right. And so, you reason with yourself that simply walking to a class together didn’t mean two people were a couple.

For an hour, you stare at the back of Jake’s head, and although you do eventually come to the more sensible conclusion that a smile may just be a smile, you also think it's unlikely that he and Yunjin would be a thing. If they were, why would they hide it? Jake is so nice, you wouldn’t be surprised if he’d exaggerated his enthusiasm upon seeing her. You’re sure you still have your chances. He even says see you tomorrow when class is over and slips out of the room to go to soccer practice.

You feel like you’re walking on cloud 9 as you head from History to your next class—but when you remember that the next class is German, your mood drops significantly. Because the universe has it out for you, you and Jay are two of just ten students in your year taking German as your second foreign language option, everyone else having gone for either French, Japanese or Spanish. Your reasoning for it is that your dad has had an obsession with Germany since his year abroad in Bavaria, and twelve-year-old you had wanted to make him happy. Eighteen-year-old you regrets it slightly, but at least now your dad is ecstatic every time you tell him in German that the dinner he made was really tasty. Why Jongseong decided to take it beats you—he’s probably just insane.

But because you don’t really know anyone else in the class, and because it’s your last period of the day, you have no friends to run off with once the lesson is over, and he gets to bother you all the way from the classroom door to the staff parking lot.

You’ve barely finished bidding Auf Wiedersehen to your teacher and Jongseong is already harassing you. “So, I didn’t take you as the type to be into guys like Jake Sim.” He says Jake’s name with such disdain, like he thinks he’s so much better than him, or like he hates him. It confuses you just as much as it annoys you; Jongseong didn’t seem to have a problem with Jake earlier at the library.

“And that’s your business, because…?”

You don’t look at Jongseong, who’s quickened his pace to keep up with yours, but you can feel the smirk on his face. It’s insufferable. “Oh, it’s none of my business. I’m just surprised, is all. You guys are so… I don’t know, different.”

You scoff. “If you think I’m not good enough for someone like Jake, I’d rather you tell me straight up, Jongseong. Or actually,” you say, looking up at him with a dry smile. “Keep it to yourself and leave me alone.”

He looks offended by your words, and it only adds to your already immense annoyance—he’s the one who just insulted you, so why is he looking at you with those stupid furrowed eyebrows?

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“No, Y/N.” He grabs your wrist and makes you face him, your stomach flipping in surprise that you quickly cover up. When he releases you, you cross your arms over your chest and wait for him to speak, keeping your eyes trained on a spot behind him. “I don’t think he’s too good for you.”

This makes you look at him. You have to admit, your curiosity is piqued. Not like Jongseong to say anything even vaguely in your favor. “He’s just…” He sighs, searches for the right word. “Well, he’s just a bit of a dick, isn’t he?”

You freeze for a second. You’re so taken aback, your scoff comes out more as a laugh—Park Jongseong, king supreme of all dicks at this school, just called Jake Sim a dick?

“I’m sorry?”

He sighs again, as though you’re the unreasonable one. “He’s so… smug. A wannabe class clown and thinks he’s the shit because he’s on the soccer team. Have you seen the way he swaggers around school?”

You look at him with fake sympathy. “Jong, are you jealous?”

“Pfft. No way. I just think it’s a shame you keep going after these dudes who are not even worth your time, or whatever, so yeah…” he says, voice trailing off and looking down at his feet as he speaks. Hands in pockets and blank expression on his face, you can tell he’s trying to look cool, but the way he’s avoiding your gaze is a dead give-away. Even his ears have turned red. Jongseong is having one of those shy moments he has when he’s trying to be nice to you. Clearly, a simple act of kindness towards you is so hard for him that it radically changes the way he behaves.

Like when you were fifteen and you just couldn’t get this stupid art project right, so he stayed behind for three hours after school with you, helping you draw and paint and cut and glue.

Like when you were sixteen and your grandma just passed away, making you miss a week of school, and without a word, barely looking at you, he gave you a stack of handwritten notes of all the lessons you missed. To this day, you’re not sure how he did it—you weren’t in the same class that year.

Like when you were seventeen and Park Sunghoon rejected you in the middle of a crowded hallway. You’d run off to the girls’ bathroom to cry it out, but Jongseong quickly found you and spent the entire period cursing Sunghoon out instead of being in English, like you were both meant to be. He was uncharacteristically nice to you for a few days after that, never starting an argument for no reason or interrupting you when you spoke. When you snapped at him, telling him it only made you feel worse that he treated you differently, he smiled and told you how stupid you looked when you cried. It made you laugh more than it should’ve.

Like now, when he suddenly decides that Jake Sim is also a wrong choice for you. “Him and Sunghoon are good friends, you know that?” he says. “Birds of a feather, and all…”

So you know that Jongseong is not all bad. He has his redeeming qualities. He can even be nice sometimes, when he so wishes. But those moments are so few and far between that when he returns to his usual insufferable self, you wonder if you’d dreamt it all up. Which is why you can’t quite take him seriously right now. You roll your eyes and resume walking towards the parking lot, but of course, he continues to follow you. “Why do you even care who I go after?”

“I don’t-”

“You clearly do, otherwise you wouldn’t be bothering me like this.”

“Well, if all your attention is taken up by that douche, who am I going to go up against?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? That I stop arguing with you?” you say, disbelief clear in your voice.

“I’m offended, Y/N,” he starts, his sarcastic tone making you roll your eyes again. “That our little rivalry matters so little to you.”

“We’re not even the top students of our class, for God’s sake, we’re not fighting over anything.”

“I’ve actually got the best grades in German, thanks very much.”

“Whatever. I wouldn’t call it a rivalry so much as a mutual dislike of each other, because one of us woke up one day and decided to start going against everything the other said.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

The exit to the parking lot now appears to you like the gates of heaven. You don’t even bother replying to him, thinking that he’ll just leave you alone now that you’re here. But as you step outside, he places himself in front of you and blocks your path, arms splayed out, eyes wide like he’s just seen a ghost.

“What are you-”

“Have you done the German homework for tomorrow?”

The sudden change of subject gives you whiplash. “What? No, Miss Schumacher assigned it just now-”

“Well, given your tendency for getting the word order all wrong, I can already tell you you’re not gonna have fun with it-”

You pinch the nose of your bridge, trying to calm yourself down before you lose what’s remaining of your mind. “Jongseong, were you actually dropped on the head as a baby? Go away. My dad’s gonna be here any second.” You try to walk around him, but he steps in front of you again. You peer up at him, undisguised annoyance in your eyes. Where are your dad and brother when you need them?

“I’m just saying, you’ll probably need help with it-”

“I won’t. And if I do, I’ll just use Google. Now get out of my way,” you say, and manage to duck under one of his arms.

Then you see it.

Well, actually, it takes you a second to understand what it is you’re seeing. At first, you think it’s one of those horny couples thinking they’re being really discreet by going to the staff parking lot to make out, when in reality they could be caught by any one at any time. They’re just far enough that when you do a double take, you realize that you do know the back of that head; that fluffy mop of brown hair. You sit behind it every History period, next to it every Maths and English period.

The girl is up against the wall, and you can’t really see her, what with her and Jake’s tongues being down each other’s throat and his body blocking her from your view, his hands on her hips, her arms around his shoulders. All the works. She’s wearing a cheerleader uniform, so she could be any of twenty girls—but you’re pretty sure only one of them wears a pair of white Vans with red love hearts on them.

Your heart sinks to your stomach.

You’re frozen in place when a whistle rings in the distance, and Jake and Yunjin separate, giggling to each other as they jog to wherever the sound came from. The sports field, probably. It’s Monday; the cheerleaders and the soccer team share the field for their practice.

Jake spots you and Jongseong staring at them. He waves quickly, awkwardly at you, still smiling even when surprise coats his features. Yunjin tugs on his hand and just like that, they’re gone.

“Y/N-”

Jay’s voice fades in the background. You want to get away from this situation as quickly as possible—it’s embarrassing enough seeing the guy you like and thought you had a chance with kissing a girl that is arguably much more on his level than you are, but having Jongseong of all people not only witness it, but try to protect you from it, God knows why, makes it impossibly mortifying. You speed-walk to your dad’s car, huffing as you plop in your seat and slamming the door behind you. Your brother is already sitting in the passenger seat, and you don’t even argue with him about it. When you only give single-word replies to his questions, he shrugs and returns to playing Clash of Clans on his phone.

The moment you get home, you fish a five cent coin from your purse, change into mud boots and grab your dog’s leash. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

After half-an-hour of trudging through leaves and soft ground, muddy from many a rainy November night, you and Pablo, your massive, fluffy airhead of a German Shepherd, find yourselves at the well in the middle of the forest. Ever since you were little, you have attributed magic powers to the well—not that anyone told you any sort of myth about it, but you remember reading a story about a magic well and decided that your well would be magical, too. You’ve never wanted to abuse its powers, so you’ve used your wishes conscientiously: things like getting a certain present at Christmas (when you were nine and the most important thing ever was getting the Monster High doll you wanted) or not stuttering during your presentation in class (when you really didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of Park Sunghoon and his cool friends). Every wish you’ve made has come true. Whenever a faint voice of reason tells you that it’s because you always ask for very realistic things, you squash it and continue to believe in the well.

Because today, you’re not asking for something realistic.

Today, you’re asking the well to show you the way to love.

You’ve grown up watching The Notebook and Pride & Prejudice. Your parents are high school sweethearts who are still, twenty-five years later, happily married. You devour romance novels and binge-watch Asian dramas, the more unrealistic and romantic, the better. You are convinced that soulmates exist, that love always finds a way, that it is there for anyone to see. That it can take form in a childhood friend, an archnemesis, a total stranger.

But for some reason, it hasn’t shown itself to you yet, no matter how valiantly you’ve looked.

You’re absolutely sick and tired of it. It is Jake kissing another girl, it’s Sunghoon leading you on for months and then rejecting you in front of everyone, it’s your ex-boyfriend-who-shall-not-be-named, your first love and first heartbreak, dumping you after a year and getting with the girl he had told you not to worry about a week later. At a party a few months later, he’d said, word for word, “At least I didn’t cheat on you.”

Coin lodged between your hands, you interlace your fingers and press your palms closely together, eyes screwed shut in desperation. “Hey,” you start simply, because you and the well are good friends. “It’s been a while since I’ve asked for anything, so I hope you can indulge me… This is gonna sound so cliché, but I’m really tired of getting fucked over by boys — excuse my French — and I just wanna meet the person who’s right for me, you know? Mom’s always reminding me that I’m only eighteen, and that I’ve got plenty of time to meet someone, but I just feel like if I don’t find someone now, I never will. And if I get fucked over again — sorry — I’ll just lose hope and write off men for the rest of my life. So help a girl out, will you? I’ll leave it to you how you wanna go about it, but… just show me that there’s someone out there. Please.”

When you open your eyes, you need a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. You toss the coin in the well. It doesn’t make a sound as it hits the bottom, as if it has been absorbed within the old brick walls. You know better than to question it—the well works in mysterious ways.

You’re quiet that entire evening, making up an excuse of a tiring day at school when your parents ask. Really, you’re just thinking about your wish, whether it’ll work, what might happen. You half-ass your homework—Jay was right, the German exercises throw you into a bout of despair, so you quickly close your textbook and bury yourself in your sheets, falling asleep hours earlier than you usually would.

For some reason, the first thing you notice when you wake up is that it’s still dark outside. It must be the middle of the night, you think. It takes you a few seconds to realize that you’re in a completely strange room.

Instead of your floral-patterned sheets, you find yourself covered by delicate silk sheets that your parents would never agree to buy you, no matter how adamantly you argued for the benefits of silk for your skin. If skincare experts online had convinced you of one thing, it was that silk would do wonders for your obstinate acne. You slide out of bed and find a pair of slippers on the floor, as if waiting for you. Even the pajamas you’re wearing are fancier, more grown up than the ones you have at home, a set composed of a pinstriped button-up and shorts. You look around, for some reason more surprised and curious than panicked. You could’ve been kidnapped, for all you know, but all you care about right now is this room. Rather than the pink and white walls that have surrounded you since childhood, covered with pictures of you and your friends, postcards of artwork bought at museums, and posters of your favorite movies, the walls here are beige and mostly bare, except for a painting of Japanese cherry blossoms above the bed and a family portrait on the opposite wall, above a wooden chest of drawers.

The family portrait. A woman, a man, and what you can only assume are their children. They look like twins—two girls. Can’t be older than three years old. Out of the four faces, you recognize two of them. You recognize them far too well. One of them is yours, of course. You look slightly older, by a decade, maybe? You’re glad to know that you won’t fall off after twenty-five, like much of social media has led you to believe.

The other face you recognize immediately, too, but it takes you a few seconds to truly believe it.

It belongs to none other than Park Jongseong.

A dry chuckle falls from your throat, as if someone has just made a very insulting joke at your expense and you have to pretend you find it funny. The well has a very odd sense of humor, you think. It’s probably just a prank, a magic-induced nightmare before the real thing. Except this already feels real, disorientingly so. The fabric on your skin, the picture, the room. It all feels too real, more tangible than any dream you’ve ever had.

You take a step closer towards the picture, as if looking at it harder will make Jongseong’s face fade into that of another man, the real man that will become your husband and father of your children. But alas, his features remain the same, frozen in time by the photographer’s camera. He, too, looks older—and not only does he not fall off after twenty-five, he becomes all the more handsome for it.

Is this how you find out that Jongseong was handsome all along? You stare at it until the familiar face becomes practically unrecognizable, like repeating a word so much it stops feeling like one. The straight nose, the almond-shaped eyes that seem to have softened overtime, whereas his jaw has remained as sharp as ever. Have his eyebrows always framed his face so perfectly? Has that dimple always been there?

You look around again, and the bright numbers on the bedside alarm clock catches your attention. They read 9:57 p.m., but it’s the date that makes your stomach sink—today is still the 18th of November, but ten years later. You stare at the clock, at the unfamiliar number, a date so far into the future you can’t wrap your head around it. You could barely envision life after high school.

Downstairs, the sudden clang of pots and the sound of a tap running manage to rip your gaze away from the alarm clock. An overwhelming curiosity tells you to follow the noise. This is all a dream, so there are no consequences if you explore a bit more, right?

You’ve never been in this house before, and you have no idea where your feet are taking you until you find yourself in the kitchen. It’s the only lit room in the house, and you’re creepily standing in the dark under a wide archway that connects the kitchen to what looks like the dining room. A man has his back to you, washing dishes and putting them out to dry on a rack next to the sink. He’s wearing a white cotton sweater, one that you feel you recognise without ever having seen before, and a brown apron is tied around his neck and waist.

The first thing you think to yourself is Oh, his haircut hasn’t changed. In almost every class you share with him, Jongseong has made it a point to sit either next to you or right in front of you, so you’ve spent a lot of time glaring at the back of his head. You wouldn’t be surprised if he started developing two eye-shaped bald spots there. His hair is still short and spiky at the back and on the sides, longer on the top. When he lets it grow too long, it sometimes covers his eyes, and he obnoxiously keeps having to push it back like a heartthrob in an 80s movie.

Something like a memory flashes through your mind, blurry like those images you aren’t sure came from a dream or from real life. Your surroundings are unclear, but Jay’s face is nestled against your neck, your hand in his hair. You can feel the softness of the close shave against your palm as clearly as if you were touching it right now. You ask him why he’s always kept it that way, and he replies that it’s simple to maintain. Then in classic Jay fashion, he adds, “And it makes me look awesome.”

Another memory, a clearer one, this time—this definitely happened. It’s halfway through sophomore year, a random Tuesday, and Jay walks in, holding his head high and looking smugly around himself. The bastard got a new haircut. Long gone, his messy, unorganized flop of black hair that looked like it didn’t know what it was doing; hello, sleek undercut. It accentuates all of his best features, which is terrible news for you. You had never even thought of Jongseong as someone having “best” features, but now they’re being thrown in your face. His nose. His jawline. His smile.

It ruins your day, and a few after that. You can’t quite put it into words when your friends ask what’s wrong at lunch—or rather, you don’t wanna face the humiliation of uttering something along the lines of “Park Jongseong looks good with his new haircut, and it’s bothering me.”

Here, it’s a familiar sight in an unfamiliar environment, the back of his head. Without really thinking, you take a step forward. Jongseong starts at the sound of your slippers against the marble floor tiles, but his face relaxes into a smile when he sees you.

“Oh, it’s just you, honey. I thought you were sleeping.”

Just you. As if the two of you being in the same kitchen is normal. You guess it must be, to this version of Jongseong. To him, you’re not the annoying girl he strives to best in every class—you’re honey.

“I was,” you say, walking around the kitchen island to join him by the sink. Something in you needs to look at him, really look at him, maybe pinch yourself or pinch him to be sure you’re not going crazy. Maybe you caught wafts of some ancient algae that lives in the well and made you hallucinate?

“I left a plate out for you in case you woke up. Made your favorite. The girls weren’t so happy, seeing as it’s the third time this month,” he says with the special kind of smile reserved for parents talking about their children. The girls. A mention so casual, so obvious, your heart hurts. “But I think I got it really right this time,” he continues. “Honestly, it might even be better than the original.”

He goes back to washing the dishes and you watch the sponge in his hands as it scrubs away tomato sauce, the soap as it runs from the plates into the sink. A knot forms in your stomach, something like a deep sadness that overwhelms you all of a sudden, and tears form in your eyes, threatening to fall any second.

When you haven’t budged in almost a minute, Jongseong starts to say, in an intimate, almost worried voice, “Aren’t you going to eat, honey?” but when he sees your wet eyes, the tremble in your lower lip, he shuts the water immediately and dries his hands. With his thumbs, he wipes away the tears that have started falling from your eyes. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

You can’t reconcile the man in front of you with the image you have of the boy that torments you in every class you share. You can’t reconcile the genuine concern in his voice with the snarky tone you’re met with every day. And yet, they respond to the same name, their features are identical, if not for the years that separate them, the stress of adulthood on one and the carefreeness of youth on the other.

Your body reacts automatically to the soft touch—never in a million years would you let the Jongseong you know come near you like this, but here, nothing feels more natural than his hands on your face, your shoulders, your hair, as though they’re just as much his as they are yours. You realize the emotion in your stomach is not sadness—tears fall, but you’re not sad. You’ve never felt as home as you do now, and if one thing romantic novels have taught you, is that this must be love.

You look up at the man in front of you, eyebrows furrowed as you search his face for confirmation or some sort of an answer. There’s a tremble in your voice when you speak next. “I just… I think I love you, Jongseong.”

He chuckles. “Well, we established that a while ago, didn’t we? What with getting married and having kids. But I’m glad you still feel that way.”

The mention of marriage and children doesn’t faze you nearly as much as it should. You’ve only got one thing on your mind. “Do you love me too?”

You expect him to laugh—not out of cruelty, but because the answer is so obvious, it almost doesn’t deserve to be answered seriously. Like when your brother asks if he can have one more of your cookies and you tell him you’ll cut his hand off. Sometimes you think it’s easier to be sarcastic than be unabashedly nice to someone. Especially with Jongseong, whom you don’t expect kindness or patience from, you wait for him to stay something like, “No, that’s why I’ve stayed with you these eight years.”

So when instead, he says, “More than anything on this Earth,” voice low and vulnerable, tears flow even harder.

“Sorry, it’s probably just my period,” you say through sobs, although you have no idea where in her menstrual cycle this version of you is.

Jongseong chuckles again, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You do get emotional around this time.” And you cry more, because you can’t believe someone other than your mother knows you so well that they know what your period symptoms are.

Rubbing soothing circles against your back and whispering soft words in your ear, he holds you for as long as you need to calm down. When you finally do, he tells you to go sit on the couch, that he’ll finish up the dishes then heat and bring your food for you. You think you’ve got your emotions under control, but the moment you bite the pasta, cooked to perfection with the most succulent tomato sauce you’ve ever had, sweet with a little kick of spice and a generous amount of parmesan cheese, tears start to fall again as if you had an endless stock of water behind your eyes.

“This is so good,” you mumble.

Jongseong smiles, his gaze full of affection miraculously directed at you as he tucks away strands of your hair so they don’t get in your eyes or in your food. “I’m glad, baby.”

You react to the nickname viscerally, words tumbling out of your mouth before you can even understand them. “You haven’t called me that in ages.” You widen your eyes at yourself, wondering how this was something you even knew. But when you look at Jongseong, all he does is smile more.

“You’re right, I haven’t. I guess I was reminded of college. You cried all the time back then. As much as it pained me, I can’t say I wasn’t happy to be the one you always came to for comfort.”

You haven’t been through college yet, so you should be unable to tell whether this truly happened or not—and yet, the memories of the body you’re in all confirm what Jongseong just said. But it feels impossible—going to university with him, letting yourself be vulnerable enough with him to not only cry in front of him but let him comfort you. Whatever could have happened in the years between the present you know and your time at university for things to change so drastically?

But before you can make sense of any of it, Jongseong speaks again. “Why? Do you like it when I call you baby?”

Your stomach flips. Heat rises to your face at his words, the tone with which he said them, the things he was alluding to—you know that having children means you’d popped your cherry at some point, that you’d had sex with Jongseong specifically, but to be confronted with the fact was something else.

“Maybe,” you mumble, and proceed to stuff your mouth with pasta so that you can’t incriminate yourself further.

He puts on a recent movie, something you should arguably be paying attention to, since you’re literally getting a glimpse into the future of cinema—you could steal the idea, go back to your present and sell it for an outrageous price.

But Jongseong’s presence next to you makes it impossible to concentrate on anything but him. The warmth emanating from him, the scent of his perfume envelop you, give you a sense of just how real this all is—despite how comfortable being with him like this feels, you’re still not convinced you’re not just in an unsettlingly vivid dream. You take one of his hands in yours, examining each finger, turning his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm, smoothing your thumb over his nails—it’s an undeniably human hand. Warm against yours, slightly rough. He’s started using hand cream, you think, all these winters when his dry hands would crack because of the cold coming up to your mind, teenage Jongseong’s hard refusal to wear any sort of cream to protect himself. Memories bob up to the surface: fixing his cracked hands up with a plaster, your tear falling on his hand, the both of you in your school uniforms in what looks like the school infirmary; awkwardly gifting him some hand cream the Christmas of that year, not looking at him as you hand him the small package. Saying, “It’s a waste of plasters for something that could be fixed so easily.” Him treating you to warm, spicy tteokbokki because he felt bad for not having gotten you anything, even though this was the first time either of you had ever given the other one a present.

As your fingers trail up from his hand to his forearm, his shoulder, his jawline, more memories flood your mind. Clumsy first kisses; squabbles of the kind you were already used to; lazy mornings in bed; hours spent in your kitchen or his, before you shared one, cooking dinner together; the way you felt when he proposed, a feeling so intense remembering it is almost unbearable now. Your eyes and fingers examine his face in detail—even though you’ve seen him almost every day since the start of high school, this feels like the first time you really perceive him. The delicate bow of his lips, the strong nose, the softness in his eyes when he looks at you. Your heart beats uncontrollably as you hold each other’s gazes, but you feel inexplicably relaxed at the same time, two nearly opposing realities fighting each other inside of you—one in which you and Jongseong regarding each other with such affection is unthinkable, the other in which it is daily routine.

“Movie not to your taste?” he asks, voice gentle, breaking you out of your stupor.

“Hm?”

He nods towards the TV screen. “I see you’re not paying much attention.”

“No. I have… things on my mind.”

He raises an eyebrow, a smirk slowly growing on his lips. “Yeah?” You think your heart might actually flatline when he brings you in closer to his chest, and, face buried in your hair, says, “You know, I’ve been thinking that the twins might want a younger sibling to play with soon enough…”

You’re not sure whether he actually wants a third child or if this is weird dirty talk that apparently turns parents on—all you know is that this is something future you will deal with, not high school senior you.

You whip up your head at him, eyes wide in panic that he mirrors immediately. “Or—or not. Later. Later?” You nod fervently, and the worry dissipates from his handsome features. “Okay, later,” he whispers, kissing the top of your head before returning his attention to the movie.

A couple hours later, you’re laying in bed in the dark together—you can tell Jongseong is falling asleep by the regularity of his breathing and his stillness, but you’re wide awake. You don’t know how you’ve managed to spend all this time with him, acting like the wife he knows and loves, without imploding. But suddenly, the idea of waking up in your childhood bed, surrounded by your pink-and-white walls, going downstairs to be greeted by your brother and parents, sends a wave of panic through you. You haven’t felt this comfortable in a long time—Jongseong’s arm draped over your waist, the fact that you could reach over and feel his skin against your palm if you wanted. You don’t want to go back to a time where you hate him. In fact, you don’t know if you could hate him after this.

“Jongseong?” you say softly, the syllables unfamiliar on your tongue, even though the name rings brusquely through your head for the best part of every day.

It takes a few seconds, but he reacts eventually. “Hm? Did you just call me Jongseong?” he murmurs sleepily, as if you’d just called him Robert or Christopher and not the name his own parents gave him.

“Yeah.”

He chuckles. “Now that’s something you haven’t called me in ages. Makes me feel like you’re mad at me,” he says, turning over and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His hair tickles your skin, and one of your hands comes up reflexively to feel the softness of his close shave.

“...Jong?” you try.

“That’s a step up, but not quite what I want,” he mumbles.

You’re silent for a few moments. “Honey,” you say tentatively, voice a mere whisper.

“That’s better.” You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Mh-hm. It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“No,” you say, feeling out of breath. “I mean, will you be here?”

You’re aware you’re not making much sense—and yet, Jongseong needs no further explanation. “Of course, baby,” he starts, voice soothing. “I’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day afterwards. ‘Til death do us part, remember?”

You let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too,” you find yourself saying, and, more importantly, meaning. It’s the last thing either of you says before falling asleep.

Tears are streaming down your face when you wake up the next day. When you open your eyes, pink and white obnoxiously stare back at you. The clock reads 7:12, just three minutes before your alarm goes off, and unfortunately for high school you, the night hasn’t given in to Saturday morning—it’s Tuesday, and you have to go to school and act as if you hadn’t just had the weirdest, most realistic dream of your life. You don’t even get a weekend to shake this weird feeling in your stomach off, you’re going to have to face Park Jongseong full force. At least, this will become your friends’ favorite bit for the foreseeable future.

They’re already sitting in the classroom when you get there, animatedly chatting to each other. You plop down in your seat in front of them, and when they see the sullen look on your face, ask you what’s wrong.

“Did you wake up during the night to play Hay Day again?” Kazuha asks, eyebrows knotted with genuine worry.

“I’m not that person anymore,” you reply. “No, I just had a really weird dream. More like a nightmare, really. It feels like I didn’t get any sleep.”

“What was it about?” Sunoo asks.

Your eyes dart back-and-forth between the two of them as you brace yourself for their reactions. Not wanting anyone else to overhear, you lean in conspiratorially. They mirror you. “I was married to Park Jongseong,” you whisper. As expected, they burst into laughter immediately, and you lean back in your seat, crossing your arms in annoyance. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s very funny,” Kazuha retorts. “It’s ironic, even, considering how much you hate the guy.”

“Exactly!”

“But I guess even you know how ridiculous it is that you hate him, if your brain is able to imagine yourself being married to him,” Sunoo adds, shrugging. “It’s a good reminder that you’re literally the only person in this school with a vendetta against him.”

Kazuha nods energetically. “He picked up a pen for me, once. He’s a nice guy.”

You look around the room in panic. “Keep it down, will you?” you hush, despite the fact that no one is paying any attention to the three of you. You sigh, resolving yourself to telling them the entire truth. “But guys, I’m scared. I think this might be a sign.”

Their eyebrows perk up. “A sign that your hatred of him has actually been disguising a crush this entire time?” Sunoo asks, feigning innocence.

“No—what? Where did you get that idea?”

“Nowhere. Go on.”

“Whatever. Come here,” you say, gesturing for them to huddle again. “It’s the well.”

“Oh my God, Y/N, you’ve actually lost it,” Kazuha says, fascinated by your stupidity.

“I’m not going to tolerate any well slander, this is serious. I just wanted it to reassure me that there was someone out there for me. And then I had that stupid dream.”

Kazuha and Sunoo exchange a look like they’re parents trying to announce to their daughter that she’s adopted. “Y/N…” Sunoo starts.

“This is crazy. Like, love philters and writing Park Sunghoon’s name a hundred times are one thing, this is…”

“Crazy,” Sunoo said, nodding along. “This is crazy. There’s no other word for it. Your eighteen years of boyfriendlessness have finally caught up to you.”

“You guys don’t get it. What about that time I asked it to give me a good grade on our Literature exam and I literally came first out of our class? Or when I told it I missed Jung Hae-in and his military discharge announcement came the next day?” you say, aware that the look in your eyes is only confirming their suspicions—but you need someone to believe you, or at the very least understand you.

“One, you’re a good student. Two, that was pure coincidence,” Sunoo explains.

“But girl, if you want to marry Jay, that’s fine. You’ve got our blessing,” Kazuha says, shrugging.

“Yeah. He picked up her pen, once,” Sunoo adds.

“And you know, you guys clearly have some sort of chemistry.”

You scoff. “If you think that him refuting my every word and finding every opportunity to make fun of me, then yeah, I guess you could say we have chemistry.”

“You guys have banter,” Kazuha says as if it’s obvious.

“Oh, please. Banter is cute. I want to kill him every time he opens his mouth.”

Your friends both roll their eyes. “While I understand that most men are better off staying quiet—no offense, Sunoo—”

“None taken.”

“You have to admit Jay is not nearly as insufferable as you make him out to be,” Kazuha says.

“Are you kidding me? He’s always acting like a child. Rubbing it in my face when he gets a better grade, trying to start arguments for no reason, sucking up to teachers, stealing my erasers, for God’s sake, you’d think he’s twelve. I know that I’m not on the majority's side, but I seriously cannot understand how other people tolerate him at all.”

Sunoo sighs. “Because he’s nice to everyone. He never hesitates to help people, he’s even funny, sometimes, and—well, look at him.” He nods his head towards the door, and when you turn around, Jongseong is indeed walking in the classroom. “He’s not a bad-looking boy.”

“Gosh, Sunoo, maybe you should marry him,” Kazuha says, but since you laid your eyes on Jongseong, you’ve stopped listening.

You feel weird. You look at him, and you feel weird. It’s the same feeling you had during your sleep last night, a feeling that paralyzes you from head to toe, that starts in your stomach and spreads to your entire body, weighs you down in your chair.

“Hey, guys,” he greets simply, and his voice wraps itself around your heart and squeezes. You can’t do anything but watch him as he takes his seat next to you, plopping his bag on the table and taking his notebook out. He looks at you, watches you watching him, then swivels around in his chair.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks your friends.

“She had a dream that she m—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Zuha, if you want to live to see another day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replies, a satisfied little smile on her lips.

Despite yourself, you’re still staring at Jongseong, trying to figure out what the hell these emotions are that are raging up a storm inside of you. Instead of ignoring you, he turns to face you, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm as he stares back at you, smirking. “What’s up, Y/N? Has it finally dawned on you how devastatingly handsome I am?” he asks, and you frown, because he’s not so far off from the truth.

“Please, kids, it’s 9 a.m., don’t flirt right in front of us,” Sunoo says, despair in his voice.

“She’s the one who started it,” Jongseong replies, still looking at you, his smirk growing.

For some reason, this startles you out of your trance, and you look away from him like you’ve been burned, preoccupying yourself instead with your notes for this class. “In your dreams, Jongseong,” you mumble.

“More like in yours,” Kazuha says, her and Sunoo giggling.

“Zuha!” you exclaim. Jongseong looks at you with raised eyebrows, and with his infuriating capacity to put two and two together, you’re scared he’s figured out what she meant, but you’re literally saved by your teacher who walks in at that moment and starts the class.

The second the bell rings to signify the end of the class, you hurriedly pack your things and mutter an excuse about needing the bathroom, trying to get as far away as possible from the boy whose all-too familiar scent had messed with your thoughts all class, whose every brush of his arm against yours had made your heart race uncontrollably.

It hadn’t just been a dream. It couldn’t have been.

Just like there was no doubt the 28-year-old Jongseong from last night had once been the annoying boy you knew, the 18-year-old Jongseong was sure to one day become the husband of your dreams. A devoted partner and father, his presence comforting, his good looks indeed devastating, unwavering.

There was no mistake to be made. The well had worked its magic.

Whether you liked it or not, you would end up marrying Park Jongseong. You, of all people; him, of all people.

Was there already something of your future husband in the boy that snickered when you mixed up your genders in German class, or would he one day spring out of nowhere? Apparently, you’d be around to find out.

But for now, how to act around him? It felt unfair that you were privy to this knowledge of your shared future while he was ignorant of it. Blissfully, perhaps. You couldn’t imagine that he would rejoice much at this news.

Your mind is somewhere else the entire day. At lunch, your other friends try to get the thing that’s obviously bothering you out of you, but Kazuha and Sunoo are there to tell them not to bother. You’d needed to tell someone about it, but you don’t want the entire school to know about your marital premonitions. The two knuckleheads you call your best friends are already doing a good enough job teasing you about it—”There’s your husband, Y/N,” when Jongseong walks past; “So have you thought of baby names? Kayleigh and Mackayleigh, perhaps?” unsolicited, during Physics. You turn around to check on the culprit — because yes, Jongseong is the culprit here, you, a mere a victim — and when he notices you staring, nods at you as if to say, What’s your problem?, trying to look threatening in his white lab coat that’s three sizes too big and protective goggles.

It doesn’t help that Jongseong has a way of hovering around you. Even in classes in which your teachers assigned the seats for you, he’s never far from your seat. The two of you sit next to each other in German, your last class every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. But today, the seat next to you is empty—what would’ve been a cause for celebration just yesterday is now a source of worry. You’d seen him just two hours ago in your previous class together, so where the hell was he now? He’s lucky that your teacher is an old German lady who always spends the first ten minutes of the lesson rambling about something in dialectal German no one understands but nods along to anyway. When he walks into the room, five minutes late, she just says, “Hallo, Jay,” and continues with her story. It’s about her first school trip to Berlin when she was fifteen and the country was still divided. You think.

He winks at you when he takes his seat and you roll your eyes. You pretend to listen to your teacher for thirty seconds, then hit him gently with your elbow. “Where were you?” you ask without looking at him.

He doesn’t answer immediately, probably surprised you initiated a non-hostile conversation with him for once. “I was just hanging out with my friends, something you clearly wouldn’t understand.”

And your friends wondered why you hated him?

“Still having imaginary friends at eighteen is really concerning, Jongseong. You should see someone about it.”

When you glance at him, he’s already looking right at you, smiling. You’ve never felt so conscious of your side profile.

“Why? Were you worried?” he whispers, kicking your foot with his.

You look at him, horrified—where the hell had he gotten that idea? How was he so spot-on? You scoff, trying to diffuse the tension inside yourself. “No.”

He kicks your foot again. “I was five minutes late and you started to worry?”

“No. Stop.”

“I didn’t know you cared about me so much, Y/N.”

This time, you give him a harsh look, one that lets him know you really mean your words—“Stop it.” Finally, he relents, getting the assigned homework out now that the teacher has actually started the lesson. Your face softens—he looks hurt. Guilt tugs at your heartstrings.

Despite what you might say, you like the way things are with Jongseong. If some people always need to be crushing on someone, you always need to have someone you perceive as an enemy—it was Na Jaemin in elementary school, because he’d once made fun of your incapability to climb the monkey bars; Shin Ryujin, in middle school, for kissing your crush during a game of spin-the-bottle at your own birthday party; Park Jongseong, since freshman year, for simply existing. Your reasons for disliking him are trivial, you’ll admit. You weren’t sure you could even place a finger on what had first triggered your disdain towards him—one too many awful jokes, one too many times raising his hand in class and rattling off a perfect answer, then looking around himself proudly, one too many roars of laughter heard throughout the entire cafeteria. The fact that no one else seemed to be bothered by him only added to your aggravation. He just got on your nerves, and it seemed that you openly showing your dislike of him — him, who was so used to being loved by everyone around him, pampered by his family, praised by his teachers, popular among his peers — was enough to make him dislike you, too. So, after a few failed attempts at trying to be your friend, because Jongseong was unable to not be friends with everyone he met, he didn’t simply give up.

If he couldn’t be your friend, then fine, he’d be your enemy.

At least, that’s how it appears to you, still now. It’s never gone dangerously far, but if there’s an opening to tease you or get on your nerves, he’ll do it. Not passing you the ball during soccer, or conversely, only aiming for you during dodgeball, not sharing his textbook with you when you forgot it unless you beg, loudly clearing his throat when you speak in class. And, lately, pouring salt on your wounds in the form of reminding you how impossible you and Jake Sim are. His motto must be if there’s a will, there’s a way. And when it comes to making your life hell, his will is infinite.

Everything is upside-down now. The question of how your relationship can possibly go from this to that obsesses you. It feels like you’re more capable of sharing a funeral, dying at each others’ hands, than a wedding.

“Jong, your textbook.”

He squints at you. “Funny how I’m Jongseong when you hate me, Jong when you need a textbook,” he says, sliding his book closer to himself.

“It’s not my fault your name is a mouthful,” you retort, trying to pull it back to the middle of the table, but he’s quicker than you.

“Then maybe you should call me Jay, like everyone else on Earth.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Now give it here. Please?” you ask, mustering your best smile. Any other teacher would’ve scolded the two of you by now, but Ms. Schumacher is peacefully going on about the importance of word order and punctuation in the German sentence, oblivious to her two students bickering in the back row. Jongseong usually never sits at the back of the classroom—only here.

He gives in, smiling back, but there’s something behind it, something that tells you nothing good is brewing in his brain. “Only because you’re so pretty.”

Normally, this kind of remark would’ve warranted a slap on the arm or an array of insults, but if today is anything, it is not normal. You look at him like you’ve been stung, visions of your not-dream coming to you in flashes like you’re the titular character on That’s So Raven—the affection in your husband’s eyes, the kindness in his words, the sincerity in his smile. Again, you’re left to wonder if this man is already taking root inside of the boy next to you, if Jongseong’s future capacity to love you presently exists in his heart.

Does your future capacity to love him already exist in your heart?

You watch as his smirk softens into a grin, your flusteredness and lack of a response clearly amusing him, then as he circles the exercises Ms. Schumacher is assigning for the lesson. She seems to have forgotten there was homework due—Jongseong will be sure to remind her of it quickly.

He kicks your foot again, tells you to focus. His ears have turned red.

You wonder if those capacities haven’t existed from the start.

As much as you love a good friends-to-lovers story, characters hiding their feelings out of fear of ruining the friendship have never failed to frustrate you — just tell her, you dummy, it’s obvious she likes you too — and yet, you’ve never related more than now.

Whatever it is that you and Jongseong have, you don’t want to lose it. It adds entertainment to your otherwise average life.

“Good thing she didn’t pick on you while we went over the homework, ‘cause you clearly put zero effort in. And I wouldn’t have helped you, even if you’d asked, by the way.”

You hum absent-mindedly as you put your notebook and pencil holder in your bag. Are you sure that these are even your feelings in the first place? Just because the well put a silly idea in your head doesn’t mean you have to believe it like it’s scripture. If what you saw is real, then it will happen in its own time. Things don’t have to start changing right this instant.

“Gosh, Y/N, what’s up with you today? You’re so boring,” Jongseong continues, following you out of the classroom.

“Just tired,” you reply. Wouldn’t it be unnatural if you were to radically alter the way you behave with Jongseong? Love should come about organically. Sure, his presence has always provoked some kind of reaction within you, but that’s usually been annoyance. Whether he’s stealing the fifth eraser you’ve bought that month or running on the soccer field, beads of sweat running down his temples, hair sticking out everywhere, victoriously smiling when his team scores—you’re annoyed. Whether he’s sticking up his hand higher than yours or going to the school dance with Ahn Yujin—you’re annoyed. When you learned that she’d been his neighbor since infancy and that she had a boyfriend, who went to another school and only trusted Jongseong to take her to the dance, you were still annoyed—this time at yourself for feeling even the tiniest bit relieved that nothing was going on between them.

And this — his quick steps trying to keep up with yours, his dumb story about yogurt coming out of Heeseung’s nose today at lunch when they were laughing too hard — yes, you’re still annoyed. But you realize you’re not annoyed at him.

You’re annoyed at how he makes you feel.

“Y/N?” he says, but you’re too deep in your thoughts, only vaguely registering the sound until he repeats it, louder this time, and grabs your hand, making you abruptly stop walking. “Are you sure everything’s okay?” he asks with genuine concern in his voice. “You’re barely listening to me. I mean, it’s not like you usually really do, but you’d have told me to get lost, like, five minutes ago now…”

He chuckles self-deprecatingly, but despite his words, you’re focusing on something else yet again. His hand on yours, his loose hold on your fingers. Your brain is yelling at you—hold his hand, hug him. It’s like there are still traces of the 28-year-old version of you you visited yesterday, urging you to behave like her and not 18-year-old you.

So, the well had let you know that you need not look much further to find what you wanted. Here it is, in the form of a boy you have convinced yourself you hated, and hated you, and yet, he’s holding your hand, asking you if you’re okay, worry knotting his eyebrows together.

Hold his hand. Hug him. Instead, you retract your hand, let it fall limply by your side. Jongseong’s eyebrows shoot up.

He’s so close, the supposed love of your life. You don’t know how to reach out to him.

For now, you smile. “Get lost, Jong.”

you guys how the hell do i act around jongseong now that i know our fates are romantically intertwined

kazuha i think not treating him like the number one public enemy would be a good start

you so what… be nice to him? how do i do that

sunoo oh my god y/n when she has to treat another person like a regular human being

you he’s not just another person!

sunoo okayyyyy i see you little miss repressed feelings

you i hate u

kazuha just don’t roll your eyes at everything he says anymore and don’t start arguments for no reason

you he’s the one who starts them… but okay i’ll try

“Let’s pair up for the reading analysis today. You can stay with your deskmate or pick a partner, I don’t mind as long as you get the work done. I’m talking about you, Chaewon and Yuri. This is English class, not a gossip session.”

The second your English teacher has finished speaking, Jongseong swivels in his chair. “Let’s partner up, Y/N?”

“What about me?” Jake asks, eyes darting back-and-forth between the two of you.

“You can partner up with Minju,” Jongseong replies, pointing to the girl he’s usually seated next to. “Look. You guys will be great together. Say hi, Minju.” Minju waves shyly at Jake, braces on display as she smiles ecstatically. It’s not everyday that she gets to talk to one of the most popular guys in school.

Jake reluctantly switches seats with him, glancing back at you and Jongseong who just grins at him, fake friendliness plastered on his lips, until he turns around again. Your new partner’s smile softens and reaches his eyes when he looks at you. “Hi.”

You have to look away—you feel your face burn under his gaze. “Hi, Jong.”

He tilts his head. “What? Do you hate me so much that you can’t even look at me now?” he asks, and you can’t tell whether he’s joking or genuine.

You frown. “I don’t hate you.”

“Oh? That’s a recent development.”

“I guess,” you mumble after a few seconds. Is it really? You suddenly can’t remember if you ever really hated him, or if you’d exaggerated your own feelings.

His smile widens. “Well, good. I mean, you were going to have to realize at some point that I really am funny, smart, endearing, handsome-”

“Back to hating.”

“Let’s start the assignment.”

You agree on reading the passage first, but you realize halfway through that not a single word has been absorbed. “Hey. Why did you switch seats with him?” you ask, whispering so as not to be overheard.

Jongseong shrugs. “I thought you wouldn’t want to work with him, considering…”

“Right.” You’re silent again, but only for a bit. “What’s it to you?” you mumble.

He scoffs. “Sorry for trying to be considerate.”

“That’s not—”

“Let’s just focus on this.”

His sudden coldness vexes you. You know you should let it go — don’t start arguments for no reason, and all that — and you know it’s childish, but you can’t help yourself. You have certain reflexes you’re not particularly proud of when it comes to one Park Jongseong. “Let’s just focus on this,” you repeat, mocking his grumbling tone of voice and shaking your head like a puppet.

He glares at you. “Can you not act like a toddler for once?”

“Can you not be a dick for once?” you bite back.

“Y/N, Jongseong, I’m sure you’re having a fascinating conversation on the use of chiaroscuro in the text?” your teacher asks, a look of warning on his face.

“Yes, sir,” you reply, embarrassed.

“Yes, so much chiaroscuro,” Jongseong mumbles, resting his cheek on his knuckles. When the teacher has turned away, he kicks your foot. “See, you’re getting us in trouble.”

“Do you even know what chiaroscuro is?”

He hesitates. “That’s not the problem here. You are.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t-”

“Y/N, Jay, final warning.”

“Sorry,” you both say at the same time. With one last glare at each other, you finally get to work.

So your plan to start getting along with Jongseong isn’t in full-force yet. On the drive back home that afternoon, you reassure yourself that these things take time. When the moment is right, the two of you will grow closer.

But increasingly, it feels as though the right moment will never come.

Two months have passed since your visit to the well, and things between you and Jongseong have not changed. Not really, at least.

You still bicker like cat and dog — it goes without saying that you’re the cute puppy and he’s the heartless cat — and he gets as much on your nerves as ever, especially now that you know that the potential to be nice to you, to love you, even, exists somewhere inside him. Somewhere deeply hidden perhaps, but somewhere nonetheless. Of course, after telling yourself that what must come will come of its own accord, you haven’t done much to change the dynamic between the two of you. But if you used to see your retaliations against him as necessary to your survival, you now find some sort of enjoyment in them—some might call it Stockholm Syndrome, you perceive it as a step in the right direction. You’ve followed one of Kazuha’s pieces of advice: you don’t roll your eyes at him anymore, simply because you don’t feel the need to. You argue with him with a smile on your face, his attempts at insulting or annoying you have started to make you laugh.

He doesn’t say anything but seems to gladly welcome this change. If you get a lower grade than him on a test, he doesn’t try to stick the knife in further, but genuinely offers to go over it with you later. If you give in after two hours of tearing your hair out over a German exercise and text him for help, he doesn’t make fun of you. If he says something particularly arrogant or makes a really bad joke, all you need to do is give him a look, and he’ll mumble an apology.

Could it have been like this the entire time? you wonder, watching him across the schoolyard as he and Heeseung hunt for Pokémon. Just a couple months ago, you would’ve scrunched your nose at the sight, making fun of him for his childish interests. Now, you notice the way he laughs, audible all the way to where you sit with Kazuha and Sunoo, the way he jumps excitedly and points at things only he and his friend see, and all you feel is endearment.

“Look at you, look at that,” Sunoo says as he hits you on the forehead with his metal spoon, startling you. He tuts. “You’ve got love dripping from your eyes, sweetie.”

“Sunoo, that’s disgusting.”

“Love? I know.”

“No, your spoon. Your saliva’s all over that,” you say, and all he does is eat another mouthful of his yogurt while staring wide-eyed right at you. When you look back at Jongseong, he’s high-fiving Heeseung. You wonder which creature he’s caught now. In the library yesterday, he spent thirty minutes showing you every single one he had captured so far instead of revising for the upcoming Physics test.

“Yeah, we know you’d like someone else’s saliva more,” Kazuha chimes in, and the two of them snort.

“It’s not like that,” you say, biting into an apple slice.

“Oh yeah? What’s it like, then?” Kazuha asks.

“We’re… becoming friends,” you say, but you’re not sure who you’re trying to convince more.

“Y/N, I’ve had to watch the two of you giggling to yourselves in the library one too many times to believe you’re friends. I know your homework’s not that funny,” Sunoo argues.

“Friends can giggle with each other!” you exclaim, but your friends are inflexible.

“I would tell you to get yourself together if you giggled at me like that,” he says.

“I saw you twirl your hair the other day,” Kazuha adds.

“I never—When?!”

She shrugs. “The other day.”

You deflate, crushed under your friends’ accusations. “I wouldn’t twirl my hair…” you mumble. You decide to busy yourself with your apple slices, not even bothering to find out what Kazuha and Sunoo start snickering and elbowing each other about.

“Hey,” a familiar voice greets, making you look up. Jongseong smiles at you and steals an apple slice from your tupperware as he sits down next to you, Heeseung across from him.

“Hi, Jong,” you say, sitting up straighter. You offer a piece of fruit to Heeseung but he declines, saying he doesn’t like apples without peanut butter.

In front of you, your friends exchange a look, and you’re immediately terrified of what they’ll do next. Leaning in, they place their elbows on the table, and Kazuha starts them off. “Jay, you and Y/N know each other pretty well, right?”

Jongseong glances at you, eyes wide. “Uh, sure.”

“Have you ever noticed her, say, twirling her hair?” Sunoo asks, tilting his head innocently at the poor boy by your side.

You’ve never seen him look so confused. “Um, yeah, she does that when she’s concentrating on something, sometimes…”

They lean back. “Huh,” Kazuha says, studying Jongseong’s face.

“Interesting. Very interesting,” Sunoo says, slowly nodding.

You glare at your friends. “See, that’s different,” you tell them. “I was concentrating on something, not doing… whatever you guys had in mind.”

Jongseong looks at you. “What did they have in mind?”

You answer before either of them can dig your grave any deeper. “Nothing. It’s nothing. We were just having a stupid conversation.” You muster your most convincing smile, and the subject is finally dropped.

No one says anything for a few moments, until Heeseung decides to speak up: “You should’ve seen Jay earlier, Y/N. He caught this super rare version of Pikachu earlier, it was awesome.”

“Dude…” Jongseong murmurs.

“What?” Heeseung asks, his enthusiasm quickly dissolving into confusion. Jongseong just shakes his head. Thankfully for all of you, the bell rings then, and you head to class. The three of them walk in front of you while you and Jongseong fall back a step.

“Why were you guys sitting outside? It’s freezing today,” he asks you. Walking side-by-side like this, you can’t help but notice the inches he has over you, the broadness of his shoulders in comparison to yours.

“They turned the heat way too high in the cafeteria, so we came outside for some fresh air,” you explain. He’s right, the air is chilly today—it’s a few days into December, and the temperatures have been accordingly low.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Your heart skips a beat. One of the side effects of not being at each other’s throat anymore was that you got more and more often to be privy to this side of Jongseong—attentive, considerate, kind. What you once thought were his moral attempts at not being so mean to you all the time, you found out was actually his real nature. He wasn’t a prick who was sometimes nice, he was a nice person who turned into a prick with you. Whether the fault lay on him or you was another debate.

“No, I’m alright,” you say, but your body decides to betray you and makes you sneeze three times in a row.

“Bless you,” Jongseong says, laughing. “Here.” You try to stop him, pushing his hands away, but he takes his gloves off and forces them in your palms.

“I’m going to be inside for the next four hours, Jong, I’ll be fine. Keep them.”

“No, it’s okay. Just so you can warm up quicker.”

You eventually give in, putting the gloves over your hands, laughing at the extra fabric that hangs off the tip of your fingers. But when you look at Jongseong’s now-bare hands, something catches your attention. Stopping in the hallway, you grab one of them, examining the cuts on his knuckles. “You need to wear hand cream, Jong, your hands are too chapped.”

He lets you turn his hand over, smooth over his skin, do the same thing with his other hand. “Men don’t wear hand cream,” he says, a grin on his lips.

You burst out laughing. “I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Seriously, though, I don’t like the way it feels. Too sticky.”

“You just need to get a quick-absorption one.” Then, you make the terrible mistake of looking up from his hand and meeting his eyes—you gasp silently, his gaze and soft smile transporting you right back to that night, the images of 28-year-old and 18-year-old Jongseong mixing into each other, becoming indistinct from each other. Your gaze drifts down to his lips — chapped, too, when they’re usually plumper, rosier — and his hand, still in yours, balls into a fist. The second bell rings and you both take a step back, eyes meeting again for a brief moment before looking down at the floor. With uncharacteristically shy, embarrassed words of parting, you make your separate ways to your next classes.

“That was beautiful, Y/N,” Sunoo says, waiting for you by the door, and you walk past him without so much as a glance.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

sunoo jay and y/n almost kissed earlier

kazuha WHAAAAT

you KIM SUNOO.

kazuha WHEN?????

sunoo right before class after the lunch break y/n was sooo embarrassed afterwards lol

you we did NOT almost kiss you’re talking out of your ass

kazuha i can’t believe i missed this fml

you YOU DIDNT MISS ANYTHING NOTHING HAPPENED

sunoo be serious u guys we’re standing inches apart

you were* and no we weren’t

sunoo oh stfu it was autocorrect i saw it w my own eyes y/n… you WERE literally holding his hand and staring into those beautiful eyes of his

kazuha sunoo…?

sunoo what can’t a man acknowledge another man’s objective attractiveness if i was y/n i would’ve folded the moment i saw him

you literally one of the first times he talked to me was to make fun of my handwriting

sunoo yeah he’s on his tsundere shit i fw it

you …

sunoo anyways zuha you shouldve seen it when the bell rang they practically leaped away from each other and u didnt know what to do w yourselves afterwards likeeee it was so obvi what you both were thinking of

kazuha cuuuute

you i resent these accusations.

sunoo istg if u dont kiss him next time i will

kazuha ???

you SUNOO?

sunoo WHAT

Something happens a few days before the start of winter break.

Ms. Schumacher is absent, gone off to Germany to visit her family there—she has enough seniority in the school that they let her abandon her responsibilities as a teacher once in a while. A week is too short a period of time for them to bother finding a substitute. It’s usually your last class of the day, but you have to wait around for your dad to be done working, so while most of your classmates have gone home early, you sit with about six other people in the unsupervised study room, absent-mindedly jotting down tid-bits of dialogue for your new story idea, too preoccupied with Jongseong’s absence to really pay attention to anything else. It’s fifteen minutes after the hour, but he’s nowhere to be found, although you know for a fact that he takes those weird Molecular Gastronomy cooking classes your Chemistry teacher offers for extra credit every Thursday after school, so he should be here. And anyways, if he’d gone home, he would’ve texted you something like, Have fun sitting around for an hour, I’m gonna go do awesome stuff with Heeseung, even if awesome stuff meant playing Mario Kart or drinking Sprite and holding a two-person burping contest.

You’re so engrossed in your own thoughts that you pay no mind to the sudden ding of a phone in the room, followed by some gasps and heated whispers. The exchanged words go through one ear and out the other—There was a fight? In the locker rooms? It must be bad if they were sent to the nurse before the principal… Huh? Over who? So he took both of them on? Damn, I didn’t know Jay got like that. He seems so well-behaved.

Your head whips up at the mention of your friend’s name. “Jay? Did something happen to him?” you ask out loud, the whispers dying down immediately as everybody stares at you.

Gaeul, who was in your class last year, is the only one who answers you. Holding up and waving her phone, she says, “They say he got into a fight.”

Jongseong? A fight? It sounds like a practical joke. He admitted to you he once started crying watching Heeseung playing Call of Duty, it was so violent. You shake your head. “He-he did? With who?”

Gaeul and the girl next to her exchange a concerned, almost guilty look. “Jake and Sunghoon.” The crease between your eyebrows deepened. You don’t need to ask anything else before she adds, “They’re at the nurse’s station. It sounds pretty bad…”

That’s enough for you to leap out of your chair and run to the nurse’s station. It seems the news has spread impossibly quickly among your year group—even Kazuha and Sunoo are already blowing your phone, asking you if you’ve heard, if you know how Jay is. You ignore them, reminding yourself to text them back later, until one message from Sunoo in particular catches your attention: It apparently started because Sunghoon said something about you, Y/N. They’re saying Jay got angry.

The nurse is busy on the phone when you get there, her back to the entrance, so you’re able to slip in unnoticed. You head to the adjoining room where the beds are, all three of them taken—you walk by Sunghoon first, his arms crossed over his chest and pointedly not looking at you, then by Jake, who calls out your name. You glare at him and pull on the white plastic curtain that separates his bed from Jongseong’s. They’re already going to hear you, you don’t need them seeing you on top of that.

Jongseong sits up with a grunt when you appear at the end of his bed. The sight of him makes your stomach flip, and not in a good way, for once—his left eye is swollen and circled by a deep purple bruise, shiny with ointment, there’s a cut on his cheek, his lower lip is busted, his right hand is wrapped in bandages. “Oh my God,” you whisper as you help him up, voice breaking. He stares at his hands, jaw locking when you gently place one palm on his good hand, the other on the side of his face, moving it this way and that so you can take a better look at his injuries. He winces, and you let go, resting your hand on his shoulder instead. “What the hell got into you?” you whisper vehemently, unable to decide if you’re worried or angry or both as tears form in your eyes.

He tries to shrug, but even that seems to hurt. “Don’t shrug, Jongseong, tell me what happened.”

“I’m Jongseong again now?” he says, attempting a smile, but only one corner of his lips rises.

You sigh. Even in this state, he has to be a smart-ass. “You’re Jong when I need a textbook, Jongseong when you get into stupid fights,” you reply, and he smiles wider but immediately winces, hand coming up to the cut on his lip. You notice that his hand is still riddled with cracks, and whether they’re due to their dryness or to this fight doesn’t matter—”Wait here,” you say, and go rummage through some drawers for plasters. “She forgot some spots.” You feel Jongseong’s eyes on your face as you patch him up to the best of your abilities.

“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I’ll do the job of hating these idiots for the both of us, so don’t concern yourself with them,” he says, apparently not caring that the idiots in question can hear his every word.

He keeps his promise—you never hear another word from him about the cause of the fight.

Later, you find out through other means, namely Sunoo’s questionably remarkable ability to unearth any and all gossip, that in the locker rooms after Phys Ed, someone had started Jake on the topic of Yunjin, who had been recently revealed as his girlfriend. They’d apparently kept it secret because it was just fooling around at first, and only later had gotten serious enough for them to parade around the school as the couple.

It had been an unremarkable conversation until Jake said, “You guys know Y/N from our class? She saw us in the staff parking lot once, and I was sure we’d be busted then. But she didn’t tell anyone.” And just like that, the conversation turned to you, someone who was usually never a topic among these boys, jocks, soccer players, “the kind of people who peak in high school and still have a superiority complex at forty,” as Sunoo describes them.

He has a harder time explaining what happened next, can’t quite look you in the eye as he recounts what was said. “So, this is what they say, apparently someone said that you used to be obsessed with Sunghoon, then with Jake, and Sunghoon said you… Well, he said you were pathetic, that asshole, and that you had been so easy to lead on, then Jake joined in, saying the same things, basically, how funny it was seeing you so obviously in love with him when he would never give you a chance…” He looks at you worriedly, but you tell him to go on. “And so that’s when Jay got up and just straight-up punched Jake in the face. And while Jake was trying to figure out what happened, Jay punched Sunghoon, and then they both got on him, pushing him, but when he wouldn’t stop throwing punches, they started fighting, too. I think they all got some good ones in before the other boys were able to break them apart and the P.E. teacher arrived…”

But that would be later. Now, sitting with Jongseong in the nurse’s station, tears falling onto the plasters you place on his hand, nothing matters but him. You don’t need the details—he’s hurt, he got hurt over you, you feel as though every cut on his body may well have been done by your own hand. You’ve never felt so guilty for something you didn’t do. Your voice trembles when you speak; you’re unable to look at him, at his busted eye. “I just don’t want you to get hurt for me.”

Without missing a beat, he says, “What else would I get hurt for?”

You can only meet his eyes for a split second. Even like this, he manages to look at you with the same softness that has haunted you since the night you met 28-year-old Jongseong, that has rendered all thoughts of anything other than him meaningless since the day your gaze drifted down to his lips just weeks ago. “Jong…” is all you can mutter as you look down at your hands holding each others’, your lips trembling.

He raises his bandaged hand, still not used to his dominant side being ineffective for now, then lowers it when he realizes. Clumsily, he pats your hair with his left hand. “Don’t cry, please…”

Jake’s head pops out from behind the curtain. “Y/N, I’m really sorry—”

“Not right now, man,” Jay quickly interrupts. Jake pathetically disappears behind the curtain again.

“Just promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Y/N…”

“Promise me,” you say, more demanding this time, sticking out your pinky finger. Jay, hesitant, looks between your outstretched finger and your face a few times, but eventually gives in.

The nurse, upon coming to check on the boys, catches you with Jongseong and chases you out immediately. You sulk back to study hall, where everyone’s head perks up the moment you walk in. “They’re okay,” you reassure vaguely, and unenthusiastically answer their many questions. It’s only a few minutes until the bell rings, and you’re free to go then.

jong so… guess who got a five-day suspension

you you idiot what did your parents say?

jong they’re not happy i have to do all the household chores for a month

you boo-hoo

jong not sure why i came here thinking i’d get some comfort…

you … are you feeling better?

jong a little bit the nurse gave us some really strong painkillers but i’m okay because there’s a pretty girl that’s going to drop off the homework for me after school every day :)

you oh did you ask chaewon to do that?

jong um no i was talking about you ..if that’s okay

you haha i know i just wanted you to say it straight up

jong ykw maybe i should just ask chaewon

you i’ll see you tomorrow jong!!

jong :) see you tomorrow pretty

The months that separate your return to school and graduation come and go in the blink of an eye. Jongseong can’t come to school the last day before the holidays or the first four days after, and he’s grounded in-between. Things change bit by bit with every day you visit him—To give him the homework, you tell his parents, although there isn’t much to do when the semester isn’t in full swing, and you could’ve easily sent him pictures. The first time, you spend more time scouring the pictures and trinkets in his room than actually talking to him, and awkwardly give him a half-hug when he tells you he won’t be able to hang out at all during the break before practically running out of his house, your heart beating a thousand miles a minute from the innocent contact. By the fourth time, you lie together on his bed and talk about your plans for college, your hands sitting centimeters apart on the navy sheets. You haven’t dared touch his hand since that day in the nurse’s station.

You’re window-shopping with Kazuha when you spot the hand cream you had seen yourself gifting Jongseong in your well-given vision. Buying it is one thing, actually giving it to him is another, an awkward, stuttery situation in which the wrapping done by the store employee suddenly seems over-the-top and out-of-place. But Jongseong seems to like it—it’s the last day of his suspension, his black eye is now a yellow-ish color, he can smile without risking splitting his lip in two. He applies it immediately, tells you he’ll make sure to wear it every day until the end of winter. You find yourself wishing there was something you could give him for every season so he wouldn’t go a day without thinking of you. When you leave, he bashfully thanks you for making sure he doesn’t fall behind and says he’s excited to see you at school the next day. You hardly know what to do with yourself, so you squeak out a “me too” and slip out the door.

His first day back is a Friday. It starts with Mathematics, a class in which you sit by each other. You remember the first week of classes when Kazuha and Sunoo had ran to sit with each other, expressly because they knew that if he saw you were sitting alone, he’d take the seat next to you, just to better torment you all year. You’d resented it then; it couldn’t make you happier now. Your body is humming with nervous energy, your foot tapping relentlessly against the tiled floor. When he appears in the doorframe, you wave at him as if he’d forgotten his seat in three weeks of absence. His elbow brushes against yours as he sits down.

Between the two of you, friendship blossoms over these months. To the detriment of everyone around you, you continue to bicker as you always have, but it’s now clearly done out of habit, out of affection, even, than out of actual dislike of each other. He and Heeseung slowly integrate your small group of three, and before you know it, it feels as though there have always been five of you. Together, you welcome spring.

In January, to thank you for helping him to pick out his mom’s birthday present, Jongseong treats you to some tteokbokki, which you said you’d been craving all week. He orders the spiciest one, then has to take a sip of water between every bite. You laugh at his teary eyes and red face while you devour the bright red rice cakes easily.

In February, he makes a show of giving you and Kazuha and Heeseung and Sunoo some homemade chocolates, saying it’s a friend thing. You find out that evening that the others each have five in their box—there are twenty in yours. It’s one of the things that makes you second guess what sort of feelings he has for you. For years, you’ve been convinced he harbored strong feelings of disdain for you; now, he seems to enjoy your friendship. You’re scared to read too much into anything, because if Jongseong is well-liked throughout school, it’s for a reason: he’s nice. To everyone. Even to you, too, nowadays. But if nice is giving five chocolates, what is giving twenty?

A sudden realization hits you in March—Jongseong appears at your door, drenched from the rain, a bag of your favorite snacks in hand. “You weren’t at school today. I had to find out you were sick from Kazuha,” he says as if she was a random classmate of yours and not your best friend, as if he should be the first to know about these kinds of things. Your mom rushes him in, finds him so charming in the five minutes they converse that she decides he should stay over for dinner, and as you watch him laughing with her, you think, I haven’t thought of 28-year-old Jongseong in ages. I’ve only thought of you. And although you can trace the start of your feelings to that dream-like experience you had, you can now say with confidence that it’s not the only reason for them.

College application results come out in April, right on his birthday. The five of you celebrate together at an American-style diner, gorging yourselves on crispy bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. Kazuha is going back to Japan, almost a decade after moving to South Korea—”I’m gonna miss you guys, but I miss takoyaki and my grandma more right now.” Heeseung has been accepted into the Engineering department at the country’s top university. You, Sunoo and Jongseong are all heading to the same place: you for Screenwriting, which you’ve known since you were one of the winners of the scholarship contest last October, Sunoo for Communications, whatever that is, and Jongseong for European History and Literature with a minor in German, that freak. It’s a good university, and it’s not far from home. The way Jongseong tells you about his acceptance sticks with you: he doesn’t say, They accepted me, too, or, I’m going to the same university as you. He says, We’ll be together.

May is filled with afternoons at the park when you should all be studying for exams. Your mom keeps asking when she’s going to see “that wonderful boy” again. Your friendship with Jongseong has given him new ways of teasing you—after four years of near-kleptomaniac tendencies, he’s finally stopped stealing your erasers and has instead started to let his gaze linger on your face, to call you pretty when you least expect it, to tuck your hair behind your ear. You hate it most when he asks you whether there’s something from your romance novels or movies that you want him to recreate. “Is there a field big enough nearby that I can walk through at the break of dawn, Mister Darcy-style?” he’ll say, or “I’ve always wanted to try that upside-down kiss from Spider-Man. It’s a classic, really.”

Summer comes early in June. You need to bring a two-liter water bottle and a hand fan to your exams, and you’ve never felt such relief as when it was all over. After endless pictures with your parents and siblings, just your parents, just your siblings, then Kazuha and Sunoo, together, then separately, then with Heeseung and Jongseong as well, Kazuha forces you and Jongseong together, watching with a smile as he shyly wraps an arm around your waist and you awkwardly throw up a peace sign. It’s your first picture of just the two of you.

In July, you and Jongseong unlock a new first: saying goodbye. He’s leaving to stay with his American family as he does every summer. You show up at his house the day before at four p.m. “to help him pack,” you say, but it’s Jongseong, and he finished packing two days ago. So instead, you sit on his desk chair, he on his bed, and you fight back tears. “You’re coming back, right?” you ask, like he’s leaving to go to war and not Seattle. Amusement and affection flicker in his eyes. “Of course I am. I wouldn’t throw four more years of being a pain in your ass away, would I?” he says, and you smile, because you know it’s going to be much more than four years.

But he doesn’t just leave you with a few nice words. Avoiding your gaze, he hands you an envelope. Inside is a single ticket, a two-month membership for your city’s arthouse cinema that you can only go to when they have student deals or when your parents have had enough of your begging. You can’t even begin to imagine how much this must’ve cost. “Jong…” you murmur, in awe at the thin slip of paper between your hands. “This is incredible. Thank you so much.”

Jongseong looks down at his feet, fighting a smile as he kicks the invisible rocks that obviously litter the floor of his bedroom. “I thought you’d get bored without me around, so, that way you can entertain yourself, I guess… And if you run into any film bros next year, you’ll have seen as many pretentious movies as them.”

You burst into laughter then, and, without thinking, wrap your arms around his neck, thanking him over and over again. It takes him a second, but he wraps his arms around your waist and says it’s no big deal.

As you walk down the path from your house, he calls out your name. “Don’t be a stranger,” he says.

You smile. “Never.”

So, he’s not here for summer. Kazuha is working in her parents’ ramen restaurant to make some money before leaving, even Heeseung leaves two weeks into July for Seoul to visit some relatives there and get accustomed to life in the big city. You only get to laze around with Sunoo, but even he eventually leaves for his grandparents’ house by the sea, making you promise you’ll come visit him at some point, otherwise he’ll “die of boredom.”

It’s August now, and your brain and body alike buzz with restlessness. You go to the cinema almost every day, making the best of your subscription. If you’re not going around your house looking for spider webs with your vacuum cleaner, you’re riding random bus lines and discovering parts of your town you’ve never set foot in before. If you’re not making your way through your never-ending pile of unread books, you’re creating your own stories, finally taking the time to properly outline and draft the one-line ideas you’ve had sitting in your Notes app, preparing yourself for the start of your degree. Your mind is taken up with love stories. From Romeo & Juliet to Dirty Dancing to Book Lovers, you can’t get enough of the genre. You become particularly obsessed with stories involving time travel, rewatching After Time and Lovely Runner like they contain some precious knowledge. By the end of the month, you’ve turned your life into an eight-episode TV series—a desperate girl makes a wish on a star only to discover she is fated to marry the one boy she hates most. You know you’d watch that. You send Sunoo and Kazuha the pilot, and after calling you insane numerous times but also heaping on praises, Sunoo says this: lol your going through jay withdrawals.

It shakes you so much you’re not even compelled to message back you’re*.

But he’s not wrong. The more you let yourself admit it, the more you realize how true it is: you miss Jongseong. You text once in a while, you’ve even stayed up late talking on the phone a couple of times, but you miss him, his corporeal form, having his gaze on you, having the possibility but never the courage to touch him. Every day, there’s something you want to tell him about. The cats huddling around a young neighborhood kid as he pours milk into a bowl, the clearance sale at your local library, most books for one buck only, the actor from an 90s Hong Kong film you swear has the exact same smile as him. You don’t want to bother him, so you write letters instead. Some you send, some you don’t—the ones you keep hidden in your drawer usually hint too obviously at your feelings for him. Some of them don’t just hint and contain lines of your declarations: I miss you, everything I see reminds me of you, I want to check that your bruises have healed completely even though the last trace of them faded months ago. You keep these letters a secret, even from Sunoo and Kazuha, who would never let you live down such woebegone, down bad behavior.

You do it because it feels good, getting all of your feelings out on paper. You’re a romantic at heart, so you’re prone to over-exaggeration when it comes to things like these—but everything that you write remains based in truth. You’d started with a postcard of your hometown, jokingly writing, Don’t forget where you came from. How is it over there? and he’d actually replied with a postcard of his own, filling it from top to bottom. You easily went from these small postcards to multiple pages of stream-of-consciousness-like writing. You think it’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done—although you’re not sure he feels the same way, considering he still writes to the German pen pal Ms. Schumacher had assigned him in your first year of high school. No one else’s correspondence had lasted more than four months because she’d immediately forgotten to make sure you kept in touch regularly.

I ran into Jake Sim at the city library, you write one day. You’ve replied to everything in his latest letter, so you’re now catching him up on your recent adventures. He was checking out some books about Linguistics, of all things—he bought me bubble tea afterwards and told me that the injury he got last April was actually a relief. Did you know his father was a big name in soccer here? Apparently, he never wanted to be a soccer player that badly, and he wants to do Linguistics and Social Anthropology, who would’ve guessed it. He’s like Troy Bolton if High School Musical was about Humanities and not singing. Anyways, you probably don’t want me to go on and on about him, so I won’t, but we did talk about that fight you guys had back in December. He apologized for it, to you and me both, although he didn’t go into much detail — Sunoo is still the only one who’s had the balls to tell me exactly what happened, and he wasn’t even there! — and I was reticent at first, but he seemed genuine. He said he didn’t even hang out with Sunghoon or Yunjin or any of those people anymore, that it was only out of convenience really, and that he hopes starting university will be like turning over a new leaf. Well, he could be full of shit, who knows. As I sat there listening to him I wondered what it was I used to see in him. He’s nice enough, but we only spoke about him for the entire hour. He asked me no questions that weren’t “and you?” so it was a bit exhausting.

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you.

You look at your words, smiling to yourself—this is one of the times where you find yourself erring from the topic at hand, instead indulging in sappiness and nostalgia. You write about how your opinion of Jongseong has changed over these months, how it wasn’t seeing him as your husband in all those years that had really shaken things up, but rather that day in the nurse’s station, the frightening colors around his eye, his attitude like it was natural that he would get hurt like this for you. You write, Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

“I’m going to the Post Office for a package soon, Y/N. Are you done with your letter?” your mom calls from the staircase landing.

“Give me five minutes!” you call back.

You forage through your drawer for a new sheet of paper and re-write your letter, making sure to leave any compromising parts out and fold both letters into neat squares—one that will cross the seas and reach Jongseong, one that will live out its days in the darkness of your crowded drawer. You’ve run out of envelopes, so you go look for one in your parents’ office. Your mom calls out your name again, impatient to leave — if she sends her package off before twelve p.m., it will get to the receiver tomorrow, and she’s hell-bent on getting perfect five-star Vinted reviews — so you hurriedly put your letter in the envelope, close it, stamp it, and write Jongseong’s name and address on the back. The other letter you absent-mindedly throw in your drawer with the dozens of other letters in which you’d crossed the line.

A few weeks later, like an apparition, Jongseong stands before you again.

He’s tanner from months under the Washington sun, from afternoons spent at his family’s lake house, on their boat. His hair is slightly shorter and suits him even better; you don’t recognize any of the clothes he wears. He grumbles as his mother goes back-and-forth between hugging him, staring at him worriedly and reminding him to call at least twice a week while his father unpacks the trunk. “I’ll only be a thirty-minute train ride away, Mom,” he says.

He’s still Jong.

You moved in yesterday, and you’re now waiting for your new roommate, who, after five minutes of deliberating whether she should bring a jacket or not and finally decided against it, changed her mind the minute she stepped outside.

It’s been two months since you last saw him. Shortly after sending your letter, you’d gone to stay with Sunoo’s grandparents for a week, just a day before he was set to come back from Seattle. Amid packing and other preparations, you haven’t had time to see each other. Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texted you. You replied that it wasn’t a problem, you told him which dorm you’d been assigned and found out his was the one next door.

When he notices you staring, he does a double-take. You wave at him, and even from this distance, you see the blush that creeps up his neck and takes over his face as he shyly waves back. You’ve never seen him like this—he’s always been either arrogant or friendly, never… flustered. He makes a motion as if to say, I’ll text you, and heads inside the building with his parents and all of his luggage.

Indeed, he texts you some hours later while you’re sharing a piece of strawberry and matcha cake with your roommate Liz, whom you find out is half-German—Jongseong and your dad would probably love her for that simple fact. Some of the first things she’d asked you were what your astrological signs were and whether you wanted her to pull tarot cards for you when she was all done setting up her side of the room. Between that and her dyed blonde hair, you’d felt comfortable telling her all about Jongseong, the well and your dream. Unlike your skeptical and sarcastic friends, she’d nodded along to your every word, a serious expression on her face. “A sign from the universe,” she’d called it, and she gasped in excitement when his name appeared on your screen.

He sends you a link to a freshers’ week event, some potted plant sale happening on the main campus square, and asks if you’re free to go with him tomorrow. I need something to liven up that depressing room, he writes.

So that’s how you find yourselves among green plants of all shapes and sizes, searching for one that’s both low-maintenance and appealing to the eye. You’re glad that you have something to actually do—if you were just sitting at a café and having a conversation, you’re not sure you’d be able to stand the awkwardness. You’d chalked up his behavior on the day of his move-in to nerves, or to surprise upon seeing you so unexpectedly. But apparently, it wasn’t a one-time thing. He keeps clearing his throat as if he were sick with some cold, won’t look into your eyes for more than split seconds at a time, and in complete opposition to his usual confident, deliberate speech, talks in a quick and disorderly manner. And he’s either really caught a cold, or his ears have just permanently turned red. You ask him if something’s wrong a couple times, but he violently shakes his head, says, “No, what could be wrong?” then looks at you as if you might tell him what’s wrong.

When you’re alone again, you wonder what on earth could have happened over the summer that could make him change his behavior with you so radically. Did something happen in Seattle? Maybe he met someone there and doesn’t know how to tell you. Maybe you went overboard with your letters, he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, he wants to let you down easy but doesn’t know how to tell you. Or maybe—maybe you got impossibly pretty during those two months, and absence does make the heart grow fonder, as they say, and every thought you have about him, he has about you, but he doesn’t know how to tell you.

In any case, he’s hiding something.

The theory that he might want to stop being friends soon falls flat—the invitations to other freshers’ events keep coming, be it free wine & pizza taster sessions from the Wine Society, karaoke nights with the Taylor Swift Society or a shark movie marathon with the Bad Film Society, and he never turns you down when you tell him there’s something you want to visit in this new city of yours, even when the thing you want to visit in question is a bakery you have to queue in front of at seven a.m. if you want to get a pain au chocolat. In your defense, they turn out to be the best ones you and Jongseong have ever tried—although, to be fair, neither of you has been to France.

Things progressively return to normal. He’s able to make eye contact for more than three seconds again, he listens carefully and laughs along when you tell him about your week by the sea with Sunoo, he fills you in on what Heeseung’s been up to. One thing remains different, however—when you throw quips at him, he usually would’ve delighted in coming up with a better, wittier response, but now, he’ll roll his eyes at best, look at you amusedly and stay silent at worst. “Won’t you even entertain me?” you ask him once, to which he replies that you’re doing a good job entertaining yourself as is.

Instead, he becomes more earnest. As per usual you badger him with questions like Aren’t I so pretty right now? or Isn’t my outfit so cute today? to get a reaction out of him, and if during your high school days he’d either fake a puking sound or look you up and down and grumble I guess, he now smiles and simply says Yes, you are, Yes, it is. It seems impossible to keep track of his attitude: one day, he’s one thing, the next, he’s another person entirely.

It annoys you. You take his changing demeanor to mean that now that he’s a college student, he won’t indulge in your childish squabbles anymore, as though he was above all of that now, when just three months ago he was stalking your parents’ Facebooks to find unfavorable photos of you from when you were thirteen and using them as reaction pictures in your friends’ group chat. You think of your graduation day, of the box he’d given you, all done up in wrapper paper and a bow—he had filled it with every eraser he’d stolen from you over the years, he’d even gone so far as to date every single one of them, from the second of October freshman year to the twenty-eighth of November of your senior year. You didn’t count them, but there had to be at least a hundred. At the time, you’d just thought it was funny—but what if the gesture had meant something deeper than you’d realized? What if he was marking the end of something with that box? No more playing around, we’re adults now. But classes have barely started, you don’t know your way to the off-campus library, you aren’t a different person to who you were just weeks or even months earlier. Why is he acting like he is? You look at him, and you see the boy whose fault it was you had to buy a new eraser every week—who knows how many books you could’ve bought with that money. But when he turns to look at you, too, and your eyes meet, you’re suddenly assailed with the memories of that night, the kind eyes, the soft smile.

Does his future capacity to love me already exist in his heart?

Your heartbeat speeds up and you have to look away.

From your letters, it seems to be much hotter back home than in Seattle—you talk of sunburns, of afternoons spent inside with the fan on maximum speed, of ice melting instantly and watering down your Coke Zeros, whereas Jay can walk around the city pleasantly and needs to bring a jacket if he’ll be out until late after sundown. And yet, as he reads your latest letter, his skin prickles feverishly, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He’d excitedly torn the envelope open the second it arrived in the mail, heart thumping as he counted the pages, at least three more than usual — he was always happy that you wanted to talk to him at all, so the fact that you had this much to tell him sent him over the moon — but he would have never expected what was awaiting him inside.

With a smile on his face, he read your replies to the questions he’d asked you last time, your reactions to everything he told you about, the live Mariners game, the lake house, the rides on the boat. He imagined you as you sat at your desk in your room he’d only seen once, when you’d held a small party for your birthday and he, having arrived first, was honored with a tour of your house. He imagined your smile, the way you played with your hair when you focused on something, wondered whether you pondered every word before you wrote it down as he did or whether you poured your thoughts out onto the page without hesitation. His smile faltered when Jake Sim’s name appeared in your neat handwriting, but he was relieved to find out your description of him now was miles away from the one at the start of the school year.

Then you start writing about him. Him, Park Jongseong, and your words startle him so much, it’s like he’d forgotten he was the recipient of this letter in the first place.

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you.

He’s been lying comfortably in his bed, but he sits up the moment his eyes take in these words. If there is one topic the two of you have practically never broached, it’s this exactly: your relationship, the changes it’s gone through this past year. Except for a few mentions made in jest here and there, you’ve always conveniently ignored the fact that not so long ago, you were at each other’s throats. At least, you were at his throat, and Jay let you be, let you think the hatred went both ways, when in reality all he wanted was to keep you close one way or another. To him, anything was better than indifference.

But here you are, writing about how you feel about him, not in hints, not in jokes, but actually telling him black and white what goes through your head when you think of him—in other words, everything he’s been dying to know ever since he met you and especially ever since you started warming up to him a few months ago.

I have never told you about that night because I know it’ll just be more fodder for you to endlessly tease me, and I haven’t even mentioned it in these letters that I write and don’t send. Sometimes I debate the ethics of it—if I know something about our futures, isn’t it right that you know, too? But then again, I still hesitate whether what happened was real or not. As with anything, the more time passes, the more I forget about it. What kind of cheese you’d put on the pasta, the movie that played in the background, whether the stairs were carpeted or wooded—these details have evaded me by now. All I clearly remember is your face and how I felt, seeing it then, seeing it the next day at school, ten years younger, the same exact person in what felt like a different universe. As much as I tried to deny it, I know now that it was no coincidence—I was talking about it with Sunoo and he said that sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. He’s not always a dimwit. And he’s right, the kind of love I felt from you in that dream — or not-dream — I’ve yearned for it ever since I first watched Pride & Prejudice, the 2005 film to be precise, when I was ten. But with you? That was what I couldn’t believe at first. I don’t think I need to explain why—you were there, I think you knew how I felt about you for over three years, it’s not like I tried to hide it.

Then you turned up and the sight of you was enough to bring back all the feelings from that dream. You must’ve wondered why my behavior with you switched so suddenly—well, a glimpse into marital bliss is sometimes enough for a girl to make some changes in her life. Yet I valiantly tried to convince myself that any flutter of my heart around you was due to this stupid dream, to a version of you my brain had conjured up because it was starved for affection, and you happened to be at the forefront of my mind, even if not for the right reasons. But it was no use. I had entertained the possibility that this future was really mine, and I couldn’t go back to seeing you as the boy who annoyed the living daylights out of me.

But Jong, if you weren’t you, I would’ve been confused for a week and then I would’ve gotten over it. I stayed confused for a while, and everything you did only served to confuse me further. I started to notice you more, to see you for who you were and not for the idea I had constructed of you in my head, I stopped taking note of only the things that reinforced this idea. And that changed everything.

Let’s get it out of the way: as much as I hate to admit it because it proves you right, I saw that you are indeed devastatingly handsome. It devastates me every time I have to look at that stupid, wonderful face of yours. And if aging is something you’re worried about, don’t be. I’ve seen you at 28, and let’s just say that your jaw somehow only gets more chiseled. I’ve realized that you don’t just participate in class to be a prick — except for when you contradict me in Literature, I know you only do that to piss me off, and yes, it works — but that you actually care about what we learn and that you don’t want the teacher to feel like they’re talking to a classroom full of students made out of bricks. I’ve also realized that you didn’t specifically pick German to be the one subject where you must beat me at all costs, you just actually really like German, even if I’m still undetermined as to why. And I can finally admit to myself—you are funny. Sometimes. There were so many times I had to stop myself from laughing at one of your idiotic puns because I could not bear to give you the satisfaction. That feeling when the worst person you know makes a funny joke, and all that. And as much as I’ve mocked you for it, I do actually like your laugh. I like that you’re only loud when you laugh, or sneeze, or get excited over something. You don’t scream, you don’t get angry, and I think that’s a lot for a boy fresh out of puberty. Or for any boy, really.

But above all, you’re kind, Jong. I think it’s the best thing about you. I think it’s the best thing anyone can be. I see it in your patience with Heeseung when he starts one of his rants better reserved for Reddit than real life, I see it in the way you took Sunoo and Kazuha in stride, even though they’re a bit rough around the edges sometimes, I see it in the way you guide the freshmen at the start of every year, when all anyone does is complain about them, I see it in the gentleness with which you let down the girls who confess to you, even the more persistent ones. I used to think they were crazy, but I understand them more than ever now. I also used to think that all those kindnesses meant that the ones you occasionally showed me meant nothing more than that—occasional kindnesses. You were just a nice guy, occasionally so to me. But you sort of ratted yourself out when you gave me those twenty chocolates for Valentine’s.

Or, really, what made things clearer was that fight in December. I guess I was wrong—you do get angry. I remember a thought I had at the time: just when I think I know you, you do something to shake it all up. You punched two of the star soccer players of our school in the face because they said some mean, unimportant things about me. Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand it. Was it another one of your acts of kindness?

And then I thought of those other times you helped me out. Do you remember them—the art project, the handwritten notes after my grandma passed away, you tearing Park Sunghoon a new one in the girls’ bathroom. I’m sure there are many more that I’ve dismissed simply because I did not want to see you in any other light than the one I’d decided to shine on you.

Maybe I’m rewriting the past here, but I’ve been thinking about something lately. The theme today seems to be honesty, so I’ll lay myself bare and tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet, not even myself. The more I write, the more I become aware of its truth. I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. Maybe that’s why I kept buying erasers.

I don’t have the best memory — I suspect iron deficiency, it runs in my mom’s side of the family — but I do remember this. The first time I saw you. I haven’t noticed your face changing in real time, but I’m sure I’d laugh at how much of a baby you looked back then. Although I didn’t fare much better, I’m sure. Well, you’re the one that has all these embarrassing pictures of me, you freak, so I’m sure you could tell me. Moving on…

I found you really cute. You were chatting to the person next to you, maybe it was Heeseung, I didn’t look properly—I only looked at you. Don’t laugh at me. It was the first day of high school, there was a nervous energy in the air, but you seemed happy to be there. You know I don’t have hordes of friends like you do, I don’t walk through life with people naturally gravitating towards me. I’m okay with it now, but it was something I struggled with back then. Kazuha, Sunoo and I have had each other since our elementary days, and I never needed more than that—but fifteen is the prime age for comparison, and as the weeks passed and we got used to being high schoolers, I listened to everyone sing your praises, I watched as you talked with all of our classmates, even our teachers, like you were old friends. But we sat next to each other in a couple of classes, and you wouldn't talk to me outside of partnered work. I, who wanted to be easily charmed by you like everyone else was, who thought maybe you’d help me come out of my shell. But it felt like sitting next to me was torture to you, like the boy whom I watched speak with ease to everyone else disappeared when I was around. And so — and I’m not proud of this — every smart remark in class, every joke that had the entire class roaring, every high five you gave out in the hallway, I started to despise them. And by association, I started to despise you. After that, it was easy to find fault in everything you did, my contempt was only enhanced by everyone’s admiration. But I’m not alone here. It went both ways, didn’t it? I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. I don’t blame us for how we acted, only for taking so long to get our heads out of our asses.

(I have to say, I also have a thing for hating people. Remind me to tell you about Na Jaemin and Shin Ryujin one of these days.)

Anyways, I think it’s because I had liked you so much at first that I could then seemingly hate you so much. But I never hated you, Jong, not really. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Can I take it all back now?

Now that we’re entering university soon, I can’t help but look back on high school. This is what I want to know, but I’m not sure I’ll ever have the courage to ask you, because if your answer is the one I suspect, I don’t know how I’ll handle all the regret in my heart.

Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

Your letter abruptly ends here, no concluding remarks, no wishing him a fun time in Seattle and looking forward to his next letter, no sign-off. It was as if someone cut you off before you could say everything you wanted, but then why send him this seemingly unfinished letter? It is all the more bizarre since your letters are usually meticulous: you write on every other line, it looks like you take your time with every single letter, the only disturbance in your otherwise perfect handwriting is your going back-and-forth between cursive and script s’s. But this particular letter looks rushed, your lines are sloppy, some words need to be read a few times over to be understood. What kind of state had you been in, writing these words? Jay’s heart swells, thinking that you were as moved writing as he was reading. He even looks through your letter again, wishing to find a tear stain somewhere, but there are none. Maybe he’s been watching too many of these romantic period dramas you always go on about.

He has to pace his room when he’s done reading your letter, but he feels trapped inside these four walls, so he dashes outside, saying that he’s getting some air when his relatives ask him where he’s off to in such a rush, and walks around the block five times. When he’s back in his room, he rereads your letter, eyes taking in each and every word slowly and carefully, making sure he doesn’t misread anything.

You like him. You, Y/N, like him, Jongseong, it’s a fact, it’s real, you said so yourself, you went into quite some detail about it, he can’t believe it, but it’s real, it’s written right there on the page, if anyone dares tell him he’s fooling himself, he can prove them wrong, you’re the one who said it.

The smile doesn’t leave his lips for the rest of the day, he can barely eat, he’s already full of happiness. He reads your words over and over before falling asleep, committing them to memory, dreaming about them, about you.

You. How should he respond to this? Are you even expecting a response? You seem to know he’s not impartial to you, either, although that’s an understatement.

In the following days, the thought that you hadn’t meant to send him this letter nags at him. The abrupt ending, the absence of your usual Love, Y/N. The fact that this had come out of left field—none of your previous letters had even a romantic undertone, no matter how he tried in his own to hint at his missing you, the most reference to seeing each other again you would give him was It’ll be better to show you this in real life. The act of sending letters itself didn’t feel very platonic, but you never went there, so he didn’t, either. He had secretly yearned to have you this close all these years, he would never forgive himself if he ended up chasing you away now with his over-eagerness.

You had landed on something very real in your letter: I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. He cursed his fifteen-year-old self, that idiot who couldn’t even speak to a girl no matter how much he wanted to, just because she was so pretty, he was afraid of saying something stupid and messing it up before it even had a chance to start.

On days when you’d had particularly nasty or petty arguments — it could get pretty bad, at the start, before you both started maturing and realized how ridiculous you were, especially with your classmates telling you to keep it classy — he’d stay up all night, wondering why you hated him so much in the first place, what on Earth he could’ve done to warrant such vitriol. Now, finally, he knew, and he could only resent the fact that no one had invented time machines yet, so he could nip his useless ego in the bud; so he could tell younger Jay not to take it personally, that you had your reasons for disliking him, that even if you hadn’t, the world won’t end if someone doesn’t like him like everyone usually does.

Because, he hates to admit, that was what had done it for Jay. He couldn’t stand that someone — not just someone, but one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, a girl he’d been hyping himself up to talk to every day, but never found the courage to — didn’t immediately fall for his charms. And not just that, but even showed just how much she disliked him. You looked him up-and-down with disdain, made disgusted faces at his jokes, rolled your eyes when he spoke up in class. It made him burn with anger, but he also weirdly enjoyed it—at least, you were paying attention to him. So, he amped it up. Talked louder, laughed louder, hovered around you. He even stole your erasers, wrote the date on which he’d taken them, kept them in a box on his desk that he looked at every time he studied at home. He aimed to beat you in every class you shared, even though neither of you cared that much about grades—the annoyed look on your face when he boasted about the two points he’d gotten over you was enough satisfaction.

All in all, he behaved like a child, and you reciprocated in like.

Until you didn’t.

It was a random Tuesday when something in your attitude towards him shifted. It wasn’t a complete 180, but he noticed everything about you, so even a slight change of your tone was obvious to him. You started using your nickname for him more often than his full name—he never told you, but of course he loved that you didn’t call him Jay like everyone else, that you had your own way of addressing him. It was a sign to him that the two of you had something special, even if it was on the opposite end of the spectrum of what he wanted with you.

He again spent sleepless nights wondering what had caused this change: was it something he had done, or something within you? It was a welcome change, that much was sure, but he was initially too confused to take it in stride. He’d long made peace with the fact that he’d never have you the way he really wanted, so he was fine with whatever this was—but now, you were changing, your interactions were tinged with something like shyness, the distance between you felt greater than ever. He tried to keep up his smart-ass appearances around you, but you only indulged in your old habits once in a while, as though you had grown tired of arguing with him, even of giving him the time of day.

So he resolved himself to adapting his behavior to yours. If you stared at him intently like his face was a puzzle you were trying to solve, he let you, rested his head on his palm and smiled as he stared back at you. Finally, he had an excuse to look at you without you threatening to punch him or saying a picture would last longer. He knew they did, he’d had to resort to scrolling through Sunoo’s and Kazuha’s Instagrams to find any photos of you. Yours was private and at the time, you would’ve probably cursed him out if he’d sent a follow request. If you seemed too annoyed or upset over something, he’d leave you alone, he’d do something nice to let you know you didn’t need to have your guards up at all times around him. If you seemed to silently call for a truce of hostilities, he easily complied.

Then, after a few weeks, your petty arguments resumed, but those too were different—if before they felt filled with real disdain and irritation, they now seemed to be a comfortable habit to fall back on, almost like a fun hobby. Those, too, Jay readily welcomed.

And so things changed in a direction Jay had never thought would one day be possible. You gave him no explanations, nor did he ask for any, and soon he stopped losing sleep over the why’s and the how’s and simply let himself enjoy the fact that you now had the semblance of a friendship, that he could compliment you and pass it off as amical teasing, that he could learn things about you like what you spent your weekends doing, what your relationship with your family was like, whether you were a dog or cat person, whether you wanted to visit his farm in Stardew Valley.

Unsurprisingly, this only enhanced his already pathetically strong feelings for you. He worried over how to make sure this wasn’t some sort of 30-day friendship trial you had wanted to test out. He reveled in the fact that his top university of choice was the one you had already been accepted to. He now knew what it felt like to have you smile at him, smile because of him, and he never wanted again to live in a world where this was not a daily occurrence.

He now sort of has an answer—your letter doesn’t make it very clear, it makes him think again that you really had not meant to send it, but you seem to have had a dream. A dream of him, 28-year-old him, to be precise, of your life together—he’s not sure. At this point in time, he doesn’t care much, either. Whether it was a dream or a real vision of the future that you had, all that matters is that it allowed you to see him in a new light, a light which he had hoped for years would one day appear to you, and it had changed things. And now, you liked him.

You said so yourself.

He’s at a loss for words. He can’t concentrate for long enough to put all his thoughts in order, he can’t make himself calm down and write his feelings down. He has to pack to go home, once he’s home, he’ll have to pack for university. But it’s only two weeks from now to the day you meet again, and it’ll be better to say what he wants to say in person, anyway.

Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texts you.

And then those two weeks pass like two seconds and you’re there, a few meters away from him. All the speeches he’d prepared in his head, from grand declarations of love to laid-back admittances of Yeah, I like you too, you’re cool, I guess, they all vanish from his head. For fourteen days he’s been going through scenarios upon scenarios of your reunion, what you’d look like, what he’d say, how you’d react. But now that he can actually see you, now that he would just have to walk a few steps if he wanted to touch you, hug you, kiss you — hoping that was something you wanted to do — he freezes. He forgets how his body works, the part in his brain that’s meant to manage language ability fails him. HIs mom calls him over, urging him into his new dorm building, and all he can do is wave back at you like an idiot.

When finally he musters the courage to text you, what he hopes will be the day that starts your romantic relationship turns into the day Park Jongseong realizes how much of a loser he is. For the first hour, he can’t look at you, he can’t get through a sentence without stuttering out half of his words, he runs out of things to say in record time. All he can think of is how easy it’d be to grab one of your hands, hold it in his and walk around this stupid potted plant sale as if the two of you were two halves of a whole. He doesn’t even want a potted plant, his roommate already has five, he just wanted an excuse to see you. He steals glances at you when you’re looking elsewhere, and he notices everything about you tenfold now that he can, now that caring about you doesn’t need to be in vain any longer. He tells himself that he just needs to calm down a bit, even when you have the confirmation that the person you’re about to confess to already likes you, revealing your feelings to someone is always nerve-wracking, the two of you haven’t seen in each other in a while, he’ll talk to you once his heart gets out of his throat.

But you’re acting normal. Suspiciously so. You’re acting like you never told him you liked him, like nothing has changed between you. He rereads your letter the second he gets back to his dorm. He’s not crazy, it’s written right there, I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. He knows the words by heart now, but he checks them anyway. So why are you acting like you never said anything? Had you really not meant to send that letter? Did Jay actually intrude on your private thoughts by reading words that had never meant to be seen by another soul?

You continue to behave as you usually would around him, but if he couldn’t go back to vicious bickering when things changed the first time, he can’t go back to friendly bickering now that things — for him — have changed a second time. He doesn’t even want friendly to be in your shared vocabulary anymore.

So he stops giving in. If you make fun of him, he just stands there with an unimpressed if amused look on his face. If you pedantically correct him on something, he just nods his head and accepts it. He can tell you’re bothered by it, but he needs to show you that he doesn’t want to go on being just friends with you—he wants to compliment you without having to pass it off as teasing, he wants to stare at you with hearts in his eyes without having to look away when you catch him, he wants to spend every waking second of every day with you, he wants to hold your hand, hold you.

He could wait for things to change slowly again, but why wait when he could help things along?

It’s nine p.m. on a Saturday and you’re sneaking Jongseong into your dorm. Liz is away for the weekend, gone back home to celebrate her aunt’s birthday, so you have the room to yourselves. It took some convincing to get him to come — What if we get caught coming in, What if your T.A. sees us, What if I get reported to campus police — and so when your verbal reassurances failed to work, you resorted to blinking up at him through your lashes and that did the trick.

Jongseong was in many ways unlike any other man you’d ever met; in some other ways, he was the exact same.

Plastic bag of the tteokbokki you’d asked for in hand, he looks around the deserted hallways like someone might jump out of nowhere and beat him to a pulp at any given moment. At this time of the week, everyone’s out partying or holed up in their dorms, presumably either to rest or because of a lack of friends so early on in the semester. You grab his free hand and hurry him along to the elevator—once inside, it takes you a few seconds before you realize you’re still holding it, and you retract your hand quickly while he just smiles.

You settle yourselves on the floor—comfort is not worth getting gochujang sauce on your white sheets. You sit criss-cross in front of each other, the food between the two of you, and catch up on your first week of class in-between bites of spicy, gooey rice cakes and fish cakes. You wonder, if one day you and Jongseong are no longer friends, how long you will keep associating tteokbokki with him.

When you tell him that you and Jake share a class, Introduction to Film Studies, he gives you a look. “What’s that face for?” you ask.

“Did you guys sit next to each other?”

You chuckle. “Of course. We only knew each other in that room, it would’ve been weird not to.”

He continues to stare at you. After a while, he muses, “You’re not…?”

You halt in your tracks, rice cake at the end of your plastic fork hanging in the air, halfway between the container and your mouth. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.” Still in love with him, interested in him again, you don’t know the exact details of Jongseong’s thought process, all you know is he has nothing to worry about—if it’s something he worries about.

When a smile slowly grows on his lips and he nods, saying, “Okay, good,” you let yourself think it might be.

Later, you’re ten minutes into a senseless blockbuster movie when he suddenly pauses it. It snaps you out of a trance—his hand was awfully close to yours, so is his shoulder, his thigh, his knee, everything, really, and you haven’t been able to concentrate on anything but the warmth radiating off his skin and the intensity with which you crave to feel it intentionally rather than accidentally. When he speaks, there’s something serious in his tone that makes you nervous. “Y/N,” he says as he turns to you, and now his face is awfully close, too. There’s still many centimeters separating you, but in this tiny, barely lit-up room, he feels closer than ever before. “Do you remember when I said I’d reply to your letter in real life?”

You tilt your head. “Yeah, that was ages ago.”

“Well, I thought I’d do it now.”

“Now?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Now.”

And then those safe centimeters suddenly disappear, and Jongseong’s lips are on yours. It’s a brief, chaste kiss, so quick you wonder if it even happened when he leans back again.

“I like you, too,” he says, and your heart stops.

“W-what?” is all you can say back, eyes wide like he’s just admitted to killing someone rather than reciprocating your feelings.

His confident facade quickly crumbles. “God, this was so much cooler in my head, I-I’m sorry.” He pulls something out of his sweatpants pocket, pages folded over and over into a tiny square. As he unfolds them, you recognize your paper, your handwriting—but what do your letters have anything to do with him kissing you, of all things? “I don’t think you meant to send this. But I’m glad you did.”

He hands you the pages and your eyes skim over the words, not detecting anything out of the ordinary, until—But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. You remember this line, because you had made sure to strike it and everything that came afterward out when you rewrote the letter that you would actually send Jongseong. So how was he giving you this?

“I-How do you have this?” you ask, voice trembling. You feel as though your heart overflows with all kinds of emotions, and so your eyes follow, tears staining your lower lashes.

But Jongseong is not one to let you hide things from him. “Hey, no, it’s okay,” he says, warm hands coming to cup your face. “Look at me.” You have no choice but to oblige—his gaze is somehow both soft and stern, a mix of concern and determination. “Did you mean what you wrote in here?” You nod. “Then everything’s okay. You don’t know how happy I was reading this.”

The tension in your body slowly starts to fade. “Really?”

“Really. I cherish every single word in there.”

“Really?” you repeat, and he chuckles.

“Really.”

Your heartbeat speeds up as you gaze into his eyes, as you let yourself bask in the affection and endearment you find there. You can’t quite comprehend what’s happening. The letter, the kiss, his confession, your inadvertent confession, it’s all a mess in your head; so sudden, but such a long time coming at the same time. You never imagined that things would change so quickly—less than a year ago, you thought Jongseong was the most irritating person on this planet. After meeting his 28-year-old self, you thought it’d take ages for the two of you to be on such good terms. But now, just a week into your first semester of university, belly full of tteokbokki and Sprite, you like each other enough not only to be in the same room without hurling insults at each other but to actually be smiling at each other, willingly at that.

Your eyes drift down to his lips, just like in the hallway all those months ago, and the words slip out before you can stop them. They’re a mere whisper—”Kiss me again.”

Jongseong doesn’t need to be told twice. Still cupping your face, he bridges the gap between the two of you again, and this time, when your lips meet, they don’t come apart so quickly. It’s your first kiss, and it’s nothing short of magical, better than any romance novel could’ve prepared you for. His lips are warm and soft against yours, moving slowly, gingerly; as if he’s scared to take any wrong step, he lets you control the pace, follows every tilt of your head this way and that. It’s a relief that he seems to know as little about this as you do—his hands haven’t moved from your face, yours are on his knees, all you can do is focus on the movement of your lips, to think of anything else at the same time would be overwhelming.

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he suddenly says, face still so close you can feel his breath on your lips as he speaks.

“Hm?” you hum, body reeling from the kiss.

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he repeats, grinning—he looks relieved, like he’s been waiting to say these words for a long time. “I can’t believe this is happening after all these years. Or at all, really.”

“I think I did, too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that in your letter.”

Your eyes widen and you bury your face in your hands as Jongseong laughs. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” you mumble.

He smooths over your hair with one hand, brings your face back up with the other. “Don’t worry. I won’t ever make you regret this.”

Your brain and heart are too all over the place for you to come up with a coherent answer, so you lean in and reconnect your lips to his. It’s already becoming your favorite sensation, feeling him smile into the kiss, threading your fingers in his soft hair.

Time passes delicately like this, the two of you on your single bed, in the sheets that you bought three weeks ago. A lot of it is spent kissing and learning how to fall into each other’s rhythm, but you also spend hours talking, comparing situations and how you’d experienced them. You thought his occasional acts of kindness were done out of guilt, evidence that he did have some morals; he was trying to show he cared about you. He thought you’d despised him from the moment you saw him; you reiterate in more detail than your letter what really happened, you say you wish you knew then what you know now.

“But I never hated you, Jong. I think I wanted to believe that I did, but I never actually did.”

“You glared at me everytime I walked past like I killed a member of your family.”

You groan, ashamed of yourself. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You did,” he says, chuckling, placing a kiss on your forehead. His arms are around you, your head rests atop his heart—you’ve never felt more comfortable in your life. “But it’s okay. We’re here now, and I don’t want us to have any regrets about high school. We had a good time, didn’t we?”

You tilt your head up to look at him. “I’m sure you did, stealing all my erasers.”

He lets out a hearty laugh. Clearly, he’s very proud of his feat. “Hey, I gave all of them back.”

“And what am I going to do with a hundred erasers, Jong?” you ask, laughing too, pecking his cheek aggressively—your way of punishing him for a grave deed.

“Keep them as a token of my love for you,” he says, and your breath falters at the mention of that word. “In fifty years, it’ll be a sign that I’ve liked you since the beginning, I just had a funny way of showing it.”

“Fifty years, huh?”

He grins. “Fifty, a hundred, whatever. You’re not getting rid of me.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

You’re both smiling so wide, you can barely manage a kiss. He trails kisses from your lips to your ear. Holding you close, he whispers, “It’s always been you, Y/N. Always and only you.”

There may be thorns on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life, but Park Jongseong was never one of them—all along, he was a bud waiting to bloom.

The more time passes, the more you wonder whether that night you had seen in your vision will ever come. There’s been evenings similar to it—crashing the minute you came home from a long day on set, telling yourself you’d take a fifteen-minute power nap only to wake up three hours later and coming downstairs to find your husband cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, taking care of your son or simply watching TV, but waiting for you, always waiting for you. He seems as happy now watching you come down the stairs as he was then finding your face among all the students flocking out of lecture halls.

The details are blurry now, but many small things seem to be different from what you’d seen. He still tries to recreate your favorite meal, but it’s not pasta all'arrabbiata, it’s laksa, because your first date as an official couple was to a Malaysian restaurant, not an Italian one. He’s still the best father you know, but you have one son, not twin girls—although that offer to “give him a younger sibling to play with” is always on the table. Even the house you live in is different from the one in your dream, which has now become nothing more than a funny anecdote you share with people when they ask you the story of how you and Jongseong met.

You think of Sunoo’s words from all those years ago: Sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. Had 18-year-old you been in such denial over her feelings for Jongseong that she’d had to convince herself a magical well had bestowed a crazy dream upon her to admit that, yes, there was something there, something other than childish hatred?

It doesn’t matter anymore. Months pass without you thinking about that well, anyway.

Tonight, you come home late from work after having had to do last-minute changes to the script for your current project, a movie that starts shooting in a few days. Jongseong texted you that he was going to bed an hour or so again, so you’re greeted by a plate of japchae covered in film paper. The post-it note stuck to it reads, I’m afraid of the repercussions of too much curry consumption on our son, so no laksa tonight my love. Hope you like it. Come to bed quick. You were starving a second ago, but you decide food can wait—other things can’t.

You tiptoe up the stairs and into your son’s room, breathing in the scent of his hair and placing a kiss there. His hair is still worryingly sparse, but if he’s anything like his dad, it’ll come in a bit later than the other kids. You always thought babies with a full head of hair were freaky, anyway. He doesn’t budge a bit, sleeping like a log—his dad is another story, shuffling in bed the moment you step into your shared bedroom. He opens his arms wide, a silent invitation.

“You’re home,” he says as you attach yourself to his body, your leg hiked up over his, your face buried in the crook of his neck, your thumb caressing the start of stubble on his cheeks.

You smile. “I am.”

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz @jakeflvrz @enhastolemyheart (ask to be removed/added!)

#enhypen x reader #jay x reader #jongseong x reader #enhypen fluff #jay fluff #enhypen fanfiction #jay fanfiction #enhypen au #enhypen imagines #enhypen scenarios

4K notes · View notes

itneverendshere · 7 months ago

Text

LOVED YOU AT YOUR WORST - r.c series - EIGHT

pairings: ex!sweethearts; rafe x thornton!reader; rafe x sofia. chapter warnings: mentions of pregnancy; abortion.

MASTERLIST

Topper prided himself in keeping out of people’s business.

He hadn’t noticed anything was off with you on his own, he wouldn’t have; he didn’t do the whole “emotional radar” thing.

But Rafe had practically cornered him, demanding he figure out what was going on with you.

You were his cousin, after all.

That didn’t stop the way his stomach twisted from thinking about lying to you, or how every part of him had always silently rooted for you and Rafe. He’d loved seeing you two together. You were a mess most days, for years, sure, but it was the kind of mess that made sense in a way, and Topper couldn’t help but admire it.

You were like fire and gasoline.

But that was before the break-up, before everything got fucked.

Now, you were just… distant. He never knew how to approach you without feeling like he was crossing a line, but the way you’d passed out on Rafe at the beach had him worrying in a way that was more personal than he wanted to admit.

He wasn’t a thinker, not really, he liked simple things: good waves, cold beer, and not getting roped into drama.

But there he was, standing outside your door with Korean fried chicken. He didn’t do feelings, and he didn’t do heavy conversations. Rafe owed him big for this. The conversation had been good, even when you started talking about Sarah and Ruthie.

Topper was all in—laughing along, throwing in a dumb joke here and there, the usual. It felt nice, like when you were kids, sneaking your dad’s beers and pretending you weren’t gonna get caught.

But then he had to go and ruin it by asking if you were okay.

You went all stiff, then weirdly far away, laughing it off like he’d just asked you to explain calculus or something. You mumbled something about being fine and then bolted to the bathroom before he could even follow up with his usual Topper-brand wisdom.

He sat there, feeling uncomfortable, which wasn’t a thing he usually did. You were acting off, and it was messing with him more than he wanted to admit.

Finally, he decided he needed to move, so he got up to grab some water. Except, as he walked past the counter, his hip caught a pile of your mail, and an envelope went sliding to the floor.

“Crap,” he muttered, crouching to grab it. It was just some random envelope, but there was a phone number written on the front in messy blue ink.

Topper didn’t think about it—because thinking wasn’t really his strong suit—he just whipped out his phone and typed it in. Curiosity, man. It got him every time.

He hit call. He wasn’t trying to snoop or anything. It was just one of those things you do on autopilot, right? Call a number just to see who answers? Except this time, someone did answer.

The phone rang. Once. Twice. Then:

“Women’s Health Center, how can I help you?”

His brain short-circuited, full-on panic mode. He stared at the phone like it had grown a second screen, then frantically hit the hang-up button just as the bathroom door creaked open.

You were back.

Topper, sweating for no reason, slapped the envelope back on the counter like it was about to explode and turned to you with a smile that definitely didn’t match his pounding heart.

He got out of there as soon as possible, as he drove to meet Rafe, the whole thing was still playing on a loop in his head. That phone number, the voice on the other end of the line, the way you’d acted when he’d asked if you were okay—he couldn’t stop trying to force the pieces into place.

Something was going on, he wasn't sure what, and he wasn’t exactly the guy you went to for deep insights, but he felt something was up.

When he pulled into Tanyhill, he spotted Rafe leaning against his truck, scrolling through his phone with that permanent scowl he seemed to have these days. He barely had the car in park before Rafe was pushing off the truck and heading his way.

He climbed out, doing his best to act normal—which, for him, meant cracking the same goofy grin he always did. His mind was still spinning with a dozen half-formed thoughts about that phone call, that clinic, and how the the fuck he might fit into all of it.

The only thing he knew for sure was that Rafe knowing could be catastrophic. Like, meteor-hits-earth catastrophic.

“You gotta chill,” Topper said, slamming his car door shut and giving Rafe a once-over. “Why do you look like you’re about to punch somebody?”

Rafe just glared, shoving his phone in his pocket. “What’d you find out?”

He blinked, thrown by how fast he cut to the point. “Nice to see you, too. Second, what makes you think I found out anything?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Top. Did you figure it out or not?”

“Yeah, I figured it out,” Topper shot back, crossing his arms. “But why the hell did you make me go through all this work if you already know what’s going on?”

Rafe shrugged, leaning back against the truck like this was all just some casual conversation. “Didn’t think you’d actually get it, to be honest.”

“Bro, I’m not that stupid. How did you get to the bottom of this shit? I’m still confused as fuck over here.”

Rafe’s mouth twitched like he was deciding whether to smirk or yell, hesettled on neither. “She passed out on me, remember?”

“So?” Topper shot back, frowning. “I’ve seen you pass out for, like, way less.”

“It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t a hangover or heat stroke, it was different. And she’s been weird lately, avoiding everyone.” Rafe leaned back against his truck, arms crossed, talking fast. “The hospital did blood work.”

Topper, who’d been zoning out halfway through his little doctor act, suddenly perked up.

“Wow,” he mused, dragging the word out. “Okay. So, how’d you take the news? I mean, shit, you look pretty calm for once. Didn’t think that was in your wheelhouse."

Rafe frowned, his sharp blue eyes narrowing, the crease between his brows deepening like it always did when he thought someone was wasting his time.

"The fuck are you talking about?”

Topper shrugged like this was totally normal. “I just expected you to, like…freak out or somethin'. Throw a punch, maybe.”

“Throw a punch about what?” Rafe snapped.

“About—” Topper paused, squinting at Rafe like he was trying to solve a puzzle. “Wait. What are you supposed to do?”

Rafe’s hand twitched toward his jaw, fingers brushing over the stubble there, a telltale sign that he was gearing up to lose patience. He didn’t wait for Topper to answer before shaking his head, the movement quick and irritated.

“Don’t do that, man,” he added, pointing a finger “I’ll help her figure it out. What else can I do?”

Topper tilted his head, genuinely impressed. “Damn. You really matured, huh? I mean, good for you.”

“Top, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Rafe demanded, his tone sharp now like he was finally catching on to the fact that they weren’t on the same page.

Topper blinked, “I’m just saying you’re handling it better than I thought. Especially since she’s not—uh, showing yet.”

“Not showing what?”

“…The bump?”

He immediately realized he’d said the wrong thing, or maybe the right thing, but in the wrong tone, with the wrong level of context, and—okay, maybe he should just stop talking.

Abort mission, abort mission. Topper immediately wanted to crawl into a hole. Dude, shut up, shut up, shut up.

“What the fuck?” Rafe’s voice cracked; his eyes blazing as he stepped closer. “What bump?!”

His laugh fizzled out under Rafe’s glare, it was starting to feel less like “concerned ex-boyfriend” and more like “interrogating cop.” He felt a bead of sweat slide down the back of his neck.

Cool. Stay cool.

“Wait,” Topper held his hands up, trying to physically stop the situation from spiraling. “What do you think is wrong with her?”

His brain was spinning in a way it wasn’t built for. He was a simple guy—he liked clear problems and easy fixes. But this? This was a category-five disaster, and he was stuck right in the middle of it.

Rafe let out a sharp breath through his nose, dragging a hand through his hair, the small strands sticking up in every direction.

“I think she’s got a fucking infection! Why the hell would I think she’s pregnant?”

Topper hesitated, glancing toward the house like maybe Sarah or Wheezie might miraculously appear to save him. No such luck.

“Well fucking shit,” Topper blurted, the words tumbling out in a rush. His heart was pounding, and he was pretty sure he’d just signed his death warrant. “I—I didn’t say she’s pregnant, okay? I found this number, and it was for a women’s health center, and—fuck, man, I’m dead. I’m so dead.”

Rafe grabbed him by the collar, yanking him close. “Start talking. Now.”

“I wasn’t snooping, okay? It just—happened. I wasn’t trying to get in her business, but—”

“But what?” Rafe barked. His other hand twitched at his side, curling into a fist before flexing out again, a warning of how close Topper was to eating pavement, but Rafe wasn’t the one he feared right now.

You were going to kill him.

He could already picture the look on your face when you found out—those cold, furious eyes, the way your voice would drop, he was officially dead meat. He gulped, his mouth dry as his brain scrambled for something—anything—that wouldn’t get him killed or disowned.

“You better explain what the fuck you mean by ‘happened,’” Rafe growled, his grip tightening, giving Topper’s collar a shake, just enough to make his point clear.

Topper was done, leaving nothing but pure panic and the faint, distant sound of his voice saying things he definitely shouldn’t.

“I called the number!” Topper yelped. “I didn’t even mean to, it was—dude, she’s gonna kill me, and I mean that literally. She will.”

“Not if I kill you first,” Rafe shoved him back, his grip finally loosening, his face unreadable now, which was somehow worse than when he’d looked ready to punch him. “You’re telling me you think she’s pregnant? And you didn’t remember to tell me sooner?”

“I didn’t!” Topper said quickly, panic bubbling over. “It’s not like she’s gonna tell me this kind of stuff.”

“Did she say anything to you? Anything about seeing a doctor or being sick?”

Topper shook his head so fast it made him dizzy. “I asked if she was okay, but she just brushed it off and changed the subject.”

The silence that followed was thick and suffocating, both of them staring each other down.

“No, no way. She’s probably… I don’t fucking know, changing her pill or something.”

Topper raised an eyebrow. “Changing her pill?”

“Yeah,” Rafe said quickly, “Or—what else do they do there? Those check-up things. Maybe she’s getting one of those.”

“Uh-huh,” Topper replied, not convinced but also not dumb enough to call him out on it outright. “Sure. Just a… routine check-up?”

“Exactly,” Rafe agreed a little too loud, his tone almost defensive as he started circling again, his hands gesturing wildly. “They don’t just deal with… y'know. They do all kinds of shit. Tests, prescriptions, all that stuff. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Topper scratched the back of his neck, his expression caught between agreement and unease. “I mean, yeah, they do other stuff… but don’t you think—”

“I don’t think anything, there’s nothing to think about. She’s fine. She’s—she’s fine.” He stopped pacing, standing rigid with his hands on his hips, glaring at the ground like it had personally offended him.

“Okay,” Topper started, his tone cautious. “I get that you don’t want to jump to conclusions, but—”

“I’m not jumping to conclusions!” Rafe barked, spinning around “You’re the one making it into something it’s not! She’s not—she wouldn’t—she hasn’t told me anything,” He muttered finally, “And if she’s hiding this… from me…”

He’d never seen Rafe like this—angry, yeah, but there was something else there, either way, it wasn’t good. His glare burned into him, but for the first time, there was hesitation behind it. He wasn’t just mad—he was scared. Topper couldn’t decide if that made him feel better or worse.

“Holy shit,” Rafe muttered, gripping the side of his truck for balance. His vision going fuzzy as his heart raced like he’d just sprinted a mile. “Holy shit, what if—what if she is?”

“Dude, breathe,” Topper said, stepping closer cautiously like Rafe was a live grenade. “You don’t even—”

“Even if—if—she was, how the hell would that even—” He cut himself off, his face twisting like he couldn’t decide whether to finish the thought or abandon it entirely.

Topper didn’t need him to finish, he understood exactly what Rafe was thinking. The timeline, the breakup, the way everything had gone down between you.

Rafe’s breath hitched as he let go of the truck and paced a few steps, his hands on his hips, muttering under his breath. “No. No way. It’s not—she’d tell me, right? She’d fucking tell me.”

Images started flashing through his mind in rapid succession, each one more ridiculous and unhinged than the last. You, standing in some clinic, staring at a test with a blank expression. You, trying to figure out how to tell Rafe.

You, holding a baby—Rafe’s baby—in your arms.

“This doesn’t make any sense. We were careful. She’s just stressed, girls go through shit. Hormones or whatever. Right?”

“You’re asking me? I barely passed bio. I’m not exactly a walking textbook on—” He stopped himself, seeing the look on Rafe’s face. “I don’t know what’s going on with her, okay? But if this is what I think it is, you gotta handle it right. Don’t screw it up more than it already is.”

“And if I don’t handle it right?”

Topper forced a shaky grin, even as his stomach twisted in knots.

“Then I guess I’ll see you in hell, man. Because she’s gonna kill us both.”

Rafe’s hands went to his hips, his thumb brushing the edge of his pocket as he stared past Topper, he was trying to work out an equation that wasn’t adding up.

“She hasn’t said a word to me,” Rafe muttered, “Not at the hospital, not since. And you think…” He trailed off, dragging a hand over his face.

Topper shifted on his feet, resisting the urge to bolt to the other side of the world.

“I guess, but I swear, it wasn’t on purpose.”

Rafe shot him a look, his brows knitting together, and Topper felt like he was under a microscope. “You called a random number. How does that ‘just happen’?”

He huffed, throwing his hands up. “I was grabbing some water, and her mail fell, and there was this number—I didn’t think! I just… acted.” He groaned, his head falling back as he stared at the sky. “I didn’t mean to put two and two together, but what was I supposed to do? You’re the one who made me go digging in the first place!”

“You really think that’s what’s going on?” Rafe asked finally, his voice quieter.

“You said she’s acting weird, and then there was that number, and…” He trailed off, scratching the back of his neck.

“Do you even understand what this means? If she’s—if there’s a—” He broke off, “I’d have to—Jesus Christ, what would I even do? I’m not—God.”

His hands gripped the edge of the truck bed so hard his knuckles turned white, the veins in his arms standing out as he glared at the ground like it had personally offended him.

“If she didn’t tell me—” His voice was low, quiet in a way that made Topper wince because he knew what came next.

“Maybe just... ask her?”

“Ask her?” he repeated, his voice disbelieving.

“Yeah, you know,” Topper said, gesturing vaguely. “Talk to her? Maybe find out what’s going on instead of losing your shit over worst-case scenarios?”

Rafe shook his head, “No. If she wanted me to know, she’d tell me. She’s... she’s dealing with her own stuff. It’s not my place to push.”

“Since when do you not push?”

“Since now,” Rafe snapped, though even he didn’t sound convinced.

“Rafe—”

“No, seriously,” Rafe interrupted, his voice rising now, the tight restraint unraveling with every word. “If she’s—if she’s going through this, if she’s pregnant, and she didn’t tell me?” He let out a bitter chuckle, “What the fuck does that say? About me.”

Topper opened his mouth, hesitated, then closed it again. This felt like a minefield, and if anyone was good at stepping on the wrong spot, it was him.

Rafe pushed off the truck, he couldn’t physically stay still. His eyes were burning as he raked a hand through his buzzed hair.

“I was—fuck. She thinks what? That I wouldn’t show up for this. She didn’t tell me because she doesn’t think I deserve to know.”

“That’s not true,” Topper said quickly, stepping closer, but Rafe’s empty laugh stopped him.

“Isn’t it?” Rafe’s voice was hollow now, all the fire drained out of him, turning his head slightly, just enough for Topper to see his throat working as he swallowed hard. “What the hell have I ever done to make her think I’d be there? That I’d—” He broke off. “Shit. I wouldn’t blame her. I can't even fucking blame her.”

“You still care about her, right?” Topper pressed, knowing he didn’t have to ask to know the answer.

Rafe’s head snapped up, “She’s the only thing I’ve ever cared about.”

He nodded slowly, “Then prove it.”

The envelope sat exactly where you’d left it, the faintest corner of folded. You froze for a second, your pulse quickening.

No. No way.

It was fine. Fine.

The number wasn’t even labeled—just digits scrawled hastily, you hadn’t touched it in days. Still, you couldn’t stop the tiny seed of panic attaching itself to your chest. There was absolutely no way Topper could’ve seen it, let alone put two and two together.

You exhaled slowly, placing it back on the counter.

He didn’t see it. He couldn’t have seen it.

Then why had he acted so… off? The pale face, the sudden excuse, the jittery energy—it was all so unlike him.

You shook your head, trying to push the thought away, a million things could’ve set him off.

Maybe Ruthie had texted him something awful, or maybe he’d remembered he had to pick up his dry cleaning before the shop closed. Knowing Topper, it was probably something stupid and unrelated to you entirely.

Still, the nagging lingered as you cleaned up the counter and threw away the napkins. You glanced at the envelope one last time, then slid it into a drawer and shut it firmly. Whatever was going on with your cousin, it couldn’t have anything to do with that. It was impossible. And yet…

You sighed, rubbing your temples.

“Pregnancy brain,” you muttered to yourself. “Making me paranoid over nothing.”

Of course that didn’t stop your heart from jumping every time the drawer creaked, or when you saw anything even remotely similar to that envelope’s color lying around the house for the entire night. Not that he’d ask, of course—Topper wasn’t the confrontational type, especially not with you. But he noticed things. And when he noticed, he worried.

The next morning you sank onto the couch, hugging a pillow to your chest. Topper was close, but he wasn’t like Sarah. She had been able to look you in the eye and say, You know I’m here, right? and mean it without any strings attached. Topper, though…

Your fingers itched toward your phone, even though it was stupid to call her so early over this. Still, you needed someone to remind you that you weren’t losing it, that Topper’s weirdness had nothing to do with anything serious.

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you found Sarah’s number, pressing the call button. She picked up on the second ring, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

You could picture her, sitting in her car or probably stretched out somewhere in Poguelandia with her feet propped up on a table, looking concerned.

“Nothing’s wrong. I just…” You trailed off, fiddling with the edge of a pillow.

“Topper’s been acting strange. And I think I’m just overthinking it, but it’s making me crazy.”

She made a sound between a hum and a laugh. “So the Topper panic spiral. That’s what we’re dealing with?”

“Basically,” you muttered, trying to keep your tone light. “But this time… He was here last night, and I thought he saw this random piece of paper I had with, you know. A number on it.” You took a shaky breath, embarrassed for how paranoid you sounded. “But he couldn’t have, right? I mean, it was buried under five other things.”

“Okay,” Sarah said slowly, clearly choosing her words. “First, let’s just say that if he did see anything, which he probably didn’t, he wouldn’t assume the worst. He’s your cousin; he knows you don’t tell him everything, and he respects that. Right?”

“Yeah… I guess.” You chewed your lip, feeling a little stupid for even calling her. “But what if he does put it together, Sarah? I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

“He won’t,” she reassured, like she could see right through your anxiety. “And you don’t need to feel bad for wanting to keep this private. You’re allowed to handle it however you need to. You’re not doing anything wrong.”

You exhaled, the knot in your chest loosening a little. She always knew how to talk you down, "Okay,” you murmured, and a shaky laugh slipped out. “Maybe I'm being paranoid.”

“Pregnancy brain,” she teased, and you couldn’t help but smile.

You hung up feeling marginally better.

Sarah had a way of calming you down, but the uneasiness stayed with you, the way it always did when you couldn’t fully explain something.

But the relief was fleeting, by lunchtime, the nagging voice in your head was back. Topper wasn’t malicious, but he did have a habit of talking without thinking, and the last thing you needed was for this to get out before you were ready. Not only was this a huge scandal, but it was your business.

You busied yourself with small tasks—folding laundry, wiping down the counters, pretending that everything was fine. It wasn’t until almost noon that your phone rang. The hospital’s number flashed on the screen, and your stomach dropped.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Miss Thornton?” the voice on the other end asked politely, too polite for comfort.

“This is she."

“This is Linda from the hospital. I’m calling about your recent bloodwork. We had a bit of an issue with our system, and unfortunately, there was a delay in getting back to you. We also lost some patient information temporarily—”

“Wait, what?” you interrupted, not liking where this was going, “What do you mean you lost information?”

“Oh, nothing to worry about,” Linda said quickly, as if that would make you feel better. “We managed to recover most of it, but in the meantime, we had to rely on emergency contact information to reach out. Dr. Harris called yours last night.”

Your breath caught. “Called... my emergency contact?”

“Yes.”

“Sarah Cameron? She didn’t tell me someone called.”

“She’s not listed as your emergency contact in our system, Rafe Cameron is. It might be an older record?”

Fuck.

Your heart was in your throat. “What... what did he tell him?”

“He only left a generic message asking for you to follow up about your bloodwork. Nothing specific.”

“Nothing specific,” you repeated, more to yourself than to her. Relief and panic warred within you. If Rafe knew, he’d already be there, the night before, demanding answers. Right?

“We need you to come back in. It’s possible you may have an infection, and we need to run a few more tests.”

You didn’t even hear the rest of her explanation.

Your fingers felt numb as you mumbled something that vaguely resembled agreement and hung up.

Infection, that was what she’d said. That was all it was. Not… not anything else. If it were anything else, they wouldn’t have just called—they’d have told Rafe.

“Stop,” you muttered aloud, shaking your head. “Stop spiraling.”

But your brain wouldn’t listen.

“Generic message,” Linda had said, but did it sound generic? What did he think when he got it? Had he laughed it off, or was he running his stupid pristine bedroom, piecing together clues you hadn’t even realized you’d left?

You didn’t want to text Sarah again.

You could imagine her smirking, “I told you, he’s not going to magically grow psychic overnight.” Yeah, sure, but this was Rafe.

He didn’t need magic. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to focus on Sarah’s voice in your head. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”

Except it didn’t feel like that. You hadn’t thought about Rafe as your emergency contact in months, hadn’t needed to.

You sank into the couch, hugging your knees to your chest.

“This is so stupid,” you muttered, but your voice didn’t make it feel any less real. You weren’t even sure what you were spiraling over anymore. The envelope? The hospital? The baby?

“Okay,” you said out loud. “Okay, it’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

The sound of your voice didn’t even convince you. Your brain wouldn’t stop jumping from one thing to the next, spinning every scenario you didn’t want to think about.

What if he did know? If that was enough to set him off, to make him call someone, pull some strings...Shit, what if he did show up, and you had to explain why you were dodging everyone and keeping things from him and—stop.

Stop.

You were doing it again. The spiraling. The pregnancy brain Sarah teased you about like it was some sort of cute quirk, but wasn’t cute.

You sat up straight, squeezing the couch pillow so hard you thought it might burst. Breathe. Just breathe, you’d made it this far without imploding.

You glanced toward the drawer again, the one with the envelope. You should’ve burned it, shredded it first. No, you had to keep it—just in case. But just in case of what? Just in case you needed more reasons to feel like a lunatic.

Oh my god. What if Topper saw the stupid number, and then Rafe got the hospital call, and then—bam—suddenly, they had the whole damn thing figured out?

You could feel it already—the panic. You liked to think they were both too stupid for their own good, but they were also observant. Rafe, that bastard always knew how to put things together faster than anyone.

What if—what if it’s that simple for them? What if they both saw it, and then they were just sitting there, having some stupid-ass conversation, connecting dots you didn’t even realize were dots?

No. Stop. Stop thinking like that.

You were getting carried away, jumping to conclusions like some manic soap opera character. You weren’t that girl. Not really. But the thought of them talking—Topper with his concern and Rafe with his overbearing intensity.

Your fingers tapped a frantic rhythm against the pillow. The idea of him figuring it out? Oh, that made your skin crawl. Not because he’d be cruel—no, that wasn’t his style. He’d just be so… himself.

Overwhelming, determined to “fix” things for you, even when you didn’t ask for it.

You groaned, dropping the pillow and standing abruptly, like the movement might kill the growing dread. No, you told yourself firmly.

You weren’t spiraling over things that hadn’t even happened yet.

But the voice in your head, the one that always sounded a little too much like Rafe, had other plans: What if it’s already too late?

You paced the living room, arms crossed tightly over your chest. This was ridiculous, you were ridiculous. Nothing had happened, nothing was going to happen. The number wasn’t even that suspicious, it could’ve been anything.

You groaned again, flopping onto the couch like the dramatic mess you were currently embodying. Rafe had probably gotten the hospital call, rolled his eyes without a second thought, too busy with his new precious life.

Your stomach churned, and you pressed your hands against it instinctively. It wasn’t showing yet—thank god—but you couldn’t help the way your mind spiraled back to it, to all the ways this could go wrong.

You grabbed your car keys without thinking, maybe it would clear your head. A drive—that’s what you needed. Get out of the house, and put some distance between you and the stupid envelope, the phone calls, all of it. You turned the knob, yanked the door open—

—and froze.

Rafe’s hand was raised mid-air, clearly about to knock. You didn’t even try to hide the way your breath hitched.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

Standing there on the porch like he hadn’t just derailed your entire plan. As if it was still perfectly normal for him to show up unannounced, one hand shoved into his pocket and the other gripping his phone, his head tilted in a maddeningly familiar way.

His hand hovered uncertainly on the doorframe as you stepped back, your arms folding protectively over your chest. He didn’t push past you, didn’t move his weight forward—just stood there.

He glanced down at the spare key still in his hand, turning it over like he was considering whether he even had the right to use it. “They called me last night.”

Okay, he was just here because of the hospital, a coincidence, that’s all it was.

“And? You could’ve ignored it.”

His hand flexed at his side like he didn’t know what to do with it. “I thought something might be wrong.”

“It’s not.” Your voice was clipped, cold. “They called the wrong number. End of story.”

He didn’t rise to the bait.

“I thought—” He cut himself off, exhaling sharply. “I thought you were sick.”

“Like I said, it was a mix-up.”

His jaw ticked. That tiny muscle in his cheek twitched, the one that always flared when he was suspicious.

“Funny, they didn’t sound mixed up when they said your name,” he drawled, his tone probing. “Wanna try again?”

“Mind your fucking business,” Your voice was defensive, and you hated the crackle of guilt in your chest when he flinched. “I don’t need you to pretend to care. Why are you even here?” you snapped, taking a step back. The space between you felt vulnerable. “Don’t you have someone else to worry about?"

You felt cornered with every second he stood there.

“We need to talk.”

Maybe if you acted calm, like nothing was wrong, he’d stop looking at you like that. Vulnerability wasn’t something you were good at, he’d already taken too much. He always took too much.

“I don’t owe you shit. Not explanations, not answers, nothing. Leave.”

He didn’t. Of course, he didn’t.

Rafe didn’t know how to let shit go, not when it came to you, he didn’t back away.

“You’re right,” he said, surprising you. “You don’t, but I’m not leaving until we talk.”

The way he said, it wasn’t even a threat. It was worse than that. It was calm, resolute, like he’d already decided, and nothing you said or did could change it.

That scared you more than anything.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” you hissed, “Whatever you think you know, you don’t.”

He arched an eyebrow, his eyes flicking to the edge of the couch where your phone still sat, “You sure about that?”

“God, you’re always like this. Always overstepping, always assuming—”

“I know."

All the noise in your head—your spiraling thoughts, your excuses, your endless denials—went silent, except for the way your heart thudded in your chest, so fast, it hurt. He hadn’t raised his voice, but those two words hit you like a kick to your chest.

No, he couldn’t—he didn’t, he was bluffing, he had to be. Air caught in your throat, and for a moment, you thought you might choke on it. He didn’t move, didn’t repeat himself. He couldn’t know.

Your tongue went dry.

“What are you talking about?” You couldn’t breathe. It felt like someone was squeezing your chest. You shook your head again, more violently this time, stepping back, “You don’t know shit.”

“I think I do.” His voice was quiet, and that made it worse, it wasn’t cold or angry; it wasn’t even accusing. He didn’t sound like he wanted to be right, he just sounded tired.

You prayed to come up with something—anything—to deflect, to deny, to keep the truth buried where it belonged.

“You’re delusional,” you took another step back, putting more space between you and the man who had always known you too well.

He just shook his head, “You don’t have to lie to me, you’re scared, you’re not even trying to hide it.”

It was the way he stared with those stupid blue eyes, he was peeling back your layers. He always did that, made you feel like he could see something in you that you weren’t ready to acknowledge.

“Oh, fuck off.” You threw your hands up. “You don’t know shit about what I’m feeling. You’ve got no right to—I’m not lying.”

It still hurt how much you missed him, hurt to even look at him.

“Don’t pull this cryptic bullshit with me, if you’ve got something to say, say it.”

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

The thing you’d been running from, denying, hiding, you simply stared at him, trying to decide if there was any way to lie your way out of this.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” You tried to laugh, but it came out strangled, desperate. “T-That’s insane. You’ve lost your mind.”

Rafe wasn’t gloating or triumphant—he just looked… resigned, he’d pieced it together before he showed up.

“Don’t do that. Don’t lie to me, not about this.”

You wanted to scream, to shove him, to do anything that would make him stop looking at you like he cared. Like he knew you. Because if you stopped long enough to think about it, you knew it was over.

He’d already seen it.

“I mean it, Rafe.” Your hand tightened on the door, nails digging into the wood. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

God, this was so fucked. You wanted him gone, but wanted him here, needed him to leave you alone, but at the same time, you hated that he could just leave.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

You thought about what he’d do if he knew—really knew. Not just the vague sense he had now, but the details. Would he try to stop you?

Your lip quivered, and you hated yourself for it. “You’re wrong.”

You stared at him, at the way his shoulders hunched slightly, his usual confidence worn down. You hated him for being calm for once in his fucking life, for being here, for not letting this slide when it was none of his fucking business.

“Am I?”

Your hands clenched tighter, nails biting into your palms. “Why? Why do you even care? It’s not like you—”

“Because it’s mine.”

Your breath hitched again, and this time, you couldn’t hide it. You wanted to deny it, to throw something—hell, anything—back at him to make him shut the fuck up. But your throat felt like it had shut off entirely, and your mind had gone blank.

“I—” you stammered, shaking your head violently, “No. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re—”

“Hey, hey, just—just stop,” he said, his voice careful, as if he was trying not to spook you. “I’m not—Jesus, I’m not here to fight with you, okay? I’m not here to make this harder.”

Your chest heaved, a bitter laugh escaping before you could stop it. He was too late—late to care, late to help, late to fix anything. Five days, that’s all you had to get through.

Five days until you didn’t have to think about it anymore.

This is the right choice, you told yourself for the hundredth time. You couldn’t bring a baby into this mess.

“You’re doing a hell of a job at that.”

“I just want to help. If you let me—”

“No,” you interrupted, grabbing the edge of the door. “I’m fixing it.”

“Fixing—?” Rafe’s brow furrowed, his confusion almost comical He started to step forward, but you stopped him with a resentful glare that made him stop. “What does that even mean?”

“It means you can take your fake concern and shove it up your ass.”

His brow furrowed. “It’s not fake—” His face twisted in confusion, mouth opening like he was about to argue, but you didn’t give him the chance, slamming the door in his face, so hard the frame rattled.

“Of course. Of course, it’s mine,” you muttered to yourself, mocking his stupid, self-righteous tone.

You leaned back against the door, sliding to the floor, arms crossed over your knees as your brain whirred like it was trying to kill you.

It wasn’t like you had a choice.

Technically, you did, but what were you supposed to do? Keep it and become a tragic sob story? The words almost felt like you’d ripped them out of someone else’s mouth, right or wrong didn’t even matter anymore. There wasn’t space in your life for this—for him, for a baby, for any of it.

A muffled knock sounded from the front door—tentative, like he was giving you a moment.

“Go away,” you yelled, your voice hoarse.

“Open the door.”

Your thoughts taunted you with memories and possibilities you didn’t want to entertain. The way Rafe had looked at you—like he knew—it was unbearable.

How had he put it together? Maybe you'd slip up in tiny ways, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow. You hated yourself for being so careless, despised him even more for being so fucking relentless.

You wiped your cheeks roughly, not realizing you’d started crying until your sleeve came back damp.

“Please, just open the door. We can talk—just talk, okay?

“No,” you muttered to the empty room. “No, I’m not doing this.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, leaning your head back against the door and pressing your hands over your ears to block him out.

“Don’t shut me out like this,” he begged. “I can’t—fuck, I can’t stand it when you do this. Just open the door. Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”

He had a key. If he wanted to, he could let himself in at any moment, but he didn’t, that wasn’t the Rafe you were used to.

Before, he'd have barged right in, shouted until your ears bled, and demanded answers. He would’ve tried to fix it or destroy it, maybe both.

You hated that he still acted like he cared, that he was trying to be so fucking reasonable now, when just a few months ago, he would’ve lost it, broken through any barrier to get what he wanted.

This was worse, this Rafe was wearing you down.

Another hushed plea made it through the door, but all you could think was how thin the wood felt, how it barely drowned the sound of his voice. A new door might be better, something heavier, more solid, that could drown out everything—the desperation, the crack in his voice.

Tears prickled at the corners of your eyes, and you bit hard on the inside of your cheek to keep them from falling.

“I know you’re scared,” he continued, “And I know you think I’ll screw this up—God knows I probably will. But please don’t keep me in the dark. Just tell me what’s going on.”

You pictured flipping through hardware store catalogs, weighing your options: oak? steel? soundproofing foam?

“Please,” Rafe whispered, and the rawness in his voice scraped against you like nails on a chalkboard. You tilted your head back against the door, willing yourself not to cry again.

Steel doors don’t warp as easily as wood.

You swallowed hard, your body aching as you fought the sob threatening to escape. He didn’t deserve this—didn’t deserve to sound so wrecked over you. He'd done this to himself.

Your fingers twitched against the door handle, the temptation to open it curling around you, but instead, you thought about bolts.

Deadbolts, a second lock could work, something he couldn’t get through even if he had the key.

His voice wavered again, you thought he might start crying, too, yet all you did was glance at the base of the door. A better seal would muffle the noise more. Maybe weatherstripping? That could help.

You pressed your hands tighter over your ears, as though it would help. It didn’t. Nothing would—not until you replaced the lock, the door, the memory of him standing there and breaking himself open for you.

God, you really needed a new door—and a new heart.

One that didn’t twist at the sound of his voice, that didn’t flinch every time he called your name like it was a prayer. A heart that didn’t feel for him, you told yourself, over and over, like a mantra. If you could just stop the way your chest tightened at his pleas, stop the ache in your ribs when he said he couldn’t let this go.

You wanted steel walls, that could keep everything out—his voice, his touch, the memories of all the good parts of him that had kept you hanging on for so long. Because of this heart? It was useless, too soft, too easily swayed, still willing to believe him, even when you knew better.

“Please, just talk to me,” Rafe begged. You bit your lip hard enough to taste blood.

You couldn’t help but wonder if this calmness came from Sofia.

Perhaps she was the reason he’d changed, maybe she had somehow made him different, had softened the sharp edges of the guy you used to know. She was calm, collected—nothing like you. It hurt like a bitch, the thought that someone else could make him this patient. You wondered if she’d taught him how to handle his emotions, how to be this way—he’d learned some secret he never bothered to share with you.

You couldn't let yourself go there, couldn't let the bitterness of that thought settle in your mind for too long.

“Talk to me.”

No. Not this time.

TAGLIST: @maybankslover @october-baby25 @haruvalentine4321 @hopelesslydevoted2paige

@rafebb @rafesbby @whytheylosttheirminds

@zyafics @astarlights @bruher @nosebeers @carrerascameron

@serrendiipty @sunny1616 @yootvi @ditzyzombiesblog

@psychocitylights @maibelitaaura @kiiyomei

@stoned-writer @justafangirls-blog-deactivated2

@starkeygirlposts @enjoymyloves @ijustwanttoreadlols @icaqttt

2K notes · View notes

cressidagrey · 3 months ago

Text

White Horse - Chapter 8: October 2023

Pairing: Max Verstappen x Isabelle Leclerc (Original Character)

Summary:

Max Verstappen is a World Champion. Isabelle Leclerc is invisible.

She watched her family give up everything for Charles’ career—Arthur’s karting, their father’s savings, even her childhood horse. She understood. She never asked for more.

But Max does. He notices the things no one else does, listens when no one else will, and puts her first in ways she never imagined. With him, she isn’t an afterthought—she’s a choice. And for the first time, she realizes she doesn’t have to be invisible.

Warnings and Notes:

we have now moved on from Charles bashing to bashing his whole family, Discussions of toxic past relationships, talk about loosing a childhood pet, toxic families...I think that's it?

As always big thanks to @llirawolf , who listens to me ramble

Max wasn’t someone who forgot how to be an adult.

He was a World Champion. He kept a strict training regimen, remembered which hand luggage worked best for long-haul flights, and could navigate a grid penalty strategy like it was second nature. He wasn’t helpless—not at the track, not at home.

But still, there was something quietly astonishing about how easy his life had become since Isabelle moved in.

It started off small.

After the first race weekend they spent apart post-move, he came home expecting the usual chaos—half-unpacked suitcase, laundry to do, a fridge with maybe one sad yogurt and some questionable cheese.

Instead?

His suitcase was already unpacked. Laundry sorted and in the wash. There was a folded stack of clean gym clothes on the bed, and a small sticky note on the bathroom mirror in Isabelle’s tidy handwriting:

Welcome home. You did great. There’s soup in the fridge and the cats missed you.

He’d blinked at it for a solid minute before laughing quietly and thinking, Huh. That’s new.

But it didn’t stop there.

By the third race weekend, it had become a rhythm. The fridge was magically stocked with all the foods he craved after long travel days—cut mango, chocolate granola, oat milk, the fancy yogurt he’d once mentioned liking.

His sim racing gear? Charged and ready before he even thought to use it. A small corner of the closet had somehow become better organized than Red Bull’s race strategy board.

She started refilling his supplements without saying a word. She pre-scheduled his haircuts, left Post-Its on the mirror when he needed to sign something for the team, and quietly placed noise-canceling earplugs in his carry-on.

And she worked. Isabelle had a full-time job. Not a desk job where she could casually scroll through her phone or delegate her way through the day—she was an architect, doing interiors, managing clients, deadlines, contractors. Max had seen her calendar. It looked like someone had lost a game of Tetris.

And somehow—somehow—she still remembered to order new toothpaste before they ran out. Or add his vitamins to the grocery list. Or restock the snack drawer in his sim room without ever saying a word.

It wasn’t flashy. She didn’t make announcements about it. She just did it, quietly and efficiently, like she always had.

It wasn’t until Max found himself halfway through folding his laundry before realizing he hadn’t had to fold laundry in over a month that the realization hit him fully:

Isabelle had spent most of her life running in the background of other people’s chaos.

He’d seen it before, on the edges of Leclerc family race weekends. Isabelle, the sister who stayed back to make sure Arthur had the right tie packed, or that Charles had signed the right forms. The one who found a florist for Lorenzo thirty minutes before an event, or remembered which water bottle brand their mother liked for travel.

She had always been the quiet buffer.

The fixer.

The forgotten problem-solver.

And now… she was doing it for him.

Not because he expected it. He didn’t. He’d told her repeatedly he could handle himself. But Isabelle wasn’t someone who waited to be asked. She anticipated, gently rearranged the world around her people, and made their lives easier before they even noticed they were stressed.

He found her that night curled up on the sofa, hair damp from the shower, laptop open with her architectural renders glowing softly against her face. She was eating grapes and typing one-handed, her legs tucked under her like always.

“You know,” Max said, dropping onto the couch beside her, “I haven’t had to do a single thing since I got home.”

Isabelle didn’t look up. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… I haven’t done laundry. My flights are in my calendar. My snack drawer is mysteriously refilled. I have socks again. And coffee. And peace.”

She blinked, paused her typing, and smiled. “It’s really not that much.”

“It is,” Max said gently. “You work ten hours a day and somehow still run this apartment like it’s an F1 garage. I don’t know how you do it.”

She shrugged a little, looking sheepish. “I like doing it. I like making things easier for the people I love.”

“Do your brothers ever thank you?”

She hesitated. “I don’t think they realize half of what I do,” she admitted drily.

Max nodded slowly. “Well, I notice. Every little thing. You don’t have to do it all, but when you do… I see it. And I’m grateful. Really.”

Her smile wavered just a little, like something fragile cracked open inside her chest.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I… I’m not used to hearing that.”

Max pulled her laptop from her lap, set it gently on the coffee table, and tugged her into his arms.

Max cupped her cheek, thumb brushing just under her eye. “I see it now. All of it. Every time you notice something before I do. Every time you put something away or refill something I didn’t even realize was empty. You’ve made this place feel like home.”

She smiled softly. “That’s what love is, isn’t it?”

***

Leclerc Sibling Group Chat

(Members: Arthur, Isabelle, Charles and Lorenzo)

Arthur: I’M SCREWED.

Lorenzo: Again?

Charles: What now?

Arthur: I FORGOT MY ANNIVERSARY.

Charles: …

Lorenzo: …

Charles: You absolute moron.

Lorenzo: You have ONE job.

Arthur: HELP ME.

Charles: Help you??? Maybe try remembering important dates next time?

Lorenzo: Yeah, I don’t really see how this is our problem.

Arthur: ISABELLE. SAVE ME.

Isabelle: What kind of dinner does she like?

Arthur: She likes Italian? And wine? And… romantic lighting?

Isabelle: …Do you know anything about your girlfriend?

Arthur: I KNOW I LOVE HER AND I DON’T WANT HER TO DUMP ME.

Isabelle: Right. I’ll take care of it.

Arthur: YOU’RE A HERO.

(20 minutes later)

Isabelle: You have a reservation at La Chèvre d'Or at 8 PM. I also ordered that perfume she keeps in her bag and had it gift-wrapped. It’ll be at your place in an hour.

Lorenzo: Oh, while you’re at it, what should I get my girlfriend for her birthday?

Isabelle: Jewelry. She’s been eyeing those gold earrings from Cartier.

Lorenzo: You’re actually a genius.

(Several hours later)

Isabelle: You’re welcome, by the way.

Arthur: Huh?

Lorenzo: For what?

***

Max was still buzzing with adrenaline when he finally stepped into his apartment, championship celebrations still ringing in his ears. The moment he closed the door behind him, silence settled over him like a warm blanket, the contrast almost jarring after the chaos of the paddock.

And then he saw her.

Isabelle was curled up on the couch, one of the cats nestled beside her, a book resting open in her lap. She must’ve heard him come in because she looked up immediately, her expression softening.

“Hey,” she said, setting the book aside. “How does it feel?”

Max huffed out a breath, toeing off his shoes and crossing the room in a few quick steps. “Like I need you,” he muttered, dropping onto the couch beside her and pulling her into his arms.

She let out a quiet laugh but didn’t resist, settling against his chest as his arms tightened around her. “That exhausting, huh?”

He buried his face in her shoulder. “So many people. So much noise. This is better.”

Her fingers threaded through his hair, nails scratching lightly at his scalp. “You did just win your third world title. Kind of a big deal.”

He smirked against her skin. “Mm. They wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“Annoying, really,” she teased.

He pulled back just enough to look at her. The soft glow from the nearby lamp illuminated her features, her eyes filled with something quiet and fond.

“You should’ve been there,” he murmured, brushing his fingers along her jaw.

She sighed, shaking her head. “You know why I wasn’t.”

He did. She wasn’t ready for the cameras, the attention, the inevitable questions. And he would never push her into something she wasn’t comfortable with.

But fuck, he wished she had been there.

Still, she had waited up for him. She was here. That was enough.

His thumb traced slow circles over her hip as he leaned in, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You watched?”

“Of course.” She smiled. “You were incredible.”

His chest tightened at the quiet sincerity in her voice. He’d spent the entire night surrounded by people telling him how great he was, how historic his achievement was. But this—hearing it from her—meant more than any of it.

He let out a long breath, finally starting to feel the exhaustion creeping in. “Come to bed with me?”

She nodded, taking his hand as they stood. As they made their way toward the bedroom, one of the cats darted ahead of them, already claiming Max’s pillow.

Isabelle laughed. “Looks like you’re not the only champion in this house.”

Max just smiled, pulling her close again as they climbed into bed. “Doesn’t matter. I already have everything I want.”

They settled into bed, limbs tangled, warmth shared beneath soft blankets. The city was quiet outside the windows. The adrenaline was finally ebbing.

And then, just as the stillness settled, Isabelle spoke.

“You never ask,” she said quietly.

“Ask what?”

“Why I haven’t told them.”

She didn’t have to specify who them was.

Max exhaled, rubbing a hand over his jaw. It wasn’t that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. He had wondered—more than once—why she still kept their relationship a secret, why she hadn’t told her brothers, her mother, anyone. But he had never pushed.

“Do you want to tell them?” he asked carefully.

Isabelle was quiet for a long moment. Then, finally, she looked up at him, her gaze steady.

“No.”

Max blinked. That wasn’t the answer he had been expecting.

She sighed, shifting so she was facing him fully. “It’s not because I’m ashamed of you. Or because I don’t care.” She hesitated, searching for the right words. “It’s because you’re important to me.”

His breath hitched slightly, but he stayed quiet, letting her continue.

“My whole life, I’ve felt like I had to fight to be noticed. To be heard. And with my family, it’s always been about Charles. About Arthur. About Lorenzo. I love them, but—sometimes, it feels like I’m just a shadow in their lives.” She swallowed. “I didn’t want you to be part of that. I didn’t want us to become something that gets brushed aside, just another footnote in their world.”

Max’s jaw tightened. He had seen the way her family overlooked her, how they spoke over her, how they forgot things that should have mattered. And now, hearing it from her directly, it made something inside him ache.

“So you kept us just for you,” he murmured.

She nodded. “Just for me.”

Max reached out, his fingers threading through hers. “I don’t mind,” he said, his voice soft but firm. “If you want to wait. Whatever you decide—I just want to be with you.”

She squeezed his hand, and he lifted it to press a kiss against her knuckles, his lips lingering there for a moment.

“I hope you know,” he added quietly, “that you’ll never be a shadow to me.”

A small, wobbly smile tugged at her lips, and she leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“I know,” she whispered.

Max let the words settle between them, his grip on Isabelle’s hand firm but gentle. He could feel the warmth of her fingers, the slight tremble she tried to hide. He had never truly understood what it felt like to be overlooked—his entire life had been under a spotlight, from karting to Formula 1. But Isabelle? She had spent years fading into the background of her own family’s story.

And yet, here she was, choosing to keep him separate from all of that. Not because she was hiding him, but because she wanted something that was only hers.

He squeezed her hand lightly. “You know,” he said, voice softer than usual, “I’d never let them brush you aside. If they knew about us.”

She let out a quiet breath, her eyes flickering down to where their hands were intertwined. “I know,” she admitted. “But that’s not what I’m afraid of.”

Max frowned. “Then what is it?”

She hesitated, then sat up a little straighter, pulling one knee up to her chest. “If I tell them about us,” she said slowly, “it changes things. Not just for me, but for you. For us.” She exhaled. “Suddenly, I won’t just be Isabelle anymore. I’ll be ‘Max Verstappen’s girlfriend.’ And to them, that will mean something.”

He stayed quiet, letting her put her thoughts into words.

“They’ll look at me differently. Maybe they’ll suddenly start paying attention, maybe they’ll act like I matter more just because you matter. And I don’t want that.” Her voice wavered slightly, but she pushed forward. “I don’t want their attention just because of who I’m with. I want them to see me.”

Max felt something twist in his chest. He had never thought of it like that. To him, she had always been important. But her family? They had overlooked her for so long, and she didn’t want their sudden interest to be because of him.

“You think they’d only start noticing you because of my name,” he said quietly.

Isabelle gave him a small, sad smile. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s only cared because of who you are.”

That stung. Because she was right. He had seen it time and time again—people wanting to be close to him because of what he could offer, not because of who he was. The idea that her own family might finally pay attention to her for the same reason made his jaw tighten.

“Belle.” He turned to face her fully, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. “I don’t care how long we keep this just between us. But don’t ever think for a second that I don’t see you. That I don’t love you for exactly who you are.”

Her breath caught, and he saw the way her eyes widened slightly. He hadn’t said it before—not like this. Maybe he should have waited for a different moment, something more planned, more perfect. But she deserved to hear it now.

She swallowed hard. “Max.”

“I mean it,” he said, his voice steady. “I love you, Isabelle. And it has nothing to do with your last name, or your family, or anything else. Just you.”

Her lips parted slightly, and for a moment, she just looked at him—like she was trying to memorize him, like she was searching for any trace of hesitation. She wouldn’t find any.

Then, finally, she let out a shaky breath and leaned in, pressing her forehead against his. “I love you too,” she whispered, so soft he almost didn’t hear it.

But he did. And that was all that mattered.

***

The shift had started quietly.

Snide comments. Backhanded compliments. Passive exclusion from group meetings she used to lead. Isabelle’s project folders were “misplaced,” her samples “forgotten,” and her renderings were somehow always “accidentally deleted.”

But by now it was blatant.

Last week, she’d walked into the break room and found her concept sketches tossed into the trash beside half-eaten croissants.

Today, someone had keyed in over her CAD file—over it, not on a copy—and added a caption across the top of the screen in bold red text:

“Thanks, nepotism. We’ll take it from here.”

Isabelle stared at it for a long time, her stomach turning.

The worst part was that no one tried to hide it anymore.

When she glanced around the office, no one made eye contact. No one looked guilty. They just went on with their day like she was background noise.

Like she hadn’t worked twice as hard. Stayed twice as late. Fought for every inch of credibility.

Like Max’s penthouse had erased everything she’d ever done before it.

She backed away from her desk, air thick in her lungs, and walked straight to the glass-enclosed materials library. Closed the door. Pressed her back against it.

Breathed.

You live in peace, she reminded herself. You wake up next to Max. This doesn’t get to break you.

But it did hurt.

She didn’t cry—she wouldn’t give them that. But her throat ached with all the things she couldn’t say.

***

Text Messages: Isabelle Leclerc & Emilie Abadie

Isabelle: Okay I’m officially done. I just had the worst day and I need to get out of my own head.

Emilie: What happened?? Are you okay?

Isabelle: Just… work stuff. People not listening. Clients who think Pinterest means they’re architects now. And my colleague took credit for something I spent three weeks on.

Emilie: I will start swinging.

Isabelle: Please do. Preferably with one of those cartoonishly large handbags.

Emilie: Already packed one. Where are we going?

Isabelle: Let’s go shopping this afternoon? I still haven’t bought birthday presents for Charles and Arthur, and if I stay in this office any longer I’ll start crying over the wrong throw pillow.

Emilie: Say no more. I’ll pick you up in 30. You can buy emotionally motivated gifts and I can be your moral support/human espresso.

Isabelle: You’re my favorite person.

Emilie: I know. And I’m dragging you to get cake after. No arguments.

***

Alexandra had only come in to browse.

The gallery had been quiet all morning, the kind of rainy-day lull that left her restless, so she’d taken a walk, turned a corner, and ducked into a tucked-away boutique that specialized in little luxuries—silk scarves, handmade ceramics, niche perfumes. The kind of place you didn’t go to with intention, just curiosity.

She was halfway to a display of glass jewelry trays when she heard a familiar voice.

“Alex?”

She turned—and blinked.

“Emilie?”

The other woman—sleek dark coat, sunglasses perched in her hair, a woven tote filled with rolled linen and a jar of fig jam—smiled.

“I thought that was you,” Emilie said, her voice warm but always laced with sharpness, like she couldn’t quite switch off the part of her brain that was evaluating everyone in the room. “It’s been a while.”

Alexandra smiled. “Yeah, since the preview at the gallery. You were with that collector from Paris.”

“He’s still deciding between three paintings he can’t afford,” Emilie said dryly. “But I’m sure he’ll make a confident choice any day now.”

They both laughed.

And then Alexandra’s eyes shifted—to the person standing just behind Emilie, holding a pale blue shopping bag and smiling politely.

Next to her stood Isabelle.

And that—that was the part Alexandra didn’t quite expect.

Because Isabelle Leclerc, as Alexandra knew her, was quiet. Sweet, yes. Polite, yes. But always a little faded at the edges. Always deferring. Always on the outside, even when she was technically inside the room. Always smiling without saying much.

But here—standing next to Emilie, twirling a delicate silver ring between her fingers, visibly debating whether to buy it—Isabelle looked alive.

Her cheeks were pink. She was smiling, not the polite, folded sort of smile Alexandra knew, but something real. Something that reached her eyes. Her body language was open. Confident.

And Emilie was watching her like she’d personally fight anyone who dimmed that light again.

“Hi, Isabelle.”

“Hey, Alex. How are you?” Her voice was as warm as ever. Kind, even. That was the thing about Isabelle—she was never unkind. Always soft-spoken, always thoughtful. Alex couldn’t remember her ever being cold or rude.

And yet… she realized with a flicker of guilt, she didn’t know a single personal thing about her. Not really.

“I’m good,” Alexandra said, hesitating. She wasn’t sure how long to linger. But Emilie stepped aside slightly, making room, and something about the way she did it—reluctantly welcoming—made Alexandra stay.

“You two shopping for anything in particular?” she asked.

Isabelle tilted her head. “A birthday gift. Possibly. Unless I end up keeping it for myself.”

“She’s been buying presents for everyone but herself,” Emilie said dryly. “As per usual.”

“I’m selective,” Isabelle said mildly.

“No, you’re selfless,” Emilie corrected. “There’s a difference.”

Alexandra watched the exchange, slightly stunned. There was an ease between them, a quiet rhythm. They spoke in a way that implied history. Real closeness. It made Isabelle seem... whole, somehow. Grounded.

Alexandra suddenly felt like she’d only ever seen the outline of a person.

“You’re really good at presents,” she said after a pause. “Honestly, I was just thinking about what to get Charles, and I have no idea. You always find the perfect thing.”

Isabelle blinked in surprise. “Oh—thank you. I just try to think about what makes people feel like they’ve been seen.”

“She’s too good,” Emilie said. “It’s genuinely annoying. I once said I liked the color of a book cover and two months later it showed up wrapped in silk ribbon with a handwritten note and a matching bookmark.”

Isabelle flushed slightly. “You needed cheering up.”

“She’s the personal shopper of the entire Leclerc family,” Emilie said flatly, reaching for a small candle. “Has been since she was old enough to know how to wrap a box. Half the birthday gifts your boyfriend has ever given were probably vetted or bought by her.”

Alexandra blinked. “Really?”

Isabelle looked embarrassed. “Sometimes they ask for help.”

Emilie raised an eyebrow. “Isabelle picked out Arthur’s last three girlfriend gifts and Pascale’s Christmas gift for the last 10 years.”

Alexandra laughed, but something about Emilie’s tone lingered.

Not unkind. Just sharp enough to say: Yes, Isabelle is good. And yes, they take her for granted.

It was the sort of thing Alexandra might have thought herself—but would never have said out loud.

“I’m very good at keeping secrets,” Isabelle said lightly.

Alexandra felt something twist in her chest.

She hadn’t known that. She’d never thought to ask.

She’d always liked Isabelle. Truly. Isabelle was kind, warm, undemanding. But also... elusive. Hard to reach. Like there was a door half-closed between them, and Alexandra had never known how to knock.

The three of them wandered through the boutique a little longer. Isabelle offered two suggestions for Charles—one sleek, one sentimental—and Alexandra made a note of both.

And then, as they paused by a shelf of men’s shirts in soft cotton and subtle patterns, Isabelle’s hand brushed one.

Alexandra watched her hesitate over it—thoughtful, considering—before she gently placed it back.

“For Charles?” Alex asked, puzzled.

Isabelle looked over, surprised. “What? Oh—no. Just a nice cut. The collar’s clean.”

And for a flicker of a second, something tugged at Alexandra—some thread she couldn’t quite pull free.

There was something else here. Something under the surface. And now that she’d seen it—how Isabelle lit up beside Emilie, how open she seemed in the right company—Alex couldn’t unsee it.

She’d always thought Isabelle was just shy. Or private. Or soft in that way people could overlook.

Now she wondered if Isabelle was simply guarded.

And Alex, for the first time, found herself wondering what it would take to really know Isabelle Leclerc.

Because she was starting to think—quietly, uneasily—that her boyfriend’s sister was not at all the girl they all assumed she was.

***

Text Messages: Alexandra Saint Mleux & Charles Leclerc

Alexandra: Just ran into your sister. In a boutique in the 6th.

Charles: Oh yeah? What was she doing?

Alexandra: Shopping. Birthday presents, apparently. But Isabelle looked… different.

Charles: Different how?

Alexandra: Happy. Confident. Like… I don’t know. Not the version of her I usually see at family stuff. She was laughing. Really laughing.

Charles: She’s always laughing.

Alexandra: Not like this, Mon amour.

Alexandra: Do you think she’s seeing someone?

Charles: What?

Alexandra: I’m serious.

Charles: Yeah, no way.

Alexandra: Are you sure?

Charles: She would have mentioned it.

Charles: Trust me, it’s not happening.

Alexandra: So confident about that, huh?

Charles: I’d know if she had a boyfriend. And she doesn’t.

***

Instagram Stories -@/isabelleleclerc

***

Meanwhile on Twitter:

@/f1chaosupdates GUYS WHY DID ISABELLE LECLERC POST A CAT SINCE WHEN DOES SHE HAVE A CAT???

[Attached: Isabelle's story — a photo of a cat’s paw]

@/paddocktheories: okay but like this cat looks suspiciously like it could be max verstappen’s cats sassy or jimmy reincarnated

@/wheresmygrid: STOP I THOUGHT THE SAME THING

@/gridgoblins: Wait wait wait what if it IS Sassy or Jimmy and she’s just at Max’s place 👀👀👀

@/redbullstan4life: This is literally a picture of a cat’s paw. It could belong to a thousand other cats. It doesn’t even need to be a Bengal!

@/charlesdefensesquad: isabelle posting a cat and everyone immediately connecting it to max’s cats is so funny. the girl can’t even post her own furniture without y’all screaming “VERSTAPPEN???”

@/gossipgridf1: i will be NORMAL about this… except no because that cat 100% looks like Jimmy or Sassy

@/monaco_mess: to be fair if i was secretly dating max verstappen i too would post soft pictures of his cats like a declaration of love

@/oscarstan22: everyone in the comments like 🕵️‍♀️ enhance 🕵️‍♀️ zoom 🕵️‍♀️ cross-reference sassy and jimmy’s stripe patterns

@/gofasterbaby: if it IS sassy or jimmy and isabelle is just chilling with them…. that’s basically a marriage announcement in Verstappen family terms

***

Oscar Piastri didn’t think grocery shopping could be stressful.

Until Monaco.

Until Monegasque grocery stores, specifically, which didn’t believe in helpful signage, organization, or—apparently—labels with pictures.

Oscar just wanted cheese.

That was it. Cheese. Maybe some pasta. Possibly bread if he was feeling adventurous.

But standing in the middle of a charmingly cramped French grocery store, blinking at six nearly identical wedges of something called tomme de brebis and a handwritten sign that might have been a threat—or a discount—he was beginning to spiral.

He’d committed to doing this errand without help. Without Google Translate. Without texting his girlfriend.

He was trying to be independent.

But now the shop owner was hovering, and Oscar had been standing in the cheese aisle for nine minutes, and he was starting to feel judged by a 72-year-old woman with a very intense stare.

And then—

“Do you need help?” a soft voice asked beside him.

Oscar blinked, turning to find a woman about his age, brown hair twisted back, a linen tote on one shoulder, expression kind.

“I’m sorry?”

She smiled, switching to English immediately. “You’ve been staring at the cheese like it owes you money. I figured you might be lost.”

Oscar exhaled in relief. “I am, actually. I don’t know what any of this is.”

She stepped forward and scanned the shelf. “That one’s sheep’s milk—really good, a bit nutty. That one’s stronger, aged, smells like feet but tastes amazing if you like that sort of thing.”

Oscar stared at her, impressed. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

“I live around the corner,” she said. “And I’ve made every grocery mistake there is.”

He laughed, properly now. “Thanks. That helps a lot.”

She smiled again—polite, gentle, unassuming.

There was something… familiar about her.

Not in a hey-we’ve-met way. But in the I-know-that-face-from-somewhere way.

Soft brown hair, loosely braided. Pretty green eyes. Very Monaco. Very… vaguely connected to something in his brain.

Oscar hesitated. “Do I… know you?”

A flicker of amusement crossed her face. “Probably not. I mean—we’ve technically met. But you probably wouldn’t remember.”

Oscar narrowed his eyes. And then—lightbulb.

“You look like—” He blinked. “Oh. Wait. You’re Charles’ sister.”

Her smile faltered for just a second. “Yes. Among other things.”

“Right,” he said, suddenly feeling awkward. “I didn’t recognize you outside the paddock.”

“It’s okay,” she said, grabbing a carton of eggs with practiced precision. “I usually disappear into the background there.”

“They didn’t have the peach one. So I got apricot instead,” Came a voice behind Isabelle.

Oscar looked up to see none other but Max Verstappen.

“Perfect,” Isabelle said brightly.

Oscar could just stare.

“Oscar,” Max greeted him like it was a normal day. Like he wasn’t currently grocery shopping with Charles Leclerc’s sister.

“…Hi,” Oscar managed, eyes pinging between them. “I—uh. Hey.”

Max moved to toss something else into Isabelle’s cart—like this was normal. Like they hadn’t just revealed themselves as Monaco’s most covert domestic power couple in front of the yogurt aisle.

“Groceries?” Max asked, like that was the confusing part of this moment.

“I—yeah,” Oscar said, holding up his sheep cheese wedge like it was a peace offering. “You guys are… together?”

Max looked over his shoulder. “Shopping?”

Oscar blinked. “No, I mean… like. Together.”

Isabelle flushed slightly but didn’t deny it. Just tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said, “For a while now.”

Oscar stared. “Like. Secretly?”

Max shrugged. “Privately.”

“That’s the same thing,” Oscar said.

Max looked unbothered. “Is it?”

“I thought you two barely talked,” he said, still trying to catch up.

“We don’t. Publicly,” Max said.

Oscar opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Does Charles know?”

Max shot him a look that said absolutely not.

Isabelle just gave a small smile and added, “Please don’t tell him.”

Oscar held up both hands. “I’ve never kept a secret faster in my life.”

Max nodded approvingly. “Good.” Then, off handedly. “Lando knows. Danny does too.”

“Cool,” Oscar said. Then: “I’m gonna go… buy cheese and rethink everything I know.”

Max gave him a thumbs-up. “See you at the track.”

Oscar wandered away in stunned silence, still clutching his cheese like a lifeline, already trying to figure out how he of all people became the latest keeper of Verstappen-Leclerc classified information.

***

Group Chat: HELP ME

(Members: Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo)

Oscar: I just ran into Max Verstappen and Isabelle Leclerc in a grocery store.

Oscar: Help me.

Lando: oh yeah? how was monaco’s finest domestic couple?

Oscar: I thought I hallucinated it at first

Oscar: I looked up and Max was holding her jam

Oscar: and then he put it in her cart

Lando: 🥹 precious

Oscar: HE KNEW WHAT KIND OF JAM SHE LIKED LANDO—HE SAID “THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE PEACH, SO I GOT APRICOT” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN

Daniel: It means they’re in love and hiding it from Charles.

Lando: welcome to hell.

Oscar: How can Charles not know.

Lando: he’s oblivious. like truly, impressively blind

Oscar: When Charles finds out we are going to die. I’m not built for this. I was buying cheese. Cheese.

Oscar: Is it serious??

Lando: max let her redecorate his penthouse

Oscar: I hate it here. I just wanted cheese.

Daniel: And instead you got a lifetime of emotional responsibility. Congrats.

Oscar: How did you find out?

Lando: you remember when i broke max’s trophy? he let me bring home the replacement to help my guilty conscience, and guess who is living with him

Daniel: The hotel disaster. That was when I figured it out

Lando: ???????? Lando: What hotel disaster

Oscar: What happened??

Daniel: Zandvoort. Her brothers forgot to book her a hotel room.

Daniel: Straight up just didn’t even think about it.

Daniel: She landed. No room. No backup plan.

Daniel: Was about to sleep in the damn lobby before Max found out.

Lando: YOU’RE JOKING.

Oscar: THEY WHAT. Oscar: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

Daniel: Not done

Daniel: Next morning?

Daniel: They LEFT HER at the hotel.

Daniel: Like… packed up, went to the track, forgot she existed.

Lando: I’m gonna throw something

Lando: THEY JUST FORGOT HER????

Oscar: SHE IS THEIR SISTER Oscar: NOT A MISPLACED WALLET

Lando: i have two sisters if i did that my mum would reassemble me from scratch just to kill me again

Oscar: If I did that my mother would drag me by my ear to the cameras of Sky Sports and berate me live on air.

Oscar: What is WRONG with them

Daniel: Max was FUMING. So he asked me to pick her up.

Oscar: GOOD.

Oscar: No wonder they kept it secret

Oscar: If my girlfriend was treated by her family like that I’d go full vigilante too.

Daniel: 😂 welcome to the secret society of "We Would Kill For Isabelle Leclerc"

Oscar: Sign me up

Lando: same.

Lando: also Charles is dead to me now until further notice

Daniel: don’t worry

Daniel: karma’s real

Daniel: and Max is scarier than any big brother

***

Lando Norris was pretty sure Oscar Piastri was about to crack.

He could see it happening in real time—the hairline fracture of panic starting just behind Oscar’s eyes. One more question. One wrong look. And Oscar was going to blurt out everything.

Max. Isabelle. The groceries.

And the worst part? Charles was right there—calm as ever, sipping an espresso in the hotel lobby like he wasn’t a ticking time bomb of impending betrayal. Like he wasn’t five seconds away from having his entire reality rearranged.

Lando shifted in his seat, chewing on a straw wrapper so aggressively he was surprised it hadn’t disintegrated yet. His knee bounced up and down, a desperate outlet for the nerves clawing at his insides.

They hadn’t spoken in ten minutes.

It was too quiet. Too weird. Too dangerous.

Which, obviously, was when Carlos strolled into the lobby, clocked the tension immediately, and frowned.

“What’s going on here?” Carlos asked, grabbing a protein bar from the snack stand like he had all the time in the world. “Why do you two look like you’ve committed war crimes?”

Oscar opened his mouth—probably to lie terribly and make it worse.

Lando, being the (barely) more functional one, jumped in first.

“It’s just—Charles,” Lando blurted.

Carlos raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”

Lando leaned forward, instantly deadly serious. “Have you ever noticed how he treats Isabelle?”

Carlos blinked. “His sister?”

“Exactly,” Lando said, nodding like he was revealing a state secret.

Oscar made a faint strangled noise next to him, probably reconsidering his life choices.

Carlos unwrapped his protein bar slowly, suspicious. “I mean… he loves her?”

“Sure,” Lando said, wide-eyed. “But does he see her? Or does he just… expect her to float quietly in the background of his life like a nice decorative houseplant?”

Oscar buried his face in his hands. Good. He deserved that.

Carlos stared at them like they were the ones malfunctioning.

“Where is this coming from?” Carlos asked, suspicious.

“Just answer the question,” Lando said, channeling his inner investigative journalist. “Do you think he actually appreciates her?”

Carlos hesitated, tilting his head like he was actually giving it thought. “I think… he assumes she’s fine because she doesn’t complain much?”

“EXACTLY,” Lando said, throwing his hands in the air. “She doesn’t complain. That doesn’t mean she’s fine!”

Oscar groaned again, muttering into his hands.

Carlos took a slow bite of protein bar. “Is this about the hotel thing?”

Oscar’s head snapped up. “You know about the hotel thing?”

Carlos nodded. “Yeah, I heard she didn’t have a room. I figured it was a mix-up.”

Lando let out a high-pitched laugh. “They also left her at the hotel the next morning. Like a pair of emotionally unavailable golden retrievers.”

Carlos shrugged. “They didn’t mean to.”

“THAT’S WORSE,” Lando exploded. “You don’t just ‘accidentally’ forget your SISTER.”

Oscar nodded vigorously. “That’s literally child abandonment but for grown-ups.”

Carlos stared at them, bemused. “You two are acting very emotionally involved.”

“NOPE,” Lando said immediately, standing up so fast his chair skidded backward.

Oscar scrambled after him. “Not emotionally involved. Just very passionate about…sibling rights. And human decency.”

“And basic hospitality standards!” Lando added, pointing accusingly at the air.

Carlos narrowed his eyes. “You’re both incredibly weird today.”

Lando clapped him hard on the shoulder. “We’re always weird, mate. But seriously. Watch how Charles talks to her next time. It’ll ruin your day.”

Carlos just blinked, chewing thoughtfully.

Oscar grabbed Lando’s arm before he could say anything else truly unhinged. “Come on. We have… tires. Very important tires to look at.”

“Yeah. Tire research. Super urgent,” Lando agreed.

They power-walked out of the lobby, leaving Carlos watching them, baffled.

Carlos shook his head slowly, muttering to himself, “Okay, but seriously… why are they so weird about Isabelle?”

***

Max trudged through the front door, dropping his bag with a dull thud. Isabelle had been waiting for him, curled up on the couch with a book, but the moment she saw him, she sat up straight.

“You’re sick.” It wasn’t a question.

Max huffed out a breath. “I’m fine.”

Isabelle was already on her feet, walking toward him. “You’re pale.” She placed the back of her hand against his forehead, frowning. “And warm.”

“I was just on a plane.”

“You also sound stuffy.” She folded her arms. “Go to bed.”

“I just got home.”

“And I’d like to keep you alive long enough to enjoy it. Bed, Max.”

Max sighed but didn’t argue. He was too tired for that. Instead, he leaned down, pressing a slow kiss to her forehead before mumbling, “You’re bossy.”

“I’m effective.”

She watched as he trudged toward the bedroom, shaking her head. A moment later, she followed, scooping up Jimmy from his spot on the armchair. When she walked into the room, Max was already under the blankets, eyes half-lidded.

“Here,” she murmured, placing Jimmy beside him. The cat instantly curled up against his chest, purring loudly.

Max cracked a small smile, rubbing behind Jimmy’s ears. “You’re trying to bribe me with my own cat.”

“Whatever works.” She kissed his temple. “Sleep.”

***

Text Messages: Isabelle Leclerc & Sophie Kumpen

Isabelle: Hi Sophie! I hope you’re doing well! I need your help with something.

Sophie: Hello, dear! Of course, what do you need?

Isabelle: Max came home from the race and he’s definitely getting sick. He’s trying to act normal, but he looks exhausted and keeps sniffling.

Isabelle: I sent him straight to bed with a cat for company, but I wanted to make him something comforting. He once told me you used to make tomato soup for him when he was sick—would you mind sharing the recipe?

Sophie: Oh, poor thing. He never knows when to slow down.

Sophie: And of course! Here’s how I always made it:

Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil until soft.

Add chopped tomatoes (fresh is best, but canned works too!)

Pour in vegetable broth and a pinch of sugar—Max never noticed, but it makes all the difference!

Lots of basil, always extra for Max.

Simmer, blend, then stir in a little cream to make it smooth.

Serve with bread—he used to insist on dipping half a baguette in it!

Isabelle: This is perfect! Thank you so much.

Sophie: You’re very welcome, sweetheart. He’s going to love it.

Sophie: And if he’s still feeling bad tomorrow, make him tea with honey. That’s what I always did.

Isabelle: Noted! I’ll make sure he drinks it.

Sophie: You’re taking such good care of him. He’s lucky to have you.

Isabelle: I’m lucky to have him too. ❤️

***

By the time he woke up, the apartment smelled like tomatoes and garlic. Max blinked, slowly sitting up. Jimmy was still pressed against him, and Sassy had taken up residence at his feet. He groggily reached for his phone and saw a notification from Isabelle.

Isabelle: Texted your mom for her tomato soup recipe. You’re getting the Verstappen childhood classic.

Max stared at the message for a second before a slow, warm feeling spread through his chest. He pulled himself out of bed, padding toward the kitchen. Isabelle was stirring a pot on the stove, hair tied up, her phone sitting next to her with messages from his mom open on the screen.

She turned at the sound of his footsteps. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

Max leaned against the counter, taking in the sight of her making his childhood comfort food, and felt something deep and certain settle in his bones.

“I feel like I should marry you.”

Isabelle blinked, then huffed a laugh. “You have a fever.”

“I’m serious.”

She rolled her eyes, but her cheeks were pink. “Eat your soup, Verstappen.”

Max watched as Isabelle turned back to the stove, stirring the soup with careful, practiced movements. He could see the little notes his mother had sent still open on her phone—things like "Don't forget a little sugar to balance the acidity" and "Max always liked it with extra basil".

Something about it made his chest ache, but in a good way.

“Sit down,” Isabelle said without looking at him. “I’ll bring it over.”

Max didn’t argue. He knew better. Instead, he shuffled over to the dining table, rubbing a hand over his face. He still felt like hell, but the warm smell of tomato soup and the sight of Isabelle in their kitchen softened the edges of it.

A few minutes later, Isabelle placed a bowl in front of him, along with a plate of bread. She even cut the slices into smaller pieces, making it easier for him to eat.

Max raised an eyebrow. “Are you about to start feeding me, too?”

“If I have to.” She sat down across from him, resting her chin on her hand. “Go on. Try it.”

He took a spoonful, letting the warmth spread through him. It tasted exactly like how he remembered—rich, slightly sweet, the basil bringing a fresh note to it.

“Good?” Isabelle asked.

Max swallowed, nodding. “Perfect.”

She looked pleased with herself, tucking one knee up against her chest. “Your mom was really sweet about sending me the recipe. She told me to tell you that if you’re still feeling bad tomorrow, I should make you tea with honey.”

Max smirked. “You and my mom are conspiring now?”

“Obviously.” She smiled. “Someone has to keep you in check.”

He took another sip, watching her from across the table. “Thank you,” he said, quieter this time.

Isabelle just shrugged, brushing it off like it was nothing. “You take care of me all the time,” she said simply. “Why wouldn’t I do the same?”

Max didn’t have a good answer for that.

Instead, he reached across the table, curling his fingers around hers. Isabelle let him, her thumb brushing absently over his knuckles.

“If I ever win another world championship,” he said, voice a little rough, “just know it’ll be because of you and your soup.”

She laughed, squeezing his hand. “Good to know my cooking has that much power.”

Max just smiled, his fever making him feel a little loopy, a little sentimental.

He didn’t mind.

***

Max was a terrible patient.

Not in the dramatic, clingy, "I think I’m dying" kind of way. No—he was quiet, still, and deeply put out by the fact that his body dared to betray him for more than five seconds.

Which meant he was now cocooned in the middle of their bed, surrounded by three pillows, and the comforter pulled halfway up to his chin like a grumpy Victorian child home with the flu.

His nose was pink. His curls were a mess. And he was definitely running a fever.

Isabelle pressed the back of her hand to his forehead and shook her head fondly. “Still warm.”

Max blinked up at her, expression solemn and glassy-eyed. “I feel like someone hit me with a tyre gun.”

“Very specific,” she said, setting the thermometer aside and handing him another cup of ginger tea.

He took a slow sip. Then sighed. Then blinked at her again like something important had just occurred to him.

“We should get another cat,” he said hoarsely.

Isabelle paused. “Sorry?”

“A kitten,” he clarified, like it was obvious. “Small. Would follow me around.”

She tried—really tried—not to laugh.

Max Verstappen, three-time World Champion, currently wearing a hoodie two sizes too big and nursing a cold, was looking at her like he’d just solved a national crisis.

“You want a kitten,” Isabelle repeated.

He nodded solemnly, already settling back against the pillows. “It’d be good practice.”

“For what?” she asked, amused.

Max blinked at her again, slow and drowsy. “You know.”

“No, I don’t. Enlighten me.”

He looked at her, expression perfectly serious despite the fever. “A baby.”

Isabelle choked on her tea.

Max didn't flinch.

She stared at him for a full ten seconds. “You think adopting a kitten would be… baby practice?”

He nodded again, very sure of himself. “Feeding. Naps. Picking the name.”

“And the kitten would be our test run for parenthood?”

“Exactly.”

Isabelle smiled—gently, deeply—and brushed a hand over his curls, pushing the hair back from his forehead.

“You’re feverish,” she said softly.

He nodded. “But I’m also right.”

She leaned down, kissed his too-warm cheek. “We’ll talk about the kitten when your temperature is below thirty-nine.”

Max hummed. “Good. I think you'd be a good cat mom. And baby mom.”

Then he promptly fell asleep with one hand still loosely curled around hers.

And Isabelle—heart full, smile helpless—sat beside him and thought, yeah, maybe I would.

***

Text Messages: Isabelle Leclerc & Victoria Verstappen

Victoria: Hey—how’s Max doing? Still being dramatic or has he entered the sleepy kitten phase of being sick?

Isabelle: Definitely the kitten phase.

Isabelle: Currently wrapped in a blanket burrito with Jimmy on his chest.

Isabelle: Looks like he’s been defeated by soup and his own body heat.

Victoria: Incredible.

Victoria: Has he started saying weird fever things yet?

Isabelle: …Depends what you consider “weird.”

Victoria: Uh-oh.

Victoria: Hit me.

Isabelle: He told me we should get another cat.

Isabelle: Which sounded normal-ish. Until he said it would be “good practice.”

Victoria: Practice for what?

Isabelle: A baby.

Victoria: A baby?

Isabelle: Yep. I laughed at first. But he was serious. Or fever-serious.

Isabelle: He looked at me like it wasn’t even a joke.

Victoria: …Do I get to be an aunt?

Victoria: Because I will cry.

Isabelle: He was feverish. It could have been the paracetamol talking.

Victoria: But you didn’t panic.

Isabelle: I melted. And then I panicked about melting.

Victoria: You want it.

Isabelle: I always have. I just never let myself imagine it.

Isabelle: And now suddenly he’s sick and talking about babies and I’m feeling things.

Victoria: Okay, well… since we’re being honest about baby feelings… You’ll get to practice sooner than you think.

Isabelle: What?

Victoria: I’m due in June.

Isabelle: WHAT.

Victoria: Surprise?

Isabelle: ARE YOU KIDDING ME

Victoria: Nope. Tiny Verstappen-Bluth incoming.

Isabelle: VIC.

Isabelle: You cannot just drop that in the middle of a conversation about your brother wanting a baby.

Victoria: I thought it was great timing!

Victoria: What’s better than your fever-delirious boyfriend mentioning fatherhood right before I tell you you’re about to be an aunt?

Isabelle: I’m crying.

Victoria: You’re going to be so good with them.

Victoria: And if you and Max do decide to start practicing sometime soon… well.

Victoria: Built-in cousin. You’re welcome.

Victoria: Get ready, Tante Belle.

Victoria: Big Verstappen family era incoming.

Isabelle: You’re all insane.

Isabelle: And I love you.

Victoria: Love you too.

***

Max heard the door slam—really slam—before he even saw her.

Not the usual soft click of someone slipping home after a long day. Not the tired shuffle of keys or the muted rustle of her bag hitting the floor. No, this was different. Sharp. Final. Frustrated.

He looked up from where he was half-dozing on the couch, immediately alert.

Isabelle stood by the door, hands clenched into fists, her chest rising and falling in short, uneven breaths. Her tote bag—usually treated carefully—was now abandoned at her feet, one strap twisted. She shoved her hands through her hair roughly, tugging it out of its neat twist, and paced a tight, angry line across the room.

Max stood without thinking.

"Bad day?" he asked quietly.

Isabelle laughed—a short, humorless sound—and shook her head, still pacing like she couldn't physically stay still.

"Bad?" she repeated, voice sharp with disbelief. "No, Max. It was a disaster."

He stayed silent, waiting, giving her the space she clearly needed to let it spill out.

"My boss dumped an entire project on me today. A major one. Because the senior architect left, and apparently—" she threw her hands up, exasperated, "—obviously it's my problem now. No heads-up. No discussion. Just, 'Congratulations, Isabelle, here's an entire portfolio of someone else's half-finished work. Good luck.'"

Max's jaw tightened. His hands itched to do something—fix it, protect her, something. But he stayed where he was, steady.

"And it gets better," Isabelle said, turning to face him, her green eyes sparking with a tired, furious fire he didn’t see often. "When I tried—politely, professionally—to point out that my current workload is already full, he told me to 'prioritize better.' And walked away. Just—walked. Like it wasn’t his problem."

She laughed again, but it cracked midway through. Her hands dropped to her sides helplessly.

Max exhaled slowly, moving toward her. "You know what I’m going to say."

She groaned, already knowing, already bracing. "Max—"

"You don't need this," he said firmly. "You're running yourself into the ground for people who don't even see you."

She closed her eyes, pressing the heels of her palms against them like she could block out the whole world.

"I like my job," she said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

Max stopped right in front of her, close enough that he could reach out—but he didn’t, not yet. He knew better. She wasn’t looking for comfort yet. She was still in the fight.

"Do you?" he asked, softer now. Not accusing. Just... careful. Gentle.

Isabelle’s shoulders slumped a little.

"You sure don’t look like someone who likes what they’re doing," Max added, his voice rougher, threading frustration and concern together. "You look like someone who’s trying to survive it."

The room was quiet for a beat, just the low hum of the evening city outside the windows.

Finally, she sagged forward, her forehead pressing into his chest like she physically couldn't hold herself upright anymore.

Max didn’t hesitate then. He wrapped his arms around her, firm and grounding, resting his chin lightly on the top of her head.

She let out a long, shaky breath, the tension bleeding out of her in slow, heavy drips.

"I just..." she started, her voice muffled against him. "I don’t know what to do."

Max closed his eyes, holding her tighter.

"You don’t have to have all the answers right now," he said quietly. "But you have options, Belle. You always do. You don’t have to stay somewhere that treats you like you’re disposable."

She let out a quiet, broken sound that made his chest ache.

He kissed her hair, slow and steady.

"You are not a stopgap. You're not a backup plan. You're not someone they can just lean on when it's convenient and forget about the rest of the time," he murmured against her. "You are brilliant. And you deserve people—and a job—that sees that."

She was silent for a long time, just breathing against him.

"I don't want to quit," she whispered eventually. "I don't want it to feel like they chased me out."

Max rubbed small circles over her back, patient. "Then don't. Fight them, if that's what you want. Prove them wrong. You’re strong enough."

He pulled back just enough to see her face, brushing her messy hair away from her cheeks. "But don’t stay just to prove a point if it’s breaking you in the process."

Her eyes were glassy but clear, staring up at him like she was trying to pull strength out of the way he looked at her.

"You’re not alone," he said simply. "You have me. Always."

For a moment, she just stood there, letting that settle between them.

Then she nodded—tiny, but certain—and leaned back into his chest.

Max smiled into her hair.

They stood like that for a long time, the city lights flickering quietly outside, the cats curling around their feet like they, too, understood that the whole world narrowed down to this.

Max holding her. Her letting herself be held.

And for now, that was enough. ****

The envelope looked expensive.

That was the first red flag.

Matte paper, gold foil edges, no return address on the front—just her full name printed in elegant, serif font.

Her full, full name. Because apparently her parents hadn’t been done after Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc, and so she and Arthur had ended up with similarly ridiculous, vaguely royal-sounding names.

Isabelle Amélie Thérèse Éléonore Leclerc.

There it was.

On the kind of envelope that looked like it came with obligations.

She hadn’t ordered anything. She hadn’t opened a new account.

She frowned as she sliced it open. She wasn’t expecting anything. Max paid the bills on the penthouse. Her own account was small, manageable, predictable. Her work was steady.

The card slipped out first. Heavy. Polished. Black.

Hitting the kitchen island.

Her name, again, embossed in silver.

But it wasn’t her account.

It was his.

Linked cardholder – Max Emilian Verstappen

She stared at it for a full minute. Long enough for the air to change. Long enough for every messy, unspoken thing she’d been trying not to feel to crawl back up her throat.

She swallowed.

They had had that conversation.

You quit your job. Become my incredibly spoiled, disgustingly pampered trophy wife. No more late nights, no more stress. Just you, spending my money and riding your horses.

She had said no. Because she was ambitious. Talented. Smart.

But the truth?

The truth was that she’d wondered.

What if she could be that person?

What if she’d be fine being that person?

His person.

The woman who did yoga at ten, had coffee by eleven, picked up their kids from school in designer flats and knew the best lunch spots in three countries.

The one who didn’t constantly doubt her place, didn’t flinch every time someone whispered "nepo baby" under their breath, didn’t fight to be taken seriously in rooms that were already decided before she entered them.

There was a part of her—a very small, very quiet part—that wondered what it would be like.

To let go.

To stop clawing for approval from people who didn’t care if she drowned.

To let herself be loved, wholly and visibly.

To marry Max.

To have his name. His children. His cats.

To be someone soft and kept and adored.

What if she didn’t want to fight so hard all the time?

What if a part of her—small, shameful, stubborn—wanted to be kept?

And now… this.

Not a proposal. Not a ring.

But a card.

With her name.

On his account.

A card that wives got.

That long-term partners with shared mortgages and Sunday routines and matching key fobs got.

A gesture that said: this life is yours too. You’re allowed to be at ease.

And it terrified her.

Because Max didn’t do anything halfway. He wasn’t careless with people. He didn’t toss around trust like confetti. He was sharp, observant, and maddeningly meticulous.

He was deliberate.

This wasn’t about convenience.

This was a line drawn. A stake in the ground.

A declaration.

And Isabelle?

She wasn’t sure she trusted herself not to disappear into it.

Not because Max would ask her to—but because it felt so good to be seen by someone who didn’t require her to earn it. To prove it. To perform.

Max knew her fears. Her fault lines. Her quiet cravings.

And instead of mocking them, he made room for them.

Which, somehow, made it worse.

She’d spent so long trying to prove she was more than someone’s sister. More than a background fixture.

But here she was.

Here she was feeling safer just being Max’s than she ever had trying to be anyone else’s.

Here she was, considering if being Belle Verstappen might actually make her happier than being Isabelle Leclerc ever had.

And wasn’t that the most terrifying thought of all?

***

“Hey,” Max called as he stepped inside, the door shutting with a familiar click behind him. “I grabbed those oat crackers you like—the ones with the seeds that taste like cardboard.”

He dropped his keys into the ceramic bowl by the door, his tone light, teasing.

No answer.

He rounded the corner into the kitchen and—

Stopped.

Isabelle was standing still. Very still. Right beside the counter, her body folded in on itself like she was trying to take up less space.

The envelope was open. The card—that card—lay face-up on the marble. Black. Sleek. Heavy. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest, like she needed the pressure to keep herself grounded.

Max’s eyes flicked from the card to her face and back again.

And then he felt it—the shift.

The air in the room had changed. Gone quiet. Weighted.

He knew that look on her face.

He’d seen it before—on days when she came home from work braced for someone to doubt her, challenge her, chip away at her. It was the expression she wore when she felt like she was too much and not enough in the same breath.

“Oh,” Max said softly, carefully. “You got it.”

He didn’t say I meant to tell you in person. He didn’t say I’ve been watching you stretch yourself thin, giving more than anyone asks, and never— never— expecting to receive anything back.

She didn’t smile.

“Max,” she said, her voice low and unfamiliar, “what is this?”

She wasn’t angry. That would’ve been easier. Anger was clean.

No—this was something else.

Fragile. Quiet. Like she'd been cracked open without warning.

He stepped toward her slowly. Like he was trying not to spook something delicate.

“It’s just…” he tried, “a card. For you. In case you ever need it.”

Her eyes—green, glossy, wide—didn’t leave his.

“You just handed me access to everything.”

He could’ve argued that. Could’ve said it’s not everything. But he didn’t lie to her, and this wasn’t about technicalities.

So instead, he said the truth.

“I handed you ease,” he said gently. “Because you never ask for it. Even when you need it most.”

He’d thought about that a lot.

That was why he’d had the card made.

Not because she needed it—not practically, not financially. Isabelle was capable in ways that astonished him daily. She ran her life on spreadsheets and discipline, all soft voice and steel spine.

But she’d been conditioned—by her family, by the world—to believe she had to earn everything. Love. Rest. Comfort. Even kindness.

So he’d done what he did best.

Planned ahead.

He’d spoken to his advisor. Had the account adjusted. Added her name. Put in the request quietly. Privately. No fanfare.

Not to control her.

But so that, if ever the moment came—

If she was tired, overwhelmed, caught without breath—

She’d have something already waiting.

No questions. No performance. Just trust.

But now, watching the way her fingers dug into her elbows, Max understood how even trust could feel like a trap when you’d never been given it freely.

“We just had a conversation about trophy wives,” she said suddenly. Her voice shook like she hated herself for even bringing it up.

He blinked. “Yes. And you said you didn’t want to be one.”

“What if I’d be fine with that life?” she said. “What if part of me wants it?”

His heart clenched. Not because she said it—but because he knew exactly what she meant.

“Then I’d tell you,” he said calmly, “if you ever want to be my trophy wife, just let me know. I’ll buy you a designer handbag and get very into being your arm candy.”

That earned him a look. A slight wobble in her mouth like she was trying not to smile, even while her throat worked against tears.

She let out an unsteady laugh that turned halfway into a sigh. “Max.”

“No pressure,” he said quickly, his voice low and warm now. “But if you ever wake up and decide you want that kind of life—that kind of ease—I’ll give it to you. Without question.”

“I don’t want to lose myself,” she whispered. “I don’t want to stop being… me.”

“You won’t,” Max said, voice steady. “I know who you are. And I’d never let you forget.”

Because she was the strongest person he’d ever known. She had survived a thousand quiet dismissals and overlooked brilliance. She’d clawed her way into a space she was never given, and never once asked for credit.

He wanted to say more. Wanted to tell her that he’d never met anyone who held herself so tightly together with so little help. That watching her try to hold back softness like it was weakness made his chest ache. That the thing she feared—disappearing—was impossible, because the moment she walked into a room, his world shifted.

She deserved to feel safe. And not just safe—but held.

But he didn’t say all that.

He just said what she needed.

“I didn’t give you this card to change you,” Max said. “I gave it to you so you’d never feel like you had to earn the right to feel safe.”

That word hung there between them. Heavy. Final. The real gift.

Not the money. Not the access.

Safety.

After a long, breathless silence, Isabelle reached out. Slowly. Carefully. She picked up the card with both hands like it might still burn her.

Held it in her palm. Looked at her name. His name. Their names. Together.

“Okay,” she said finally, voice soft, breaking open. “But you’re not allowed to joke when I buy toothpaste with it.”

He smiled—one of those rare, slow smiles he reserved just for her.

He stepped in and kissed her temple gently, grounding them both.

“Toothpaste, muffins, a yacht,” he murmured. “Whatever you need.”

She let out a wet laugh. “A yacht?”

“I’m just saying,” he said lightly, brushing his knuckles along her arm, “it’s good to have options.”

“I’m not buying a yacht, Max.”

“I know.” He paused. “But I wanted you to know you could.”

1K notes · View notes

heesimp · 8 months ago

Text

tasty (heeseung)

summary: it’s not your week and it doesn’t seem like the semester will ease up on you as time flies by, but your best friend is here to help in more ways than one.

word count: 5.6K

notes: based off of this request. thank you anon! I probably won’t open a taglist at this time but I’ll let you know if I do when I post other fics. XX

warnings: reader touches herself, porn mentions, vibrator mention, phone sex, oral (f. receiving), dirty talking, mentions of heeseung with other girls, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex.

“You sure you don’t want to go out with us?”

Your co-workers stare at you while you try to push down any simmer irritation. They’re not to blame, but pestering you to go out to a bar and get drunk when all you want to do is go home, is making you even more irritated. They mean no harm and look at you with sorry eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” you tell them. Luckily for you, they nod and accept your decline. “Thanks for the invite though.”

“Well if you change your mind, you know where to find us.”

In typical twenty-something-year-old fashion, certain days feel longer than most. Today is no exception. It’s hard to navigate the woes of landing on your feet when you’re wrapped up in midterm projects and trying to have a social life without throwing yourself off balance. When the semester started, you were nothing other than a happy-go-lucky, fourth-year university student who was excited to finish college and take the first step towards “real life.” Unfortunately for you, your days would get tough before you’d see it to the finish line.

The ride back to your apartment isn’t long by any means but the traffic from your job at a convenience store was met with rush hour. The bus took much longer than usual but you always anticipate that when you’re scheduled until 5pm. Everybody’s going home at the same time and even public transportation falls victim to the hustle and bustle of corporate life.

On your way home, you can’t help but linger on the inconveniences of the recent past. Midterms have snuck up on you like they do every year and no amount of studying into the night could ever prepare you for the stress that comes with obsessing over good grades for five separate classes. It kills you that no two tests weigh the same and preparing for projects feels like you’re signing a death sentence. You’ve barely seen your friends aside from in passing and haven’t had any time to take care of yourself and have fun.

It feels as though you’ve lost all motivation because school and work has sucked the energy right out of you. Even your best friend, Lee Heeseung, has started to soften up around you because he can tell how stressed you are. If anything, the amount of unread texts from him and your absence in his physical life is a telltale sign that school is kicking your ass, but he knows you always bounce back. You know you will too, but right now it feels like it’ll take too long to get there.

The first thing you do is take all of your clothes off and settle them in the dirty hamper and take a shower, cleaning off the grime from a long day outside of your bedroom. Your hair is clean and your skin feels silk to the touch when you step out and dry yourself. It takes a great deal of effort to follow through on your skincare routine and tidy up your room so that it doesn’t feel like an overwhelming mess the more you look at it. Today sucked. There’s no doubt about that.

Eventually, the clock turns into a late hour after you’ve had dinner and a sweet treat to make up for the awfully long and boring day you had. The week drains on you and you’re looking forward to the weekend because that means you don’t have to work. After settling in bed with the television on, you try your best to let your worries escape you and focus on what’s in front of you.

Whether the show is too boring or you’re too worked up, you don’t know. The TV is long forgotten as you aimlessly scroll through your phone and start pushing your thighs together and clench around absolutely nothing when you log into a Twitter account you don’t post on. It must be out of habit to act like this when you see the familiar username because it’s where you keep your porn stash for when you need to get off. There’s everything you could ever want–short videos, photos, and links to other websites that always gets you off. The long day has made you think about how you need at least a single win in order for this week to not completely suck. Bringing yourself to orgasm might be the way to do it.

You spread your legs underneath the covers and take a finger to tease up your slit that’s covered by your panties and hold your phone in your free hand, using your thumb to scroll past the plethora of videos that turn you on. It’s all about finding the right one, and seeing big dicks and wet pussies makes you worked up. You start to forget about the week and consider that a good start.

Moving your finger against your covered pussy always makes you wet. You imagine it’s someone else teasing you the way you like it and pretend you don’t need to move a muscle to get off. Swiping the tips of your fingers back and forth makes you soak through the pathetic fabric anyway, and the excitement of your arousal makes you gush right onto your panties.

You scroll through them one by one and pull your panties to the side to feel just how wet you’ve become and moan quietly as the feeling of your slicked up walls. Pushing a finger inside, the welcomed sensation is exactly what you needed after a hard week. You add two, then three, and pump them in and out of you with your legs bent towards your chest. It should be an easy orgasm.

Except, it isn’t. Three of your own fingers isn’t enough.

At this rate, you don’t know how long you’ve been rutting your hips but what you do know is that you can’t seem to get yourself off with just your fingers. Pulling them out makes you wince at the loss and you force yourself off of your bed to find your trusty vibrator that has always served you when you need to get off quickly. You dig for it in the depths of your drawers but, to your dismay, the device is uncharged. You’re far too worked up to wait for it to become usable. You crawl into your bed again and angrily look through your phone at the porn in your bookmarks and try to get yourself back to that state of euphoria when you started touching yourself, but knowing too much is bothering you is preventing you from letting go.

Your room echoes as you groan in frustration when your eyes land on a photo on your desk. It’s a picture of you and Heeseung that Jay took when the three of you hung out together after you first moved into this apartment. The two of them helped move boxes and furniture, and you rewarded them with a free meal from the noodle shop across the street. Heeseung sits next to you with his thighs pressed against yours because of the small table but neither of you really cared.

That’s the thing, though. Heeseung isn’t shy about physical touch with you or anyone else. He’s the kind of guy girls feel comfortable around with just a few words spoken and you’ve always envied the way Heeseung can talk his way through anything. People love him, girls want to fuck him, and guys want to be like him. There’s a part of you that wishes you could exude the same aura that your best friend does but, unlike him, you cower at any chance of interaction and can’t seem to get anyone to be interested in you the way you’re interested in them. Heeseung has heard your fair share of love debacles whereas it seems like romance is presented to him with the snap of a finger.

It isn’t that you haven’t had experiences with sex and dating, but they haven’t been worthwhile. So far, nobody has been memorable enough to keep in your backpocket for days like this, when you need a hot and erotic memory to come in an instant. It feels impossible to find guys who know what they’re doing when a woman is presented in front of them. Guys are so lucky because it takes next to nothing to get them hard and get them off.

And like, your best friend has had his fair share of hookup stories that leave you wetter than a goddamn fountain. He’s not shy about skimping the details because he’s seen you cry snot since kindergarten and you’ve seen him eat shit on bicycles since elementary school. Sex isn’t off the table. You just don’t have anything to contribute and he doesn’t judge you for it. You aren’t really keen on telling him about all of the bad experiences you’ve had when he talks about how mind blowing sex for him is. Part of you is envious that your best friend has never had one bad day of sex in his life. Allegedly.

Still, this frustration bubbles up and there’s nothing you can do to quell the way you feel. Perhaps it’s a mix of general life stress and the events leading up to this very moment. The entire day felt like a test to your patience as minor inconveniences piled up on top of one another before your breaking point. You thought your vibrator sitting uncharged was your last straw but it seems like your mind isn’t clear enough to focus on getting off. You recall a few unread text messages from Heeseung and open your shared text thread with him and watch all of the funny TikTok videos and tweets he sends you. You’re missing him right now.

Heeseung answers after one ring.

“Back from the dead, I see. What’s up?”

You huff. “Nothing.” You hear him laughing from the other line. The faint sound of his keyboard clicking echoes in your ears.

“Can’t be nothing. You always call me when you need to tell me something.”

“Not true.”

“Y/N, you and I both know you prefer to talk on the phone when you have something important you need to say so neither of us ends up sending long voice memos.” Okay, he’s got you there. “So begs the question: What’s up?”

“Well I called you because I’m bored. Happy?”

Heeseung laughs again. You’re sure he can hear your disdain. “It’s a good thing I know how to deal with your attitude, huh? Since you’re bored, I’ll have you know you’re calling me while I’m playing with the guys.”

“What, no girl to hook up with?”

“Not tonight, princess.”

“How sad.”

“If you must know why, I had a pretty long day at work but I’m fine now. Jake’s ass keeps dying so that’s pretty funny.” You don’t say anything, not right away. Not when you realize you called him in a haste and that you’re naked except for a tank stop and dainty white socks. The realization makes your cheeks heat up as you think about it, even though Heeseung can’t see what you’re wearing. “You good? You’re unusually quiet, especially when you give me attitude.” That makes you roll your eyes.

“You know, it’s unfair that all you have to do to get off is brush your hand against your dick.”

“Where’s this coming from? You don’t really talk about sex. Is everything alright?”

“It’s unfair!” He hears you groan in frustration. You’re somewhat annoyed he’s still typing away on his gaming keyboard.

“Y/N…Are you okay? What’s gotten into you?”

That question alone seems to ease your mind a little as your irritation bubbles over the surface. You couldn’t stop yourself from talking even if you tried. You tell Heeseung everything, good and bad, and he won’t relent until he knows you’re okay. But even this is treading into new territory. It isn’t that you haven’t noticed just how attractive your best friend has gotten since you met him for the first time as kids, but it’s the first time you’ve ever acknowledged it while talking to him.

“I can’t get myself off.”

Your voice is barely above a whisper. You don’t hear the sound of his keyboard anymore.

“What?”

“Heeseung…”

“No, say it again.”

Suddenly, you’re starting to regret calling him to complain about something like this. You feel like you might as well be diving into the depths of your secrets.

“I can’t get myself off.” He hears you whisper it into the phone.

“Did I hear you correct? You can’t get yourself off?” Heeseung curses under his breath and his hands have stopped typing on his keyboard completely. Frustration pushes tears to the rim of your eyes.

“I can’t.” Your voice wavers like you’re about to choke a sob. “I just want to cum, Heeseung.”

You don’t see it, but he disconnects his video game connection without consulting his friends. He sits back in his seat and brings the phone off speaker mode and pushes it to his ear. “Y/N…Have you been touching yourself?”

“Yes. I don’t know why but I’m in this mental block and I can’t focus on anything. Nothing is helping.”

He chokes. “What do you mean?”

“My vibrator is dead and I’ve been using three fingers but it’s not helping!”

Heeseung sits quietly on the other line. “Are you touching yourself now?”

“No,” you sigh. “I’ve been at it for an hour and I can’t finish.”

“Fuck,” he mutters. “You must be so wet.”

“Not anymore.” You say it through your teeth, too upset that your high has ebbed away.

“You should start touching yourself again.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Touch yourself and make your pussy all wet.” It’s concerning how much you like hearing your best friend talk to you like this. But you do, putting your phone on speaker and putting it on the mattress beneath you with your hand caressing your pussy. You don’t know if it’s you, Heeseung, or the notion that you’re crossing a bridge, but your spine starts to tingle. Your touch is as light as a feather.

“Are you doing it?”

“Yeah,” you admit.

“How does it feel?”

“Really good…”

“How good?”

“Feels like someone else is touching me,” you tell Heeseung. “If I close my eyes, I can pretend it’s someone else.”

“It’s not enough, is it?”

“No, Hee. I just…I’m so frustrated.”

“Yeah, baby?” He’ll address that nickname later. “Why are you frustrated?”

“School and work are stressing me out and nobody in my group projects lifts a finger. I feel so alone in this.”

“But you aren’t alone. You have me, remember?” You get wetter the more he talks. It feels wrong to be turned on by Heeseung’s voice but you can't help it. He’s talking to you like he hears the way your voice quivers and how badly you need somebody to take away all of your pain, and perhaps you feel comforted because you know Heesueng will do just that and always had. Your fingers rub your wetness around your bare mound the more you think about it, pushing aside any guilt or awkwardness you initially felt.

“When have I ever not been there for you? Never, baby. Including this.”

“This?”

He chuckles. “Yeah. Helping you cum.”

“Hee, don’t say that.”

“Why? It’s true. Best friends help each other cum.”

“How are you gonna help me do that?”

It’s silent on the other line for a long pause and your heart starts to sink when you think you might’ve crossed a line. Is he uncomfortable? Does he want to hang up and forget about this? Will he ever look at you the same way after tonight?

“Keep touching yourself. I’m coming over.”

Your eyes widen. “N-Now?”

“Yes, now. I live five minutes from you. I’ll be over soon.”

The thought of Heeseung coming over makes you impossibly wet. It’s been so long since you’ve let anybody touch you the way you’d like after failed hook ups that left you unsatisfied. Your bedroom suddenly feels warmer and your arousal keeps your fingers slick the more you rub against your pussy. It makes your toes clench and you’re starting to get excited again.

“Please hurry, Hee. My fingers are starting to get sore.”

“I’ll be there in two. Don’t hang up.”

“F-Fuck,” you whimper silently. Heeseung’s phone picks up your moan and you hear him let out a low groan when he turns his engine on.

“You have the sexiest moans. I wanna hear them while you get yourself off, okay? Can you do that for me?”

You rub your pussy faster. “Yes, Hee. Fuck, I’m so wet. This feels so good.”

“Be a good baby and play with your clit a little for me, hm? Get her all nice and prepped.”

You do as he says, moving the pads of your fingers in circular motions around your engorged nub when he tells you. Your eyes close shut when that jolt of pleasure makes your body jerk and arch off of the bed and that loud sound emitting from the back of your throat makes Heeseung hum in approval.

“Juuust like that. Fuck, you sounds even better than I imagined. You’re a vocal one, huh?”

“Only when it feels really good.”

“Yeah? Do you feel really good?”

You lick your lips. “It would feel better if you were here.” Heeseung laughs.

“I’m here and I’ve got your spare key. Keep fucking yourself for me.”

The call ends there. You hear the door opening and part of you considers using your blanket to cover yourself up because in all of the years you’ve been friends with Heeseung, he has never seen you this indecent. It feels a bit humiliating to know your best friend will find you with your fingers rubbing against yourself while your hips chase that delicious pleasure but ultimately, you can’t find it in yourself to care too deeply about that.

Heeseung’s footsteps alert you to his presence and you’re pleasantly surprised to see him standing in the threshold of your bedroom after he’s opened your doorknob. His black hair covers his eyes as he catches his breath, and it looks like he ran up the two floors just to get to your apartment quicker than an elevator could take him. He’s hesitant when he walks inside until his eyes lock with yours. Your next moan comes from deep within your chest and Heeseung wastes absolutely no time.

He lands on his knees and pulls your body towards the edge of the bed. Your scent invades his olfactory senses as he looks down below you, pushing your feeble hand away to admire the mess you’ve made of yourself. It should feel embarrassing to have your best friend look at you like this, but it doesn’t. Your heart beats faster the more Heeseung’s eyes scan your wet pussy and before you know it, his mouth latches onto you.

The feeling of someone’s tongue shoved deep within you is a feeling you haven’t experienced in a long time. Heeseung kneads your thighs with his hands as he keeps you in place and the pace he sets makes your body feel like it might as well be up in space.

You hear stories all the time about Heeseung hooking up with other girls whether it be from himself or others. Girls love to pretend to be your friend to get close to him and love to talk about these kinds of things with you because they assume you’re getting in on the action too, only to leave the conversation perplexed when you tell them you and Heeseung have never gotten involved like that. But now, with every bit of information about how he slurps pussy like he needs it to live, you’re starting to wonder why you never asked him to do this before tonight.

“Tasty,” he mutters after a beat of silence. Your hand comes to grip his hair for stability when he pulls your clit into his mouth and sucks on it while rubbing his tongue against your pleasure point. “How come you never told me you taste so good?”

“You never asked.”

He laughs against your pussy. “Still got some attitude, huh?”

“What are you gonna do about it?” He looks up at you like he’s weighing a challenge.

“If you were any other girl, I’d pull out every time you’re about to cum. I’d have you begging for that shit. If you were somebody else, I’d stuff your mouth with my cock until you learn how to obey.” He licks up your pussy once more before adding two of his fingers inside, moaning at your smooth and wet walls as he pumps them inside of you. “But you’re my best friend and you’ve had a hard week. I’m gonna make you cum.”

If a thousand suns exploding feels like Heeseung’s tongue and fingers working in tandem with each other, then this is a feeling you never want to forget. They work separately but it feels like he’s pushing you closer and closer to the finish line the more he pays attention to your clit and g-spot at the same time, pressing on that little button the more you whine and aimlessly beg for him to let you cum. You can barely register your own voice moaning because the pressure is too much against your ears. Heeseung’s fingers plunge in and out of you at a pace that is somewhere between gentle and brutal, giving you enough force to take your mind off of the stress from the week to focus on your pussy being pleasured.

You screw your eyes shut when you can feel that coil unraveling. Heeseung seems to notice that too because of the string of moans you let out when he pushes his fingers against your sweet spot. His mouth licks and licks as his hand pushes your wetness right against his tongue and it doesn’t take very long for him to taste your cum.

Heeseung’s head disappears between your legs and he’s barely able to move his hand because of how tight your thighs are against his ears. He’s always loved your thighs and legs, and loves them even more now that he knows what it feels like when you suffocate him as he licks up your delicious cum. You ease up on him when he pries them away to free his hand from the uncomfortable position and uses both hands to keep your legs apart as he licks up the remnants of your cum and helps you ride out your orgasm until your chest falls against the mattress.

He wipes the back of his hands before giving your slit a gentle kiss. “You’re so sexy when you cum.”

“I can’t believe I let you do that.”

“Why?”

You watch him crawl up your body between your spread legs. “Because…”

“Because?”

“You’re my best friend and we’ve seen each other through everything. Don’t you think this is a little, I don’t know, weird?”

“No.” Heeseung shakes his head and dips below to kiss the corner of your mouth. “Not weird. In fact, I’d argue we should do this more often.”

You frown. “I don’t intend to be somebody you keep on a roster, Lee. You can keep that shit to yourself, but thank you for helping me cum.” Heeseung laughs against your mouth until you feel his lips ghost right over yours.

“There won’t be other girls involved if we fuck, Y/N. I’m not heartless like that. Everybody else knows I’m in it for sex and nothing else, but it’s like you said. You’re my best friend. I won’t make you feel like you’re just somebody I can hit up.”

“So this would be like…friends with benefits?”

“We can work out the semantics later.” He lets his lips touch yours and when you don’t object, Heeseung opens your mouth with his own and you taste the saltiness of your cum on his lips. You clench around nothing when you hear your mouths smacking together in the quiet of your bedroom.

It feels…good. It doesn’t feel out of place, even though this is the first time you’ve kissed Heeseung. You haven’t thought about it much either, but somehow his lips fit perfectly in yours and his soft hands holding your body in his adds to your arousal. You feel safe with him at this moment and it’s the first time you’ve ever had sex with somebody who hasn’t made you feel like an afterthought. Your mind feels a bit foggy but you know you like this feeling and don’t want him to stop. Still, you have your worries.

“This won’t be weird, will it?”

“No, baby. In fact, all you had to do was ask me to drop the other girls and I would’ve.” You roll your eyes.

“Sounds like you’re in love with me, or something.”

Heeseung pulls away and smiles down at you. “Yeah. Or something.” You ignore the way your heart flutters and realize his bulge is poking your bare pussy.

“You’re hard.”

“So you’ve noticed.”

You pinch his bicep. “You get hard eating pussy?”

“Well yeah because it’s pussy, but it’s also you.” You start to talk but Heeseung silences you with a kiss. “Are you satisfied now that I’ve made you cum?”

His vulgar words make you shy underneath his gaze all of a sudden. It’s a new feeling and you’re not quite sure how to navigate it, especially with the way he’s staring down at you with a raised eyebrow. Heeseung is still your best friend who gives you shit for everything. You suppose you’re grateful that he’s not changing who he is just because he knows what you look like naked.

“You know what? Actually, I don’t think I’m satisfied.”

Heeseung grins wickedly and pulls his body off of your chest to take his shirt off, his chiseled muscles on display for you to look at. He grabs your hand and places it on his abdomen. “Oh yeah? What else can I do for you, princess?”

You take your fingernails on his skin and feel his abs move beneath you. “I think I need you inside me too.”

“Were my mouth and fingers not enough?” You shake your head. Heeseung tuts as he gets off of the bed to step out of his pants and boxers, revealing a long and thick cock you’ve only ever heard about. It’s dripping with precum and you can’t stop your pussy from clenching or your mouth from drooling.

You watch him get back on the bed one knee at a time before he’s hovering over you again, pulling your body to the position he wants as your legs spread before him. He looks down at his cock and tugs on it twice before letting his tip rest against your clit.

“Need some of my cock?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Who knew my best friend has such a tight pussy. Makes me wonder why I even bothered with other girls in the first place.” You seem to like hearing that. He brings his fingers to push the head of his cock inside of you before sinking halfway in, allowing you to adjust to his size as you squeeze him. “Oh yeah, honey. This pussy’s gonna make me cum hard, I already know that.”

Heeseung holds your legs open and pushes his hips into you slowly. The drag feels so good with how warm he’s made you and you can feel him throbbing with every pass. You hold onto your breasts for stability, which seems to turn him on even more because he’s pushing your legs towards your chest and pushing into you with all of his might.

You’re able to see him from where you lie. His eyebrows concentrate as he squeezes his eyes shut and sweat lines his forehead the more he thrusts inside of you. He sits up on his knees to angle his dick inside of you better and moans when you let out a strangled groan. The clench is so tight and amazing, and Heeseung can’t fathom why he’s never fucked you before tonight.

“Sexy pussy,” he grunts, looking down at your abused hole as he thrusts into it. He brings his thumb to your clit and you yelp when he starts to rub it. “So wet and fuckable.”

“Fuck me,” you manage to choke.

And truthfully, you like Heeseung plowing into you at the pace he’s set. He’s not too fast but not too slow and you can feel him hit your cervix every single time. It’s no wonder girls were always lining up to have sex with him. Heeseung knows what he’s doing with his dick and you’re finding that out now.

“You want me to fuck you?”

You nod pathetically. “Please fuck me.”

“How hard?” You bite your lip and shake your head at the humiliation of begging for him but Heeseung tuts and smacks your clit with his hand. “I said, how hard?”

“So hard that I feel you in my stomach!”

“Atta girl. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Heeseung slips out of you and pulls you up on your hands and knees, beckoning your back in a deep arch. He plants both of his feet on the mattress and bends until he’s sinking his cock back down inside of your pussy, letting your mixed wetness coat him again.

He thrusts himself as his mouth hangs open. Heeseung grips your waist with both hands and squeezes you hard to balance himself as he throws his head back at the phenomenal sensation of your walls pulling him in every time he tries to pull out. Your eyes roll to the back of your head when you feel his balls against you and clutch into your bedsheets.

“Your balls are slapping against my pussy and it feels really good,” you manage to get out without stuttering. Heeseung feels you clench around him again and emphasizes his thrusts until the sound of his balls makes your ears vibrate.

“Feels good when it hits your clit, doesn’t it?”

“So good, fuck!”

Heeseung speeds his thrusts and relishes in your string of moans the more his tip nudges your g-spot. “Can you cum, baby? Cum around my cock like I know you want to. You’ve earned it after this week. Cum for me. Won’t you let me feel that?”

“Fuck, fuck, I’m cumming, Hee! I’m fucking cumming!”

“Yeahhh. Oh your cum is so good. Doing so well, making your pussy creamy all over me like that. Cum for me.”

And it feels so good that you follow his command. The orgasm Heeseung’s cock brings you feels like a physical manifestation of letting go of your worries and enjoying the present moment. Despite your legs and pussy aching, this feels an awful lot like freedom because your own mind isn’t caged by the inability to get yourself off.

You don’t think, you can’t think. You’ve reached a point of nirvana that’s made your mind completely blank with the exception of your orgasm and the feeling of your best friend fucking right inside of you. His cock, so hard and warm, somehow feels so perfect lodged inside of you.

Heeseung cock twitches and you feel it the more he pounds into you. He looks down and moans at the sight of his cock becoming white with your cum with every pointed thrust and doesn’t remember the last time he truly enjoyed himself to the point of being able to forget about everything except the person he’s with. Sex with other girls is incredible but there comes a point where he realizes that they’re using him just as much as he’s using them. But you, his best friend since he can remember, give him some kind of peace that he’s never felt before. This is more than just a quick fuck, even if neither of you address it.

“Your pussy’s gonna make me cum,” he moans through a choked grunt. “You feel so good baby, fuck.”

Heeseung pulls out of your hole just enough to rest his tip against you. His warm cum floods against your folds and your body jerks at the way he twitches against you, but his hands keep hold of your hips to place you exactly where he wants you. He looks down to watch his cum spill from his slit and paint your pussy like the artwork that it is.

When he’s finished cumming, Heeseung leans back against his knees to spread you apart by gripping your asscheeks. “Would you look at that?”

“Stop looking…”

He chuckles. “Why, baby? Your pussy’s so pretty with my cum on it.”

You look back at him. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” He nods at you before pulling away to scour your room until he finds a box of tissues on your nightstand and grabs a few to clean you up to the best of his ability before cleaning himself up too.

Overcome with a wave of tiredness, your body feels much more relaxed once you’ve slipped underneath the covers as Heeseung throws away the dirty tissues. He turns around when he hears the blankets ruffling and resists the urge to coo at you when you’ve tucked it underneath your chin.

“Looks like you needed one good fuck to relax, hm?”

You blush. “Shut up.”

“No can do, Y/N.”

“I…”

Heeseung leans down towards you and tilts his head. “You what?”

You avert his gaze. “I liked it when you called me baby.”

“Yeah?” He pushes some of your hair back as you yawn. “I can do that.”

“Are you gonna go home?”

“Not if you let me stay the night.” You don't have it in you to talk back to him after all he’s done for you. Instead, you open the covers as Heeseung puts his boxers back on and watch him smile before climbing in next to you. “Come here.” He tucks your body on his chest and you’re too tired to argue with him.

His heartbeat puts you to sleep.

tagging: @zara2318 @markmato @heechwe @horijiro @ggumjilgeong-yjn @porunarefuu @leov3rse. :)

#enhypen smut #heeseung smut #lee heeseung smut #enha smut #heeseung x reader #enhypen x reader #enhypen hard thoughts #enha hard hours #enhypen hard hours #enha hard thoughts #lee heeseung x reader #heeseung #tasty

2K notes · View notes

finelinefae · 3 months ago

Text

trust [ceo!h x shy!reader]

synopsis: bambi wants to try something new

word count: 7.9k

contains: ceo!harry x assitant!y/n, deer!reader vibes, fluff, age gap (9 years), shy reader, boyfriend!h, smut (soft smut like very gentle and loving), inexperienced y/n

this is part 4 of Bambi, read part 3 here

. . .

How do I shave down there without getting red, itchy bumps?

Follow these six simple steps to prepare for your first time!

How to suck dick 101

Y/N scrolled through a Reddit page at her desktop computer at work, the screen glowing softly in the dim office lighting. It was a page she had found after typing into Google, ‘how to prepare for your first time.’ Hundreds of subreddits appeared, each packed with questions and experiences Y/N hadn’t even considered until reading about them. She had fallen down the rabbit hole, finding a question and then getting lost in the responses.

Lostrabbit23: I lost my virginity at 15 and it was the worst experience of my life!!!! Lasted five minutes and the guy came before he even put his dick inside me, I swear.

Redberry5: Lost my virginity at 25 and it was a good experience. I’m glad I waited for the right person.

Whitedude32: Can’t understand how people can still be virgins past 18 tbh - just get it over with and live a little.

Y/N gnawed on her bottom lip, her eyes absorbing every word on the page. It seemed unnecessary, and she knew she was overthinking as she normally did, but… Y/N had a boyfriend now. A real boyfriend. And with every boyfriend, she knew what was expected.

The more she read, the more she realized how little she knew. A seed of doubt planted itself within her, growing with every scroll. What if Harry found out just how inexperienced she was? What if he didn’t think she looked pretty naked and ended up having second thoughts about being with her? The thought made her stomach twist in knots.

"Are you watching porn?" Lindsey sauntered over to Y/N's desk, balancing a stack of binders on her hip. Y/N's heart skipped a beat as she frantically clicked off the incognito tab and opened a random Microsoft Word document.

"W-What?" Y/N stammered, her cheeks flushing a deep crimson. "No! Of course not."

"Hmm," Lindsey placed the binders down with a soft thud and crossed her arms, her gaze narrowing. "Then why do you look like I just caught you red-handed? That’s not like you."

"I wasn’t doing anything," Y/N blurted, trying to keep her voice steady. "Just looking at today’s meeting notes."

Lindsey leaned in, peering over Y/N’s shoulder. "These notes are from three weeks ago."

Y/N’s eyes darted to the date at the top of the page. "I was catching up?" she added, her voice faltering.

Lindsey raised an eyebrow, skepticism clear on her face. "So, is this Reddit obsession new, or have you always had it?"

Y/N’s face burned hotter. "I-I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Lindsey gave her a pointed look, "You left your tabs open during lunch. Rookie mistake."

Y/N felt like dying, “I did?” She almost felt like crying, embarrassment washing over her entire body she could feel it burning, “I-I was just researching stuff,”

Lindsey’s expression softened slightly, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. " What kind of 'stuff' are we talking about here?"

Y/N hesitated, her fingers nervously tapping the edge of her keyboard. "Just… things. You know, advice. Relationship stuff."

Lindsey’s eyes lit up with curiosity. "Oh, relationship stuff? Now we're getting somewhere. Who’s the lucky man?”

Y/N and Harry were both sure that Lindsey already knew they were an item but they weren’t going to risk slipping their facade by bringing it up, “Just somebody.”

Lindsey looked knowingly, “Okay well are you planning on taking the next step with this just somebody?”

Y/N hesitated, unsure how to respond. Whenever things got too intense with Harry, she had a habit of pulling away or steering the conversation elsewhere. It wasn’t because she didn’t want to share those moments with him—she did. But she needed to feel ready, to prepare herself for something so intimate.

“I... I think I want to,” she said softly, avoiding his eyes. Her voice trembled as she added, “I just... I just want to be good.”

Lindsey’s expression softened immediately. “Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured, stepping forward to wrap Y/N in a warm hug. The gesture brought a lump to Y/N’s throat. In the weeks since she’d started her new job, Lindsey had become like the older sister she’d never had—someone she could trust completely.

Pulling back, Lindsey held Y/N’s shoulders firmly, her voice gentle but steady. “First of all, you never have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. Sex isn’t a performance, it’s personal. It’s about intimacy, connection, and trust. Whatever happens is between you and whoever you’re with, and that’s all that matters.

“Second,” she added with a small smile, “it’s not as complicated as people make it seem. Even if it’s awkward or messy at first, that’s okay. You’ll learn together. That’s one of the best parts of being with someone—discovering their little quirks, preferences, kinks and everything inbetween. Trust me, you’ll be fine. And if anyone ever makes you feel less than beautiful in the process? They’re not worth your time.”

Y/N exhaled, feeling a weight lift from her chest. “Oh no, he’s perfect,” she confessed, her voice tinged with a dreamy sigh. “Better than that. He’s... everything.”

Lindsey chuckled, glancing at her watch. “Well, speaking of perfect, it’s time for us to take a well-deserved lunch break.”

“What?” Y/N blinked in surprise as Lindsey grabbed her hand, tugging her toward the door.

Before she could protest further, Lindsey swung open the door to Harry’s office, revealing him seated at his desk in a perfectly pressed suit. Y/N hadn’t seen much of him that morning, and the sight of him made her heart flutter. She wanted nothing more than to cross the room and curl up in his lap.

Harry glanced up, his lips curving into a warm smile as soon as he spotted her.

“We’re taking an early lunch,” Lindsey declared.

Harry raised an eyebrow, checking the clock on his wall. “It’s 11:30. Lunch doesn’t start for another hour.”

Lindsey waved a dismissive hand. “We’ve been working so hard we deserve an extra break.”

Y/N snapped out of her daze just in time to nod in agreement, though the gesture only made Harry’s gaze soften further.

“Is that right, Miss Y/L/N?” he asked, his tone teasing.

Y/N felt her cheeks heat up. “Mhm,” she mumbled. “We’ve been working very hard.”

Harry chuckled, his gaze flicking back to Lindsey. “Fine. An hour extra, but that’s it. If anyone asks, you’re running errands.”

Lindsey grinned. “Yes, boss. Oh, and we’ll need your credit card.”

Harry scoffed. “Not happening.”

“Worth a shot.” Lindsey shrugged, then headed for the door. Before leaving, she shot them a pointed look. “I’ll grab my coat. No funny business, you two. I’ll be waiting outside.”

As soon as the door clicked shut, Harry stood, straightening his jacket before walking over to Y/N. He reached for her hand, his voice dropping to a soft murmur. “Hi, baby.”

“Hi, Harry,” she whispered, her breath catching as he leaned down to kiss her gently.

“Everything okay?” he asked, his eyes searching hers. “You don’t have to go with Lindsey, you know. You could stay here and spend your lunch break with me.”

The suggestion was far too tempting, and Harry’s smile only made it harder to resist.

“She hasn’t even told me where we’re going,” Y/N shrugged, trying to play it cool despite the rapid beat of her heart.

Harry reached down, tangling his fingers with hers. His touch was warm, grounding. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “Wherever she’s taking you, make sure you don’t overdo it, okay? We still have plans tonight, remember?”

Y/N’s stomach fluttered. Harry had been teasing her about the surprise date all week. She was excited, but also nervous—especially after his cryptic text telling her to wear something she didn’t mind getting dirty.

Harry kissed her again, but their moment was cut short by a loud knock on the door.

“Hurry it up in there! Time’s ticking!” Lindsey’s muffled voice called through the door.

Y/N couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled out of her, and Harry’s lips curved into a soft smile at the sound.

“Here,” he said, pulling his wallet from the inside pocket of his blazer. He slid out a gleaming gold AMEX card and pressed it into her hand.

Y/N’s eyes widened. “O-Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Bambi,” Harry interrupted, his tone firm but affectionate. The nickname made her heart skip. “Take it.”

His commanding presence was enough to make her stop arguing. She looked up at him, cheeks tinged pink, and nodded.

Y/N stared at the card in her hand like it might bite her. “But Harry,” she whispered, glancing up at him with wide eyes, “I don’t even know what to do with this. What if I lose it? What if I spend too much? What if—”

Harry chuckled softly, the sound warm and reassuring. He cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing over her flushed skin. “Bambi, all you need to do is enjoy yourself. You deserve it.”

Her lips parted, and she blinked up at him, unsure what to say. “I’ll take good care of it,” she promised in a tiny voice, clutching the card. “And I’ll bring it right back. I promise I won’t spend too much!”

“I know you won’t,” he murmured, a hint of amusement dancing in his voice. “I trust you.”

Before she could overthink it any further, Harry leaned down and kissed her forehead again, lingering just long enough for her to feel the warmth of him. “Go have fun.”

Her heart did a nervous little flip at the reminder. “O-Okay,” she stammered, her voice barely above a whisper.

Lindsey’s voice interrupted again, sharp but teasing. “Alright, lovebirds, seriously! I’m giving you ten seconds before I come in there and drag her out myself!”

Y/N squeaked and turned to the door. “Coming!” she called, her voice high-pitched and rushed.

Harry smirked, clearly enjoying her flustered state. He stepped back and adjusted his tie, looking every bit the polished professional, but his eyes were still soft as they followed her.

“Be good,” he teased, his voice low enough that only she could hear.

Her cheeks turned an even deeper shade of pink. “I’ll try,” she mumbled, giving him a quick, shy smile before hurrying out of the office.

Outside, Lindsey was waiting with her hands on her hips, an exaggeratedly impatient expression on her face.

“About time,” she said, grabbing Y/N’s hand and tugging her down the hallway. “Now, let’s see what kind of trouble we can get into with that fancy credit card of his.”

Y/N let out a soft giggle, her fingers curling around the card in her hand. She glanced back toward Harry’s office door one last time, her heart still racing. Even though she was nervous about tonight, she couldn’t help but feel a little giddy, too.

Lindsey noticed the dreamy look on Y/N’s face and rolled her eyes with a grin. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”

Y/N looked away, pressing her lips together as a shy smile spread across her face. “Maybe,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

“Oh, you’re adorable,” Lindsey laughed, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s make this lunch break worth it.”

. . .

Y/N stood in the small changing room, staring at the pile of delicate lingerie Lindsey had hung on the door hook. Each set was softer and more intricate than the last, made from lace, satin, and ribbons in pastel tones of blue, lavender, mint, and blush. She felt like a clumsy giant in a room of dainty, breakable things.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Y/N called softly through the door.

“You’ve got this,” Lindsey replied encouragingly. “Try the pink one first. It’s so you.”

With trembling hands, Y/N picked up the light blush pink set, the soft lace slipping between her fingers like a whisper. She changed quickly, careful not to look too long in the mirror, and hesitated before stepping out.

“Alright, let me see,” Lindsey said, her voice full of excitement.

Y/N cracked open the door and peeked out timidly. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Promise. Now, come on!”

Taking a deep breath, Y/N stepped out, crossing her arms over her chest shyly. The pastel pink lace hugged her figure, delicate straps tracing over her shoulders and down her back. Lindsey’s eyes lit up as she took in the sight.

“Oh, you look so cute!” Lindsey grinned. “It’s perfect! Very soft, very sweet. What do you think?”

Y/N glanced at her reflection in the mirror outside the stall, biting her lip. “I don’t know... It feels like... too much? Or maybe not enough?”

Lindsey shook her head, placing a reassuring hand on Y/N’s shoulder. “It’s not too much, and it’s definitely not too little. It’s elegant and adorable, just like you.”

Y/N flushed and retreated back into the stall to try the next set. The routine continued for several minutes, with Y/N emerging in pastel greens, blues, and creams. Finally, she reached for the last set—a soft taupe-pink shade, almost like the color of cocoa mixed with milk.

When she stepped out in this set, Lindsey gasped softly. “Oh my god.”

Y/N immediately crossed her arms again. “Is it bad? I knew it was too much—”

“No!” Lindsey interrupted, shaking her head vehemently. She stepped closer and took Y/N by the shoulders, turning her toward the mirror. “Look at yourself. You look like a little deer.”

Y/N blinked at her reflection, her brow furrowed. The taupe-pink color complimented her skin tone, and the simple but elegant design made her feel... grown-up, yet still herself.

“I... I don’t know,” she murmured, her voice shaky.

“Hey.” Lindsey crouched slightly to catch Y/N’s gaze in the mirror. “You’re beautiful, Y/N. Stunning. And Harry is going to lose his shit when he sees you in this.”

Y/N’s cheeks flamed. “Lindsey!” she squeaked, burying her face in her hands.

Lindsey laughed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “What? It’s true! Now, I think we’ve found the winner. Let’s go pay before I start crying over how cute you look.”

Y/N nodded shyly, stealing one last glance at herself in the mirror. For the first time, she felt a spark of confidence in her chest. Maybe Harry would love it.

Or, at the very least, she loved it—and that felt just as important.

. . .

Y/N sat comfortably in the passenger seat of Harry’s Porsche, her old t-shirt soft against her skin and her blue jeans slightly worn at the knees. Her baby pink ballet flats rested lightly on the floor, toes tapping absentmindedly as she gazed out the window, trying to decipher where he was taking her.

Harry, effortlessly cozy in his sweater and loose-fitting jeans, kept one hand on the wheel while the other held hers over the console. His black Vans were slightly scuffed, white socks peeking above the edges. At every red light, he lifted her fingers to his lips, pressing a tender kiss against them as if it were second nature.

“Did y’have fun with Lindsey today?” he asked, sparing a glance in her direction.

Y/N hesitated for a moment, then cleared her throat. “Y-Yeah, it was… fun.” She tried not to think about the underwear she had bought earlier particularly because she was currently wearing it beneath her very casual clothing.

Harry’s lips quirked up in amusement. “You don’t sound too sure about that.”

“No, it was!” she insisted, sitting up a little straighter. “It was really nice. I don’t spend a lot of time with other girls, so it felt… different. In a good way.”

His smile softened as he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before returning his focus to the road. “Y’know you’re welcome to spend time with Sarah and Alessia too.”

“But they’re your friends,” Y/N frowned. “Wouldn’t you feel like I was taking them away?”

Harry scoffed, shaking his head. “Of course not. What’s mine is yours, love. You’re my girlfriend, remember?”

Y/N’s lips twitched, a giddy warmth settling in her chest. She let her head fall back against the headrest, a slow smile curling on her lips.

“What?” Harry grinned, flicking his eyes toward her for a second.

“I just like it when you say that,” she admitted.

“What? Girlfriend?” he teased, his dimples appearing as he chuckled.

“Mhm,” she hummed, cheeks heating up. “I can’t believe I’m a girlfriend.”

Harry laughed, bringing her hand up to kiss her knuckles. “You’re not just a girlfriend, you’re my girlfriend. All mine.”

She liked that label even more.

Later on, the soft crunch of gravel beneath the tires signaled their arrival. Harry pulled into a small stone parking lot in front of what looked like a quaint, cottage-style home. The windows glowed warmly against the dusky sky, lace curtains fluttering slightly from the inside. There was no sign or indication of where they were, just an inviting little house with flower boxes lining the window sills.

Y/N glanced around, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Where are we?”

Harry smirked, already opening his door. “You’ll see.”

Curiosity buzzed in her stomach as she climbed out of the car, the crisp evening air wrapping around her. Harry met her at the front, slipping his hand into hers and leading her toward the wooden door.

Before she could ask any more questions, the door creaked open to reveal an elderly woman with wispy white hair pinned up in a loose bun. She wore a pastel apron dusted with flour and had a kind twinkle in her eye.

“Harry, darling!” she greeted, pulling him into a soft hug before turning to Y/N with an equally warm smile. “And you must be Y/N! Oh, you’re just as lovely as he said.”

Y/N’s brows shot up as she looked between Harry and the woman. “He’s mentioned me?”

“Oh, love, he wouldn’t stop talking about you,” she chuckled, stepping aside to usher them in. The scent of vanilla and butter filled the air, making Y/N’s mouth water. “Come in, come in, we’ve got cakes to decorate!”

Y/N’s jaw dropped slightly as she turned to Harry. “Really?”

Harry grinned, squeezing her hand. “Thought you’d like it.” Y/N let out a delighted squeal as she followed him inside.

The cozy kitchen looked straight out of a storybook—wooden shelves lined with jars of sugar and sprinkles, floral-printed tea towels hanging neatly by the stove, and a large wooden table in the center covered with piping bags, frosting tubs, and trays of undecorated cupcakes.

Y/N hesitated at the doorway, her fingers curling around Harry’s sleeve as she peeked inside. “I’ve always wanted to do a baking class,” she admitted, eyes wide with curiosity.

Harry turned to her with a grin. “I know,”

She furrowed her brows, “How did you find out?”

“You’re brothers told me,” He shrugged.

The elderly woman, who had introduced herself as Margaret, beamed at her. “Don’t worry if you’ve never done this before—I’ll show you everything!”

Y/N’s fingers fiddled with the edge of her sleeve as she stepped further into the cozy kitchen, taking in the warm scent of vanilla and sugar. She glanced at Harry, still feeling a little surprised that he had gone out of his way to plan something so thoughtful.

Margaret handed them each an apron, and Y/N hesitated before slipping hers over her head. As she struggled to tie the strings behind her back, she felt a familiar presence behind her.

“Here, Bambi,” Harry murmured, gently tugging the ends and tying them into a neat bow.

Y/N swallowed, her fingers curling slightly against the fabric of her apron. “Thank you…” she said softly, peeking up at him.

Harry just hummed, the corner of his mouth twitching as he reached for his own apron.

Margaret clapped her hands together. “Now, let’s get started! We’ve got a few cakes ready for decorating, and you two can pick whichever frosting colors you like.”

Y/N followed her to the counter, where bowls of pastel-colored buttercream sat beside trays of undecorated cakes. She hovered near the edge, unsure where to start.

Harry, on the other hand, grabbed a piping bag without hesitation. “I used to work at a bakery so don’t be surprised if my cake turns into a masterpiece,” he declared, scooping up a generous amount of frosting.

Y/N watched him for a moment, then turned back to her own cake. She carefully picked up a piping bag but hesitated before squeezing it. “What if I mess it up?” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.

Margaret overheard and smiled warmly. “There’s no such thing, dear. It’s just cake. If it doesn’t turn out how you want, we’ll eat the evidence.”

Y/N let out a small giggle, feeling a little more at ease. She took a deep breath and pressed down on the piping bag, carefully swirling the frosting onto the cake. Her hands were a little shaky, but as she stepped back, she couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit proud.

Harry glanced over and tilted his head. “That’s cute,” he said, nodding toward her cake.

Y/N tucked her chin down, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. “You think so?”

“Yeah,” he said simply, before turning back to his own. “Almost as good as mine,”

Y/N peeked at his cake and bit her lip to hold back a giggle. His frosting was uneven, the swirls lopsided. She glanced up at him, unsure if she should say anything.

He must have noticed because he smirked. “Go on, laugh.”

She shook her head quickly. “N-No! I—I think it’s lovely.”

Harry chuckled, nudging her lightly. “lovely, huh?”

Y/N felt her face heat up and quickly focused back on her cake, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

Before she could react, Harry swiped a bit of icing onto his finger and gently smeared it across her cheek. She gasped, eyes widening in surprise as he leaned in slightly, a playful smirk on his lips.

“I think you’re lovely,” he murmured.

Margaret smiled knowingly. “You two make a lovely pair,” she said as she reached for some sprinkles. “Now, who wants to add the finishing touches?”

Y/N reached for a jar of soft pink sugar pearls, her fingers barely brushing Harry’s as he reached for the same one.

He didn’t move his hand right away, just glanced at her with a small smile. “You take it,” he said softly, his pinkie finger poking her hand. Y/N ducked her head, feeling a flutter in her chest as she carefully took the jar.

With the finishing touches added—Harry’s cake looking as delightfully messy as ever, and Y/N’s decorated with delicate swirls and tiny pearls—they both stepped back, admiring their work.

Margaret beamed at them. “Wonderful, both of you! Now, how about some tea? You’ve earned it.”

Y/N nodded quickly, grateful for something to do other than stand there under Harry’s watchful gaze. She followed Margaret to a cozy table near the window, where a teapot and delicate china cups were already set up. The scent of chamomile and honey filled the air as Margaret poured them each a cup.

Harry stretched out beside Y/N, his long legs brushing hers beneath the table. He didn’t seem to notice—or if he did, he wasn’t letting on.

As Y/N stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea, curiosity finally got the better of her. She glanced between Harry and Margaret before speaking up softly. “How do you two know each other?”

Margaret smiled as she set down the teapot. “Oh, I’m an old friend of Harry’s mum. We go way back.” She turned to Harry with a teasing glint in her eye. “She’s actually coming to visit next week for his birthday.”

Y/N froze, her fingers tightening around her teacup.

Birthday?

Her mind spun. Harry hadn’t mentioned his birthday. Not once. And now she had to meet his mum?

Oh. Oh no.

She must’ve gone silent for too long because Harry’s gaze flickered toward her, his brows furrowing slightly.

Then, under the table, she felt it—his hand, warm and steady, pressing gently against her thigh.

Y/N’s breath hitched as she looked up at him, wide-eyed.

He didn’t say anything, just gave her a knowing look—one that was both amused and reassuring. His thumb brushed lightly over the fabric of her jeans, a silent gesture that somehow grounded her and made her even more flustered all at once.

“You alright, Bambi?” he asked, his voice low enough that only she could hear.

Y/N swallowed hard and nodded quickly, even though her heart was racing.

Harry’s lips twitched, clearly not believing her. But, mercifully, he didn’t push. He just kept his hand where it was, a steady presence beneath the table.

Y/N took a sip of her tea, hoping it would hide the blush creeping up her neck.

She had two problems now: figuring out what to do for his birthday and somehow surviving meeting his mum without making a complete fool of herself.

And, judging by the knowing smirk on Harry’s lips, he was well aware of both.

. . .

“Thank you for having us,” Y/N said softly, offering Margaret a small smile as they stood by the door.

Margaret waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, nonsense, dear. It was lovely having you both.” Then, with a knowing smile, she added, “You’re welcome to come back and do some baking with me anytime, Y/N.”

Y/N’s eyes widened slightly, caught off guard by the offer. She glanced at Harry, who was watching the exchange with amusement, then back at Margaret. “Oh—I’d love to,” she said shyly.

Margaret patted her arm warmly before turning to Harry. “Take care, love. And don’t forget to call your mum.”

Harry groaned playfully. “You’ve been talking to her too much.”

Margaret only laughed, waving them off as they made their way to the car.

Once inside, Y/N fastened her seatbelt and turned to look at Harry, who was adjusting the mirrors. She hesitated for a moment before finally voicing the thoughts swirling in her head.

“You didn’t tell me your mom was coming to see you,” she said, her fingers fidgeting in her lap. “Or that it was your birthday.”

Harry shot her a side glance, lips twitching slightly. “I didn’t want to panic you.”

She frowned. “About your birthday?”

“I don’t like the attention,” he admitted simply.

That made her pause. She looked at him, watching the way his fingers tapped idly against the steering wheel.

Silence settled between them for a beat before he spoke again, his voice quieter this time. “Are you mad?”

The question shocked her. Her brows knitted together. “No, of course not,” she said quickly. Then, softer, “Just… worried.”

Harry turned to her fully now, one arm draped over the steering wheel as he studied her. “Worried?”

“What if your mom doesn’t like me?” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.

His expression softened. “I think she already does.”

Y/N blinked. “Huh?”

“You’re all I talk about when I speak to her these days, Bambi,” he said, his voice warm, sure. “Believe me when I say you have nothing to worry about.”

A small huff left her lips as she sank deeper into her seat, still unsure if that made her feel better or worse.

“Bambiiiiii,” Harry drawled, his tone teasing. “Give me a kiss.”

She almost smiled, shaking her head as she turned toward him to say something—maybe to protest, maybe just to stall—but she never got the chance.

Before she could speak, Harry cupped her entire face in his hands, tilting her chin up as he kissed her.

Y/N melted instantly, her hands hesitating before resting lightly against his chest. His thumbs brushed over her cheeks, his lips moving against hers with a kind of lazy confidence that made her stomach flip.

He pulled back just enough for their noses to brush, a smirk tugging at his lips. “You taste like frosting,” he murmured against her mouth.

Y/N let out a breathless laugh, her fingers curling slightly against his shirt.

Maybe she was still nervous about meeting his mom. Maybe she was still reeling from the fact that his birthday was next week. But right now, in this moment, all she could focus on was him.

“Come on,” Harry’s hand rested on her knee, “Let’s get you home.”

The drive back was quiet, comfortable. The occasional hum of a song on the radio filled the space between them, but neither of them felt the need to talk much. Harry’s hand rested casually on the gear shift, fingers drumming lightly, while Y/N watched the familiar streets pass by through the window.

Before she knew it, they were outside her house. Harry shifted into park and turned toward her with a small smile. “Home safe, Bambi.”

Y/N reached for the door handle but hesitated.

She didn’t want the night to end just yet.

Biting her lip, she turned to face him properly. “Do you… want to come inside?”

Harry blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing his face, “Yeah?”

Y/N nodded, suddenly feeling a little nervous under his gaze. “Yeah.”

His face softened into something warmer, more curious. He tilted his head slightly, studying her. “You sure?”

Y/N swallowed, then nodded again. “I just—” She exhaled, giving a small shrug. “I’m not ready for you to leave yet.”

Harry’s expression changed, something fond flickering in his green eyes before he reached over, fingers brushing her chin briefly.

“Then I won’t,” he murmured.

With that, he shut off the car and stepped out, rounding to meet her at the front steps.

Y/N’s stomach fluttered as she unlocked the door, fully aware of Harry standing just behind her. And as she pushed it open and stepped inside, she couldn’t help but smile when she heard him close the door behind them.

“Everyone’s asleep. We can go upstairs to my room,” she whispered, locking the front door behind them. Slipping off her shoes, she glanced back as Harry did the same, his movements quiet and easy.

Without thinking, she reached for his hand, her fingers curling around his as she led him up the stairs. They tiptoed carefully past her brother’s rooms, the only sound the faint creak of the wooden steps beneath them.

Once inside, she gently shut the door and turned to find Harry standing in the middle of her room, his gaze slowly sweeping over the space.

It was strange seeing him there—so tall, so effortlessly cool—against the soft pink and white of her bedroom. He looked almost out of place, yet somehow, he didn’t.

His eyes landed on the mannequin in the corner, where a partially finished dress hung, delicate ruffles cascading down the fabric.

“Did you make this?” he asked, his voice laced with curiosity as he stepped closer, taking in the details.

Y/N tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly shy. “Yeah… it’s taking a lot longer than I thought it would.”

Harry turned to her, something like awe flickering across his face. “Bambi,” he murmured, shaking his head slightly. “You should be working with the design team at Pleasing, not stuck behind a desk.”

Her eyes widened, heat creeping up her neck. “Oh, no, no,” she protested quickly, waving a hand. “The desk job is more than enough.”

Harry just hummed, still admiring the dress. “At least give it a think.”

Y/N blinked, a confused smile tugging at her lips. “Wait, are you offering?”

Harry turned to face her, already standing just a step away, the small space of her room almost too close. His lips curled into a teasing grin. “I don’t know… do you want me to?”

Her heart skipped a beat, and before she could answer, Harry intertwined their fingers, his touch sending a jolt of warmth through her. He lowered his head, his lips ghosting over hers, just a breath away.

“I think you’re going to do such great things, Bambi,” he murmured, his voice soft but certain. “You don’t need me for that.”

Y/N’s breath hitched, the sincerity in his voice melting the walls she had built up around herself. Her chest tightened, and before she could stop herself, she kissed him, her lips pressing against his with a soft urgency.

His hands cupped her cheeks gently, his touch grounding her as she stepped back, the backs of her knees hitting the edge of her bed. They both tumbled onto it in a tangle of limbs, Y/N’s heart thudding loudly against her chest.

His hands moved to her hips, fingers digging into her skin beneath her shirt, pulling her closer. The warmth of his touch made her pulse quicken, and her mind raced, completely overwhelmed by the closeness.

Her thoughts scattered, and she found herself whispering, almost breathless. “Y—you can take it off.”

Harry’s hands stilled, his brows furrowing in confusion. “My shirt, I mean.”

His lips parted slightly, eyes widening as he processed what she’d said. “Are you sure?”

She nodded, her heart in her throat, “I-I’m sure,” She replied.

Harry didn’t respond at first, his eyes scanning her face to make sure she truly meant what she said. His fingers tugged on the ends of her shirt and she nodded once more to let him know it was okay and what she wanted.

Harry lifted her shirt, his fingers grazing her skin as he pulled it over her head. The cool air prickled against her newly exposed skin, but the way his gaze darkened sent a different kind of heat through her.

"God," he murmured, voice thick with something unspoken, his eyes scanned the underwear she was wearing. He said nothing at first, Y/N’s nerves growing at his silence. Her first instinct was to put her shirt back on to cover herself up but his fingers wrapped around her wrist, “Are you real?”

Y/N giggled, “I think so,” she poked her tummy and Harry laughed.

“I must have been good at some point in time, I don’t think you’d be here if I weren’t.”

“You are good Harry,” Y/N murmurs.

“For you,” Harry whispers, “I’ll be anything. Anything y’ want, Bambi. I’ll bend and break myself to be whatever you want me to be. I’ve never been one for religion, but I’ve only ever prayed long and hard for someone like you, and now here you are. You’re like holding a piece of Heaven.”

Y/N's breath catches, the weight of his words settling deep within her chest. She reaches up, her fingers brushing against his cheek, tracing the lines of his jaw with a softness that matches her racing heart. "Harry..."

His eyes soften as they meet hers, the intensity never wavering, but there's something tender in his gaze now, something that says he's not just talking about desire, but something deeper, more profound.

Y/N swallowed hard, her fingers twitching at her sides before she reached for the hem of his shirt. He smirked, eyes locked onto hers as he helped her tug it over his head, his movements fluid, confident. Her eyes rounded at the tattoos that littered his muscular torso. Her hands hesitated over the hard lines of his chest, the warmth of his skin under her fingertips making her pulse stutter.

"Go on," Harry urged, his voice low, teasing. "Touch me."

Her breath hitched, but she obeyed, palms trailing cautiously over his chest, feeling the steady, unshaken beat of his heart. Unlike her own, which was hammering in her ribs. She traced her fingers over a particular tattoo on his left pectoral.

Her gaze lifted to meet his, and she noticed the way his chest rose and fell with every breath, the warmth of his body against hers making her pulse quicken. Harry’s eyes softened as he watched her, his lips curling into a smile.

"Relax, love," he murmured, cupping her chin and tilting her face up to his. "S’just me."

And then he kissed her again—deep, sure, in control. His hands slid down to her waist, pulling her flush against him, and she melted into him, letting him take the lead, letting him guide her through the intensity of it all.

They kissed for a while, Harry’s hands roaming over her skin, slowly learning the contours of her body as though he were memorizing each moment. Y/N melted into him, feeling the heat between them grow, her heart racing, pulse quickening under his touch.

Y/N pulled away for a brief second to catch his breath, his eyes were hazy, his lips were pinker than usual and lazy grin lingered on his lips. “What are y’ thinking about Bambi?”

She wondered how he could already read her so well. Her mind had been drifting the entire evening to this very moment, and now she was in it, her mouth dry and she couldn’t seem to conjure up the words. “H-Harry I-” The words were on the tip of her tongue, her mind drifting to a reddit article she read three days prior with tips on this exact situation.

Harry waited patiently for her to continue, letting her have her space to gain the confidence to ask whatever she needed to. He could see the uncertainty in her eyes, the hesitation in her voice, and he respected it, not rushing her, not pushing for anything.

She sighed, her words barely above a whisper, "I bought this bra today."

Harry nodded, a soft smile tugging at his lips. "It’s very pretty, Bambi. So pretty on you." His lips brushed the side of her neck, a gentle, tender gesture meant to reassure her.

But Y/N could feel the weight of her own thoughts pressing on her chest. "B-but there’s a reason I bought it," she continued, her voice shaky.

Harry paused, his lips stilling against her skin as he pulled back slightly to look at her, his gaze full of warmth and curiosity. “What do you mean?”

She took a deep breath, her heart pounding in her chest as she gathered the courage to speak. "I... I want to try things with you."

Harry’s expression softened, the shock in his eyes mixing with a deeper understanding. He gave her a moment to continue, sensing that she wasn’t finished.

"I want you to do stuff with me." She felt her cheeks flush, but she held his gaze, refusing to look away.

He stayed silent for a beat, his fingers gently brushing a strand of hair from her face, his voice calm but filled with concern. "Are you sure?"

She nodded, her hands trembling slightly as she reached for his, needing his touch to ground her. “I want to touch you.” She whispered in his ear, her cheeks scorching.

Harry choked, “Bambi,” He could feel himself hardening in his trousers.

She quickly continued, her voice a little shaky. “But y—you have to help me because… reading things online make it hard to understand, and those articles about… it’s confusing.”

Harry took her hands in his, his thumbs brushing over her knuckles as he looked into her eyes, his expression filled with warmth. “Hey, it’s okay,” he reassured her gently. “We’ll go slow. No pressure. I’ll help you, I promise. What is it you had in mind, Bambi?”

“I’m too embarrassed to say it out loud,” She admitted, breezing past the whole ‘pretending to be confident’ moment she had pictured in her head. “I feel embarrassed not knowing anything.”

Harry’s gaze softened, and Y/N wasn’t sure why it comforted her. He wasn’t showing sympathy, frustration, or excitement—his expression was unreadable, almost effortless. It was as if her uncertainty didn’t matter to him, as if knowing nothing made no difference at all. Being with her was enough, and whatever came with it was just a bonus.

“How about I’ll help you first,” He gently guided her onto his lap, his hands steady on her waist as he settled her against him. “Just follow my lead, yeah?” His voice was soft, reassuring, but there was an edge of something deeper in his tone—something patient yet undeniably wanting.

Y/N’s breath hitched as she adjusted herself, feeling the warmth of his body beneath her. His hands, warm and firm, traced slow circles on her hips, grounding her. “You don’t have to rush,” he murmured, pressing a soft kiss to her temple. “This is just us. You and me.”

She exhaled shakily, her fingers gripping his shoulders as she let herself relax against him. The feeling was new, overwhelming but not in a bad way. Safe. Warm. Intimate in a way she hadn’t expected.

Harry’s fingers trailed up her spine, his touch featherlight but deliberate. “Tell me what feels good, Bambi,” he whispered, his lips ghosting over the shell of her ear. “We’ll figure this out together.”

Y/N swallowed, her body tingling at his words. “O-okay,” she breathed, trusting him completely.

Y/N shuddered as Harry’s hands splayed on her thighs, his fingers playfully playing with the hook of her underwear that rested on her hips. His thumb made circles on her skin, goosebumps rising where he traced, ‘Is this okay?” He whispered, eyes looking into hers.

She nodded. His fingers sliding down further until they cupped her between her legs, “What about this?”

She gaped, “Yes Harry,”

“M’kay,” Warm breath fanned down her neck.

Beneath her, Y/N could feel Harry’s hardening length. Her eyes widened, her breath hitching as she shifted slightly, the sensation unfamiliar yet thrilling. Harry’s grip on her hips tightened just a fraction, his jaw clenching as he exhaled through his nose.

“You feel that, Bambi?” he murmured, his voice thick with restraint.

She nodded, her hands clutching his shoulders, her heart hammering against her ribs. “It’s… um, it’s big,” she admitted shyly, her cheeks burning.

“Do you trust me?” Harry asked.

“Completely,” Y/N whispered with a nod. Harry didn’t hesitate, pressing a soft kiss to her lips before his hand drifted lower.

With careful precision, he hooked his fingers around the fabric of her underwear, tugging it aside. She wondered if he could feel the razor bumps from where she had tried to shave. If he did he didn’t say anything, just whispered, “Y’ the most perfect girl. How are you real?” She wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or himself.

The moment his fingers brushed past her folds, searching for her clit, she stiffened, a sharp inhale catching in her throat. Letting out a shaky breath, her fingers gripping his shoulders as a wave of unfamiliar yet intoxicating pleasure coursed through her. Harry watched her closely, his eyes dark with focus, making sure she was comfortable.

“Relax, Bambi,” he whispered, his lips brushing against her temple as his fingers moved with deliberate care.

Y/N’s breath hitched as he found the sensitive bundle of nerves, his touch gentle yet firm. A soft whimper escaped her lips, and she instinctively pressed closer to him, seeking more.

“That’s it,” Harry murmured, his free hand stroking her thigh reassuringly. “You’re doing so good for me.”

She felt heat pool in her stomach, her body responding in ways she never imagined. “Harry,” she whimpered, barely recognizing her own voice.

His lips curled into a smirk as he pressed a kiss just below her ear. “I’ve got you, love,” he promised, his fingers working her with steady, patient movements. “You’re truly quite perfect.”

Y/N couldn’t help but smile at his words, but then her brows furrowed as a thought crept into her mind—she wanted to do something for Harry, too. This wasn’t meant to be just about her.

But as his fingers continued their slow, torturous movements, her thoughts blurred into nothingness. Her body responded instinctively, her hips rutting against his hand when he brushed a particularly sensitive spot.

Harry groaned, the sound deep and raw, sending a fresh wave of heat through her. The effect it had on her was instant—she wanted to hear it again. So she did it once more, rolling her hips into his touch.

“Y’ gonna kill me, Bambi,” he rasped, his grip on her tightening as he fought to keep control.

Harry let out a strained chuckle, his fingers tightening around her hips as he steadied her movements. His gaze was heavy-lidded, filled with something dark and reverent as he watched her.

“So damn sweet,” he murmured, his thumb tracing gentle circles on her skin. “All wide-eyed and trembling… just like a little deer.”

Y/N swallowed hard, her breath catching at his words. His comparison made her feel small, delicate—like something precious in his hands.

Harry’s breath grew heavier, his grip on her hips firm as he guided her movements, letting her find what felt good. Y/N was completely lost in the sensation—his fingers working her with precise, devastating strokes, his voice low and coaxing as he whispered sweet praises in her ear.

“That’s it, Bambi,” he murmured, his forehead resting against hers. “Let yourself feel it.”

Her body trembled, overwhelmed by the pleasure building inside her. She clung to him, fingers pulling on the curls at the nape of his neck, his head falling back as she rocked against his hand, chasing the high she had never quite reached before.

Harry was struggling himself, his jaw clenched, his breathing ragged as her movements sent jolts of pleasure straight through him. He was achingly hard beneath her, the friction almost too much, especially when she rolled her hips just right.

“Fuck,” he groaned, his fingers faltering for a moment before he doubled down, determined to push her over the edge first. “You feel so good, love—so perfect.”

His words sent her spiraling. A broken moan slipped past her lips as the tension inside her snapped, pleasure crashing over her in waves. Her body tensed, then melted, a shuddering mess in his arms as she came undone.

The sight of her—the way she trembled, the breathy whimpers falling from her lips—was Harry’s undoing. With a deep, guttural groan, he buried his face in her neck, his body shuddering as he followed right after her, lost in his own release.

For a moment, neither of them moved, both caught in the aftershocks of pleasure, their breaths mingling as they clung to each other. Y/N felt boneless, her head resting against his shoulder, her heart still hammering in her chest.

“I think I’m falling in love with you, Harry,” Y/N confessed, her voice soft in the quiet light of her room. It was the most honest thing she had ever said, the most vulnerable she had ever allowed herself to be.

Harry’s eyes shone with an emotion she couldn’t quite decipher. Maybe it was love, maybe it was more but she couldn’t quite figure out what meant more than love. Unless what she was feeling was exactly that- something more- because when she thought about loving Harry, the word seemed much too small. She wanted to be the same person, wanted to melt into his skin and never find where she ended and he began.

His fingers traced slow, soothing patterns on her back as he held her, grounding her in the moment. “Maybe it’s your first orgasm talking.” He chuckled and she playfully nudged him before laughing with him.

As her eyes fluttered shut, inhaling the scent of him—warm, familiar, safe, she heard him whisper, “I think I’m two steps ahead of you Bambi.” and her heart pounded against her chest.

Maybe love wasn’t a big enough word for what she felt, but whatever it was, it belonged to him. And she had a feeling it always would.

2K notes · View notes