#Happy Lee Jihoon month in thirty minutes! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

leejihoonownsmyheart · 2 years

Text

Car Crash

Title: Car Crash

Genre: Fake dating, enemies to lovers

Tags/Warnings: idol!yn, idol!jihoon, gn!yn but they’re in a group with girls so interpret as you will (also sex), arguing, word count (all together) 35k words :(, Sungsoo exists which is always scary in fics, Jihoon’s kind of shy

Smut warnings: Smut is in part two, Reader is a bottom, dirty talk, teasing, Jihoon isn’t shy when they’re having sex, top!Jihoon, …mindbreak?, creampie, overstimulation, blowjob, fingering

I split this into two parts because it is so stupid long.

Part One:

You watched in quiet amusement as Jihoon slipped into his studio, clearly not knowing yet that you were there. To announce your presence without being too startling, you pressed your hand against the computer keyboard on the desk surface beside you, making it squeak a little in resistance.

Jihoon jumped at the noise, his eyes growing wide and his mouth falling open when he saw you. You laughed at the reaction and raised a hand in the air.

“Calm down, it’s just me,” You assured him softly. You watched him visibly relax, his shoulders dropping as he set the plastic bags in his hands down on the studio floor.

“What are you doing here?” He asked you, and you would be stupid to not notice the small hitch in his voice as he spoke. You didn’t pay it too much attention. You just kicked your dangling feet more through the air, humming as you lowered your eyes down to your toes.

“Just thought I would come check up on my dear Jihoonie,” you replied, your voice dripping with a sweet tone that you didn’t even know that you were capable of. When you looked up Jihoon was just standing there staring at you, clearly wanting to know why you were really there.

“The company wants us to go out. Jeonghan tipped off the press that we have big plans tonight,” you explained with a grunt. “So, we’re going on a date.”

Jihoon didn’t say anything to that- to the point that his silence made you a little bit anxious. You raised your eyes to his again and noticed that he was just staring at you. God you didn’t understand him. Why was he so surprised by something so simple?

“Get off my desk,” Jihoon finally said. “I told you not to touch my things.”

You and Jihoon were in a rather peculiar situation with one another. It wasn’t exactly complicated, but it also wasn’t simple. The basics went like this: You and Jihoon had hated one another since the first day that you were just starting as a trainee at Pledis.

You took one look at one another and knew that you two wouldn’t work out. It wasn’t anything that really made sense. Everyone said that you two would get along and liked all the same things, but you two had decided either way that you would be enemies from day one and it was the only thing that you two agreed on.

If Jihoon decided that he wanted to do something, you decided that you wouldn’t be caught dead doing it. If Jihoon heard you were the one preparing dinner for everyone that night, he ordered take out. If you found out that you would be recording with Jihoon in the studio, you made a point to be as late as you could justify.

The only problem with your little feud was that it wasn’t really good on the company.

“Rumors are getting out that you two hate each other,” Sungsoo said pointedly, his eyebrows raising as he leaned forward on his desk.

“Rumors are true,” Jihoon replied just as bluntly. “What’s next?”

“We can’t have these things get out,” Sungsoo grunted with a slight roll of his eyes. “We try to pass ourselves off as a company that is more like a family then a group of strangers.”

“Family fights,” you replied, reaching across the room and lightly hitting Jihoon over the head. Jihoon jumped slightly and made a sound of protest as he hit you back.

“I can’t believe you would hit me!” Jihoon protested

“You’re hardly a human to begin with!” You shot back.

“This is exactly what I am talking about!” Sungsoo interrupted. You turned to look at him, immediately regretting your actions. Sungsoo was so angry he was red. “We can’t tolerate this behavior, why do you two even hate each other so much?”

Silence filled the room.

“Alright, that settles it. Too much is happening because of you two. People are starting to make video compilations addressing the rumor. Luckily, it’s nothing substantial,” Sungsoo continued. “What do you think we should do? Hmm, how do you guys propose to start stamping out these rumors?”

Still, silence was all that could be heard.

“You two are going to start dating.”

“What?!” Both you and Jihoon exclaimed at the same time. Sungsoo shot you both a look and you sat back down.

“You can’t be serious,” you mumbled. “Surely a dating rumor is worse than one that we hate each other.”

“It’s a risk,” Sungsoo agreed with a small nod of his head. “But a risk that I’d rather take then let people think that the trainees under this company don’t like one another.”

“I won’t do it,” Jihoon protested. “I won’t even pretend to date someone like-”

“Then I’ll postpone your comeback, and suspend you from the group,” Sungsoo said. “A hate rumor leads to bullying rumors, and bullying rumors can ruin your groups reputation and lead to disbandment. A dating confirmation just means that everyone under our company gets along and we gain the respect of a lot of foreigners.”

You looked over at Jihoon, shocked that you were hearing what you were. It was clear that the decision for you two had already long been determined and that no wasn’t really an option. You couldn’t believe that this was the solution they had come to when faced with the threat of a bullying rumor.

“There has to be some other solution,” you said, turning back to face the President. “Any solution. I promise we’ll behave from now on-”

“The date is already planned,” Sungsoo interrupted. “You either agree or your careers as idols are over. I love you guys, and I know this is harsh but this- it’s for the best.”

You couldn’t help the way that Sungsoo’s words echoed through your head that day, and the days after. You couldn’t really wrap your head around the fact that you had somehow gotten yourself dragged into this impossible situation.

Looking back on it you were beginning to regret being so public about your distaste for Lee Jihoon, but now... It was a little late to go back on that.

You stood in front of your mirror, absolutely fuming at the fact you had to go on this date at all. Everything about this felt wrong to you, even the outfit that you knew you would normally love to wear. Why were you dressing so cute for Jihoon anyways? It was just stupid Jihoon. There was a soft knock at your door and before you could answer it, the door was being pushed open.

“Look at you, you know mom is so proud that you’re going on your first date,” Jeonghan cooed. You glanced back at him over your shoulder in time to see him propped against your door frame. “Dad’s not too excited about it.”

“Don’t you have dance practice?” You asked, aggravation creeping into your voice. Jeonghan shrugged.

“This is much more entertaining.”

You weren’t really sure how Jeonghan had managed to figure out that you and Jihoon weren’t actually dating. The minute the article came out he was knocking on your door, that characteristic look on his face that told you that Jeonghan didn’t believe a single lie coming out of your mouth.

“So you and Jihoon,” he drawled. You were staring at him with your arms crossed over your chest in nothing but your pajamas. You wouldn’t put up with this from just anyone. If Mingyu had barged into your room at two in the morning he would have gotten an earful.

But Jeonghan was Jeonghan. He did what he wanted, he didn’t care what others had to say about it, and he was quite honestly one of the least judgmental people you had ever met in your life. So, when it was him, you didn’t really mind, no matter how annoyed he seemed to make you.

“It’s two in the morning Jeonghan,” you said bluntly. “Do you have anything important to say or not?”

“Depends on if you are going to lie to me or not.”

You stayed silent. Just stared at him.

“I know you and Jihoon aren’t actually dating,” Jeonghan said. “You’re telling me that the same person that was complaining yesterday about the fact that Jihoon drinks americanos has been dating him?”

You shrugged.

“It was a secret,” you said. “I had to make up something convincing. I made up that I hated him.”

“Right.” Jeonghan stared at you, practically daring you to keep the lie up.

“Jeonghan, can I go to bed?” You asked. He hummed.

“Sure.”

He turned away from you and began to close your door.

“But we aren’t done talking about this.”

And true to his word Jeonghan had not dropped the topic.

You gave said boy a pressed expression.

“Can’t you just pretend you don’t know?” You asked. Jeonghan’s eyebrows rose in amusement.

“Know that you two aren’t actually dating?” He asked. You wanted to scream.

“Know that we are dating,” you corrected. “It was easier when no one knew.”

Jeonghan hummed.

“Didn’t take you for the type that enjoyed lying.”

You wondered if ignoring Jeonghan would make it easier to resist his badgering so you pushed past him, trusting him to close the door to your room. Walking into the living room of the dorm you shared with your group members you saw Ai and Nari sitting on the couch. They must have heard the chains of your platforms clanging against your shoes because they both turned away from the drama they were watching to look at you.

You huffed, placing a hand on your hip.

“I have a boyfriend,” you said bluntly. “You can’t just let strange men into my room.”

A puzzled expression crossed Ai’s face.

“We didn’t let a man into your room, we let Jeonghan into your room.”

Nari giggled softly, hiding her smile with her hand. Nari and Ai were the two youngest members of your idol group. Nari had chestnut brown hair that fell just above her shoulders, while Ai had long black hair that fell past her lower back. They were both about the same height just barely shorter then you and-

“You act as if any of us have control over what Jeonghan does,” Chae said with a laugh. She was the eldest of your group with dark hair that matched Ai’s and the roundest cheeks of anyone that you had ever met. Between Nari and Ai; Chae undeniably looked the most innocent, but in reality she was even more ruthless than you were.

“I’m just here to see you off on your date,” Jeonghan said innocently as he joined your side. You shot him a glare and began to walk around.

“See you around,” you called over to your dorm mates. They all echoed farewells and you distantly heard their conversations turn to that of what movie to watch for the night.

You hated to miss movie night, in fact, you had been secretly really disappointed when the company had scheduled your first public date on a day that was reserved solely for you and your group mates but there wasn’t much that could be said to change things.

“You sure did get dolled up for our little Jihoon,” Jeonghan teased, falling it step with you again. You groaned.

“Jeonghan! Seriously leave me alone.”

“I’ll do what you wish just as soon as I see you and your boyfriend off.”

On a different day you might actually fight with Jeonghan for your privacy. Despite being one of your best friends he did get under your skin quite easily, but he only ever pushed you as far as you let him. You knew that if you changed your intonation and the way that you were looking at him you would be able to get Jeonghan to leave you alone.

And you knew that Jeonghan knew that as well.

But trying to convince the people closest in your life that you had been convincingly hiding a relationship with a man you openly hated had your heart in your throat. And as much as you knew he shouldn’t, you really wanted Jeonghan to know that this was all fake. You really hoped that he didn’t drop this.

When you two rounded the corner to the front door you felt your chest tighten even further. Jihoon was standing at the end of the hall, his hands shoved in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. He had a white button up on and a pair of jeans. Nothing special really, but more form fitting then he normally wore. As you and Jeonghan approached he raised his eyes, first looking at you and then looking at Jeonghan. His eyebrows furrowed.

“What are you...?”

“Mazel tov!” Jeonghan cheered mockingly. He pushed you towards Jihoon, forcibly closing the distance between the two of you. As soon as you regained control of your body you put your hands on your hips, fixing your glare back on Jeonghan.

“He’s insisted on seeing us off,” you replied. “He thinks we’re lying.”

You had to give credit where credit was due. When Jihoon heard you, his eyes widened just so and he turned his attention fully to you.

“Why wouldn’t he believe us?” Jihoon asked you. You shrugged. He glanced at Jeonghan, giving him a weird look. “Go back to your room Jeonghan.”

As he spoke he held his hand out to you. You looked at it, for a second too long. You didn’t want to touch him. You had gone a really long time not having to touch Jihoon and you didn’t want to start now. The thought of touching someone who hated you as much as you knew that Jihoon did made your skin crawl.

You took Jihoon’s hand and pressed your lips into a smile.

You would just have to get used to your skin crawling.

“I know you two are faking,” Jeonghan practically sang. “Have fun pretending like you can actually stand one another.”

And like that you and Jihoon slipped out into the cold night air.

A date at night was actually a bit of a dream for you. There was something magical about going on a late night stroll with someone. It made everything seem so quiet.

When you were alone at night with someone you loved the huge, loud world suddenly felt just a little bit smaller.

“Your hand is clammy,” Jihoon mumbled. You sighed, your appreciation for the night broken. You pulled your hand from Jihoon’s making a point of wiping your hands against your pants.

You two walked together in silence, both keeping a good amount of space between each other. You knew that you should probably say something to him but you really didn’t want to and clearly Jihoon didn’t want to talk to you either.

And yet the silence was overbearing.

“So the paparazzi show up at the restaurant thirty minutes in?” You asked. You knew that the answer was yes but you were sick of this awkwardness.

“Congratulations you know how to listen,” Jihoon responded immediately. You felt a strand of your hair fall in your face and you pushed it back out of your face a little more aggressively than you normally would.

“You don’t have to be a dick about everything,” you mumbled. “After all-” You swung your body in front of him, pressing a wide, cocky smile on your lips, leaning close to his face. “We’re dating now.”

Jihoon didn’t even flinch. He stared at you for a moment, no emotion spreading over his face. Then his face scrunched in disgust and he brushed past you.

“Get serious,” he mumbled. You huffed out a breath of air and jogged a second to catch back up to him. “This is the absolute worse thing that could have happened to me this year.”

“I’m not thrilled about it either,” you responded sharply. “I could be on the couch rewatching the Saw movies with the girls.”

“And I could be working on the next title track for Seventeen’s album,” Jihoon bit back. “We could both be doing better things if it weren’t for your mistake.”

“My mistake?” You blurted. You were about to go off on him because the idea that this whole situation was solely your fault was laughable, but even as the anger boiled up into your throat you forced it down. “What got us into this was exactly this. Us fighting. We won’t make a convincing couple if we keep fighting.”

Jihoon fell silent for a few moments.

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

When you got into the restaurant the time between when the paparazzi arrived and when you two sat down dragged along for what felt like hours. And it was some of the most awkward hours that could have passed. You felt bad for your waitress who could practically feel the tension between you two.

When the paparazzi finally arrived and you saw the first flashes of cameras out of your peripheral, you leaned forward, holding out your hand for Jihoon to take.

“I hope you’re a good actor,” you whispered.

His eyes flickered to yours and you pulled your mask down, reaching across the table to take one of Jihoon’s fries. You smiled cheekily at him.

“Your fries are better than mine,” you said innocently. Jihoon’s face briefly flickered with disgust, but when he pulled down his mask his facial expression was one of amusement.

“My fries taste just the same as yours,” he insisted. You reached over to take another one of his and he playfully swatted your hand. “Eat your own.”

You whined playfully and began to write a story for him, telling him about your day and your friends animatedly. Jihoon actually managed to feign interest in what you had to say even though you knew that in reality he hated every second. He nodded when he needed to, laughed at all the right parts, and he never expressed anything other than pure devotion towards you.

“Do you hate me?” You asked, interrupting your story. Jihoon’s eyebrows shot up- genuine surprise riddled over his face.

“Why do you say that?”

You waved your hand in the air.

“You won’t hold my hand.”

Jihoon’s laugh sounded natural. He reached forward and intertwined his fingers with yours. His eyebrow quirked.

“Happy?”

If it hadn’t been Jihoon you thought maybe your heart would flutter.

“You have to make it up to me,” you replied coyly. Jihoon tilted his head to the side, his hair falling into his face.

“And how can I make it up?”

You stood up, pressing your body over the table. With your free hand you brushed the hair out of Jihoon’s face. You two hadn’t discussed this. The fact that you two were going to have to kiss in order to really sell this façade but you could tell by Jihoon’s face that he had seen it coming. He leaned closer to you, his lips quirking up even more. It was a clear invitation to close the distance.

“I think you know how to make it up to me.”

Jihoon pressed closer to you, his lips teasingly brushing against yours. You felt disgusted having to kiss him, but even so you pressed even closer to him completely closing the distance between you two.

The worst part about kissing Jihoon wasn’t kissing Jihoon. As an idol, you had been training since you were thirteen to debut and, that being said it left you with little time to have an actual life. You didn’t get to do clubs after school or go to the mall with friends. Your earliest memories were those of your time with Ai, Nari, and Chae. You three had spent your childhood together.

The only normal memories that you had were ones that you all had crafted together. Sneaking out to the park, and flirting with boys there until your manager found you all and dragged you back to the company. You wanted to smile remembering the punishments you three had endured when you were just trying to be kids.

All that to say, the worst part about kissing Jihoon was that he was your first kiss. A moment that people treasured in their minds so dearly. Looked forward to having so much. Fantasized for so many years snatched away from you by the man you hated the most.

When you pulled away from Jihoon there was still a smile on your lips, but you felt like a little piece of you had died.

“Are you happier now?” Jihoon asked teasingly. You sat back in your seat, squeezing his hand.

“Yeah,” you said. “Can we get dessert?”

The rest of the date flew by. You held Jihoon’s hand the whole time and you whined until he fed you some of the chocolate cake that you two shared. When the waitress brought over your check you both fought over who was going to pay like a couple in their honeymoon phase and before you left the restaurant you took Jihoon’s hat from him and put it on your own head.

It wasn’t until you two slipped back into the dorms that you both roomed in that you were finally able to drop the act.

You felt a relieved breath leave your mouth at finally being out of the view of the paparazzi’s camera lens, but your relief was brief. Jihoon snatched his hat from of your head, looking clearly aggravated as he situated it back on his head.

“Don’t steal my stuff,” he asserted.

“I had to be convincing,” you replied shrugging it off. “You thought I wanted to wear your hat?”

He didn’t respond to you. He didn’t even say anything in farewell. Instead, he turned on his heel and wandered away. You felt frustration bubbling in your stomach but you didn’t get the chance to fully express it as moments later a hand was on your shoulder.

You yelped at the touch, throwing your hand over your mouth.

“Relax, it’s just me.”

You thought that it was almost worse that it was Jeonghan standing there. You let your hand drop from your mouth and you fixed Jeonghan under a glare.

“Han, I’m tired,” you murmured.

“I just want to know how the date went,” Jeonghan replied, feigning innocence. You didn’t fall for those big puppy dog eyes.

“It was nice,” you said, a fake smile flitting across your lips. “Jihoon and I don’t get to go on dates a lot. It’s nice that we can go on more now.”

“Wow,” Jeonghan said, and for a brief second you thought you had convinced him. “You are a really bad liar.”

You rolled your eyes and turned away from Jeonghan, determined to ask him why he was so confident it was fake when you heard something starting to play behind him.

“Don’t steal my stuff,” Jihoon’s voice repeated. And then you heard your voice, clear as day.

“I had to be convincing. You thought I wanted to wear your hat?”

Your shoulders slacked and you looked back at Jeonghan.

“Did you wait around for hours just so you could record us and prove we aren’t dating?” You asked him. He smiled cockily.

“It was 100% worth it.”

The pro to Jeonghan knowing that you were in a fake relationship was obvious. You got to complain to someone about Jihoon all over again. Even if it was someone who was actually quite close to Jihoon no matter what you said.

“I hate this,” you blurted. “Have I said that yet? I have to kiss that jerk. Kiss him.”

Jeonghan just smiled at you as you rambled about your most recent date with Jihoon.

“You’re not being nearly convincing enough,” Jeonghan warned softly.

“Are you kidding?” You argued. “We hold hands, we kiss, I steal his clothes-”

Jeonghan was clearly completely ignoring what you had to say. Instead he opened his phone and slid his phone across the table.

“Does this really look like a happy couple to you?”

It was a picture of you and Jihoon, holding hands from one of your dates. You two had gummy smiles, and you were laughing at something he had said. To a passer-byer you and Jihoon did look like a happy couple. But under a trained eye- Even just the eye of a dedicated fan- you could see the tension between the two of you.

“We’re doing our best,” you said. “How are two people who hate each other supposed to convincingly act like they like one another?”

Jeonghan hummed softly, not seeming too affected by your excuses. He turned his attention back to the latte that was in front of him, nursing the straw as a way to divert his attention. You pressed your lips together firmly.

“What would you do in my situation?” You asked. He glanced back up at your from beneath his eyelashes.

“Try to get to know him,” Jeonghan replied pointedly. “It’s easier to fake something if there is a little bit of truth in it.”

“I don’t want to get to know him,” you replied stubbornly. “This is so stupid. How is a dating scandal better than it getting out that we hate each other?”

Jeonghan sighed.

“What is up with you? Usually you are so adaptable,” he mumbled. “But it’s like when it has to do with Jihoon you completely lose sense of what is reasonable.”

You grumbled but let your attention turn back to your phone. You slid it open, scrolling through your emails when Jeonghan peered over your shoulder.

“Have you changed your lock screen yet?” Jeonghan asked. You glanced up at him.

“Hmm?”

“You don’t have a picture of your boyfriend as your lock screen on your phone.”

You stared at him blankly for a few moments.

“I hate you,” you finally said. Jeonghan shrugged innocently.

“Isn’t that what normal couples do?” He asked. It was moments like these that made you wonder why you liked Jeonghan’s company so much… But then again you supposed any relationship was better than your one with Jihoon.

“Okay I think that we should be good for the day,” you panted softly, your chest rising and falling with the anticipation of having to run this dance again. While Nari and Ai practically fell to the ground in exhaustion, Chae just propped herself on you. You stood there panting and as you two were catching your breath the door to the room opened. You glanced over at the door as three people walked in. You felt pure exhaustion pump through you as you forced yourself to dip your head, all of the others following suit.

The three that had come in were Hansol, Wonwoo, and... Your aggravation almost made it so that you missed the smiles and hello’s that Hansol and Wonwoo gave you. Almost.

You scoffed loudly, causing the third person in the room to look up suddenly. Then without a smile or a nod or any type of acknowledgment he looked away, saying something to Wonwoo.

You couldn’t help the way that the pressure built in your chest at something so simple as him not acknowledging that you were there. You weren’t sure why it made you so angry- if it had been someone else you probably wouldn’t have cared- but it wasn’t somebody else. It was Jihoon.

“Do you think that you’re better than us?” You demanded. Everyone in the room seemed shocked by your outburst. Nari and Ai ran up to your side, grabbing at your wrists.

“They’re just busy-”

“It takes two seconds to acknowledge us,” you blurted. “Wonwoo and Hansol both said hi, but Jihoon thinks just because he’s the star producer of Pledis-” Your fellow members were urgently trying to hush you but it wasn’t cooling you down at all. You only stopped because finally Jihoon seemed to deem you worthy enough to acknowledge. His eyebrows furrowed and his head cocked to the side.

“I say hello to people I care about and people who deserve it,” Jihoon said pointedly. You scoffed and started to pull away from the others in your group but they stopped you before you could get very far.

“Calm down.” “Sorry about this.”

“It’s been a really tiring day.”

You protested them pulling you away but all you ended up doing was causing a bigger scene and the whole time Jihoon was just staring at you as if he had done nothing wrong at all.

You knew that today was going to be awful when you looked up from your stretches to see Lee Jihoon standing at the door to the practice room. When Ai followed your gaze, a smile spread over Jihoon’s.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Want to go out tonight?”

You forced yourself to smile back at him, trying to make it seem more real by turning your head from him a little. Ai made a really excited expression towards you and pulled you into a slightly hushed excited squeal.

You cleared your throat and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, nodding at him slyly.

“I suppose I have the time for it.”

After getting ready you finally left your dorm room to Jihoon leaning against the wall of the hallway. He looked you up and down.

“Took you long enough.”

You rolled your eyes.

“And here I thought you asked me out because you liked me.”

This date was different from the first. A walk in the park. You both went out dressed similarly to the first date, matching baggy clothes and hats and masks to hide your identities. Still the tipped off press were able to spot you two quickly and you and Jihoon did your best to put on a good show.

Despite his warnings you made a point to steal Jihoon’s hat again, laughing as he chased you around the park. You both fell to the ground and Jihoon smiled down at you, both of his hands capturing you beneath him.

“I hope love doesn’t actually make me act like this,” he whispered to you, that fake smile still spread over his face. You snorted.

“You think anyone is going to fall in love with you?” You asked him. You could tell that he was resisting the urge to sneer at you.

“Do we really have to kiss?” He groaned.

“I wish we didn’t.”

You leaned up, pressing your lips to his chastely.

“Unfortunately, we do.”

“Holy water isn't enough to get that man’s touch off of me,” you complained as the hot water splattered across your skin, washing the body soap off of you for what felt like the millionth time. Jeonghan hummed from the other side of the curtain.

“You’re being dramatic. He’s just a man.”

You peeked out at Jeonghan from around the curtain.

“If you’re going to be in the bathroom while I shower you might as well agree with me,” you grumbled. He raised an amused eyebrow at you.

“Well, I could join you in the shower.”

You snorted and slid your head back into the shower.

“That would make things easier,” you replied. “I’m sure the netizens would love it if they found out I took showers with Yoon Jeonghan along with dating Lee Jihoon.”

You whistled.

“The media would say I’m a slut.”

“Why else would you let me do wordle in the bathroom while you take a shower?”

You coated your body with soap once again and then began to wash it off.

“You barely leave me alone as it is,” you replied. “Why fight it?”

You heard your phone ding and before you could ask Jeonghan what it was he was speaking.

“The boss wants to see you and Jihoon in five.”

You groaned, letting your head hit the shower wall dramatically.

“I’ll see myself out. Have fun with your boyfriend.”

“You two are not being convincing.”

You and Jihoon glanced at one another from where you two were sitting... Practically across the room from one another. At having caught your gaze Jihoon scowled and looked away from you. You sighed.

“How are we not being convincing?” You demanded. “We kiss, we laugh, we hold hands-”

“Yeah and it’s not enough. Your fans think that this is some company ploy,” Sungsoo said.

“They have common sense,” Jihoon commented bluntly. Sungsoo glared over at him.

“You know what is one thing that you two have in common?” Sungsoo asked. You both stayed silently. “You both love music. And writing music. And expressing your feelings through music.”

You didn’t understand what this had to do with anything and Sungsoo seemed to sense that.

“You brats...” He mumbled. “You’re going to write a song together.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you both blurted. Sungsoo sighed.

“Can’t you two just be good? It’s your fault for being so unreasonable. Why do you two hate each other so much anyways?”

You both fell silent, neither of you willing to say anything. Sungsoo just sighed, rubbing his face with his hand.

“Do you know how hard it is to run this company?” He asked you two. “I have so much shit to deal with and now I have to worry about you two ruining your reputations.”

He looked back up.

“I’m not doing this to torture you two, I’m doing this because it is what we have to do in order to protect your careers. Why are you making me the bad guy?”

You and Jihoon were both silent.

“Just write a stupid love song okay? You two are good at that.”

You glanced at Jihoon at that, and Jihoon glanced at you. He seemed conflicted, stuck between angry and helpless. He didn’t let the interaction last for long. He stood up and looked from you to Sungsoo.

“Fine. One song.”

He looked back at you, his expression still unreadable.

“Let’s just get it over with.”

And then without any further dismissal he let himself out of the office.

Sungsoo was clearly frustrated. He shook his head letting it drop into his hands again.

“In all my years..” He murmured.

You sighed.

“Do we really have to do this?” You asked him. “Sungsoo, it’s just us.”

“That doesn’t change my answer,” Sungsoo said firmly. “Do you not understand how serious this is?”

“It’s just a stupid rumor about two idols disliking each other. Do you know how many rumors there are like that in the idol world?”

“You don’t-”

“Minho and Key used to hate each other, Kino and Hui, Jae and YoungK-”

“All of those are in the past tense,” Sungsoo insisted.

“So? They still actively hated each other at one point- Some for years. People understand people hating each other.”

As you spoke Sungsoo made a point to ignore you. He turned to his computer beginning to mess around with it.

“Are you even listening to me?” You blurted. “There’s literally a legendary JYP trainee fight and your worried about it getting out that Jihoon and I- two trainees in different groups- don't like each other? Mark Tuan threw a laptop at Bambam once and-”

Sungsoo suddenly turned his computer screen towards you. You faltered.

“What-”

“Just read it.”

So, you did. It was an article. It started off describing Seventeen’s career, specifically going into details about Jihoon’s image. They talked about the positive attributes that people usually attributed him with- you rolled your eyes- and then it started to talk about you and-

You couldn’t help the way your aggravation at having to read this disappeared from your face. This article wasn’t there to slander the both of you. Instead, it zeroed in on Jihoon himself. Going into reports of Jihoon making you- someone notorious for being kind and patient- suddenly angry and argumentative. Whoever wrote the article clearly had a bias towards you. It painted you as someone who could do no wrong, and Jihoon as a monster for having gotten on your bad side.

You cleared your throat, feeling suddenly pale.

“So-”

“I lied when I said it would ruin both of your careers. It won’t. In fact, it might boost your career. It will solely ruin Jihoon’s career. There are key witnesses in this talking about your interactions, blaming him for each and every one.”

Sungsoo turned his computer away from you.

“I know you hate Jihoon,” he said. “But I’m hoping that this article that depicts you as this perfect idol has the right idea of you.”

Your brain felt fuzzy.

“Has the right idea of me...?”

“If this article gets out it’s over for Jihoon,” Sungsoo said. “Are you willing to ruin a man’s career over some petty feud?”

You stood in front of the door to Jihoon’s studio, feeling like kicking the door in frustration. Instead of doing that you took a deep breath and knocked lightly on the door. There was only a second before the door popped open and you were met with the face of a tall, disheveled man. When he saw you his lips turned up into a mischievous smile.

“Your favorite person is here!” He called back over his shoulder. He looked back at you, his eyes full of light. “Hope you weren’t hoping for a fun date night with Jihoon. He’s working.”

You smiled.

“Hi Mingyu,” you greeted softly. As you spoke, he opened the door wide enough for you to slip into the studio. You had never been in Jihoon’s new studio before. You had been in his old studio a few times. He had helped produce a few songs for your group when you first debuted. But with you and his growing feud, your group began to work with Bumzu a little bit more closely, so you had never seen his new one.

It gave you an overall cozy feeling. There was a slightly messy area clearly just for his group mates to hang out. You only said messy because of the stray blanket on the couch, a switch on the little coffee table and the takeout trash scattered across the floor. The actual studio aspect of the room was organized chaos. There were instruments strewn about and papers littered over the countertops.

Jihoon sat in the middle of the mess, his hand buried in his hair in frustration. You cleared your throat, and he finally turned around. A smile crossed his lips.

“You’re here,” he said. You smiled back at him, and crossed the room so that you could press a kiss to the corner of his lips. In some ways, kissing him like that was better. You felt disgusted every time your lips touched. But the aspect of kissing the corner of his lips felt more intimate and personal, and you hated that almost as much.

“Ooohhhh,” Mingyu teased. “Look at him getting all gummy.”

Aggravation crossed Jihoon’s face- for once not aimed at you.

“Get out Mingyu, we have things to do.”

Mingyu’s teasing grin dropped immediately.

“No!” He protested. “I’ve been quiet!”

“You made a mess,” Jihoon disagreed.

Mingyu pouted, turning his attention to you now.

“You can convince him right? I just want to play my switch and hang out! Everyone else is busy.”

You had always liked Kim Mingyu. He had a really good heart. He got accused pretty often of doing things he shouldn’t. You couldn’t name the amount of times that you had heard that he had done something wrong. Always accused of leading girls on but you had never seen him like that. He was just social and desperate for attention.

If you were willing to pretend for the next couple hours that you were in love with Jihoon you would certainly barter for his company in the room. You knew how much he loved to just be in the same room with people he cared about.

But, unfortunately, you weren’t willing to pretend that you liked Jihoon for that long.

“I don’t get a lot of alone time with Jihoon,” you said apologetically. Mingyu gave one more helpless look to Jihoon who didn’t step down from his earlier stance. Mingyu sighed.

“Fine,” he said softly. He began to pick up his things, making a point of sulking while doing it. The whole show kind of made you want to laugh. You had known that when it came to the other members of Seventeen he was clingy, but you never realized he was this clingy. He reminded you a bit of Ai. She was always willing to do anything just to be in the same room as one of them.

“Bye Mingyu,” you called out as he walked out of the room. The minute the door was closed you hummed contently. “I like him.”

Jihoon turned in his chair, facing his computer again.

“Something we can agree on,” he said softly. “Anyways, this song.”

He gestured towards a chair near his and you took a seat, leaning forward to look at his computer.

“I was thinking maybe I could write it and produce it and then we can just pretend we did it together,” he commented. ”Better than actually working on it together.”

You rolled your eyes.

“My fans will notice if I don’t help,” you turned down immediately. “I don’t want to help you out but Jeonghan and Sungsoo say we aren’t being convincing. This has to be convincing. Besides I don’t want my name on something you did.”

Jihoon glanced over at you.

“So what do you propose?” He asked.

“We do what Sungsoo said,” you replied with a shrug. He scoffed, but you leaned forward. “So, let’s talk about this song. A romance?”

“It would have to be,” Jihoon agreed, but you noted that his words were a little forced. “What are you thinking?”

“Something light? Pop-y like your stuff used to be,” you suggested. “Kind of like my groups stuff is right now. First love type things.”

“First love is overused and Seventeen alone has outgrown the concept. We’re too old to write about first love again,” Jihoon denied immediately. “Besides, we aren’t first love. It doesn’t make sense for us to sing about first love.”

You felt a pressure in your chest as Jihoon shut down your idea but you screamed at yourself to stay civil. He wasn’t trying to be contrary, he was just trying to be convincing. You were both just trying to be convincing.

“Okay, no first love,” you agreed, unable to hold back the bite in your voice. “So what idea do you have genius?”

“Anything is better than first love. What are we in kindergarten?” He retorted.

You knew full well that he knew that a huge part of your groups concept was first love. Your whole group was to mirror that of the perfect fantasy. Four perfect, sweet idols that are marketed in such a way that you could almost genuinely believe that you had gone to school with them and had once upon a time almost fell in love with.

“Saying anything is better isn’t coming up with an actual idea that is better,” you said shortly. “Our song could be about how our love is so powerful it feels like first love all over again.”

“First love hardly ever actually comes true.”

You laughed.

“Who was it that said: ‘Let’s not believe that first love never comes true’?” You argued back.

“Oh I see what this is now,” Jihoon replied dryly. “You’re a fan huh? What were you in love with me and then you got angry because you realized I would never like you?”

“Just because I know the lyrics of one of your most popular songs doesn’t mean that I am a fan,” you snapped back, your voice rising.

“No need to get embarrassed,” Jihoon cooed, leaning towards you with a mischievous expression on his face. He knew that he was winning this argument, he could see in your eyes how hard you were trying to stay civil. “You must secretly be thrilled that we are in this situation. Finally you get to see what it would be like to date me.”

You stood up suddenly, the chair you had been in falling to the ground at the sudden action.

“God you are so fucking conceited,” you blurted. “The whole world doesn’t revolve around you Jihoon.”

Before Jihoon could respond- and you knew he wanted to, you grabbed your phone.

“Write whatever you want today it will be a waste of time. We are writing this song together so get your head out of your ass and actually work with me.” You turned away from him, storming out of the room before he could say so much as another word. You willed yourself to calm down as you walked back to your place but your whole body was on fire. Where did he get off accusing you of being in love with him? With him?

The statement itself was too ironic for you to even entertain. You were, after all, the only one who saw Jihoon for who he was. Conceited, spoiled, cocky.

You shook the negative feelings off of you but they clung to you like glue.

You decided it didn’t even matter to cool down and you just walked into your dorm, slamming the door closed behind you. Ai’s head popped up from the couch.

“Hey,” she said, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Bad day?”

You turned to her, giving her a frustrated look.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

That didn’t push away her confusion.

“I thought you were hanging out with Jihoon today?”

Yeah, that was the problem.

“He’s busy,” you replied with a wave of your hand. “Don’t start dating a workaholic. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Ai sighed, falling back on the couch.

“Dating itself sounds like such a dream,” she whined. “You’re so lucky you managed to find someone like Jihoon.”

You didn’t like lying to your group members. You four were supposed to be each other’s best friends in this world. The three people you could trust the most were the ones in your group. You told one another everything. That alone should have caused suspicion in Ai, Mari, and Chae, and yet they loved you so much that they just accepted the news and your half-hearted explanation as to why you had never told them that you two were dating in the first place.

You felt like you were letting them down.

“You’ll find someone,” you said softly. “Who knows, maybe the love of your life is just around the corner.”

Ai sighed dreamily.

“Maybe.”

You slipped your shoes off as a yawn ripped through your body. Arguing with Jihoon always did take the energy right out of you.

“I’m going to sleep, don’t stay up too late Ai.”

“Don’t worry I won’t!” She called back, and with that you retreated into your room.

Asshole of the Year: If we have to write this song you might as well come over today.

Try not to be so sensitive this time

You groaned as you let your eyes trail up to the time. Eight in the morning... You hated being an idol.

After finally dragging yourself out of bed and getting dressed you made your way into the kitchen to find the others already up. Chae was standing at the stove cooking what smelled like pancakes. You let a content hum vibrate through your body and you pulled yourself a chair next to Nari. She glanced over at you, a teasing smile on her lips.

“Up last as always,” Nari commented. “You would think after all those punishments during our trainee days you would get up earlier.”

You shrugged and reached over to her plate, grabbing a grape from it.

“Can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” you said, plopping the grape in your mouth.

“Good morning Sunshine,” Chae said to you. You smiled at her brightly as she brought you a plate of pancakes.

“Thank you, Chae,” you said pleasantly. She hummed and picked up her own plate of food before joining them at the table.

“Chae was just saying that she thinks we should go to the gym more,” Nari said. You hummed through a mouthful of food.

“You think?”

Chae nodded surely, her fork bouncing in the air.

“Just to define our features a little more. By next year we should be finally adopting a bit more of a mature concept and it’ll be much healthier if we start now rather than later.”

Nari nodded her agreement, her cheeks stuffed with food, but Ai pouted.

“But our fans like Chae’s chubby cheeks,” she whined. You smiled and reached over to Chae, pinching her cheeks teasingly.

“We all love her chubby cheeks,” you said pleasantly. Chae just swatted your hands away. “Chae’s not saying we have to she’s just suggesting we do.”

“It doesn’t hurt to try,” Nari agreed after trying her food.

“What do you think?” Chae asked. The gym in an hour?”

You sighed, your thoughts tracing back to what Jihoon had texted you this morning.

“I can’t this morning,” you said, trying your best not to look too disappointed. “Jihoon and I convinced the company to let us put out a song and we agreed to work on it today.”

Ai let a dramatic pout cover her lips.

“You’ve changed!” She protested. “Choosing him over us.”

Even as she spoke, you were getting up, your food already finished.

“I’ll be there tomorrow, I promise,” you said. There was a shared displeased look among your roommates but you did your best to brush it off with a smile.

“Fighting!” You said, and then quickly ushered yourself out the door.

Today on your way to Jihoon’s studio you made sure to wear a baggy shirt that you had been seen in a million times, and you pulled on Jihoon’s hat (which you still hadn’t returned to him). You made a point not to mask up, and kept your head up so that your chance of being caught on your way to Jihoon’s studio were higher. You knew that there were always a lot of people waiting to catch people’s pictures at the studio, and just as you had hoped, you found yourself half covering your face on your way in just to make it seem like you didn’t want to be caught.

When you got to Jihoon’s studio you decided that being hesitant was a waste of time. It was nearly 9:30 at this point… Too early.

You knocked on the door and after only a second you heard a soft: “Come in.” echo from inside.

You pushed open the door and set your bag on the ground. Jihoon glanced over at you from where he was seated. He pressed his lips together at the sight of you.

“Round two?” You asked him as you went to take a seat where you had the day before. Your chair was still on the floor.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

Working with Jihoon was like trying to write on a chalkboard with black chalk. There was no point because absolutely nothing was going to come from it.

You two spent ages going back and forth about what the general song concept should be. When you couldn’t agree on just one thing you both decided to try and decide what the song should sound like, but even there you two were butting heads.

“I’m the producer, why won’t you say yes to my suggestions?”

“You’re not the only one who knows about producing Jihoon. I don’t like the sound of this, choose a different one.”

Lunch came and went and still nothing had been agreed upon. All you both knew for sure was that you two were going to write a song together.

Which meant you were practically at ground zero.

“This is pointless,” you groaned dropping your head on the table “You’re impossible to work with.”

Jihoon grunted his displeasure.

“Don’t slam your head on my desk.”

You peeked up at him, with a dumb smile on your face.

“Don’t want me to hurt myself?”

“Don’t want you to break my equipment,” he said back. “It costs more than you’ll ever make.”

You scoffed.

“Right I forgot. Lee Jihoon, Pledis’ own crown prince, yeah?” You said dryly. You sighed. “God, you’re so spoiled.”

You could see Jihoon clench his fists from under the table so you sat back up.

“Look. Concept. You don’t want first love? Fine. You don’t like honeymoon stage? Whatever.”

You racked your brain for something you two hadn’t thought of yet.

“What about a couple on the brink of a breakup.”

Jihoon opened his mouth, surely to shoot you down, but the words never came. He closed his mouth.

“A couple on the brink of a breakup,” he echoed. He seemed to ponder the idea, much more heavily than any of the other ideas you had offered up. “Is that convincing?”

You hummed.

“It gives off the air of a couple that has been together for a while,” you mumbled. “And it makes us seem a bit more real. We’re handling heavy topics. As long as we make it seem like we have some sort of resolution by the end... I’d say it’s relatable to long-term couples.”

Jihoon’s hand twitched over his keyboard.

“It’s not awful,” he said.

You felt your heart pick up its pace for just a second. As much as you hated him, Jihoon was a legend in the song-writing world. People praised him for how much he had been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time, never releasing a song that didn’t do well.

It felt exciting to get his approval.

“It’s a bit more mature than I would expect from someone like you.”

And there it was.

“Okay, what story are we trying to convey here?” He asked, changing the topic before you could start an argument with him. “What are our lyrics?”

Lyrics came about as good as one could expect. Thirty minutes and one argument later and you were storming out of the studio just like you had the first time. This time as you barged out you about ran into someone.

Your eyes widened and you opened your mouth to apologize but the words died on your lips when you saw who it was.

“Jeonghan?”

He didn’t look surprised to see you at all.

“Hungry?”

You and Jeonghan set up in a convenience shop not far from the studio and the company. A place you two came often as a result of the two of you never haven gotten caught there before.

You didn’t say a word to him until your instant ramen was ready and half hanging out of your mouth.

“We made some progress.”

Jeonghan sighed.

“Don’t eat with your mouth open,” he murmured. “Were you raised in a cave?”

You swallowed the rest of your noodles and stuck your tongue out at Jeonghan.

“It’s good you two are getting along,” Jeonghan hummed. You couldn’t help but notice his attention was focused on you- not his noodles.

“We’re not getting along. We made progress.” You took another large bite of your noodles and before fully swallowing them you added: “There’s a very big difference between those to distinctions.”

You swallowed your noodles.

“I just don’t get what’s up with him. He’s always like that with me. So stuck up and unapologetic.”

“That’s just how Jihoon comes off,” Jeonghan protested. “He’s like that with most of the people he doesn’t know.”

Jeonghan didn’t often defend Jihoon to you. Mostly because it was next to pointless. You had to admit your distaste for Jihoon was somewhat childish. You didn’t really listen to the good things people said about him. It just went in one ear and out the other.

“That’s bullshit Jeonghan,” you said. “To the other members he’s polite and conversational when he needs to be. But with me? He never even used to meet my eyes.”

Jeonghan looked away from you, a frustrated expression covering his face.

“Yeah but that wasn’t because he hated you.”

“Then what else could it be?” You challenged. “Because it sure felt like he hated me when he complimented everyone else in Starlight other then me.”

“He clearly got tongue tied,” Jeonghan argued.

“Because he had nothing good to say!” You said right back.

“That’s not what it is,” Jeonghan said. “You just don’t get it. You don’t know Jihoon like I do. You don’t know him at all.”

“What is there to know?” You asked. “All I need to know is that from the moment his eyes laid on me he hated me.”

Silence fell over Jeonghan. He still looked frustrated. He still clearly wanted to argue but he just looked away from you, down at his untouched noodles.

“Sure.”

At first you thought maybe he was finally frustrated by your distaste of his friend, but no… There was something else there. Something he was holding back.

“Jeonghan,” you started leaning towards the aforementioned boy. “Is there something you know that I don’t know?”

Jeonghan’s eyes flitted back to yours and he laughed.

“What would I know that is relevant to your relationship with Jihoon that I would hold back from you?” He asked you. It was convincing, for a second you actually almost dropped the topic. But there was something you caught in his eyes. Something that told you something wasn’t quite right.

“I don’t know. What are you not telling me?”

Jeonghan was not any easy person to beat in a battle of the wits. If Jeonghan wanted to keep something a secret there wasn’t anybody who could get him to come out with whatever he was hiding.

But something you also knew about Jeonghan was that if he had a secret that you wouldn’t be able to get out of him you wouldn’t know he had a secret anyways. You were his best friend. If anyone could get it out of him, it was you.

“Look you hate Jihoon, he hates you. Let’s move on,” Jeonghan said. You continued to stare at Jeonghan, watching as he feigned interest in his noodles. He picked up his chopsticks and toyed with the noodles.

“Jeonghan,” you said softly. “I won’t tell anyone. Come on. I’m your best friend.”

“I’ve been friends with Jihoon for much longer than I’ve been friends with you.”

You would have pouted had it not been for how revealing that statement was.

“So it’s a secret about Jihoon specifically. Something that he wouldn’t want to get out?” You pressed.

“It’s not my place to say,” Jeonghan replied but you could hear the strain in his voice. He was starting to crack under the pressure.

“Please Jeonghan. Who knows, maybe it will change my opinion of him even just a little.”

That was probably the biggest lie you could have told in that moment, and you knew that Jeonghan knew it was a lie, but despite that it ended up being the thing that broke Jeonghan’s resolve.

“It’s just...” He sighed. “I really shouldn’t tell you this.”

You smiled at him innocently, waiting for him to continue.

“Jihoon treated you differently then the others. Yes. But did you ever think about the things he did in a way separate of him hating you?”

Your eyebrows strewn slightly in confusion.

“Separate...?”

“He couldn’t make eye contact with you, yeah? He didn’t talk to you- in fact went out of his way to not to talk to you. He didn’t like interacting with you, he never knew what to say to you when he did talk to you-”

“Get to the point Jeonghan,” you interrupted. “I don’t need a reminder of how shitty he treats me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Jeonghan continued, giving you a sharp look. “At least he didn’t used to.”

You scoffed.

“Then what could have possibly warranted the way he treated me?” You demanded. Jeonghan’s expression softened, and he shrugged.

“Jihoon used to have a crush on you.”

You stared at Jeonghan, looking for any trace on his face that he was joking. His expression stayed scarily serious.

“No, he didn’t,” you said pointedly. Jeonghan didn’t back down.

“Yes, he did.”

“No, he didn’t,” you argued. “He-”

You scrambled in your memory to find any behavior that Jihoon had exhibited early on- Something that proved that he had hated you from the beginning, but you were drawing blanks. Now that you thought about it, you had been the most confrontational to begin with. He hardly ever started things with you. He just fought back when you said something to him that was rude.

“I...” You trailed off. “He never said anything.” You looked up at Jeonghan. “You never said anything.”

“It wasn’t my place,” Jeonghan said with a shrug. “Besides you dug your own grave. I’ve never seen you lose your patience with someone as fast as you lose your patience with Jihoon.”

Finally, Jeonghan actually turned his attention to the noodles in front of him. You should have felt satisfied too, but instead you felt this heavy pit in your stomach that just wasn’t sitting right with you. You forced yourself to turn your attention back to your noodles, and tried to ignore what was bothering you.

Sleep was impossible and you knew exactly why. You couldn’t stop thinking about what Jeonghan had said.

Jihoon had liked you when you two first met?

You replayed all your interactions over and over again in your head and you hated that with both conclusions it made sense. If Jihoon was as introverted as everyone said it would make sense for him to be less extroverted towards you. If he was nervous he would naturally avoid you and- God, you hated to say it- Jihoon had always been a good idol. He kept his nose clean, stayed out of scandals. He was probably doing his best to avoid a dating one when he liked you.

You flipped over in your bed, smothering your face in your pillow.

God, wasn’t that why you hated him in the first place? Lee Jihoon. Mr. Perfect. Mr. Do no wrong. Everyone’s favorite golden child and you despised him for it. His fans fluffed his ego, his group mates boosted it, and this dumb company treated him like some untouchable man.

You groaned loudly.

What kind of reasons were those to hate someone? You hated him because people liked him? Because people believed in his abilities and their actions reflected that?

People pumped you up; Your fans talked about you like you were a literal angel from Heaven and nobody hated you for it.

Well, there was no one that outwardly hated you for it.

You turned back around staring blankly at the dark ceiling in front of you. You didn’t have time for some stupid existential crisis about stupid Lee Jihoon.

You hated him. You hated him. Nothing was going to change that.

And that’s why you told yourself. Again and again and again until finally your alarm went off and you had gotten absolutely no sleep at all.

For once you were up first of everyone in the Starlight dorm. You tied your hair back, putting on workout clothes and then wandered into the kitchen. You thought the least you could do if you were up this early was make breakfast.

It only took ten minutes before Chae made her way into the kitchen. Her appearance matched yours- hair back and workout clothes adorned. Her eyes widened when she saw you at the stove, taking in you and the sizzling eggs.

“You’re up early.”

You shrugged.

“What can I say? I didn’t sleep.”

She nodded.

“Makes sense.”

Chae came into the kitchen sliding past you to open the fridge. She peered at its contents, a hum leaving her mouth.

“We should go shopping,” she commented. Despite the fact she wasn’t look at you, you nodded.

“I noticed we’re running a bit low on supplies,” you agreed. She pulled out of the fridge and brandished a carton of cherries.

“Want to finish these with me?”

When Ai and Nari wandered into the room you were just finishing the eggs, and Chae was sitting on the kitchen counter, a empty cartoon of cherries and a napkin full of cherry pits the only thing between the two of you. Neither Ai and Nari looked bothered by that. “You’re already up?” Nari asked you.

“And you cooked breakfast!” Ai piped up. You shrugged off-handedly.

“Have to pick up the slack somehow.”

You were starting to wish you had never prodded Jeonghan to tell you Jihoon’s secret in the first place.

It was easy to hate someone that hated you too. That, in itself, gave you a justifiable reason to hate them. If for nothing else, for defense. But now- Knowing that to start he had never hated you at all you felt wrong. You felt mean and it was all you could think about.

From breakfast, to your workout with the others, to your dance practice, vocal lesson, and then all the way to Jihoon’s dumb studio to finish out the day you were replaying all of your interactions with him, over and over again until it made you dizzy to think about.

How had you been that mean to him all the time? Why had no one stopped you?

In your knowledge you had never had someone like you in a romantic way and the one time someone did you had decided you hated him?

You couldn’t help it. You felt bad.

You walked into Jihoon’s studio; this time failing to knock. You slowly cracked open the door and pulled it shut behind you. When Jihoon glanced back and saw you a grimace crossed his face.

“You shouldn’t just walk in here like you own the place,” he grumbled. You didn’t respond to him, you just walked over to him, which brought his attention up to your head where his hat was sitting. “And what have I said about touching my-”

Before he could finish you had plopped the hat securely on Jihoon’s head, doing your best not to look him in the eye. You wanted to apologize to him for all you did, but you still couldn’t shake this burning feeling in your chest when he talked to you like that.

Was it deserved?

… Apparently. But regardless it hurt your pride.

“What’s gotten into you today?” Jihoon asked. His eyes wouldn’t tear away from you. You bit your tongue. Be nice.

“Nothing,” you mumbled. “Shouldn’t we get to writing this song?”

Jihoon apparently disliked you being quiet more than he disliked you being mean. A smile crossed his lips and he leaned towards you.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” he said in awe.

You looked at him.

“See what day?”

“The day you finally shut up.”

You may have been apologetic for how you had behaved before but you certainly didn’t feel bad now.

“Are we going to get something done with the song today or are you going to waste your time in another dumb argument with me?” You demanded. Jihoon raised an amused eyebrow at your outburst.

“There you are,” he hummed. “Thought you had started to see me as a human or something.”

You scoffed.

“Can we focus so I can get out of here faster?” You asked bluntly. You grabbed a piece of paper and tapped a pencil to it. “Lyrics.”

There was one thing that you two could agree with when it came to these lyrics. The song was going to echo that of Shawn Mendes and Camillo Cabello’s song I Know What You Did Last Summer. An overlapping duet showing both sides of the story and being able to match similar emotions between the two during the chorus.

“We both have to agree about how the two feel about each other,” you said softly.

“I’m not the one afraid to agree with you on something,” Jihoon retorted. You took a large breath in and then let it out.

“I think that despite feeling the pull to stray from one another they ultimately love one another.”

“Pull to stray from one another?” Jihoon asked with a wrinkle of his nose. You sighed heavily.

“What’s wrong with that?”

He shrugged it off.

“Just sounds like a toxic relationship.”

“I never said it was going to be a healthy one,” you retorted. “Besides it’s not toxic sometimes people think and do stupid things they don’t mean when they are desperate. I think the two are desperate for one another’s love and something is drawing them apart and causing them to want to do things they shouldn’t.”

Jihoon stared at you.

“You’ve clearly never been in love with someone before,” he commented. Your face blazed red.

“Lee Jihoon I swear-”

There was a knock at the door and as quick as you had been to raise your voice at Jihoon you pushed yourself into Jihoon’s lap, wrapping your legs around his torso.

“Come in!” You called, making sure to make your voice ultra-giggly. When it was Jeonghan who opened the door, you breathed out in relief.

“I fucking thought-”

You stopped yourself from talking and instead focused on climbing out of Jihoon’s lap, making a point to dramatically wipe yourself off as if to get his germs off. He rolled his eyes.

“You climbed into my lap, may I remind you.”

You shot him an unamused glare and turned to Jeonghan.

“What are you doing here?” You asked him. He shrugged.

“I was bored,” he commented. “How’s the song going?”

You and Jihoon both glanced at each other, and that glance must have told Jeonghan everything he needed to know.

“You two are hopeless,” he said with a sigh.

Dates with Jihoon weren’t getting easier, in fact being around him at all wasn’t getting any easier. Every time that you tried to just go back to the way things were- the more you tried to find amusement in teasing him, or say that something he did was stuck-up like you used to it just died in your mouth.

You had been too hard on him in the past. He wasn’t that bad.

You hated to admit that. You wanted to go back to just blindly hating him, but you were starting to see him differently than you were used to.

Your chest heaved up and down as you slid down the wall of the practice room, placing your hand dramatically over your chest.

“Wow, you are giving up first?” Chae teased, amusement dancing in her eyes. “Usually you’re the one pushing the rest of us to do better.”

You gave her half a glare.

“I was up late with Jihoon last night. No wonder he’s always so tired. He was still in the studio when I left. Does he do anything but work?” You asked. Chae laughed.

“People always say that he’s a working machine. Haven’t you heard the jokes that he would never have a dating scandal because he’s always locked up in his studio?”

You had heard people saying he would never be caught in a dating scandal but you had never realized that was why. Your brain scrambled back to all the times people had muttered it and you had just completely ignored the second part of the statement, mumbling that clearly he was heartless for never giving his friends any of his time.

You had actually learned in the last few days that Jihoon made a lot of time for his friends. Whenever you came over he was kicking Mingyu out of the studio for it, and it wasn’t uncommon for one of the other boys (Soonyoung, mostly) to come in while you two were working to offer you two food. Jihoon had even once ended you two’s brainstorming session (incessant arguing) to go and have a dinner with the entire rest of the group.

You had always thought he was cold to other people- Another reason you had disliked him, but now you were starting to think that had been a rash conclusion to come to. Observations when your groups interacted (now that you had to actively pretend like you didn’t hate him, you were forced to recognize things he did that didn’t make you angry) had brought you to the startling realization that he wasn’t cold- he was just as Jeonghan had hinted at. He was shy. An introvert. He just didn’t really open up to people unless it was his boys.

This was easy, so much easier before. It was fucking Lee Jihoon. You didn’t like Lee Jihoon.

You and Jihoon walked, hand-in-hand down the sidewalk, both holding your silence as you headed to the restaurant you were crashing today. Normally the silence would have your blood boiling but this time you were filled with something you were getting uncomfortably used to... Guilt.

“You know, this is stupid,” you mumbled. Jihoon glanced at you.

“You’re the one always saying we have to be convincing. You think I want to hold your hand?”

You suppressed your urge to scream. Your anger towards him at the statement being consumed by your guilt.

“It’s not that. It’s stupid that we are always dead silent when we’re hanging out,” you said. “What’s the point in that? How long are we going to be fake dating?”

Jihoon was silent for a few moments.

“Exactly. I know all we do is argue but we might as well... Talk.”

Another few seconds passed before Jihoon replied.

“You want us to be friends?”

This time there was an edge missing in Jihoon’s voice. You felt like his tone had become softer than you were used to. His usually curtness gone. It felt, sincere. You forced out a laugh.

“No,” you blurted out before you could stop yourself. ”God, no, I just think that we could be like... I don’t know enemies that can confide in one another.”

God, that sounded stupid.

“Okay.”

Jihoon shrugged.

“Better than silence I guess.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t start the conversation. You two walked a few steps as you forced yourself to start the conversation.

You couldn’t help the way you internally cursed Jihoon for being entitled, thinking that you needed to start the conversation, but even as you did you criticized yourself for the thought. Why did you blindly dislike him so much? Was it just because you were embarrassed to have been wrong all this time?

“Uh, how was your day?” You started. He looked at you.

“Creative,” he commented. That in itself made you want to take back the question but before you could he was talking: “It was fine.”

You waited for more and when he didn’t continue you felt the fingers on your free hand curl into a ball.

“Tell me what you did today,” you suggested.

“Uh, slept in until Seungkwan woke me up for practice,” his tone of his voice was annoyed but a glance at him told you he didn’t really mind it. “Practice was fine. There were cameras so Seokmin and Soonyoung were goofing off a lot.”

“Cameras at practice?” You asked.

“For behind the scenes stuff,” Jihoon elaborated. You nodded in recognition, falling silent again so Jihoon could go on. “Then Mingyu wanted to play some games, but I had to work on music…”

He trailed off and a smile crossed his lips.

“But sometimes Mingyu wins so we played games until I had to come here.”

It took a second to process what he had said.

“You didn’t work today?” You asked, your eyebrows furrowing. He hummed.

“No.”

He didn’t elaborate on it, making it seem like it was something that happened often but knowing what you knew about him you didn’t think it was. Still, you didn’t want to press it or call him a liar. You had to stop jumping to conclusions with him. You didn’t know him.

“What did you do today?” Jihoon asked, seeming to want to shift the attention away from himself. You sighed.

“Chae wants us to start working out in the morning,” you said. “So I have to wake up early and go work out and it’s so exhausting.”

Jihoon laughed.

“Ah, can’t handle a few push ups?” He teased. Usually when he said things like that to you there was an edge to his voice, but this time it wasn’t there.

“Look, I’m no Wonwoo,” you replied. “I wasn’t built to workout.”

You let a smile cross your face, one that was actually a little real.

“Today I really just spent time with Starlight. I mean, no cameras on us but we had practice and things. Felt like I was a trainee all over again.”

“There’s something to be said about our trainee days,” Jihoon said. “I am glad to have debuted but we spent so much time pushing for debut that we didn’t really appreciate how fun it is to be a trainee.”

You looked over at him to see a contemplative expression on his face. You turned away from him, warmth crawling up your face.

“Yeah,” you agreed. You looked up, relieved when you saw your destination. “Great we can stop holding hands.”

You pulled your hand away from his abruptly, and picked up your walking pace.

“Let’s get this date over fast, I have to be up early again tomorrow.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes at your sudden behavior. You heard him murmur something under his breath but you weren’t sure what. You just focused on reminding yourself that just because you shouldn’t hate him didn’t mean you needed to like him as a person.

Indifference was okay.

“How’s this?” You held up the paper you had been scribbling on, a few lines scripting out how you thought the first verse (your verse) of the song should go. Jihoon fell silent as he read over the lyrics.

“You know...” He trailed off and you watched his eyes read it again. “This is actually pretty good. I was actually going for a similar idea in my verse. The concept of the relationship feeling so broke the temptation of cheating is present.”

“Oh, can I read what you have?”

Jihoon nodded and slid the paper towards you, his eyes still on the lyrics.

“The halls of this house echo when you aren’t around. When I’m at the club I get the attention I crave,” he read a loud. “I really like this part but maybe omit the club for something else? The club takes me out of it for some reason.”

“I like the club,” you replied. “It’s like I’m going radically out of my way to get attention. Different than just going to dinner with friends and feeling tempted there. Only desperate people go to clubs.”

Jihoon nodded.

“Maybe.”

“It’s interesting to compare your anger to a flame,” you commented as you read through his verse. “A flame is so often akin to desire, do you think that would be confusing?”

Jihoon blinked.

“Maybe.” He was silent for a few beats, seeming to try to think about what else to put there. “I like the idea though, that thinking about you while I’m at work not only unlocks my desire for you but also others. It shows I still have affection for you even when I am pulling away.”

You didn’t respond just ran your eyes over the words.

“Let me-” Jihoon leaned closed to you, his shoulder brushing yours. Normally you would yell at him for getting so uncomfortably close to you but after all the time you two had spent holding hands and sitting close to each other on “dates” you had gotten used to being close to him. “Here at the end I’ll tag on I look in those eyes and I forget what I promised to you. It repeats how you finish your verse and we can segue both verses into a pre-chorus which we can alternatively sing.”

As he spoke he grabbed your paper.

“Something that echoes with itself. Like...” He thought about it for a few moments. “I wish it wasn’t this way and I echo How did we get here?”

For some reason, your mind immediately filled what you thought should be next.

“Oh! Do you miss my touch? And you echo It’s been too long to say.”

Jihoon didn’t argue with you like you had briefly thought he would. Instead, he immediately began to scribble what you had said down.

“That’s good,” he praised, and again your heart sped up a little at the words of affirmation.

“I want to feel bad but there’s nothing there,” he continued.

“Wish you were here,” you added. Jihoon stopped writing after he wrote what you had said. His eyebrows strewn in concentration as he read over the verses you two had written along with the chorus. As he read over it, his pencil bounced between his fingers.

You were so on edge about what he was going to say, you were afraid to speak.

“This is good,” he finally said. “Maybe we’ll think it’s worse tomorrow, I think we should take a break and come back to it.”

Even though Jihoon was often trying to cut your brain storming sessions short, you felt a little disappointed. You thought that you two were doing good bouncing off of each other, but you didn’t complain. Anytime away from Jihoon was good in itself.

You nodded and began to collect your things.

… Right?

“So, I guess we have to work together on this again tomorrow?” You said, forcing a sigh out of your lips. Jihoon didn’t look at you- God, you hated when he didn’t look at you- And instead set aside the lyrics you two had been working on to turn his attention back to his computer.

“Whenever you want.”

And before you could say more, he was slipping his headphones on over his ears, and had turned his attention completely to his work. You watched him for a moment, noticing the way his entire demeanor changed now that he was able to work alone again. His shoulders slacked, his attention turned... You felt like you could start screaming and he wouldn’t even register the action he was already so focused on his work.

You had always admire hard working people. You had spent so long chasing something to be passionate about that people who knew what they were meant to do in their lives made you something akin to envious.

You forced yourself to turn your attention away from Jihoon again, murmuring a goodbye to a boy who wasn’t listening as you slid out the door.

You and Ai giggled as you snuck down the halls of the dorm to the community kitchen. She clicked the door open and you shushed her as you two pushed into the room. You rushed over to the pantries and slid open the door, starting to grab a few of the snacks from the pantry and shove them into Ai’s arms.

“Soda, please grab soda,” Ai hissed. Your mouth dropped into an ‘o’ and you ducked down, trying to find four cans of soda. As you scrambled to grab all the items required for a well-deserved movie night with your absolutely favorite group of people in the world you heard voices.

You and Ai turned to each other, eyes wide.

“Shit,” you mumbled. You grabbed a grocery bag and thrust it towards Ai. She immediately knew what you wanted and dumped all of the things in her arms into the bag. Just before the door opened you and Ai turned to face it, the bag stored safely behind you in your hands. The door opened and you were surprised to find a familiar mop of hair dip into the room.

“Oh, Jihoon,” you said suddenly unable to hide your astonishment. Jihoon’s eyes widened a little at the sight of you.

“Hey-” His eyes flitted towards Ai. “What are you two doing here?”

He gestured for you to come greet him but you just smiled at him, pretending to not notice as to keep the bag in your hands a secret.

“We were just walking around, thinking about snacking,” you said innocently. Ai nodded next to you over exaggeratedly. Behind Jihoon another face ducked in- Soonyoung, and you and Ai forced even bigger smiles on your faces.

“Oh, hi Soonyoung,” you greeted ducking your head. He smiled back at you.

“You two are up late,” he commented. “Jihoon said that you have workouts early usually, not planning to get much sleep?”

You couldn’t help but be stuck on that.

Jihoon said that you…

That was such an odd statement for you to hear coming out of anyone’s mouth really. The thought that Jihoon talked about you in a positive manner, the thought that he would say something about you in such a casual manner as such as talking about how you workout in the mornings.

Your nose scrunched.

“Jihoon said...” You trailed off, despite the fact your voice was hardly loud enough to be heard in the first place. After a few more seconds of you trying to figure out what it meant that Jihoon had said that to Soonyoung Ai was elbowing you in the side.

You blinked.

“Oh, uh, tomorrow’s our break day,” you said. “So we don’t have to get up as early.”

Soonyoung seemed a little taken aback by your statement (that being said, so did Jihoon but you were trying not to look at him), but nodded regardless.

“That’s nice.”

Silence fell between the two groups and your mind raced as you tried to figure out how to get you and Ai out of this kitchen.

“What are you two doing?” You asked. “Jihoon’s not spending the night at the studio?”

“Don’t worry I dragged him out today,” Soonyoung said with a wink. “Jealous of his relationship with his music?”

You let a very serious expression cross your face.

“Extremely,” you said. You forced yourself to look at Jihoon, a pout crossing your face. “I see you’ll leave the studio to go on a date with Soonyoung, but not with me.”

Jihoon’s briefly let an air of surprise cross through his eyes.

“I’ll make time for you if you want,” he said softly. “I didn’t know you wanted to go on more dates.”

God, you two were doing a great job at surprising one another tonight. You took a sharp breath, your eyes darting back to the ground.

“We should probably leave you two,” you said, giving Soonyoung an apologetic smile. “Don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding,” Soonyoung assured. “We’re just getting Jihoon’s favorite kind of noodles.”

He hesitated and for a second time stopped. You could feel the air in the room go stiff as everyone in the room waited for you to fill in the details of what Jihoon’s favorite kind of noodles were. Your mind raced, sure that you had heard it before.

“I keep telling you that black bean noodles are not a dessert food,” you cooed teasingly. A small smile crossed Jihoon’s lips.

“You won’t let me have anything will you?” He asked.

It was funny, how you two had fallen into this odd relationship. One where you two were able to act so much like you actually did have a relationship with each other. To you (you couldn’t say if this was the same for Jihoon at all) your interactions still felt clunky at best. It was like the things that you tried to make cute with one another were so forced that it was obvious that you were faking.

But despite that feeling an excited sound left Soonyoung’s mouth. He threw his arm around Jihoon’s shoulder and teasingly rubbed Jihoon’s head.

“You want your significant other to feed you instead of me?”

“They’re busy,” Jihoon negated. His eyes turned back to yours. “I’ll see you soon at the studio.”

You nodded.

Finally, Ai began to make her way up to the door of the kitchen and you followed. She squeezed past the two boys and as you passed Jihoon you leaned forward, pressing a frantic kiss to Jihoon’s cheek.

“Okay, love you,” you said briefly. He mumbled it back to you and you two pushed back into the hallway. As soon as you two were far enough down the hall Ai began to laugh.

“Thank god it was just your boyfriend,” she laughed. You forced a laugh to come out of your mouth too, trying to focus on what she said instead of the fact that you had just kissed Jihoon’s cheek. You would never get used to kissing Jihoon. “You distracted him very well.”

“Well, he is my boyfriend,” you said cheekily. “If I can’t distract him, who can?”

“What have you got for the chorus?” Jihoon asked. You groaned, shoving your face into the desk.

“I just got here, I don’t know!” You complained. You lifted your head up and shot Jihoon a dramatic pout. “What do you have for the chorus?”

Jihoon raised an unamused eyebrow.

“You were the one who made a big deal about actually collaborating on this song,” he commented. “What did you say again? Your fans-”

“God, you’re so annoying,” you murmured back. “You think you’re right about everything?”

Normally, Jihoon would get frustrated when you made blanket statements like that, but you had noticed that recently the statements just made him roll his eyes.

“You’re quick to resort to insults,” he commented. You bit back the urge to prove his point. It was hard not to insult him when talking to him recently had made your heart act so erratically. You had gotten to dislike being around him so much that it made your heart race when he spoke to you. Insulting him was the best way for you to deal with the way he made your heart feel. Made you feel less helpless.

You leaned forward and took the paper from the last time you two had been together and began to look at the lyrics. You began to softly murmur the lyrics under your breath, trying to figure out what to add next.

“Wish you were here, happy you aren’t,” you said. “What about something about the amount of space between us? The divide grows and this becomes comfortable.”

Your nose wrinkled at the lyrics but Jihoon was already writing it down, so you assumed that meant he approved. In the pit of your stomach you, once again, were feeling a bit annoyed. If he liked it after all, he should say something about it.

“All of this space, were we ever really meant to be?” You were mostly trying it out, but again, Jihoon was writing it before you were even sure that you liked it. Was that a good thing?

“It was so easy to forget you,” Jihoon said. “I miss you. Do I even really miss you?”

You hummed.

“I like that. I like how a lot of the lyrics are contradictory,” you murmured. “I think unreliable narrators are interesting. Makes you think a lot.”

Jihoon glanced up to you, eyebrows furrowed.

“Unreliable narrators?”

“Like Nick Carraway,” you replied. “The Great Gatsby?”

“You’ve read the Great Gatsby,” Jihoon said, surprise sprinkled in his voice. He turned his body towards you, letting his pencil dip down to the paper. Your heart jumped again. Probably because he clearly didn’t think you were educated enough to have read The Great Gatsby.

“Of course, I have,” you said indignantly. “You think I don’t read?”

“I’m surprised because it sounds like you like it,” Jihoon wrote off. You nodded, glancing away from him.

“I did like it. Nick being an unreliable narrator is just really entertaining to me. You don’t know if what he says in the book is completely true or not,” you said.

“That’s what I don’t like about it,” Jihoon agreed. “His perspective is so biased that it doesn’t give us sufficient details of the story.

“Exactly, in real life you never get every detail of every story. That’s what draws me in so much. What would I think about the characters if the story was told by Daisy or Jay?”

You stretched out your arms, your muscles aching from all the pushups that Chae had made you do today.

“That’s what I like so far about this song,” you continued. “We’re both unreliable. We don’t really know what we want, but we are the ones who know our relationship best. If we don’t even have reliable feelings how are we supposed to have a reliable relationship? I’m curious to see if our fans will really root for us.”

When you looked back at Jihoon he was still staring at you intently. There was no trace of annoyance or disagreement in his eyes. Simply a curious look. You cleared your throat.

“So, the bridge,” you said. Jihoon’s eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly, but he didn’t say anything.

“Right, the bridge.”

You sat in silence as you watched Seventeen run their most recent song again. The song concept was darker than some of them. The dance moves rapid, but deliberate (something that fans had come to expect from them). The minute the cameras were on them the boys looked like they were doing the dance effortlessly. If it weren’t for those moments when the cameras weren’t on you would think that they were inhuman.

“How do they do it?” Nari asked in awe. You glanced at her.

“They’ve got so many years on us,” you replied softly. “It makes sense that they would be like this.”

“Perfect,” Ai said dreamily.

“Driven,” Chae corrected. “Like we should be.”

As the four of you spoke the boys broke apart for a break. You watched as Jihoon and Hansol stepped away from the group, looking exhausted. You noticed the other boys getting water but Jihoon was too busy talking to Hansol about something to do it.

Before you could really think through your actions, you were getting up from the floor. Your fingers grabbed at the water bottle that you had barely touched and you rushed over to Jihoon.

“I think that if we switch on the third count instead of the fourth count it...” Jihoon trailed off as you came into view, a confused expression crossing his face. You didn’t want to offer him any explanation. You didn’t even know why you were over there.

You pushed the water bottle into his hands.

“You’re doing amazing,” you forced yourself to say. Jihoon’s lips quirked up into half a smile.

“I must be lucky to have you dotting over me,” he said. Again, he was using that tone that made you want to curl up in a ball and scream, but as you forced yourself to ignore the color rapidly rising to your face you also forced yourself to notice that there was no malintent in his eyes.

In fact, you dared say he actually seemed to be a bit happy.

He unscrewed the water bottle.

“Thank you.”

You nodded and turned away from him, catching Jeonghan’s gaze in the meantime. Your face blazed even darker in color but you knew avoiding him would only make this more embarrassing.

“Want to catch a snack?” He asked you as you approached. You nodded.

Once you two were in the hallway, Jeonghan’s trademark teasing smile was spread all over his face.

“Playing the dotting partner, hm?” Jeonghan observed lightly.

“You said be convincing,” you said, noting that your voice sounded a little desperate. Jeonghan shrugged.

“I could be off base here,” Jeonghan said. “Though I rarely am… It seems to me you don’t really hate him anymore.”

You were silent for a minute and at first your mind just raced, trying to come up with convincing ways to negate what he had said. When nothing convincing came to mind you had to settle for what you desperately didn’t want to admit.

He was right.

“Why did you let me hate him for so long?” You asked with a sigh. “He’s nothing like I always claimed he was.”

Jeonghan shrugged.

“You’re stubborn,” he said pointedly. “You wouldn’t have listened to reason.”

“It was stupid,” you mumbled. “I’m so stupid. Why can’t he just be a terrible person like I always thought he was?”

“Maybe you should voice that to him,” Jeonghan suggested. “He’s so nice he would probably pretend just for you.”

A dumb pout spread over your face fast.

“What am I supposed to do now Jeonghan? I’m supposed to hate him.”

“You’re being dramatic-“ Jeonghan gave you a look of frustration. “Does the world end if you don’t hate Lee Jihoon?”

You toyed anxiously with your fingers, your eyebrows strewn in concentration as you tried to sort through your thoughts.

You were hopeful that your immense concentration wasn’t that concerning. After all, you had been informed recently that you needed to beginning preparing for your groups comeback along with preparing the solo song for your group.

And yet, that wasn’t the reason your mind was racing and unfortunately, that was evident.

“Busy thinking about Jihoon?” Chae tore you out of your thoughts, your eyebrows raising in surprise.

“What?”

“You haven’t seen him in a few days,” Chae said before you could completely misconstrue the question. “Well, not in private at least. Is he not making time for you?”

Truth be told, you were avoiding Jihoon as best you could. While he had approached you a few times about meeting up and finally figuring out what your song was going to sound like, you had promptly named any excuse you could to get out if it.

He was clearly confused by your sudden behavior… Probably because it clearly wasn’t due to distaste for him. It had been a while since you had actually treated Jihoon like you hated him. Insults towards him died on your tongue or didn’t come to your mind at all. And in times where you would normally be short with him- when he didn’t pay enough attention to you, or when you two weren’t agreeing on something- you had been patient. You had grown accustomed to trying to live more on his pace.

You knew that he knew your attitude towards him had changed and that’s what made it all worse.

The world didn’t end when you stopped hating Lee Jihoon. The world ended when you had to admit to Lee Jihoon that your behavior over the last few years that you had known him had been childish and unwarranted. You hated to be wrong.

Jesus, that was childish too.

“Jihoon’s been fine,” you said reluctantly. “Great even, he’s always so nice and understanding and perfect.”

You were doing a bad job at hiding your frustration.

“I’ve just been stupid about something and I’m going to have to own up to it at some point and I don’t want to.”

You couldn’t help the way that you sunk further into the couch, your lips turned down in a pout. Chae laughed, elbowing you in the side.

“You? Own up to someone?” Chae said, not even bothering to hide her surprise. “You must really love him or something. You’ve never been that emotionally mature.”

You shot her a glare making her laugh.

“I’m kidding,” she admonished. “Geez, why are you so worried about it? If Jihoon is so nice and perfect than he’ll be understanding.”

She shrugged.

“All relationships have their ups and downs, you’re only human. I’m sure Jihoon doesn’t care.”

And thus launched your next mission.

“What kinds of things does Jihoon like?” You asked. Jeonghan looked up at you from where his head was in your lap. His eyes narrowed towards you.

“That’s a weird thing to ask.”

You let a pout cross your lips.

“You think I like this?” You demanded. You looked away, your face burning red. “I hate apologizing. I’m never the one in the wrong. This fucking sucks.”

Jeonghan snickered.

“Starlight’s golden child,” he teased. “What’s apologizing got to do with knowing what things he likes? Why don’t you just look it up on member profiles?”

You groaned burying your fingers in your hair.

“That’s what fans know. You’re his friend, you can tell me the intimate details!”

“It’s not easy to win over Lee Jihoon,” Jeonghan replied. He sat up from your lap and pulled his legs under himself as he turned to face you on the couch.

“You’ve got to help me,” you pleaded, turning to face him as well. You took his hands. “Please please please please you’re the only one that can help me! You’re the only one who knows.”

Jeonghan sighed.

“I can’t promise it will help. I never hear Jihoon talking bad about you but it can’t be exactly comforting that his first real crush since idol-hood hated him.”

You felt that guilt ping through your chest again.

“Jeonghan,” you whined. “Help me.”

You pulled your legs under your body.

“I’m pathetic. I’m helpless. I hate this. Help me.”

Jeonghan chuckled, shaking his head.

“You know I love it when you beg.”

You were so hopeless you didn’t even care.

“You can win over Jihoon the same way that you would win over anyone. Show him you care. His top receiving love languages are gift giving and words of affirmation. You’ve spent all this time tearing him down, yeah? Start building him up. When you gave Jihoon that water bottle, that was perfect. You gave him a compliment and you gave him something. Showed you care. Keep that up and he’ll be wrapped around your pretty little finger.”

You weren’t supposed to meet up with Jihoon today, but you had your blood pumping with excitement towards getting him to like you that you couldn’t help but show up at his studio today.

You were nervous- standing there in front of his studio door with an americano in your hand but what better did you have to do anyway? The girls were all doing things today and Jeonghan was refusing to hang out with you until you figured shit out with Jihoon because he was tired of him being the only thing you talked about.

You sucked in a sharp breath.

Here goes nothing.

You pushed open the door to Jihoon’s studio, popping your head in to see if anyone was there. Luckily, the usually present Mingyu was missing and the only one that was in the room was Jihoon. Normally, he didn’t notice when you showed up in his room, but Jihoon’s headphones were noticeably absent.

“Mingyu I told you-”

His head turned and his eyes flickered to you, his words dying on his tongue.

“Oh. Hey, what are you doing here?” He said. He set down his pencil and turned his chair to face you more fully. You smiled nervously.

“I brought a peace offering.”

You held up the cup of coffee you had brought.

“I know that we hate each other but...” You trailed off. But what? Why did you start this that way? Why did you bring up the fact that you two hate each other? “Well, everyone likes coffee.”

You stood at the door unsurely, not really sure if he would even want you in his studio or not. After all this time, did you really deserve to spend time with him? You had been awful.

“Everyone does like coffee,” Jihoon agreed. “I need a break anyways. The music isn’t really writing itself.”

You closed the door behind you and wandered over to Jihoon, setting the coffee on the desk.

“You mean music prodigy Jihoon has trouble writing music?” You physically flinched. “I don’t know why I said that.”

Jihoon looked away from you, picking up the coffee. You noticed that he did have a small smile on his lips.

“Why don’t you let me hear it?” You asked, taking a seat next to him. “What’s wrong with it?”

Jihoon took a sip of the drink and then set it down.

“It just sounds wrong,” he replied. He turned his attention back to the computer. He clicked a few things and then handed you his headphones. You stared at them, unsure of what he wanted you to do with them. He looked at you, raising his eyebrow. “Put them on?”

“Oh-”

You took them from his hands and slid them over your ears. As soon as they were secure music started to play in your ears.

There was something to be said about Jihoon. You had always avoided listening to his music- simply on the principle that you hated him and thus should hate everything he stood for. But when you had listened to his music it had just made you angrier. How could someone so awful be so talented?

And now, without the buffer of actively forcing yourself to hate his music, things were different.

“You think this is bad?” You asked, sliding the headphones off your ears. Jihoon’s eyes widened.

“You haven’t finished.”

“I don’t really need to- Jihoon this is amazing.”

You lifted the headphones back to your ears.

“Play it again.”

He obliged, and the second time around it sounded even better. The music was soft, the notes working their way in your ears so delicately it was like you were being embraced in a hug. How he had managed to capture such an intimate feeling simply with sound was beyond you.

“What’s the song supposed to be about?” You asked. He shrugged.

“Falling in love?” He replied. “But not that complicated, you’re not really sure how you feel type of thing. Falling in love when you both know right from the start that you like each other. Falling in love when there’s not question where you’re going.”

You put the headphones back on again, your eyes flitting to the ground. Jihoon didn’t have to be asked to play the song again, and this time you could feel it like a buzzing running through your body.

“You’re amazing- Did you know that? This is amazing,” you said and you meant it. You weren’t just saying it because you thought you needed to win him over. “This is insane. How could you write something so amazing- So perfect- And think it wasn’t good enough?”

Jihoon’s face reddened a little and he looked away from you.

“It could use some work,” he said. “Aren’t you the one always saying that I’m not perfect?”

“Maybe I changed my tune,” you replied.

This was it. This was the perfect opportunity. You could do it right now. Just apologize. Just apologize.

“I should get going,” you replied. “The coffee delivery was the goal.”

You stood up, handing Jihoon back the headphones.

“Good luck.”

The next time you decided to visit Jihoon, Mingyu was in his studio. This time instead of coffee you had decided to bring along some tteboki thinking it would be a good snack.

“You didn’t bring me any?” Mingyu asked with a pout. You rolled your eyes lightly.

“You’re not my boyfriend,” you said pointedly. “Jihoon is.”

Mingyu still whined as you took the food over to Jihoon, setting it on his desk. Normally Jihoon would yell at you as you shifted his papers around.

“What’s this for?” Jihoon asked. You shrugged.

“Jeonghan says you’re always so busy working all day that you forget to eat.”

Again Jihoon’s eyebrows shot up at your words.

“So, I thought I could make this a reminder. You should eat.”

Jihoon’s eyebrows were strewn in thought as he poked through the bag to see what you had brought.

“Black bean tteboki?” He asked.

“You love black bean noodles.” You glanced back at Mingyu. “I don’t know why I’m justifying what I bought you. I know you’ll like it.”

There was a really awkward silence that filled the room. So you cleared your throat.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” you said. You walked back to the door sending a wave towards Mingyu. “I’ll bring you something too next time.”

“Don’t bother.”

Your eyes ripped back to Jihoon who was already bringing out his chopsticks to eat what you had brought him.

“Things like that are wasted on Mingyu.” He smiled. “Thanks.”

You nodded and left the room, smiling at the protests that were escaping Mingyu’s mouth at the prospect of you not buying food for him and definitely not smiling because it felt nicer to have Jihoon smile at you then it did to make him upset with you.

“Your boyfriend is staying up late in the studio again,” Soonyoung complained. You looked up at him from where you were stretching.

“Come again?”

“Every night this week, Lee Jihoon has slept in the studio. Mingyu is getting insufferable. He spends every night with me.”

You snickered at the prospect of Kim Mingyu staying the night with Soonyoung, but Soonyoung’s expression stayed serious.

“You’ve got to get him out of there.”

“Me?” You blurted. “What will I be able to do?”

Soonyoung gestured towards you.

“You two are dating!” He replied. “If anyone can get him to get out of the studio you can.”

You knew that wasn’t true. You and Jihoon were fake dating for crying out loud.

But Soonyoung didn’t know that, and you had to make this be as convincing as possible. You had been so grateful when you two got to cut down the amount of fake dates that you two had to go on. The media was long convinced your relationship was real after all- what self-respecting idols faked a relationship in this industry. The worst part about this was that you had to keep this charade up to everyone else too.

You couldn’t just tell Soonyoung that Jihoon would never listen to you. So instead, here you stood, right outside of his stupid studio door for the millionth time this week.

You had brought him food, and coffee, a trinket for his desk. You had been here everyday and it wasn’t even to write the song with him.

And here you were again. Fuck.

You peeked your head into Jihoon’s studio, again not even bothering to knock on the door. Jihoon was sitting at his desk, headphones on his ears, spinning a pencil around his fingers. You closed the door quietly behind you and walked up to him, tapping him on the shoulder.

Jihoon jumped, taking a sharp breath at the sudden touch. He looked back at you and his eyes shut.

“It’s just you,” he breathed. He lowered his headphones. “What are you doing here this late?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” You asked. You pushed aside some of his things and hopped up on his desk. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment on it if he didn’t like it. “What are you doing working so late?”

“I’ve only got a little bit more to do,” he replied. He gestured towards his computer making you chew on your bottom lip unsurely. Jihoon was going to kill you if you did what you needed to do. He was going to kill you.

“How does this program work? Does it save as you go?” You asked. Jihoon shook his head.

“No, but I just saved it a few seconds-”

And before Jihoon could finish seeking you ran your fingers around the edge of the desktop and clicked the power button. Jihoon’s computer screen flickered to black, and there was a few seconds that felt like years in which neither of you said anything.

“Y/n.”

Was it hot in here? It felt hot in here.

“You have to go to bed!” You protested immediately. You started to back away from Jihoon. “You said that everything was saved! It’s okay I didn’t ruin anything and now you can get up and go to bed-”

“You can’t just turn off my computer!” Jihoon exclaimed. “What made you think you could just turn off my computer?”

“I had to resort to drastic measures,” you hissed back. “You’re unreasonable when you’re working.”

“I’m unreasonable?” Jihoon asked with an indignant scoff. “How am I unreasonable? You are the one who turned my computer off.”

You had been certain that you had seen Jihoon mad before. You had been certain that all of those times that you two had been fighting before he had been angry but seeing him right now? You realized whatever emotion he had then was completely different then what you were seeing in him now. His face was red, his eyes were wide, you could tell that he was struggling to keep his voice to a reasonable level.

At least he was trying not to kill you.

“You have to go to bed,” you said, your lips falling into a pout. “Please everyone thinks I can get you to bed and I can’t exactly tell everyone that I have no real say over what you do because we aren’t really dating! You’ve left me no choice.”

Jihoon stood up and pointed at his black computer screen.

“You had a choice.”

You stared at Jihoon, not really sure what you needed to do next. You didn’t have a mask that you could put on. You didn’t have a lie you could tell or an insult you could throw at him to make him change trajectory. You just stood there, clasping your hands behind your back giving him the most pathetic pout you could muster.

“I know that I haven’t done much for you,” you said softly. “But let me do this? Just this one thing, right now. Come with me. Go to sleep.”

Your voice dropped a little quieter.

“Don’t be mad at me?”

Jihoon held his air of anger for a few seconds, still staring at you like he wanted to hit something and then, his shoulders dropped. He raised his hands in the air in surrender.

“I’m not mad,” he said, turning his eyes away from you. “How could I be mad? If the boys wanted you to get me to sleep you had no choice.”

He reached over to a notebook that laid opened on his desk and flipped it closed.

“You win. I’ll sleep.”

He picked up his phone and slipped it into his back pocket. When he turned back around his eyes met yours again.

“Turn off my computer again?” He asked. “I will not be this understanding.”

You nodded.

“Learned my lesson,” you said, but you couldn’t help the smile that crossed your lips. “Got what I wanted.”

Jihoon sighed.

“If we weren’t in a fake relationship, you wouldn’t be getting treated this well.”

You two walked over to the door, leaving his studio.

“Well, no one’s around,” you said cheekily. “And you’re not telling me no.”

You said it as a jest, but it was as if as it left your mouth, you were realizing that it was true. When had you two started being reasonable even behind locked doors?

“I suppose not,” he agreed softly. He glanced at you.

“You know, you’re not half bad when you’re not yelling at me,” he said softly. “I actually enjoy your company when you aren’t driving me up the wall.”

This was it. Your chance to finally apologize to him. To mend bridges.

Swallow your pride, just apologize.

“I think the exhaustion is getting to you,” you said. “You’re saying things you don’t mean.”

You laughed.

“When are we going to finish this song?”

If Jihoon was thrown off by your change of topic, he didn’t comment on it.

“This Friday?”

You cleared your throat awkwardly.

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea.”

“What about this?”

You turned your chair around to face Jihoon, reaching out blindly for his headphones. Before they hit your hands he was slipping them on your head over your ears. You (luckily) barely showed your surprise.

A melody began to play in the headphones. One that you had been listening to different versions of it for the last five hours. You sighed.

“I mean-” Your head fell to the side. “It’s better? What if we tried to add something to the back? Drums?”

Jihoon nodded.

“Drums.”

His fingers drummed thoughtlessly on the desk.

“Drums,” he repeated. He concentrated for only a few moments before he was playing the song again in your ears, this time with the added backtrack. It sounded better. A smile crossed your lips.

“Hey, we’re making progress. I think we’re almost finished!”

Eight hours and three separate orders of chinese takeout later and you finally were, you were finally done.

“Well?” Jihoon asked, his eyes flickering to you.

“It’s good,” you replied. You laughed. “It’s really good. Do you think they’re going to like it?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Jihoon replied, looking at you with amusement dancing in his eyes. “You sure do have a lot of energy for 13 straight hours of this.”

You shrugged.

“You can do it, I can do it,” you replied. “You know I admire that you can do these things. You’re the whole package Jihoon.”

Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the amount of chinese takeout you had consumed. Whatever it was, you felt like your whole body was buzzing. You were so excited to have finally finished this song.

“I can’t believe I actually like this! When Sangsoo told us we had to do this I thought I would hate it,” you admitted. “But this might be my favorite song to perform to date.”

Jihoon wasn’t staring at you so you took it as the opportunity to talk more.

“Can you imagine us? On stage, side by side. We’re going to double the time in this studio in the dance studio trying to figure out this choreography.”

Jihoon shifted his weight, resting his chin in his hand.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you replied excitedly. “And all thanks to your musical genius. You Jihoon are the best producer that our generation of singer-songwriters has ever seen. You-”

You froze in the middle of your sentence.

“You’re making fun of me?”

Jihoon laughed.

“I’m not making fun of you,” he said. “I’m just relishing in the moment. It’s not everyday that I hear you building me up. I’m too used to you screaming insults in my face.”

And there it was. How were you not getting accustomed to this? This pang of guilt that went through your gut when someone reminded you of how you had been treating Jihoon before you had realized that you were such a fucking idiot.

How could you make this go away?

“Yeah.”

You knew how to make this feeling go away. You knew what you had to do. You just so desperately didn’t want to do it. It didn’t have to be this hard, did it? All you had to do was tell him what you had been thinking for weeks now. You were good at telling people how you felt, weren’t you? You told Jeonghan how you felt all the time.

“I was really mean to you,” you said before you could think about it. “Like really mean.”

Jihoon’s cocked his head.

“I didn’t make it easy not to be mean to,” he said.

“No- No, don’t say that,” you protested. You pointed a finger at him. “I was horrible to you. Are you joking? I was mean to you for no reason.”

Jihoon didn’t seem stressed by the topic. Dare you say he looked amused. Maybe he knew that your guilt was killing you and he thought you deserved it.

“I mean, you seemed to have plenty of reasons at the time.”

You did deserve it.

“I’m sorry,” you said and as soon as the words left your lips it was like a huge weight had been lifted off your shoulders. Finally.

“You’re sorry?” Jihoon asked, his eyebrows furrowing a little.

“For being so mean to you, for hating you for no reason, for getting us into this mess.” You shook your head. “This list goes on and I’m sorry. For all of it.”

Still Jihoon looked a bit confused.

“Why are you... Apologizing?”

“You’re a good person,” you replied. “My reasons were dumb, and now I like you a lot. I don’t want to be enemies.”

God, were you really about to say what you thought you were? “I want to be friends.”

Holy shit, you were.

The space between you saying that and Jihoon answering was an amount of time that felt like an eternity. You two just walked in silence together while you anxiously waited for his response, your fingers fidgeting with themselves in front of you.

“I thought we already were friends,” Jihoon said with a shrug. “It’s been a while since our last screaming match. Seemed reasonable to me that you regretted what you said even without you saying it.”

And just like that the air returned to your lungs. No pressure, no tight chest. Just complete and utter relief.

“Yeah?” You asked, risking a glance at Jihoon.

“Well, you don’t hate me anymore. I don’t hate you. Might as well be friends.”

You turned your head to hide your smile.

“Might as well be friends.”

Part Two

#Happy Lee Jihoon month in thirty minutes!#lee jihoon #lee jihoon seventeen #lee jihoon svt #lee jihoon fanfiction #lee jihoon fanfic #woozi fanfiction #woozi fanfic #woozi svt #woozi #woozi seventeen #seventeen fanfiction #seventeen fanfic #svt fanfiction #svt fanfic

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renjuseyo · 3 years

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I'm the one that ask about poly. I want to make request now if you're okay with it about male reader jihoon and seungcheol. Seungcheol being jealous when reader babied jihoon even though Seungcheol get it most of the time. While jihoon hate it when reader doing that but only whine and do nothing at all. Reader didn't stop because he know Jihoon enjoy it and also watching Seungcheol pouting and making a fuss is one of his entertainment.

pay attention to me ; s.coups & woozi

group: seventeen

pairing: choi seungcheol / lee jihoon / reader (male)

synopsis: just because seungcheol’s dating you two doesn’t make him less jealous when you direct your attention to jihoon, even if he always receives your pampering.

genre: fluff

i hope you liked this anon! i think this is a very cute prompt, and i had fun playing with jicheol’s dynamics. i kind of lost inspo if you couldn’t tell though lol... anyways, feedback is always appreciated!! ^^

age order goes as: seungcheol > reader > jihoon

jihoon: i won’t be home until late, so don’t wait up for me [11:58 PM]

that was sent to you and seungcheol four hours ago. seeing how seungcheol had gotten off work at a decent time (if you consider ten-thirty decent) compared to usual, you had assumed it would be the same for jihoon, too. apparently not.

normally, by the time the clock strikes three am, you would be fast asleep, squished between seungcheol and jihoon. but instead, you’re parking your car outside of the pledis building, with seungcheol struggling to stay awake in the passenger seat. “you know, i could’ve driven here instead,” the older offers, yawning.

you roll your eyes, pushing your door open. “don’t be ridiculous. you can barely keep your eyes open, and you’ve worked all day. driving is the least i could do.”

you two step out of your car. after locking it, you begin walking towards the studio. the dim glow of the lamp posts and the faint twinkle of the stars are your only guides to the entryway, and you’re reminded once again just how late it is when you take in your surroundings. not a single sound can be heard, and the sky above you is blanketed black. what in the world is jihoon doing so late?

(well, there’s only one thing he could be doing this late. but most importantly, why? the members of seventeen are supposed to have the weekend off, so he has plenty of time to finish up any projects.)

once seungcheol unlocks the door, you two trudge inside, yawning. it takes a few minutes for you both to find jihoon’s studio, but it isn’t hard to spot. in the dark hallway, there’s only one room lit up, with a blue, fluorescent light splashing its walls. you glance at the small window, and just as you had suspected, your boyfriend is perched on his chair, hunched over his desktop.

luckily his door isn’t locked, so seungcheol twists the doorknob and pulls it open. the intrusion startles jihoon, evident by the way he flinches in his seat. when he spins around, you frown at the weary look on his face. the bright blue of his room highlights his eye bags, and you can see him struggling to stay awake. “what are you two doing here? you should be asleep,” he says.

you stride towards him, eyebrows furrowed. “that’s what we should be saying. do you have any idea what time it is? you’re supposed to be at home with us.” seungcheol nods in agreement, probably too tired to engage himself in a conversation.

“not until i finish this,” the younger protests, gesturing at his monitor. you peek behind him to look at what’s pulled up, and unsurprisingly, there’s a new project loaded up, probably one of the songs he’s working on for seventeen’s next album. “management said i have to get this done by next week.” he glances at the clock. “plus, it’s only three am. i’ve had less sleep.”

“by less sleep you mean no sleep,” you correct, propping your hands on your hips. you almost look the part of a disappointed parent. “that’s so bad for you, you know.”

“hoon, we have this weekend off. you can work on it then,” seungcheol replies, yawning. “come sleep with us. anyone with a pair of eyes can tell that you’re tired.”

jihoon rolls his eyes, but the yawn that leaves his throat is evidence enough. “i’m just fine. i already downed a whole bottle of soda, anyways.”

you tiredly trudge over to him, tugging at his sleeve. he raises a questioning eyebrow, but he doesn’t say anything as you drag him over to the couch by the wall. “hoonie, you’ve been up since six am. it’s not good for babies to sleep so late.”

he flushes at the implications, frowning. it ends up looking more like a pout, though, further proving your point. “i’m not a baby. you’re acting like one right now,” he protests.

you pull him onto the couch, arms trapping him. “but you’re the youngest, so you’re the baby. right, cheol?”

instead of agreeing with you, the oldest of you three pouts, flopping down beside you. “that’s no fair, (name). both hoonie and i worked today, so why are you only babying him?” he whines. for someone who’s supposed to be the oldest, he sure craves attention like a child.

you wave a dismissive hand, scooting over so seungcheol has more room. this causes you and jihoon to squish even closer together, and as discomforting as it is for all three of you, no one makes any moves to go to a more comfortable area. but then again, you three usually wound up like this more often than not, so you all stopped minding altogether. “hush, cheol. we cuddled for like, an hour when we were home. hoonie hasn’t had anyone to take care of him yet.”

jihoon rolls his eyes, pressed against your chest. “i’m right here, you know.” as much as he dislikes skinship, he’s too tired to move, and your embrace is comforting, though he’d never admit it.

you hum, snuggling closer to him. “lack of sleep makes babies grouchy. you can worry about your project tomorrow.”

“but-”

“don’t talk back to the adults,” you murmur, dozing off, pressing your forehead against his.

jihoon grumbles, though he doesn’t try to move. “this is crazy. i’m only a year younger than you and seungcheol-hyung. what do you mean don’t talk back to the adults?” he snorts.

when you don’t respond, he can only assume you’ve fallen asleep. he rolls his eyes and cranes his neck to peek at seungcheol. his eyes are also fluttering close, arms firmly wrapped around your waist. sometimes he wonders why you call him the baby when seungcheol is right there, constantly whining for your affection. if anything, he’s the baby of you three.

seeing how he can’t wriggle his way out of here (not that he would. drinking a whole bottle of coke-cola has done nothing to lift his drowsiness), he can do nothing but surrender to your clutches and lay limp in your arms. he closes his eyes in an attempt to fall asleep, but hearing your voice in his head makes it a tad difficult.

you’re the youngest, so you’re the baby~

jihoon huffs, glaring at you, who’s oblivious to his piercing eyes. “says the one who always needs to hug something before he sleeps,” he quietly grumbles, poking your cheek.

to his surprise, the subtle motion is enough to stir you awake, and he feels himself heat up when your eyes flutter open. even when you’re tired, you still manage to look breathtaking. “go to sleep, hoonie,” you remind again before dozing back asleep.

when jihoon glances at the clock, the white, neon digits show him that it’s nearly four am. so this is what he ends up doing, but not because you told him to.

jihoon knows that despite your constant babying, you recognize that he’s a functioning adult who’s more than capable of handling responsibilities. even more than you, he might argue. you just have an affectionate nature and make it your sole duty to take care of everyone around you, even if they’re older than you, like seungcheol. plus, you just like calling those younger than you babies. if it weren’t for the fact that you’re only a few months older than him, he would’ve thought you were the oldest of you three.

though he claims to despise your affectionate nature, he’s thankful to have your presence, especially around him and seungcheol. he knows that as the leader of one of the biggest boy groups - both metaphorically and physically - the stress is undoubtedly more burdensome than the ones the other members have. he knows that seungcheol spends more time structuring himself as a strong leader and wise oldest member than as a twenty-five-year-old man who likes music and video-games. which is why he’s grateful that you’re around to give him the pampering and leisure he deserves, reminding him that it’s okay to be taken care of sometimes.

he isn’t mad that you direct most of your pampering at seungcheol. if anything, he’s more than happy, because now you’re there to give him the attention he complains about when he can’t. your presence, for a lack of better words, acts as a balance for you three. but there are times where you choose to baby (read: pester) him, simply because he’s the youngest and needs attention once in a while. your words, not his.

now is one of those moments.

jihoon blinks, staring at the shoe box perched on the table before him. he looks at you, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. you gesture at the shoe box in a flourish, widely grinning like a child who’s won candy. “ta-da!” you exclaim. seungcheol, who had been immersed with a mobile game, is now looking his way, curiously staring at the box. judging from his expression, he guesses he doesn’t know what the contents are, either.

“and what exactly am i looking at?” he asks.

“open it!” you exclaim.

he does as he’s told, lifting up the lid of the box. to his surprise, they’re a pair of black slide-ons. he remembers eyeing a pair a week ago at a mall he had gone to with you and soonyoung, but had dismissed the thought after seeing the number shopping bags soonyoung had on each arm. he isn’t sure if you remembered or if this is a mere coincidence. either way, he’s surprised you bought him a pair of shoes out of the blue.

“what!” seungcheol exclaims. he throws his phone onto the couch, the device bouncing on the cushions. he walks towards you, instantly wrapping his arms around your waist and resting his chin on your shoulder. “you bought shoes for hoonie, but not for me?”

you roll your eyes. “cheol, you’re the one giving people your credit card information. you’re quite capable of buying your own shoes... actually, you’d buy them, unprompted.”

“but it’s different when it’s a gift,” he whines. “i want you to buy me shoes, too.”

ignoring your whiny boyfriend, you gesture at the sandals. “i saw you looking at them when we were at the mall with soonyoung last week! i know you don’t have a lot of time to go shopping, so i bought them for you,” you explain.

jihoon frowns. he’s the one practically swimming in a pool of money, so he should be the one buying you nice things, not the other way around. “oh... you didn’t have to.”

when he looks up at you, he sees the excitement vanish from your face, being replaced with a pout. seeing you like that makes him wonder why he and seungcheol never try babying you, especially when you have the audacity to look as cute as you do now. “do you not like them? i can always return them and get you something else...”

he practically flies out of his seat, eyes wide. “no!” he blurts. you and seungcheol are startled by the sudden outburst, your eyes mirroring his. “i mean-” he clears his throat, “i like them, i really do. but i should be the one buying you things, not the other way around.”

thankfully, you smile. “don’t worry about it! a baby like you should be bought nice things, even if you probably have better versions of them,” you tease, blowing him an air kiss.

jihoon scoffs. "you know, now that i think about it, you always pay for my things even though you’re the, and i quote, broke college student. what’s up with that?”

“because babies shouldn’t be paying for things.” you size him up, feigning innocence. “are you even allowed to have a debit card?”

seungcheol snorts at your comment, stifling his laughter by burying his head in your shoulder. on the other hand, jihoon’s jaw drops in disbelief. “this is bullying!” he yells, exasperated. “i’m being bullied by my boyfriend. hyung, you can’t be siding with him.”

the older shrugs, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. “when i do it, you always kick me, but you never do anything when it’s him. it’s so fun, seeing you get all flustered.”

he glares at you both. “i actually hate you two. especially you,” he seethes, pointing at you.

you lean over to whisper in seungcheol’s ear, but you’re side-eyeing him, obviously trying to get him to hear you. “has he been fed yet? you know babies get grouchy when they don’t have food in their system.”

“(name) (last name)!!”

seungcheol knows that like him, you’re usually the oldest in most situations. because of this, taking care of those around you has practically become second nature. making sure everyone around you is healthy and happy has become instinctive, and you’re willing to go through hoops and hurdles just to achieve that. it’s one of the many traits he loves about you.

he’s grateful to have you around to take care of him, but most importantly, he’s glad that there’s someone like you taking care of jihoon. sure, he whines about not being the center of your attention, but he knows that there are times when jihoon needs it more than he does. viewed as the genius producer and leader of the vocal unit of seventeen, there’s no doubt that the pressure he receives to repeatedly produce big hits is unimaginable. though it’s something that the two of them share in common, he knows he would never willingly open up about his thoughts, afraid of burdening the already stressed leader.

thankfully, there’s you, with a warm and loving aura encompassing you. you just have this aura that makes people want to lower their guard, even for those as whole and reserved as jihoon. it undoubtedly helps relieve the tension that the young producer has, even if he claims to hate it.

even if he knows this, though, that doesn’t stop him from wanting all of your attention. you’re the only person jihoon allows to pamper him (even if he denies it), so it’s not surprising that you take every opportunity you get to do so. while it’s fun to see him get riled up, seungcheol can’t help but act bratty when your attention isn’t on him.

on an exceptionally mundane day where the members of seventeen are lounging in the practice room, taking a break after excruciating hours of nonstop dancing, you knock on the door, arms loaded with bags of takeout. a few seconds later, the door swings open, and you’re standing in front of a sweaty chan. “oh, hyung! what brings you here?” he asks, surprised.

“hey chan,” you greet with a smile. he moves to the side, giving you space to enter the room. when you do, you’re greeted by twelve boys who seem equally sweaty and exhausted, who slur their greetings. “i was going to drop off some food for cheol and hoonie, but i figured you guys would be hungry,” you explained, gesturing towards the bags. from the way their eyes light up, you can tell they’re pleased with the surprise. “i have fried chicken, tteokbokki, japchae... just a bit of everything.”

immediately, the thirteen boys gather around you, salivating at the scent wafting out of the bags. “thank you hyung, you didn’t have to do that for us,” dokyeom smiles.

you shrug, seating yourself between seungcheol and jihoon. “it’s the least i could do, don’t worry about it. now eat up! you all are probably starving.”

another chorus of thanks echoes throughout the room, and soon, everyone begins to dig in. as you chat with the other members, catching up on each others’ lives and learning about comeback preparations, you suddenly feel someone pulling you up by the armpits before placing you down on their lap. startled, you crane your neck and see seungcheol, who responds by pecking your forehead. “what was that for?” mingyu asks from across you, voicing your question.

“you haven’t paid attention to me at all,” he murmurs.

you simply hum, leaning forward to stab a piece of fried chicken. you aim the fork at seungcheol’s mouth, who eagerly sweeps in and takes a bite. from the corner of your eye, you can see the other members eyeing you two with disgust. “sometimes i forget this is a three-way relationship, seeing how you both react so differently around (name)-hyung,” seungkwan snorts, scooping more japchae onto his plate. “why can’t you be more like jihoon-hyung? at least he doesn’t whine when (name)-hyung isn’t around every five minutes like you.”

you roll your eyes. “please. hoonie likes it when i baby him, too.” you send him a wink, to which he responds with by rolling his eyes.

“you’re talking nonsense.”

“don’t lie~” you coo, leaning over and ruffling his hair. “our cute baby hoonie~”

above you, seungcheol pouts, resting his chin on your head. “why don’t you ever treat me like that, (name)? this is unfair.”

you add more tteokbokki onto your plate. “it’s fun, seeing both of your reactions. hoonie’s more fun to tease, and it’s fun seeing you get all mopey.” he pouts, though he can’t refute your claims. jihoon does have funnier reactions than he does, and judging by both the amused and unimpressed looks the other members give him, he’s sure that he looks nothing short of glum.

“you know,” wonwoo begins, “i never would’ve imagined that jihoon would’ve gotten together with them. maybe with (name), but not with seungcheol-hyung. you both cling onto him more than to each other, anyways.”

“cheol here just comes to me more because he’s scared of hoonie,” you laugh, patting his thigh. “besides, they have each other when i’m not in the picture.”

“(name), you shouldn’t spoil cheollie so much. he’s already so bratty when you’re not here,” jeonghan sighs. “i’d love to see you tease jihoon more, though. you’re the only person who can get away with it unscathed, anyways.”

both seungcheol and jihoon darken in embarrassment. “shut it, yoon jeonghan,” they snap in unison.

when seungcheol and jihoon wake up one saturday morning, they don’t expect to be clinging onto each other in bed. they also don’t expect you to be awake already, seeing how you’re usually one of the last people to get up.

“where’s (name)?” jihoon groggily asks, scooting closer to an equally tired seungcheol. though he rarely lets seungcheol hold him, his need for warmth overpowers his disdain for skinship.

the older doesn’t seem to mind his sudden touchiness, wrapping an arm around him. “dunno,” he mumbles.

neither of them further questions your disappearance, cuddling closer to each other. they both begin to drift back asleep when the floorboards of the hallway creak, signalling a new presence. the bedroom dear squeaks open, so when they both turn to face the source, they see you tiptoeing your way in. “oh, morning guys,” you whisper, sheepishly smiling. “sorry for waking you two."

“it’s fine,” jihoon yawns, slowly sitting up. beside him, seungcheol turns to dig his face into his pillow, stretching his limbs. “why are you up so early? it’s-” he pauses to glance at the clock, which reads 11:30 am. “okay, maybe it’s not so early. but what are you doing up?”

you shrug. “cheol elbowed my face earlier, and i couldn’t fall back asleep again, so i decided to get out of bed.”

seungcheol turns around and looks at you with guilty eyes, sitting up. “sorry babe,” he apologizes. he grabs your arm and pulls you onto him. “is your pretty face okay?” he asks, rubbing your cheeks.

you thread your fingers through his hair, untangling the knots as jihoon rolls over. “why don’t you come back to bed and sleep some longer? i know how irritable you can get when you don’t get enough sleep.”

you shake your head at his offer. “it’s okay, but thanks.” you reposition yourself so you’re sandwiched between seungcheol and jihoon, which is when they notice the navy apron hanging around your neck. “i made food not long ago, it should be warm still. come eat with me.” you wriggle your way out of the human sandwich, standing up again. “get up, lazy bums!”

“kiss me first,” seungcheol jeers like the brat he is.

you lean in close until your breath fans his lips. when he looks like he’s going to reciprocate, you move your lips last minute and peck his forehead instead. “brush your teeth first, brat. your breath smells like ass.” before you leave, you swiftly move your head and place a kiss on jihoon’s cheek, running out of the bedroom before either of them can do anything about it.

half an hour later, jihoon steps out of the bedroom and trudges into the kitchen. seungcheol’s still in the bathroom washing up. when he rounds the corner, he nearly screams to see you so close to him. you take this opportunity to wrap your arms around him and lift him up, to which he responds with a yelp. “put me down!” he shrieks.

you pay no mind to his shrieking, walking towards the counter. you plop down on a stool and seat him on your lap. he’s still squirming, but your grip is tight, so his fidgeting proves futile. “good morning, my baby~”

for someone who claims to hate the nickname, he always flushes a pretty red when you or seungcheol use it. even after getting together, he still isn’t used to it. “how many times do i have to tell you to not call me a baby? i’m only a year younger than you.”

“then what should i call you then?” you pucker your lips, which are met with jihoon’s palm. “my liege? my love? which do you prefer?” you flirt.

his blush darkens, and he can only look away in embarrassment. “shut up.”

your laugh is so loud it hurts his ears, but it’s endearing and true, something he never gets tired of listening to. “our baby is so cute when he’s flustered~”

“is today a bully seungcheol or a bully jihoon day, i wonder?” a voice in front of you asks. he cranes his neck as much as he can and sees seungcheol pouting in front of you two, bangs wet. “do i not get this treatment because i’m the oldest?

you stick your tongue out at him before flicking his forehead. “come on, let’s eat! you two took forever.” fortunately, seungcheol pulls out a stool for jihoon to sit on, so he’s all too eager to hop away from your clutches.

you’re sitting across from the duo, who are seated beside each other. the kitchen is mostly silent, save for the clinking of utensils. it isn’t when seungcheol takes a bite from an egg that you notice a band-aid plastered near his chin. “did you hurt yourself?” you ask, aiming your fork at his wound.

he absentmindedly runs a finger against the band-aid. “oh, this? i was shaving earlier and accidentally cut myself,” he explains. he gauges your reaction, from your furrowed eyebrows to worried eyes. just then, he lets out a cry, startling you and jihoon. “oh (name), it hurts~”

you laugh at his silliness, while jihoon snorts. “you’re so embarrassing. gosh (name), this is what happens when you spoil him too much. one single mishap and he comes running to you with fake tears. look at the monster you’ve created.”

you glance at seungcheol, and the mischievous smirk on your lips only spells for disaster. “cheol-ah, you were just fine a moment ago. i think you’re strong enough to handle a tiny cut, aren’t you?”

normally he would never allow for someone to question his strength, but when it comes to you, all he wants is your pampering, even if he makes himself look like a fool in the process. “don’t tease me, (name)~ don’t take jeonghan’s words so seriously!”

you laugh, recalling your friend’s words. you love to indulge your boyfriends, though teasing them is also fun, too. you used to only tease jihoon with your sickening babying, but seeing how seungcheol whines only fuels your mischievous nature. “i think you can handle it, cheol.” changing the topic, you smile at jihoon. “how’s the food? i think i did a good job for someone with abysmal cooking skills.”

“babe~” he whines.

“the food’s good, although your chopping skills could use some work,” jihoon comments, poking at an unevenly cut tomato.

you snort. “i’m cooking for you guys, not gordon ramsay. as long as it tastes good, it should be fine.”

“this is bullying.”

you turn to face seungcheol, who’s still pouting. “why don’t you ask hoonie?”

“because he’s going to say no. or worse, he’ll kick my shins.”

you laugh, getting up to refill your water. before you enter the kitchen, you cup seungcheol’s face and press a chaste kiss on his band-aid. “there. happy?”

the dopey, lovesick look he gives you is answer enough, and as confident and nonchalant as you are when it comes to flirting, you can feel butterflies swarming in your stomach. it never gets less exhilarating, knowing you have him wrapped around your finger. “suddenly, my cut doesn’t hurt anymore.”

jihoon gags. “disgusting.”

“you like it when we’re disgusting,” you mumble, pressing a kiss on his hair. before he can react, you swoop down and squish his cheeks, leaning in to press your lips together. he makes a disgruntled noise, though he doesn’t make any attempts to pry your hands off or to move away. when you pull away, a satisfied smile rests on your lips. “see? i knew you liked it when i babied you.”

you move your hands away from his face and lay them atop his hair. on the other hand, seungcheol squishes your cheeks together and begins peppering kisses on your face, drawing out little giggles from you. below you, jihoon frowns, folding his arms. “you’re so annoying. i could step on your toes if i wanted to.”

“if you wanted to,” you reiterate, turning your head so seungcheol doesn’t muffle your words with his lips. “key word is if, my dear. you would never actually hurt me, our cute baby.”

seungcheol relinquishes his attacks, sitting back onto the stool. “i wonder what would happen if i called him that?” he wonders out loud. suddenly, he squishes jihoon’s cheek, mirroring the fond look you always give them. “our cute baby jihoonie~”

right when he does this, seungcheol decides then that is the first and last time he’ll ever try to baby jihoon again - at least, if he wants to stay unharmed. pampering is more of your forte, anyways.

#seventeen #seventeen hip hop unit #seventeen vocal unit #kpop #seventeen x reader #seventeen x male reader #s.coups #choi seungcheol #woozi #lee jihoon #jicheol #seungcheol x reader #seungcheol x male reader #woozi x reader #woozi x male reader #renjuseyo : seventeen #renjuseyo : fics

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tearsofsyrup · 5 years

Text

unwrapped

— The only two people missing from Jihoon’s own birthday party are you and him.

pairing. lee jihoon / reader

genre. fluff, angst, smut, friends to lovers au

word count. 3.3k

warnings. profanity, descriptions of sexual activity

notes. happy birthday, our beloved genius. I hope you guys enjoy.

Your disappointed pout stuck out like a sore thumb among all the happy, drunken faces in the room.

Loud hollers, goofy dancing, stuffy air, various odors of alcohol, overplayed music, dimmed lights, intoxicated conversations and your solemn figure in the corner. You didn’t belong there and that was no surprise to you, that was no reason to stand and sulk like a child whose lollipop was taken away. And that wasn’t the reason why.

You hadn’t come there to party or watch Seungkwan and Seokmin have a dance off, anyway. The sole reason for your presence was that you simply wanted to see Jihoon. And it shouldn’t have been too demanding of a wish to have fulfilled considering that this whole spectacle was a celebration of Jihoon’s own birthday. Or you thought that it wouldn’t have been too demanding of a wish.

To be fair, Jihoon had been there. Mainly to greet everyone who had bothered coming and participate in some conversation before everyone got too drunk to care anymore. And you had really appreciated seeing him then.

But when you had later gone to find him, in order to wish him a happy birthday personally, it was as if he had vanished. You were only in a small apartment that he shared with Jeonghan and Seungcheol so you would have found him if he was there. Meaning that he wasn’t, he had fled.

And your whole purpose for showing up had turned to dust. Hence the disappointed pout on your face.

You didn’t bother masking it, as you knew everyone was too busy or too drunk to notice. But you knew wrong, you discovered when Jeonghan found a place by your side, half-empty glass of whatever in his hand. His hung lids told you he had been enjoying himself, like the rest.

“Hey!” He announced and you pursed your lips. “There you are.”

Funny, you thought. Since you weren’t the one missing.

“Hey, Han.”

Jeonghan quickly began making tsk sounds at your unenthusiastic reply.

“What’s got you so down, huh?” he questioned.

You tried to shrug him off with a “nothing in particular,” not ready to admit that you wanted to know where Jihoon had run off to. Because you knew Jeonghan more than well enough to know that he’d see right through you if you revealed even the slightest of clues concerning your feelings. That was the last thing you needed.

You expected him to leave then, due to not wanting to let your mood affect his fun. But a look of pondering instead formed on his face and you watched him closely, curious to know what he was considering telling or not telling you.

A curiosity that was short-lived.

Jeonghan suddenly leaned in, breath fanning across your sweaty neck and you stiffened in surprise.

“He’s probably on the roof,” were the words that brushed against the shell of your ear, before he leaned away with a smirk.

You really should have known better. Of course Jeonghan already knew. You were just surprised that you were only now finding that out, after so many years.

A red that blended in well with the environment bloomed across your cheeks, your heartbeat a little louder and a little faster. Jeonghan chuckled at your flustered expression.

When you didn’t pretend to be unaware of what he was talking about, realizing that such an act would have been entirely fruitless, he sent you a suggestive wink before finally leaving you alone.

And his hearty laugh reached your ears about fifteen minutes later, when he caught sight of you sneaking out of the apartment. A blush was painted across your face yet again once you closed the front door behind you.

Hurried, hopeful steps brought you to the rooftop, until you actually found Jihoon there and you froze.

It was a cold night in the late fall, breath visible as you exhaled, muscles instinctively tensing as your body was embraced by the low temperatures and your hand squeezing the door handle. Jihoon’s side was visible to you as he sat on the floor, back leaned against an air conditioning unit with a bottle of wine in his hand. And you were nervous all over again. You thought feelings like those would have slowly started dissipating the better of friends you became, but your theory was never proven right in that regard. He was there, alone. And you were there, alone. The moon and your yearning heart your only other company.

You considered turning back for a second, a sudden rush of sense invading your mind, realizing that he had probably left the apartment because he had wanted to be left alone.

But it was his birthday and nobody should be alone on their birthday.

That was the argument you used to justify the steps that you took forward and the inevitable slam of the door behind you.

Jihoon’s head turned at the sound and you swallowed your spit.

“Hey,” you greeted quickly.

“Oh. Hey.”

He blinked the surprise away from his eyes, looking at you hovering over him as he sipped his wine. You had always liked his eyes, especially when they were watching you.

Your toes curled inside your boots, muscles complaining about the chilly breeze on your skin.

“Can I, uh... sit?”

He gestured to the space beside him with his free hand and an encouraging nod and you didn’t wait to proceed. The floor was cold against your butt and you hugged your knees tightly.

Enough time for Jihoon to take another sip from his bottle passed before you spoke.

“So... You come here often?”

Jihoon huffed a laugh and you smiled, feeling proud that you broke his frown for a moment.

“Uh, yeah, actually,” he revealed and you nodded.

“Is it usually to... escape from your birthday parties?”

He sent you a quick glance as he smiled and you shrugged.

A sigh fell from his chest and he allowed himself another sip.

“I’ve never been all that into celebrating my birthday so... extravagantly. This was more for Jeonghan’s sake, really,” he explained, watching the sky pensively as you watched him in the same way. “And everyone only came here to get drunk and act wild anyway, so...”

You pursed your lips as if to keep yourself quiet, but the words inside you insisted.

“Well, not everyone...”

Your head dipped a fraction in slight embarrassment and Jihoon turned to watch you, the corners of his pink lips curling. Your windpipe tightened.

He whispered a quiet “thank you” before turning away, nose directed towards his lap for a second before he took another small sip.

Feeling exposed in the silence surrounding you, you gathered yourself.

“I kinda agree, though. Parties like this are never as much fun as they’re made out to be. For me, at least.”

Jihoon hummed. More quiet followed. And you already knew he didn’t feel the same about you.

He didn’t feel what you had felt for him for years, an instant crush having turned an immortal crush until you no longer knew where the line between crushing and loving was. There was a reason why you were the one who came looking for him and not the other way around. You knew he didn’t feel the same way. Because up until only a month prior, he had been too busy loving his girlfriend for there to have been any space for any thoughts of you. He had been so in love, he had all but radiated pure bliss. And none of it had been for you.

Forced to watch him ogling over someone else like how you ogled over him, you had learned to contain your feelings and live with them unquenched. Yes, your heart had ached occasionally but otherwise you had managed it all quite respectably. Until they broke up thirty-one days before his birthday and your heart had unethically soared once the news reached you. And you had hated it but you still loved him and he didn’t feel the same. He was still in love with her. It was obvious in the permanent creases on his forehead and dull sheen across his eyes.

And despite knowing and understanding, you stayed seated beside him. Because no one should be left alone on their birthday.

Thankfully, Jihoon didn’t seem too peeved.

In the cold silence, you shuddered, holding your legs firmly to your chest as the moon glared at you mercilessly. It pressured you to speak and you wanted to, but didn’t know what to say.

So, “sorry I didn’t get you a gift,” was what came out.

Jihoon chuckled unabashedly, shaking his head slightly.

“Why in the world would you have?”

Your fists clenched against your arms and you watched the ground, wondering if he really didn’t know how you felt about him.

“Right,” you agreed, having been stupid to suggest such a notion. “You’re right.”

When nothing more was said and another pause found its place in your conversation, you glanced Jihoon’s way carefully, finding him lost in thought as he stared towards stars hidden by a city’s sky. And something squeezed your heart at the sight, threatening to choke it or pop it or crush it. Because he was probably thinking of her.

It was a stark reminder of how unbearable that feeling was. You needed to distract yourself from it.

“Are you doing any better?” somehow seemed like the right question to ask and he sent you a quick look, apparently not expecting the question. Another sip of wine swam down his throat and he watched his lap again.

“Hmm,” he started and you almost felt bad for what you had asked, hoping that you hadn’t overstepped any boundaries. “I don’t know, really. ‘Cause I can’t-... I can’t remember exactly how I felt earlier.”

You understood what he meant and roughly translated his response to ‘no, not really’. A lack of surprise never managed to fully fend off disappointment, did it?

And silence blanketed your forms once more, having proved to be the most talkative visitor during your whole encounter. An uncomfortably talkative one. That made your ears hurt and made you unsure of whether you were fit to keep pushing it away every time it showed up.

You didn’t have to, though. Jihoon took this punch.

“And how are you doing?” was his sudden question.

You weren’t expecting it, eyes wide as saucers as you turned to him with something akin to disbelief plastered over your face.

Unsure of what he was referring to, if anything in particular, you stuttered out a strained “g-good.” Jihoon chuckled then, sporting a look of fondness if you would have taken a guess. It made a warmth spread in your chest and it felt nice.

Until a cool breeze brushed against your form and you visibly shivered, shoulders curled forward uncomfortably.

The man beside you noticed, proceeding to hold his bottle of wine out for you to take. You did, liking the mild burn with which the red liquid tinted your throat. But when you went to borrow another sip, some of it missed your mouth and ran down your chin before carelessly dripping onto your shirt.

“Shit.”

Jihoon immediately began laughing as you wiped your chin with your hand before inspecting the stain on your shirt with furrowed brows. And as he kept laughing you diverted your focus to him, unable to keep a smile of your own from forming at the sight and sound of his laughter.

“I’m glad you find my misery amusing,” you muttered, no real contempt to be found in the seams of your words.

Jihoon nodded enthusiastically, laughter slowly calming. “Me too.”

And another silence paid a visit once you handed him his bottle back, but a less disturbing one this time. One that you didn’t immediately feel like you needed to break. Though, you still did, after a while.

“Sorry for coming up here and disturbing you, by the way.” You felt like you needed to tell Jihoon that.

You saw his head shaking in your peripherals, hand waving dismissively.

“No, no. The company is actually nicer than I’d have thought.” His head turned to you. “Thanks.”

You let your eyes find his.

“Oh. No, it’s nothing,” you insisted, also shaking your head slightly.

Jihoon sighed gently.

“No, it’s something.” A brief pause introduced his next words. “You are.”

And you really wondered if he knew your feelings then. As did your heart, begging for answers as it pounded harshly in your chest and sent blood to glow through the skin of your cheeks.

But as he smiled at you, head tilted and soft features complimented by the moon that cast its light upon them, his eyes still looked like they were dying. And it hurt.

You knew he didn’t feel the same. Yet your heart persisted, its stomach growling and wanting and it was becoming unbearable. Because even though you knew, your heart was saying that you didn’t. And your heart was suddenly so loud, louder than your brain as you watched Jihoon beside you.

“Jihoon,” you called, quietly.

He hummed, encouraging you to continue while turning to watch you again. With dying eyes.

Your heart hurt.

There was so much you wanted to ask him, then so much you wanted to tell him, then even more you wanted to ask him again. But all of that felt too complicated and you couldn’t bear it in that moment, sick of chaos and uncertainty.

So the simple question that won the race to fall off your tongue was “can I kiss you?”

Jihoon quickly looked surprised, eyes wide and exposed in your direction. Despite the heartbeat in your ears and the nervous lump in your throat as you put your happiness on the line, you found yourself wondering for what reason he was surprised. Was he surprised that you wanted to kiss him or that you had asked to?

But the internal question dwindled away once Jihoon’s expression morphed into one of wonder, panic and dread beginning to swell in the pit of your stomach. You thought you started sensing nausea as the muscle in your chest pounded violently, meeting Jihoon’s stupefaction with a face probably drained of all color.

Until he nodded, ever so subtly.

You stopped breathing, stopped feeling, stopped working. Surely, you must have been mistaken, you thought.

“Really?” you asked, dumbly, all bodily functions frozen.

Jihoon tried to suppress a chuckle at your comical disbelief, smile radiant on his face.

“Yeah.”

For some reason you hesitated. Before leaning in and pressing your lips to his. And butterflies made themselves at home among your innards. And cozy warmth grew from your chest before spreading into the rest of your body. And Jihoon’s hand held your neck while yours clenched his shirt. And his tongue was soft as you licked it slowly. And he tasted stronger of wine than you did. And his scent was so comfortable and disarming. And you realized that you had been the one to ask him for a gift, even though it was his birthday. And you pulled away. And he pulled you back. And you melted in his arms. And his fingers grazed the skin under your shirt. And your own brushed through the dark locks of his hair. And a tingling heat started to whine below your navel. And you kissed and kissed and kissed, the moon and your cheering heart your only other witnesses.

Your heavy, materialized breaths mingled in the air between you as Jihoon pulled away, half-lidded eyes watching you unerringly. You could feel the deep color that stained the surface of your cheeks, enjoying that Jihoon had it, too. Pleasant tingles danced inside your rib cage and the low temperatures around you were no longer as bothersome.

Then Jihoon cursed, his head hanging.

Slightly alarmed, you voiced a breathy “what?”

Jihoon held and released a breath, then met your gaze again.

“The apartment’s filled with people. We can’t go there.”

Your heart skipped a beat then, breath hitching for a moment. Because there was only one thing he could have been implying with such a statement, the dilated pupils of his eyes only supporting your suspicions.

Jihoon did not wait for a reply, as he soon dove in to leave gentle kisses along your neck and it felt so good you didn’t realize when your eyelids fell shut again. But still, you couldn’t help but wonder why he would have wanted to go even further with you.

You let your eyes meet his as he pulled away again and held you, all but breathing into your mouth.

“How far away is your place, again?” he asked.

A few moments passed but no words fell from your tongue, speechlessness choking at your ability to speak.

Jihoon noticed, suddenly looking worried.

“A-are you alright?”

Your muscles tensed then, figure instinctively leaning into him.

“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just-... Are you sure you wanna-.... with me?”

A frown formed wrinkles across Jihoon’s shadowy forehead and he needed a moment before answering.

“Wha- Yes, yes. I want to.”

“Why?”

His gaze shifted between your eyes, occasionally your lips, before his light touch tickled your jaw softly, a sigh escaping his lungs.

“Well, because I’m attracted to you. I guess.”

Your whole body felt as though it was set aflame then, dopamine creating a delightful daze that doubtlessly made your eyes light up.

“Are you really?” you questioned, words tasting like sugar.

Jihoon grinned tenderly, nodding before confirming that “yes, I am”.

Of course you couldn’t resist.

So the two of you took the next bus to your apartment, exchanging shy looks and repressed giggles through lighthearted conversation as he held your hand through the ride and you were on cloud nine. After arriving at your place, a couple of moments passed of endearing awkwardness before either of you found the courage to make a move again. But eventually he did, in turn leading you to your bed where the two of you gently undressed one another between kisses and more repressed giggles. Giggles which later turned into moans and grunts and your hands gripping onto the skin of his back and his breathy praises brushing against the side of your neck and your sticky foreheads pressed together. He called you beautiful and made you feel beautiful and all you knew how to respond with were whiny gasps of his name that he seemed to enjoy wholeheartedly. And your heart never stopped singing.

When you were watching something Netflix had recommended you a while afterwards, his shirt hugging your form and his lean fingers playing with yours, he turned to watch you instead of the movie that was playing. And he kept watching you until you were forced to watch back. And you noticed that his eyes were still dying. And your heart’s singing lowered in volume.

“Thank you,” his smooth voice told you, smile charming across the pink of his mouth.

You smiled, too, looking down bashfully for a second. And you heard the small crack that formed in the walls of your heart but were too scared to ask the question which could have given you the answer capable of mending that crack. Because another answer to the same question could have broken your heart entirely.

“Happy birthday,” you said, making Jihoon grin and you loved him.

You knew he didn’t feel the same about you as you did about him. And now your heart knew it, too. But you also knew that he did feel something for you, whatever that something may have been. And for tonight, that was enough.

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writesaboutbangtan17 · 8 years

Text

customer satisfaction

woozi x reader smut

20,480 words

a/n: my first woozi fic, my first seventeen fic, my first kpop fic. this was supposed to be something really simple and silly, but my dumb ass had to go and add a bunch of sadness and backstory to it, as always. as you can see, it got dramatically out of hand. i’m so sorry, i hope someone likes it

~ in which you haven’t gotten off in like six months, and lee jihoon is the pleasure specialist, himself. (he’s also a little bit more than that.)

“I promise you, you won’t regret this,” Wendy reassured you, but they were words she always said right before she convinced you to do something that you definitely would regret. She’d used them very often over the past year, during which she’d somehow persuaded you into going on roughly thirty blind dates that she’d set up in her desperate attempts to get you “back out there.” You knew her heart was in the right place, but every single date had been a disaster.

The problem was that if she knew a guy who wasn’t already taken, there was a reason for it. The first set-up been with a guy named Jinho who still lived with his ex-girlfriend (in a one bedroom apartment) and adamantly refused to wear deodorant; one guy, Jinwoo, told you he had recently quit his job and moved back in with his parents because he hadn’t had enough time to play League; you’d tried so hard to will yourself to forget the second to last guy, but how could you forget the name (Daehyun) of someone who sat down across from you and proceeded to ignore you for the whole two hours it took him to eat a salad, baked potato, and two steaks before “suddenly realizing” he forgot his wallet, telling you he didn’t think you were his type, and leaving you to foot the bill.

The most recent potential suitor had been named Chanhee, and he’d actually seemed really great. He insisted on buying you popcorn and a drink at the movies, made you laugh with jokes about how bad the movie unsurprisingly ended up being, and suggested getting pizza instead of going to the fancy restaurant where Wendy had taken it upon herself to make a reservation for the two of you. When he walked you to your door at the end of the night, he didn’t even try to kiss you, which was a relief. Most of the guys you’d been set up with were mainly interested in getting you out of your clothes and into your bed all before they’d even learned your last name. So you made up your mind that you’d ask Chanhee if you could meet up again, to which he eagerly answered that he’d love to, and then asked him if Monday night for drinks was good?, insisting you’d rather see him sooner than later.

But of course, whatever higher powers that be were obviously working against you, and perfect Chanhee stuttered through an apology about not having a fake ID and how he had a big calculus test on Tuesday morning that he had to study for (“or my mom will kill me.”) You’d never bailed on a date so fast before, not even the guy who showed up to meet you at a club wearing Crocs. The poor kid spent over an hour pounding on your front door and begging you to come talk to him, before seemingly giving up. “Probably because he had to get home before curfew,” Wendy had laughed, trying to make light of the situation when you showed up at her place offering death threats the next morning.

You didn’t find the joke funny.

(She’d also said, “It’s just a minor setback,” through giggles, “we’ll find you a really good adult man soon,” at which point you stomped out of her house, slamming her door behind you, and got to work ignoring all her attempts at contacting you for several weeks. It took an offer you absolutely couldn’t refuse to stop giving her the cold shoulder; one desperate text promising she’d come over and wash your dishes every other day for a month if you’d just start answering her damn calls. You had immediately messaged her back telling her that your sink was full and she needed to come over right away.)

After The Chanhee Incident, you decided that romantic companionship was simply not in the cards for you. You’d sworn off Wendy’s blind dates and men entirely, which you were mostly fine with. They’d never done much besides break your heart or otherwise emotionally damage you, anyways.

The small part of you that wasn’t as happy about this decision was no piece of your brain or your heart, it was a part of you that was…a little further south. It had been over a year since you’d last had sex, since your first and last serious boyfriend had cut you off long before the relationship itself had ended (courtesy of the other women he was sleeping with instead). It hadn’t seemed like much of a loss at the time, since he’d never been great in bed to begin with, and you’d always had a way with your hands. Rub here, pinch there, then a little prodding—and you were off to O-Town.

You’d never anticipated that your own body would turn on you like this and suddenly stop responding to your tried and true methods. At first, it had just taken you longer; where you were once seeing stars in ten minutes, tops, it was now taking twenty minutes, then half an hour. Instead of being able to hop in bed and get off whenever you felt like it without any interruption to your usual schedule, you had to plan ahead of time when you were going to masturbate. That only made it worse, since jotting down “masturbate” in your planner at 11 o’clock, once you’d gotten home from work and eaten something, but needing to get it over with soon enough that you’d get a decent night’s sleep really killed the mood. It had gone on like this until one day, it seemed your body just shut itself off. Sure, you could get a good buzz going, but climax never came.

Wendy had suggested having a good old one-night-stand, and while you weren’t one to judge those who took part in them, they really weren’t for you. If you were having sex with someone, you’d prefer to at least know them at a base level and think they were a decent person. If Wendy’s blind dates were any indication, you just weren’t going to meet somebody like that.

The one time you’d thrown caution to the wind and decided fuck it, I don’t care how awful this guy is, I just wanna get laid, had been a nightmare. His name was Hyunsik and Wendy had arranged for you to meet at a coffee shop, where he spent the first thirty minutes of your date describing the traffic on his way there in excruciating detail, before ruminating on how concerned he was over his cat’s most recent bowel movements for a good hour. Two hours after first meeting, when your date had moved to a dinky little restaurant down the road, Hyunsik was talking about how his mother called him last night and talked him through making kimchi fried rice. He was telling you every step, very slowly, exactly as she’d told him. You found him boring and obnoxious, but at that point it had been nearing six months since your last orgasm and you were feeling particularly despondent. As Hyunsik mimicked a violent stirring motion, you decided he had nice hands. And upon further inspection, you decided he had pretty nice hair, too. And you decided that you’d go home with him.

What a horrible mistake that had been. As soon as you stepped through his front door, he started screaming because his cat had pooped on his couch. You had to clean it up for him. He offered to pour you a glass of wine, but he took a sip of his own as he was carrying yours over and promptly spat it out all over you because it had gone bad. After trying (and failing) to appropriately clean yourself up in the bathroom, you came back out into the living room and he was nowhere to be found. He’d put on music, and apparently his idea of mood music was early 2000’s pop because “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy was the background noise to you getting fed up after waiting twenty minutes for him, and discovering him half-dressed cuddling with his cat in his bed. Potential orgasm be damned, you refused to sleep with that man.

As you walked home from Hyunsik’s in the cold that night, calling Wendy a thousand times and putting curses on her in your head every time she didn’t answer, you wondered if you’d ever have a decent orgasm again. It was starting to seem like the answer to that question was a resounding fuck no, which was frankly putting a damper on your entire life. This constant need to get off had you on edge at work; in classes; when you had the rare chance to see friends; when you sucked it up and visited your parents. Everyone noticed that you were tense and unhappy, and the only person you could turn to for advice was Wendy.

Which brought you to this moment in time, sitting in your car with your phone pressed to your ear, Wendy promising that “you won’t regret this.” You jumped at the sound of another car passing by, taking note of exactly what make and model it was, running that information through your brain to determine if the people in that car could possibly be anyone who would recognize you.

“Do we know anybody who drives a silver Honda Civic?” You interrupted her, eyes manically looking one way down the road, then the other, back and forth and back and forth. Wendy heaved a sigh before repeating for the dozenth time or so time in this one conversation, “Y/N, you’re not going to see anybody you know. That’s just not gonna happen, that’s not real life.” Her words did not comfort or convince you even a little bit.

Of course, she had gone to the trouble of finding a shop for you outside of town, dramatically decreasing your chances of being recognized in your great journey to…buy a vibrator. At 21-years-of-age, you had never even considered buying a sex toy, but that was much less about being against sex toys and much more about how you’d get one. The idea of parking outside of an adult store and having to walk up to it in front of however many people in cars passing by made you want to shrivel up and die, and the idea of ordering one online and having it sit outside your door one day while you were at work for all your neighbors to see had the same effect.

But as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures, and you were thoroughly desperate. Maybe if you’d never known what it was like to have an orgasm, you could have gone on in this life without one...but that was simply not an option. You had never been more determined to do anything in your life than to get yourself off again.

“Ok, Wendy, I…I’m gonna go inside,” you finally said, after fifteen minutes of hiding in your car. You could just see her huge smile of relief in your head as she replied, “Good! I’m so proud of you! Remember to buy something that plugs in, not battery-powered!” With a groan, you hung up on her and shoved your phone into your purse, then pulled up the hood of your jacket and stepped out onto the sidewalk. According to the directions you’d been given, the shop was just down this road, in a little alleyway to the left. You figured it would take less than five minutes to get there, and tried to pump yourself up as you slowly made your way. You’re an adult, you reminded yourself, this is a perfectly normal adult thing that adults do. There’s no reason to be embarrassed.

You supposed the place seemed inconspicuous enough—it was sandwiched between a drug store on the corner and an exotic cheese shop, with windows tinted dark enough that nobody could see the goings on beyond them, and a sign over the door that read Bits & Pieces Boutique in a neat red script. There were no neon triple X’s like similar shops displayed, for which you were thankful. All of these things combined still didn’t make you feel much better about going inside, but you mustered up what little courage you could, grabbed the handle, and forced yourself to take that first step across its threshold.

A quick eye-level scan of the shop revealed a lot to you; you weren’t sure what you were expecting, but there was nothing particularly extraordinary about the place. It looked like any other store would, with rows of shelves, display tables, products hung on the walls, the check-out counter in the back, and bad fluorescent lighting. Ariana Grande sang through out and you just didn’t know how to feel—this was all so…normal. Too normal. You pulled your coat tighter around you, resolving not to let your guard down.

To your left was a wrinkly old man perusing the large selection of flavored condoms and lube, holding hands with a woman who was clearly less than half his age. As you hurried past them, you couldn’t help but notice the ball gag, furry handcuffs, and box of libido enhancers in the basket hanging at the crook of her elbow. You stopped in one aisle with butt plugs and nipple enlargers down one side and DVDs down the other. Through sheer power of will, you ignored the movie titled “Mrs. Dashing and the Dick of Her Dreams”, with a lady on the cover who looked a lot like an old high school science teacher of yours circa 1972.

From behind, you could hear the young woman asking her partner which cock ring he wanted, and he chose one called the Ball Banger. His tone of voice gave away the smile on his face as he did so. Despite your morbid curiosity, you refused to look back and see how the supposed “ball banging” took place.

Instead you pushed on, next finding yourself standing in front of a table filled with aromatherapy products, lotions, creams, and candles; then the one next to it displaying oral sex kits, clit pumps, and testicle binders. You had never imagined that things like this existed, especially not in so many varieties. It was overwhelming, to say the least. One aisle you passed through, which you could only determine to be the novelty aisle, featured among many sex card games and not-safe-for-work birthdays cards: a blow-up punching bag with a place to put a picture of an ex. If you hadn’t been on a very direct mission, you might have considered buying it.

It was just as you were losing hope that this store even had vibrators (although you had assumed they were a sex toy staple), that you saw it: the wall beside the check-out counter with the words above it in neon lights that read Vibration Station. You swallowed down your deep desire to run away, hop in your car and drive home and pretend this never happened, as you approached it. The first thing you took note of was the range of colors, wondering why anyone would ever want to put anything neon yellow or baby-poop-green inside of their bodies.

The second thing you noticed was the 15-inch flesh-colored dildo proudly stretched out underneath the sign, that just the sight of made you hurt inside.

You were disarmed by the amount of vibrators to choose from, realizing how stupid you had been to not do any research beforehand. What are the qualities of a good vibrator? How much is too much to spend on one? Is this something I was ever supposed to learn? Why didn’t they ever teach me this stuff in Sex Ed? All you could assume was that something really cheap would probably be weak or break easily, and you remembered Wendy had said to get something that you could charge instead of something you had to put batteries in. But what materials should it be made out of? How intense should the vibrations be? And for God’s sake what is a neutral, normal color to get one in?

Just as you had grabbed one to read the details on the box, you heard the bell over the door chime, and saw your life flash before your eyes. All the times you’d smiled, frowned, scowled, laughed, cried, and yelled…everything you’d ever experienced would mean nothing if the person who had just walked through that door was say, your boss. Or your mother, or an old classmate, or the old lady who sold ice cream on your street corner, or your cat, or the guy you saw walking by you as you left work the other day, or the priest from that time your parents made you go to church for a couple weeks as a child.

Without looking up to see who exactly it was that had come through or possibly gone out the door, you bolted to the counter in a blind panic, needing to leave as quickly as possible. It was only as you were about to throw the vibrator down by the cash register that you even saw what it was called—the Big Boss Thruster. A plus-sized, bright pink vibe that made thrusting motions. You would have grabbed it and put it back immediately, if the person behind the counter hadn’t already taken it out of your hands. You slowly looked up with a bright scarlet flame licking up your cheeks, bracing for the embarrassment that was sure to hit you in a monsoon-sized wave.

God has it out for me, you thought to yourself, now I know for sure. You thought you’d steeled yourself for any possibility, whether the worker be an old lady who would tease you good-naturedly, or a hot dude to remind you of everything you were missing out on, or whoever in between. Nothing could have prepared you, however, for looking up into the always judgmental eyes of your next door neighbor. You noticed them widen just a fraction as he realized exactly who’d handed the Big Boss Thruster over to him, and his mouth drop open as if he meant to gasp, but was holding it back in an effort to remain professional.

Of course, for you, professionalism was not a concern.

“Jihoon?!” you screeched, wishing the earth would open up beneath your feet and suck you in right then and there. He dropped the Big Boss Thruster back onto the counter and flailed his arms in some vain attempt at hushing you. “Are you fucking kidding me?! This is a joke, right? Wendy put you up to this? Please, Jihoon, please fucking tell me that this isn’t real, you are not actually standing there actually about to sell this to me. Am I having a nightmare? I’m right on the verge of a breakdown, Jihoon, say somethi—”

“Stop calling me that,” he hissed, slapping his palms down on the counter. Of all things, you had not expected him to say that, and it at least confused you enough to get you to stop rambling. Between taking deep breaths to calm yourself down, you raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “Call me…Woozi,” he continued, “don’t look at me like that. We get some weird customers, so we use fake names, sometimes.”

You almost laughed, but the other thoughts and emotions that were paralyzing you kept you from finding it very humorous. You were quite sure, at this point, that the moment you’d walked into the Bits & Pieces Boutique you had stepped into an alternate reality. There was no way that, in your actual life during which you had always tried to be a good and decent person, any deity could put you through so much torture. One half of your brain was concocting a devious plan to get back at the gods, planning all the sins you were going to commit because you’d be damned if you were going to get dealt a hand this bad without milking it for all it was worth. The other half of your brain was visualizing the shop behind you, calculating what would be your fastest escape route.

Down the aisle with all the fuzzy handcuffs, take a right to pass the fifty copies of “Mrs. Dashing and the Dick of Her Dreams” and go around the cart with all the flavored lubes and condoms. That would take you directly to the door, at which point you’d rush home and try to forget this ever happened. In the morning you’d strategize on how to avoid Jihoon (Woozi?) at all costs until you could end your lease and move across the country. Solid plan, you straight lied to yourself. You’d taken one backwards step, seconds away from making a run for it, when Jihoon (…Woozi) let out a deep breath and asked,

“Did any of our Pleasure Specialists help you find what you needed today?” You blanched at the words Pleasure Specialist, and belatedly realized that was what was stitched across the chest of the sweatshirt he was wearing, with a name tag reading “Woozi” on his left side. Instead of pointing out that he was the only employee you had seen in the rather small shop, you meekly shook your head. With a forced smile, Jihoon-Woozi set the vibrator back down and asked, “Well are you sure this is what you want? The Big Boss is a decent vibe, but in my opinion the price is just for the gimmick. Let me show you some other products.” Then, to your abject horror, he rounded the counter and started walking back towards the wall of vibrators you’d just moments ago been standing in front of.

Oh, no, no no no no no, you chanted in your head, he’s completely out of his mind if he thinks I’m gonna have him suggesting vibrators for me to use right next door to him. The thought both terrified and excited you, but you smothered the latter feeling to the best of your ability. I’m going home, you decided, to die of embarrassment in peace.

And yet, you were taking one step after him—then another, and another, and another and another and another until your pattern of footsteps could reasonably be considered walking. Your own two feet were following behind him as if they had a mind of their own. “If you’re into realistic stuff, we have plenty of better options. The Big Boss is fine but the real thing isn’t bright pink, you know?” Jihoon-Woozi was saying, as if he was telling you, but he was mostly talking to fill up the dead silent, empty space. To top it off, under his breath, he mumbled, “Do you know?” You chose to ignore that, stopping a good three feet away from him, asking yourself why you hadn’t left when you had the chance.

The answer was as simple as this: you couldn’t take back walking in this store and you couldn’t control the fact that Jihoon of all people had to be working here, fifty plus miles from home. And if you stuck it out just a little bit longer, you’d be leaving this hell with the one thing that could possibly end your months of stress and suffering. If you couldn’t turn back time and keep yourself from coming in, then another ten minutes in this store of having a vibrator selected just to fit your tastes couldn’t make things any worse than they already were.

“Hello, Y/N? Are you listening to me?” Jihoon-Woozi was waving not just a hand in front of your face, but a box decorated with stars, stripes and red block letters calling the large flesh-colored vibrator depicted on it the All American Whopper. You hadn’t been listening to him at all, too busy drowning in your own thoughts of how you couldn’t fall any further than rock bottom, but you wished you had been as you swatted it away. Jihoon-Woozi snickered and held up the All American Whopper and another box, purple with pink loops that came together to make the words Power Stud Vibe.

“If you want a realistic vibrator, I suggest one of these bad boys. The Whopper is made of skin-safe rubber and the Stud is made of silicone; both have seven vibration modes, are an inch and a half wide, and can be angled to rub the G-spot. But the Whopper has a suction cup for hands-free fun, and the wide base on the Stud vibrates for added clit stimulation. What do you think?” You were pretty sure you had never been more wrong in your life—just when you thought things were as bad as they could possibly get, they took a sharp nosedive for the worst. The yet undiscovered tenth circle of hell had opened up right around you, and Jihoon-Woozi was smirking at your discomfort like he was the devil himself. Of course he’d take satisfaction in your agony, that was so like him.

“I’m not…I’m not really into realistic stuff. I just want something…good. And pretty?” Jihoon-Woozi turned on his heel, putting both of his suggestions back in their place. With his back turned, you tried to pat away the burn on your cheeks but you were sure it had little effect. You watched Jihoon-Woozi running his fingertips over several boxes, head turning this way and that, thinking hard. He was humming to himself, and you tuned in just enough to decipher the main melody of an old SHINee song. Not that humming was hard to do, but it at least seemed to you that he had perfect pitch.

“Good and pretty, I can do that,” Jihoon-Woozi said, as if to assure you, and you closed your eyes as if not looking could make you believe it wasn’t him, “but are you more interested in clit stimulation or vaginal insertion?” I’m more interested in evaporating into nothing, you thought, but out loud you said in a voice barely above a whisper, “Um…both. I think.” You opened your eyes again just in time to see Jihoon-Woozi bite his lip in deep focus. Your stomach definitely did not churn at the sight.

“Ah, here it is,” Woozi finally said, and got on his tip toes to slide a simple black box off of a higher shelf. When he looked back to you and handed it over, his face was blank. He didn’t rattle off the details this time, and you took a moment to read them for yourself: over a plastic see-through top, gold letters read L’Amourose Prism VII, and beyond them was the vibrator itself, delicately curved and pastel pink, with a wide round tip and a short arm at its halfway point. The handle had diamond-shaped embellishments, and Woozi had definitely nailed the “pretty” part of your request. You could put this up in your living room and no one would guess that it was a sex toy and not some miniature abstract sculpture. The back of the box told you that it was made out of 100% silicone, had four insertable inches, and featured nine vibrating speeds with five different modes.

Without much knowledge on vibrators, you decided that all sounded good enough to you. You’d only had to look at it for half a second before you knew it was the one; it already had you squeezing your thighs together in anticipation.

“What do you think?” Woozi asked. You’d almost forgotten he was there. When you looked up at him and saw that he had his bottom lip caught between his teeth again, a wave of arousal rolled over you. You had to get home right now. You answered him with a hard swallow and frantic nodding, sure he’d know what you meant.

“Don’t you...want to know more details?” He tried, to you violently shaking your head “no.” One corner of his lip quirked up in another semi-smirk, and this time you didn’t even want to smack it off of him, it just made you squirm.

“Well I wouldn’t be a very good Pleasure Specialist if I didn’t let you know what you were in for,” he said, and in your haze of need it sounded more like a purr. Woozi took a step closer to you, reaching out and touching the underside of your hand with his own. If you hadn’t been too worried about dropping this precious gift he’d given you, you would have jerked away. That simple touch electrified you.

I’m disgusting, you thought, desperate and disgusting. I’d fuck him right here and now. Of course, on Woozi’s end the touch was not sensual, he was simply guiding you to turn the box back over.

“It’s 100% silicone, it feels like a soft velvet,” he told you, pulling off the lid. You lifted your other hand to take the vibrator out of it’s mold, but Woozi beat you to it. It was impossible to hide your wide eyes zeroed in on it in his hands—he was holding something you’d have in you for hours later tonight, while he was right across the hall. He can’t stand you, Y/N, you reminded yourself, he’s just acting like this to embarrass you.

But you really didn’t care anymore. You knew this image of him watching you with that roguish half smirk on his face, with his delicate and slim fingers wrapped around your vibrator would be imprinted on the inside of your eyelids whenever you fucked yourself with it.

“A USB charger plugs in here,” he slid a small plastic piece off the base to show you exactly where “here” was, “an hour of charge gives you three hours of use, if you can last that long.” Remembering this moment would help you last twice as long.

“There are four inches to fill yourself up with,” he took another step closer, “and once you’re stuffed with it, this little arm will be pressed snug against your clit.” You squeezed your thighs together again, noticing a distinct squish between them. If you hadn’t been so fucking delirious with want, you’d have thought that Woozi definitely wasn’t supposed to be speaking to customers this way.

“It has nine vibrating speeds, so you can start slow, and keep turning it up to push yourself closer and closer to the edge,” it had gotten so, so much warmer in this shop since you’d stepped over here, you felt a light sheen of sweat settling over your brow, “but once you’re almost there, you’ll turn it back down, slide off the ledge before you can throw yourself over. Because you’re such a little tease you can’t help but tease even yourself, right?” You couldn’t think straight, could barely comprehend the words he was saying, but you nodded. The smirk that was making your knees weak dropped off of his face, replaced with his lips pulled into a tight line and his dark eyes glaring hard into yours.

“Here, feel it,” Woozi said, his voice soft but demanding, and for a second you really thought he might rip your jeans off and shove it in between your legs in the middle of his shift, in the middle of this store, in front of the old man and young woman who were still looking at condoms and lube.

Still looking at condoms and lube? It felt like painfully, deliciously long hours had passed as the sexual tension smothered you back here, and it surprised you to realize Woozi had turned you on so much in such a short time by doing so little. You’d always had a bit of a schoolgirl crush on him, no matter how rude and unpleasant he was, but you never could have imagined he’d have this kind of effect on you.

You didn’t notice Woozi’s hand raising, didn’t notice the soft snort he gave as he realized how spaced out you were, but you were shocked back into the moment by the feeling of soft vibrations on the tip of your nose. You gasped, going cross eyed to see the bulbous tip of the vibrator pressed there.

“The clitoris and the tip of your nose have similar sensitivity levels,” you couldn’t believe Woozi could still sound so sexy saying something so ridiculous, “Well? Would that feel good on your clit?” Fuck, yes, it would. He didn’t have to wait for an affirmative cue from you, he could tell by the look in your eyes and the way your neck moved. You were gulping, trying to wet your dry throat.

“I know it would,” he said, “just like I know you’ll be a good girl and try not to wake me with your screaming tonight, right? I work early tomorrow, I know you don’t wanna keep me up?” He waited for your nod, so sure you’d be obedient and agree with him.

“I can’t make any promises,” you whispered. What you didn’t say was that even though earlier you’d been ready to get as far away from as you could as quickly as possible, now you wanted him to be achingly aware of you getting off every night with the toy he had so graciously suggested to you. Woozi didn’t say anything back, and his face didn’t reveal much to you, just his narrowed eyes that seemed to imply he wasn’t exactly pleased with you. He never is, your pesky meddling brain reminded you, this is the only way he ever looks at me.

And just like that, the suffocating sexual tension of the past five minutes came to an abrupt end. It had been easy for awhile there to just focus on how good-looking Jihoon-Woozi was, and on the nasty inappropriate words coming out of his mouth, but there was nothing like remembering how much he’d always disliked you to kill the mood. You took a wide side step, letting the vibrator hang in thin air where it had once been pressed against your nose, and coughed to clear your throat.

“Well, I’ll take it,” you announced, refusing to look over at him. You held the box out and felt the slight weight difference of the vibrator being gently placed back into it, then slid the top back on and held the box tight to your chest. Beneath it, you could just barely feel your rapid heartbeat.

Your walk back to the counter was more like a sprint, like the further away from the Vibration Station you were, the less you’d have to endure this sudden empty feeling. It was a physical emptiness, of course, as you felt the ooze coating the inside of your underwear. But there was a distinctly emotional emptiness as well, that you successfully, immediately ignored after detecting it. Yeah, I’m definitely gonna pass on that today. Now was not the time or the place to try and unpack repressed emotional baggage that you’d been carrying for possible years.

“Did any of our Pleasure Specialists help you find what you needed today?” It was a different voice this time, and you found that the person at the cash register now was a middle-aged woman, just beginning to sprout gray hairs, smiling warmly at you. You were too fucked up to give her a real answer, so you shook your head and hoped she hadn’t seen you talking to Jihoon-Woozi a mere two yards away from her. Luckily, even if she had, she wasn’t in a position to point out your obvious lie. She just gave a nod and proceeded with ringing up the vibrator.

“Alright, that’ll be one hundred twenty seven dollars and twenty cents.” Your hand that had been instinctively handing over your card already dropped. The lady behind the counter, who you now noticed was fake-named Scarlet according to her name tag, seemed unfazed by your gaping at her. It was obvious that you were surprised by the price, and she must have been wondering what kind of idiot you were to not have looked at it beforehand, but she kept those thoughts off of her face, only watching you expectantly.

Maybe he gets some bonus for selling their most expensive products, you thought bitterly. That would definitely explain why he’d randomly turned on Sexy Woozi for you—he was just trying to squeeze as much cash out of you as he could. The idea that he’d play you like that hurt, but you had to remind yourself that you weren’t special to him. In his eyes, you might as well have been any other customer on any other day, minus the sparse-and-somewhat-complicated history you two had.

Against your better judgment, you looked back to where you’d last left Jihoon-Woozi, wanting to give him a good glare, but he wasn’t standing there anymore. Where the shelves of vibrators ended, you saw a door with a handwritten “Employees Only” sign and figured he must have disappeared through it.

“Ma’am? I don’t want to rush you, but there are other customers waiting,” this so-called “Scarlet” spoke up. If common sense and knowing they were the only other people in the store wasn’t enough of an indication that it was the old man and young woman, the murmurs of her asking if he wanted to use the fuzzy handcuffs tonight were. Overwhelmed by anger, some hurt, a light disgust, and mostly a roaring from your vagina insisting that an orgasm is worth $127!, you pressed your card into “Scarlet”’s hand with a huff. You reasoned that you’d make Wendy buy you a decent dinner once a week for the next month to make up for the bullshit you’d been through over the past few weeks because of her, and that combined with the dish washing might begin to make up for all of it, financially and otherwise.

“Scarlet” rang up your purchase and placed the L’Amourose into a nondescript plain black plastic bag. It was so undistinguished that it was almost even more obvious what was inside of it, at least that’s what your anxious mind had you convinced of. You took the bag and your card into your hands and turned away, in the opposite direction of where the odd couple was standing so you wouldn’t have to see whatever touching and cooing at each other they were doing. You didn’t even tell “Scarlet” to have a nice day, and you didn’t feel guilty about it as you walked away, either. Of course, from behind you, she shouted in a cheery voice, “Please come again!”

You didn’t miss the emphasis on the word come and promised in your head that you’d never drive down this road again, you’d never come within five miles of this place again, you’d never even step foot on this side of town again, if you could help it.

Moving at the fastest pace you could manage without running, you exited the shop and took what felt like your first breath in hours as soon as you had traveled halfway down the alley. The exotic cheese store seemed like it was mocking you, want to come inside? Too bad you’re carrying a fake vibrating dick in that bag and have just been completely traumatized by your satanic neighbor. But you’d been completely traumatized and completely turned on, to the point of feeling like anyone who happened to pass you on your way to your car would be able to hear the squelch of the arousal pooled between your legs.

At the end of the alley, you looked both ways to see if there were any other people strolling down the sidewalk. You were relieved that there weren’t, since you definitely didn’t want to hide behind the dumpster against the opposite wall (but you would have if you had to). Then made a break for your car.

“Dear Wendy,” you read out loud as you typed out a text, comfortably hidden back behind the wheel with your bag of dick tucked securely into the seat beside you, “I’m probably gonna kill you the next time I see you. But I got it, so please do me a favor and stay away from my apartment for the next 24 hours.” Sent.

It had been two years since you moved into your apartment. At the time, you’d still been with your ex, Seungri. Nowadays you knew it wasn’t really okay for a 23-year-old to date an 18-year-old, fresh out of high school and living on their own for the first time, still impressionable and easily manipulated. But back then, you’ just liked the attention from an older guy.

On that fateful day, you were age 19 and had been with him for a little over a year. That seemed like a good amount of time to warrant him helping you move out of your dorm and into this place, but he told you he’d made plans already and couldn’t get out of them. Wendy would have helped, but she was visiting her parents, and you weren’t close enough with anybody else to ask them to suffer through this for you.

So you were alone when you walked up to your door for the first time to find an unaddressed envelope taped below your peephole. Inside you found a less-than-friendly note, “To 203A.” The plate above your peephole displayed that 203A was, indeed, you. A few messily scrawled lines explained that should you fail to keep your music down, or should so much as a yip from a dog be heard, or should you leave any mess outside of your front door, etc. you’d be immediately reported to your landlord.

It was signed off, “Thanks, 203B.” This was your first (informal) introduction to the man you would later come to know as Lee Jihoon.

It was only days later that you got home from class one afternoon to find exactly twenty four shoes piled up on his welcome mat, and a chorus of male voices inside loudly singing along to Girl’s Generation. You hurried into your apartment, throwing your bag down on your kitchen counter and digging through it until you found exactly what you needed. Five minutes later, a bright pink sticky note was stuck over his peephole, with your insistence that he was not only rude but a hypocrite scratched onto it in glittery purple pen. Love, 203A. All the shoes and noise were gone within a couple of hours, but the note stayed on his door taunting you for a week until you ripped it off and threw it away yourself.

A month or so passed before you finally met the ever elusive 203B face-to-face. It was 2 A.M. and Seungri was laughing as you stumbled down your hall, completely wasted. He would grab you if you were going to fall flat on your face, but otherwise let you slip on the stairs and run into walls simply for his entertainment. When you finally found yourself at your door, you squatted down in front of it and start to rummage through your bag for your keys.

“What’s taking so long?” Seungri whined. He wasn’t really drunk, just had a buzz going. If you hadn’t been so far gone, you would have known that he still shouldn’t have been driving like that. But you had failed an exam in one of your classes, and when you called him crying about it, Seungri’s best idea was to fill you up with drinks so you could just forget. Many beers, a few mixed drinks, and two or three shots later, here you were, unable to find your key.

“Can I…jusssst stay overatyerplace tonight?” A good boyfriend wouldn’t have needed any convincing, but you shot him your best puppy dog eyes, for good measure. In the morning, you could have Wendy bring over the spare key you’d given her in case of emergencies to let you in, but you did need somewhere to sleep. Seungri scrunched his nose, kicked his feet. Clearly the idea of you staying over was not very appealing to him.

“Does that mean I’ll get lucky?” He asked. Even Drunk You had enough wits about her to be unimpressed.

“Nooo, I’m not…I’m not gonna sex with you right now,” you slurred at him, putting on an angry face, eyebrows knitted together and all. Seungri laughed, leaning down and pushing the wrinkles out of your forehead. “Well I can’t bring you over to my place, Daesung has some girls over,” he told you, like that meant shit in this situation. What you didn’t know at the time was that Seungri had every intention of hooking up with at least one of them since he wasn’t getting any out of you. He rose back up to his feet and took a cautious step backwards.

“You can call Wendy and have her come pick you up, right?” Tomorrow you’d be making up excuses for why he couldn’t just take you over to Wendy’s himself, but at the time, you just nodded dumbly. He gave you two thumbs-up, and threw a “love you, bye,” over his shoulder before he hopped back down the stairs.

You tried calling Wendy a dozen times, but of course she was asleep in the dead of the night. Then you were knocking on your door, asking your cat to open it. “Twinkie? Twinkieee, canyouhearme? It’s easy, just…jusss’ reach up and turn the knob with…with yer paws?” Twinkie, a fat cream colored beast, did meow at you through the crack under the door, but obviously couldn’t do much else.

It took about an hour and a half for you to start crying. You had called Seungri to essentially beg him to come pick you up and take you somewhere instead of having you sleep on your welcome mat, but he didn’t answer. And the crying didn’t go on for long before you heard a long whine of a creak from behind you. You flipped over as quickly as your body would allow you to, and your hand slipped, so you fell backwards and hit your head on the tiled floor of the hallway.

“Shit, what are you doing?” It was a voice you’d never heard before. You’d thought the creak could only be either of the nice old lady a few doors down coming out to your rescue, or a ghost. Since it definitely wasn’t an old lady’s voice, you determined it had to be the latter. It was just as you felt someone grabbing your shoulders and trying to hoist you up that you started screaming.

“Don’t touch me! I’m alive, you can’t…you can’t take m’ body! Don’t possesh me, pleeasssse…..” And a hand was slapping itself down over your mouth. You managed to get your eyes open enough to see that cold brown gaze for the first time, and you looked this person up and down to see a short, slight body wrapped up in a worn out old pink sweater, grey sweatpants, and socks with holes in the toes.

“Wow, I knew I was avoiding you for a good reason,” that voice said again, and obviously it was his, and he obviously wasn’t a ghost. You immediately felt more relaxed. Underneath his hand, he must have felt your lips shift into a dopey smile, so he let go of your face. Instead both of his hands moved around your shoulders again, and then he was moving you towards the door across the hall.

“203B! You’re 203B!” You squealed, and he shot you a dark look that you immediately understood, giggling as you made an exaggerated hush motion with your finger over your lips. “But you are…you’re 203B. I was…I was wondering if…if I’devermeetyouuu…” you trailed off. He opened the door and led you into his living room.

You could just barely make out that the layout was a mirror image of yours. “I have to pee so bad!” You announced, and tried to rush towards what you knew to be the bathroom door, but stumbled and banged your knee into the coffee table. “Fuck, that hurrrrt!” You spun on your heel and pointed an accusing finger at 203B, although it was actually pointing a little above him, to the left. “Why’d you do that?!” You demanded to know, and got a snort as an answer.

“Sit,” he said, and he sounded like an Angry Dad, so you did as told. There was a raggedy brown couch beside you that you flopped down onto, and you sunk into the cushions happily. The couple of hours you’d spent lying down in the hallway had been really uncomfortable, and your back was sore. You kicked off your heels one by one, not paying any attention to where they went. One of them safely rolled away, while the other flew into the air and was about to land in a fish bowl on the table behind you, but 203B caught it just in time. He threw it down next to the other one before stomping into his bedroom.

You didn’t think much of where he’d gone, you didn’t think much of anything, really. He could have been a violent, sex-crazed deviant but you weren’t in the right state of mind to care. You were just drunk, sad, and really, really tired.

The next thing you knew, you were woken up by the smell of coffee. You peeked an eye open, wondering where you’d ended up last night, panicking. You saw your shoes on the floor and smoothed a hand down your torso to make sure you were fully clothed, relieved to find that your dress and tights were still on.

Ok, now, where the fuck am I? Music theory textbooks were scattered across the coffee table (you definitely didn’t know anybody in the School of Music), an acoustic guitar was propped up in a chair opposite you (you definitely didn’t know anybody who played guitar), and there were many pictures of the same large group of dudes framed on the wall (who the fuck are those people?) The easiest conclusion you could come to was that some stranger had abducted you and you were going to die.

“Thirsty?” On same wild instinct, you shot up and threw the blanket that had been laid over you in the direction the voice had come from. You looked and it was draped over a figure that could barely be your height, standing stock still.

“Uh? Who are you?” Why did I do that? There was no vocal answer from the other person, they just stuck an arm out and pulled the blanket off of themselves, tossing it over the back of the couch. And when you saw their face, it all came rushing back to you. Seungri leaving you on your doorstep, nobody answering your calls, begging your cat to let you inside, and 203B, himself, coming to your rescue.

He stared at you blankly, and you opened and closed your mouth a few times, struggling with what to say. You didn’t know if you should apologize or thank him first, and there was another part of you that wanted to tell him off for daring to leave that note on your door about being too loud when he had weekly karaoke parties, seemingly with every single person he knew.

“I’m Jihoon,” he said, before you could decide which of the things on your mind was the first priority, “203B,” he clarified, “I made coffee. You can have some and then you can leave.” With nothing more to say, he marched back into his kitchen. You stood up to follow him, and the change in altitude made your mouth water with a desperate need to empty out the contents of your stomach. You rushed into the bathroom and heaved into the toilet for a good ten minutes, making a (false) promise to yourself that you’d never drink tequila again.

When you emerged, a plain white mug with steam rising from the top was sitting on the table, and Jihoon was sitting in the chair with the guitar in his lap, leaned over and scribbling some notes in on a piece of sheet music. You cleared your throat to get his attention, and when he didn’t give any indication that he’d heard, you did it again, louder. This time, when he didn’t look at you or say anything, you knew he was purposely ignoring you.

“Thank you for letting me sleep here,” you started, “and sorry for…everything? Probably waking you up, and throwing the blanket at you, and throwing up in your bathroom.” The clock on the wall read 1 o’clock, and the sun was high in the sky, sending streams of light through the blinds. You saw your phone plugged in on the other side of the couch and picked it up, sure that Seungri would have finally called or texted you back to see if you’d made it to Wendy’s safely. But he hadn’t, you just had thirty missed calls from her and many texts demanding you answer her immediately to let her know you were alive. You swallowed the disappointment down. He must be busy, you thought, something you’d told yourself a thousand times.

You sat down and read through each text from Wendy, the last being that she was coming over with the key and you’d better be there when she arrived. You replied that you were fine, and that you were at your neighbors. She sent back many question marks and exclamation points, but you let those go unanswered.

“So you’re a songwriter?” 203B—Jihoon—nodded tersely. You picked up the mug of coffee and took a sip, just to instantly let it dribble back out of your mouth because it tasted like tar.

“Wow, I never would’ve guessed that a college girl only likes pumpkin spice lattes or some shit,” Jihoon mocked you, earning a frown. But you didn’t say anything back because he’d been nice enough to give you a place to stay overnight, so he was allowed a few jabs.

You put the mug back down and asked, “Do you have any creamer?” He didn’t reward you with a response, just another snort. Your phone pinged with a new text, 203B? The guy who left you the note? Wait so he isn’t an asshole? And you hastily answered, No, he is, just not enough of an asshole to leave a drunk girl outside to fend for herself.

“I know you probably think I’m some saint now for letting you in, but,” you looked up at Jihoon, “do you think you could go? Is someone coming with your key?” You nodded, brushing off his attitude. You’d probably be rude to someone who woke you up at 3:30 A.M. with their blubbering and indirectly forced you to let them sleep over, too. After pulling your shoes back on and unplugging your phone, you walked over to the door. You waited to see if Jihoon would say goodbye, say anything, even a “fuck off” would suffice, but he didn’t so much as spare you another glance.

“I’ll have to make this up to you, somehow,” you said, trying to sound lighthearted. Jihoon finally looked over at you again, his stare deadly, before asserting, “No, you don’t. We don’t have to talk again.”

That stung, not knowing what you’d done to upset him so much, but you knew as much as you wanted to it wasn’t your place to snap back at him. You just bowed your head before disappearing out the door. Wendy arrived ten minutes later and let you into your apartment, where you found your key on your kitchen counter.

“Why didn’t you go home with Seungri?” She wanted to know, but you just shrugged. “Well how was your neighbor?” Another shrug. You didn’t feel like venting to her like you’d planned on doing anymore, you were just tired again. Speaking with someone as cold as Jihoon was exhausting.

You never did divulge the details of that first meeting with Jihoon, not to Wendy and definitely not to Seungri. He did ask what you ended up doing that night, and you told him that your neighbor had let you stay over, and he just got pissed at you for staying in another man’s apartment. It didn’t matter that you’d had nowhere else to go or that you’d slept on the couch, it didn’t matter that if he hadn’t gotten you wasted because he didn’t know how else to deal with you when you were sad than it wouldn’t have happened, and it didn’t matter that he should have taken you back home with him. Logic and sense never did matter much to Seungri.

Your relationship with him was in full meltdown mode by time you had your next encounter with Jihoon, months later. Wendy asked you to go to a party with her; a guy she liked was one of the hosts. With no reason not to go, you agreed. Seungri was “out of town,” which by now you were sure meant he was with another girl, so he couldn’t stop you.

The house was packed, and a wide circle cleared in the middle of the living room for two guys to have a dance battle didn’t help with the space issue. You still stopped to watch, and you were rooting for the one with noodley dark blonde hair who was spinning on his shoulders. People were chanting for him as he went, “Ming-hao! Ming-hao! Ming-hao!”

“Y/N! Come with me to meet Seungcheol!” Wendy insisted, dragging you into the kitchen where some guy with broad shoulders and a thousand watt smile immediately passed you both a red plastic cup full of whatever toxic waste the hosts had to offer for the night. “I call it the DKoncoction,” he told you while Wendy looked over the crowd of people stuffed in there to see if any of them were this mystery man of hers, “no, see, it’s really clever, it’s spelled with my nickname, DK,” he continued, pointing to where he had written the name of the drink on the cup. You gave him a small smile, “It is clever,” you agreed.

“There he is!” And then you were being dragged away again, this time out onto the back porch. There were less people out here, most of them passing a joint around. One of them took a long drag and then started sputtering, tears coming to his eyes, and the others slapped him on the back, laughing. “This is why we can’t let the baby come to the college parties,” a long-haired guy said, “c’mon, Chan, I’m taking you home. Your parents would kill me if they found out I brought you here and let you get high, fuck.”

Finally, there were a few of them sitting on the steps leading down into the backyard, facing away from you. The one in the middle had inky black hair, the one on his left had his hair bleached blonde, and the last of them had a shock of pink on his head. “No, dude, it looks fine, go inside and get your own drink! No one’s gonna say anything to you!” The blonde was trying to reassure the pink-haired one as you and Wendy approached them.

“Uh, Cheolie?” All three heads whipped around when Wendy spoke up, and you took them in one-by-one, left to right. The blonde smiled so wide his eyes practically disappeared from his face, cheekbones pushing them into tiny slits. The black-haired one looked up at Wendy with wide doe eyes, his very pink lips in an “o” as he took in her dress and the nice way she’d done her hair, just for him. Obviously, he was Seungcheol, and you had to admit Wendy hadn’t been lying when she spent hours waxing poetic to you about how cute he was.

Then you turned to the pink-haired one and had to resist the urge to throw your drink in his face. Jihoon rolled his eyes when he noticed it was you, too. “You should lay off the alcohol,” he chided you, “wouldn’t want you getting hammered and not being able to make it back into your own apartment again. I won’t be so generous with my couch this time.”

“But if I get drunk enough, I won’t have to remember how someone threw up cotton candy all over your head,” you sneered back at him, lip curled and all. The other three stared wide-eyed at the two of you, and Seungcheol violently elbowed Jihoon in the side. “What the fuck,” Jihoon snapped at him, and Seungcheol smacked him upside the head. “Don’t be rude to my guests, or you’ll have to go,” he snarled.

“Y/N, you know him? Oh, my god, wait—that’s 203B?” Wendy put two-and-two together, then sent her own glare at Jihoon. In the months since that night, the appreciation for him letting you in had worn off, and resentment for how much of an asshole he’d been had settled in. Wendy shared your feelings. You’d almost baked him a cake or something to “repay him” out of spite, and then realized how stupid it’d be to waste your money on it.

Instead you started leaving more passive aggressive notes, and he responded in kind. You’d stick a note on his door thanking him for the smell of garlic that drifted from his apartment to yours and wouldn’t leave for days, he’d stick a note on your door about how much he loved hearing your cat meow for an hour after you left every day; he’d find a rant about how you never thought you’d love being kept up until 4 a.m. by the sound of his acoustic guitar so much, you’d find his thoughts on how refreshing it was to have to park at the other end of the lot because you had someone over and they parked in “his spot”; then you walked all the way over to his car to tuck a note under his windshield wiper complimenting his cleverness in changing the name of his WiFi to “Faster, Seungri, HARDER” after a night in with your boyfriend, and he slipped one under your door to applaud you on your choice in holiday decor, a pumpkin on the floor that started singing when he walked past it at 5 A.M. and made him spill his coffee all over himself.

“Good point, I’ll need a drink of my own so I can forget the fucked up way you painted your face,” Jihoon pressed on, despite Seungcheol’s threats. He stood up and started making his way back into the house, but stopped as he passed you to add, “That shade of red looks particularly slutty on you,” before he disappeared back into the kitchen. The blonde jumped to his feet and rushed to your side, looking at you with devastatingly sincere eyes, before he said, “I am so sorry, I’ve never seen him act like that towards a stranger?” You laughed and reached up to pat his hair, which seemed a little fried.

“We’re not strangers, and he’s always like that. Don’t worry.” He grinned and finally introduced himself (“My name is Soonyoung, but you can call me Soon,”), and then he took his seat beside Seungcheol again and they both scooted over to make room for you and Wendy.

The lovebirds were cuddled up to each other in no time, whispering and giggling, and you and Soonyoung had to lean forward to talk around them. You told him you lived next door to Jihoon, and he apologized again, this time for an incident in which Jihoon had asked his friends to bring over all their shoes and dirty socks and pile them up in front of your door. He insisted he never would have gotten involved if he knew the neighbor was just “an innocent young lady,” which got him a scoff. That had been in retaliation to the time your bag of garbage ripped open at his doorstep while you were taking it out and you just…kind of…left it there. So the shoes and socks stunt had been more than earned, you had to admit.

“203B didn’t tell you why you were doing that to me?” You double checked, and Soonyoung shook his head no before explaining that he’d never told them why they did any of the shit they did to you, which included: late night musical choruses in the hall, drawing graffiti in the dust on your car, having all twelve of them knock on your door when they passed by, and so, so much more. “If he asked you guys to jump off a bridge, would you?” You mocked him with the cliche line, and Soonyoung shrugged, “Maybe?”

Most of your night was spent with you trading stories of all the ways you’d set out to annoy Jihoon for behind-the-scenes information on all of his actions against you. Soonyoung told you that he had been particularly irritated that night he could hear you and Seungri going at it, which certainly piqued your interest, and then said he figured it was because Jihoon wasn’t getting any. “You’d think he would with his job,” Soonyoung had mumbled to himself, but he moved on to another topic too fast for you to ask what he meant by that.

Wendy and Seungcheol wandered back into the house around 1:30, and she easily talked you into being okay with her bailing on you to stay with him instead of taking you home. “I found someone to give you a ride,” she’d promised, and you trusted her enough to not send you away with an ax murderer. What you weren’t expecting was to walk outside and see Jihoon leaning against the porch railing, straightening up when he saw you and jerking his head towards the cars lining the street as if you should follow him to one of them.

“Wait, what? Are you serious? Wendy was this desperate?” You whined, and Jihoon stopped in his trot down the steps to ask you, “Who else would be taking you back? We live in the same building, should someone go out of their way to get you there?” He had a point, and you didn’t really have the money to be blowing on a cab, so you sucked it up and found yourself crawling into the beat-up old sedan you’d frowned and stuck your tongue out at many times before.

Seungcheol’s place was on the other side of town from your apartment, a good half hour drive, and you felt your soul leave your body at the idea of having to be in such close proximity with Jihoon for so long. Should I say something to him? Small talk? How about this weather and all that shit? You’d opened your mouth to say just about anything to disturb the awkward silence between you, and it was at that exact moment that he leaned forward and turned his radio on. Your ride home was spent listening to Super Junior at max volume, having your seat vibrate along with the bass line in “Sorry Sorry” and every other song on that album. Jihoon softly sang along to every word.

It was just as “Shining Star” was fading out that Jihoon pulled his car into a spot, and you were clambering to get out of it as quickly as possible. In the spot beside his was another car that you’d recognize anywhere—it was Seungri’s. You dug through your purse for your phone just to see that it was completely dead and feel a wave of dread pass through you.

For the last several weeks, any time you were with Seungri, all you’d done was fight. You were so sure that he was seeing other girls, but if you dared to confront him about it, he’d just insist you were being crazy and overbearing. Of course, if he knew you’d gone to a party without his knowledge and then came home with Jihoon, he’d have pitched a fit.

“What are you mumbling about over there?” Jihoon asked, lazily scooting out of the driver’s seat. You hadn’t even realized you’d been anxiously ranting to yourself as you desperately tried to get your phone to turn back on, no matter how dead the screen kept flashing to try to tell you it was.

“You can just…just go in without me, okay?” You tossed at him, admitting defeat and stuffing your phone back into your bag. What am I gonna tell him? You thought, I don’t wanna start another stupid fight. You leaned back against Jihoon’s car and felt exhaustion settle into your bones. It had been a long day, yes, but it was more of an emotional exhaustion. You were so tired of fighting with Seungri, not trusting him, feeling insecure because of him; any smart girl would have broken up with him a long time ago, but he was your first serious boyfriend and there was a small but very stubborn part of you that didn’t want to give up on him.

“Isn’t that your boyfriend’s car?” Jihoon piped up from beside you, sending you flying a few feet away from him and stumbling against the curb. “What the hell! I thought you went inside!” You reached over to shove his shoulder in frustration. He shrugged your hand off and said, “I thought you were gonna start having a panic attack over here, I didn’t want that hanging over my head.”

A hand over your heart confirmed that it was indeed beating quite fast, and you had been breathing heavily as anxiety wormed it’s way into your mind. You looked down at your feet, no intentions of telling Jihoon about your problems.

“Yes, that’s his car,” you answered his earlier question, “and I’m fine, I just. I just wanted a minute to myself.” Despite that, Jihoon didn’t walk away, but leaned against the car beside you instead. He kept watching you and it was making you thoroughly uncomfortable.

“Well I’d rather make sure you get into your apartment alright, like I said, I don’t need anything happening to you and having it weigh on my conscience. Also Wendy would kill me,” he laughed. That much was true, the guilty conscience thing you weren’t so sure about. He did hate you, after all.

You sighed and looked up at your window, seeing the light shining from inside your bedroom, regretting giving Seungri his own key. It was something you’d done in recent months, a gesture of good will, trying to express to him that you wanted to make your relationship work. If you hadn’t given him that damn key, he probably wouldn’t be here right now. Jihoon followed your line of sight and huffed.

“Why are you making your boyfriend wait? Trouble in paradise?” You figured if Jihoon had heard you guys having sex, he had to have heard all of Seungri’s screaming and your crying that had been happening lately, so you ignored that question. He was just rubbing salt in your wounds. You pouted and pointedly looked away, not wanting him to see the hurt on your face.

Unfortunately the only other thing you could really look at was Seungri’s car, and that only reminded you of the fight you’d had inside of it just a few days ago. He didn’t think you were spending enough time with him, but you had classes and a job you needed to go to, and your grades were suffering since you’d often skip studying to see him. That wasn’t enough for him, but nothing ever was.

“Y/N, come on, it’s cold,” Jihoon grouched. You’d almost forgotten he was there. He was right, though, it was too chilly to keep standing in the parking lot in your tiny shorts with no jacket. Better bite the bullet and get this over with, you conceded to yourself. Jihoon was already halfway to the stairwell door, and you jogged over to catch up with him. He held the door open and let you through first, and stayed behind you no matter how slowly you trudged up the stairs.

“Seriously, why aren’t you more excited to see your boyfriend?” Jihoon asked again, the same question with different words. You had to remind yourself that under no circumstances could you disclose personal details about your life to Jihoon. He’d find some way to use them against you next time you did something that aggravated him.

“Why do you keep saying it like that, ‘your boyfriend’? Like they’re dirty words?” You asked, instead of telling him the truth. You figured he’d say something rude and nasty, like he just had a hard time understanding how any guy could want to date you or something like that. But he was silent. You were surprised he wouldn’t jump at the chance to insult you for the thousandth time. You stopped at the landing that exited to your hall and turned to look at him a few steps below you—saw him gnawing at his bottom lip, wringing his hands together, eyes cast to the side. You were about to ask him what was wrong, when he spoke up quietly,

“I’m just wondering what kind of guy he has to be to be dating you.” You could have pulled out a snappy comeback, but you weren’t really up to it. It relieved you that he didn’t have anything more serious to say. You had enough on your plate right now, you didn’t need Jihoon fucking up the rival dynamic that you two had going on; it was probably the most consistent relationship you had in your life at the moment. You just nodded down at him, then pushed the door open that continued the path to your doom.

It was almost 2 A.M. On any other night, your hall should have been empty. But there stood Seungri, leaned against your door and tapping violently at his phone screen. His head shot up when the door slammed closed behind you and Jihoon, and his hard gaze settled on the pair of you watching him. Your eyes were wide and you weren’t proud of your hands shaking a little bit; you weren’t scared of Seungri. He’d never given you any reason to be. You just knew how this must have looked to him, and you’d never convince him that it was anything other than his first assumption.

“Y/N, move,” Jihoon groaned, stuck between your back and the door, and put a hand on your arm to nudge you out of the way. You allowed yourself to be pushed to the side some, but didn’t take any steps forward. If looks could kill, you and Jihoon would be long gone.

“What the hell is going on?” Seungri spat as Jihoon approached him, and from where you were with the soles of your shoes stuck to the floor, you only saw Jihoon shake his head. He’d probably rolled his eyes at Seungri, which would just piss him off more. But your boyfriend was more interested in what you were doing and what you had to say, so he stormed towards you, shoulder checking Jihoon as they passed each other and he finally got to his door.

“I called you like fifty times! I sent you a hundred texts! Where have you been?!” Seungri demanded to know, coming up close to you and wrapping his hand tight around your elbow. You just gulped and kept staring up at him. I’m not scared of him, you tried to convince yourself. Seungri had never hit you, and he never would, but he could be an intimidating presence. Just his hand on your elbow was imposing, dominating, making you feel small beneath him.

“I went to a party with Wendy,” you said meekly, hoping to avoid a real blowout, but Seungri just barked out a laugh.

“Right, you went to a party with her but ended up coming home with another guy? That makes a lot of sense, Y/N,” he growled. You thought you knew your boyfriend pretty well, but you’d really never figured out how to diffuse these situations and calm him down. No methods that you’d use on any other person ever seemed to work with him; begging him to believe you, trying to convince him with the truth, trying to convince him with lies when that didn’t work. All you could ever really do was let him go off on you until he wore himself out. You were about to let him drag you into your apartment to do just that when you suddenly heard,

“I’m her neighbor. I was just taking her home.” You really thought Jihoon had disappeared into his place already, but he was just standing there with his key hanging out of the door, watching the scene unfold in front of him. He was too far away for you to see the expression on his face, but you were sure he was judging you for letting Seungri walk all over you. You didn’t need his pity, really didn’t want to have him trying to stand up for you, but if it worked you’d be grateful. You looked away from Jihoon to see if it did, and you weren’t surprised to see Seungri only looked angrier.

“Are you kidding me? I fucking knew it, I know you’ve wanted to fuck him ever since you moved in here, haven’t you? Always playing your stupid games with him?” Seungri dropped your arm and turned away, setting his sights back on Jihoon, “And you can’t stay away from another man’s girlfriend, fucking prick.”

“Trust me, I try to stay away from her as much as possible,” Jihoon corrected him, and your temper flared at the audacity he had to say something like that right now, “She’s pretty annoying to have next door, but the worst part is having a guy like you around.” The hall went dead silent, there wasn’t so much as a breath to be heard. It had been tense already, but now it felt like you and Jihoon had pressed as much as you could, and the wire that was Seungri’s patience was about to snap.

“What did you just fucking say?” Jihoon moved to face Seungri fully, shoulders back and jaw locked. Your boyfriend’s slow steps in his direction almost seemed like he was stalking prey, but someone who had themselves opened up to a fight could not be hunted.

Jihoon didn’t seem worried, despite the good four inches and several pounds the other guy had on him. You didn’t know if he could hold his own in a fight, but you weren’t interested in waiting to find out. You’d seen Seungri knock a couple of guys out at a club before and didn’t want to see that happen to your neighbor, no matter how many irritating things he’d done to you.

“Seungri, let’s just go inside and talk, please,” you tried, “Jihoon didn’t do anything wrong, he was just giving me a ride!” Seungri laughed, and the sound made your skin crawl. It was so different from when you’d first met, when you’d tell a dumb joke and he’d laugh and it was like music to your ears. He wasn’t the same person you’d fallen for, he hadn’t been for a long time…or maybe that had never been the real him to begin with.

“Baby, of course we can go inside and talk,” Seungri said, and you felt a split second of relief, “right after I finish beating this piece of shit bloody.” He stopped within a foot of Jihoon, looking down at him over his nose, challenging him to make the first move. It shocked you to see how comfortable Seungri was playing such an antagonistic role, immediately resorting to violence.

Why am I with him? You didn’t have any answers left to that question. Jihoon hummed out a, “Well?” That was the only cue Seungri needed.

One second you saw him rearing back, fist ready and swinging right towards Jihoon’s face; the next you were grabbing Seungri’s arm and spinning him in your direction, ducking to miss his punch before straightening to give him one of your own. He instantly fell to his knees, cradling his jaw. Holy shit, what did I just do—you hadn’t even realized you’d rushed down the hall to stop him until it had already happened. Seungri was still holding his face as if you’d done any real damage; you were sure it didn’t feel too good, but you weren’t that strong. If his wide eyes and complete silence were any indication, his reaction was out of shock more than anything else. It had the same effect on Jihoon, who didn’t move or say a word.

You could have felt any number of emotions at that moment, between fear and anger and confusion and uncertainty, but instead you just felt…you just felt better. After almost two years together, you’d finally found the one way to make him shut up. It felt like the weight of Seungri and this entire toxic relationship had been shed from your shoulders. There was only one thing left for you to do.

You shook out your fist deliberately; it didn’t really hurt, but it was worth it for show. Jihoon pressed himself back against the door to let you saunter up to where Seungri remained kneeling on the ground. You bent down to his level and cocked your head to the side, examining him, reaching out to gently move his hand away from his face. There would definitely be a touch of a bruise there, and you couldn’t bury the swell of pride in your chest or hide the way your lips tilted into a satisfied grin.

“What the fuck, Y/N, why’d you do that?” He finally spoke, shuffling backwards and out of your reach. You wouldn’t be rewarding him with an answer, just moved closer to him again and shoved your hand into the pocket of his hoodie before he could stop you. It only took a second to feel the metal, and then you were pulling out the key you’d given him not that long ago.

“I’ll be taking this back,” you affirmed, “and you can leave now. Don’t come back, please.” You hopped back onto your feet and reached out to your door, smiling to hear Twinkie meow from the other side of it. Glancing at Jihoon, you only got the sight of his back as he pushed his door open, ready to get away from this drama. You couldn’t blame him, but wished he’d thank you for stopping his face from being beaten in.

Seungri scrambled to his feet and hurried to your side, but he continued to have nothing worthwhile to say, only able to stutter out halfhearted apologies in between sudden manic rants about how Jihoon had it coming, how could you do this to him, who did you think you were, blah blah blah. None of it could touch you. You were high off of this freedom from him.

“Will you fucking stop and just listen to me for once!” Seungri snapped as you were opening your door, and he grabbed the side of it to keep it from opening just that little bit further it had to go before you could slip inside. You felt the brush of your cat’s tail as she ran out the door and into the hall, but you were focused on Seungri. This is my only chance to speak my peace.

“Listen to you for once? Listen to you for once?! I’m done listening to you Seungri, all I ever fucking do is listen to you! Listen to you tell me how paranoid I am, listen to you tell me you’re just busy with work, listen to you tell me you love me before you go fuck some other girl. I can smell someone else’s perfume on you right now, asshole! I’ve known for a long time, I’m just someone you like to keep around, someone who’d always be there if you couldn’t find anyone else to hook up with, right? Well I’m fucking done being that, I’m done with you, you can go fuck yourself.” You’d never seen your boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—run away from a fight so fast before. He was already slamming the door to the stairwell shut behind him before you had even caught your breath from that tirade. Maybe that’s why he’d always shut you down when you tried to be honest or reason with him—he just couldn’t handle the truth.

You relaxed against your door frame, eyes shut and letting out the deep breath you’d been holding since you first pulled into the parking lot and saw Seungri’s car. God, it was creeping on 3 a.m. now, and there was a heavy blanket of fatigue draped over you. Just as you were about to roll into your entryway and shut your door on this long night, you heard a cough from across the hall. Jihoon was still standing there in his doorway, but now had an armful of cat rubbing underneath his chin and leaving gifts of fur stuck to his jacket.

“It tried to run in here,” he informed you, and you could only say, “Her name is Twinkie.” He shrugged as he came forward and moved her into your arms, handling her more lightly than you’d have thought he would. Instead of immediately retreating into his apartment like you expected, Jihoon stood there in your space for a beat longer, looking you straight in the eye. Then he took one small step back before he asked, “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?” You honestly didn’t know what he meant—why did you break up with a guy who he knew was a piece of shit? There were a million reasons why you’d done that.

Jihoon groaned and looked away from you before he said, “You should have let him hit me. I could have taken him.” To say you were surprised would be an understatement; you couldn’t believe that Jihoon could slip so easily into this testosterone-fueled neanderthal act after everything that had just happened. He’d been witness to you being a total badass, and all he cared about was that he hadn’t gotten a punch in himself.

“Is that a joke? Sorry, how dare I stand up for myself instead of letting the big strong men duke it out for me,” you mocked him, “Wow, Jihoon, is your masculinity really that fragile?” He bristled at that, puffing out his chest and trying to make himself seem larger than he was. You gave him a dismissive laugh.

“Why are you acting like I’m an asshole for wanting to defend you,” he tried, and you shifted Twinkie in your arms to get a better hold on her before facing Jihoon to say, “You weren’t defending me, that was all about you, how could you call that defending me when you couldn’t even do it without getting an insult in? ‘She’s pretty annoying to have next door’? It’s not the worst thing you’ve said, but it definitely wasn’t you defending me.” Jihoon sputtered, arms flailing, trying to wrap his head around what you were saying. It was so typical man of him to try and reframe his own shit as him trying to “defend your honor.”

“Thank you for the ride home, and you’re welcome for not letting him punch a hole through your head,” you said, tone final, “I’m going to sleep. Don’t worry, as always, I know this doesn’t make us friends now or anything. Good night, Jihoon.” You stepped inside and promptly shut your door in your neighbor’s face. If he had anything else to say, you didn’t care to hear it.

You were shocked you made it to your room with how tired you were, and you immediately flicked off the light that Seungri had left on before collapsing onto your bed. Trying to process everything that had happened that night was impossible—your head was swarmed by a thousand different thoughts. You wondered how you’d start removing all evidence of your ex from your life in the morning, and you wondered if Wendy finally hooked up with Seungcheol, and you wondered if Seungri even cared that you’d broken up with him, and you wondered what the hell was in that DKoncoction, and you wondered why Seungri had even been waiting at your apartment in the first place, and you wondered if Minghao had won that dance battle.

But the last thought you had before you fell asleep was that you were done with this silly battle you had going on with 203B. You were 20 years old, had just ended your first serious relationship of almost two years, had a horrible job and schoolwork that you needed to focus on. You figured it was time you did some growing up, and not hanging a banner over his door that read “LOSER” like you’d been planning to do for a few days was how you were going to start. You didn’t need that relationship with Jihoon any more than you needed your relationship with Seungri—you only needed yourself.

So much for only needing myself, you thought as you turned the L’Amourose over and over in your hands. You’d been home for a couple of hours, the sun was setting, your pants had been flung over to the other side of the room, but you’d yet to turn the vibrator on and get to business. Your body was still buzzing with an inexplicable need, but you couldn’t get Jihoon’s face out of your head.

The long drive home had given you time to rethink his behavior at the shop, but you were still convinced he’d just been playing you for his own gain, so you decided you’d rather not get off to thoughts of all the dirty nasty hot…hot hot hot stuff he’d said. Too bad you didn’t have any other material stocked in your brain to tap into and get yourself going.

With a huff, you placed the L’Amourose upright on your bedstand and wandered out of your room, to your kitchen where you’d deposited your purse on the counter. Twinkie was laying beside it, and you gracelessly shoved her onto the floor before grabbing your bag and moving over to your couch. She rejoined you there, curling up beside you as you found your phone inside it and checked your texts. Wendy had replied to you telling her to stay away with a simple ;) that you’d have to give her a good smack for whenever you next saw her.

That was the only new message you had, which didn’t surprise you. A lot of your friendships had ended with the end of your relationship. You hadn’t realized until most of the people you socialized with stopped talking to you that you’d centered your whole life around Seungri.

Your life now had less people in it, but you knew you were better off. You had Wendy, and by extension you had Seungcheol, and a few of his friends from that dumb party way back when that you talked to every now and again. Sure, it was a little awkward when they were all at Jihoon’s place for their usual get-togethers and you had to pretend all but one of your friends was not a mere thirty seconds away from you, but you were used to it now. If you just so happened to be coming out or going into your apartment as they were leaving his, you knew not to acknowledge them until he had his door shut. He knew you were friends with them, but ignoring it made the nature of your relationship with him that much easier to swallow.

And your relationship with him was—well, it was nonexistent. You’d kept your vow to yourself to stop your rivalry, lining your door so that he wouldn’t hear Twinkie meowing and making sure none of your visitors parked in his spot, and the one other time your trash had busted open in front of his door, you gagged through the cleanup instead of leaving it there for him to deal with. For his part, there were no smells coming from his place to yours and he was rarely up playing guitar at 4 a.m. anymore, usually he’d stop around 1, at least. His friends still knocked on your door when they passed, but that was usually because they wanted to say hi and get some Twinkie pets in, or they just felt like annoying you for their own amusement.

You and Jihoon very, very rarely spoke. If you ran into each other in the parking lot or the staircase or the hall, some nods and brief hello’s were all that passed between you both. At times like those it was like your war with him, the night you stayed over, and that night with Seungri had never happened. Of course, you still thought about it all sometimes, on your lonelier, more pensive nights. Maybe if you had never left that note about him being a hypocrite on his door, you two would be friends and you’d never have to go more than a few steps across the hall to find someone to keep you company. It was too bad you’d fucked it up like that.

You found yourself scrolling through Twitter, shamelessly checking up on fansites of the groups you liked, hoping you’d find a good picture to shape a fantasy around so you could finally start masturbating. Usually you could think up an elaborate scene with one of the guys from BTS or Got7 or EXO, but every time you blinked, all you saw was Jihoon with his lip tucked between his teeth, watching you with those eyes like he’d already imagined getting you naked and panting for him a dozen times over. Thinking of all the times he must have given that look to other women to wring as much money out of them as possible made you cringe, but you also found yourself imagining him flushed, panting, squeezing his eyes shut together from above you as he came…

“Fuck it,” you blurted out at nobody, at yourself, at Twinkie, maybe. Back in your room, you slipped your underwear off and crawled under the covers. You swiped a fingertip between your folds, pleased that you were still soaking down there, then grabbed the L’Amourose and placed the tip of it against your clit.

Ok, this is happening, this is happening, this is happening, you teased it up and down your slit, then held it so it’s entire length was pressed against you, rolling to get a thorough coating of your juices on it. When you were finally satisfied with that, you pushed the tip against your opening, and poised one finger over the button to start the vibrations.

Because you’re such a little tease you can’t help but tease even yourself, right? His words echoed in your mind. Those dirty nasty hot, hot hot hot words.

You pressed the button.

And nothing happened. No soft buzz filled the air, no tingles erupted across every inch of your cunt, your hand wrapped around the toy didn’t vibrate along with it. You were frozen, all of the tightly wound anticipation suddenly unraveling, leaving you grasping at straws, unsure of what to do. This can’t be happening, you thought, I need to have an orgasm, I’m actually going to die if I don’t have an orgasm tonight. You pressed the button again and again and again, each time letting your hopes up for just a second only for them to come down crashing and burning over and over. Eventually you kicked your comforter off and brought the L’Amourose up to your face to inspect it more closely, and with it at eye level kept pressing the button, desperate for the toy to come to life. It just sat quietly in your hands, completely dead.

You didn’t know exactly what your plan was when you hopped out of bed and frantically pulled on a loose pair of sweatpants that had been laying on the floor, when you found yourself jogging into your living room and to your front door, when you were suddenly pounding your knuckles on the door marked with the characters 2-0-3-B. You were so desperate. It was only when the door was swinging open that you realized you still had your left hand wrapped tight around the sticky L’Amourose.

Jihoon looked tired, but as each second passed and he continued to process the scene before him, the exhaustion on his face was replaced by sheer panic and bewilderment. He opened his mouth to say god knows what, but before he could get any words out you were pressing your empty palm to his chest to push him back into his entryway, following close to him and kicking his door shut behind you.

You hadn’t been in this apartment in almost two years, and a quick glance around proved that little had changed. The fish bowl was gone and there weren’t any textbooks on the coffee table, but there were more pictures hung up on the wall and now a row of guitars hanging up opposite of them. You shook yourself out of that line of thought, none of that mattered right now—right now all that mattered was getting off.

“Ok, Woozi,” you sneered, “I bought this fucking hundred dollar dick because of you, but it’s not fucking working and I’m a little bit pissed off and worked up over it, if you can’t tell.” There was no way he couldn’t tell, with your panting and burning cheeks and all. You slapped the L’Amourose down onto the coffee table.

“Well? You can either make it work or we have to figure something else out right now,” you hissed, not even thinking about the implication of your words. Jihoon took a cautious step forward, and you watched his mouth open and close and open and close and open and close like there weren’t any words left in his head for speaking, no matter how much he wanted to. He reached a hand out to pick the toy up, but stopped halfway and let it fall back to his side.

“It’s…It’s…” He started, and he was biting his fucking lip again, and you felt yourself ache at how red and swollen they looked. “Were you already using it?” He asked instead of continuing whatever he’d begun saying before, and the question confused you for a moment before you followed his laser focused gaze back down to the toy, and took in just how wet and gleaming it looked, coated with your arousal.

Your jaw dropped open, and you…you should have been embarrassed. I should be grabbing that thing and running away, you agreed with yourself. But instead, the sight of Jihoon looking down at the vibrator that you’d been rubbing up and down your pussy lips, that was literally shining from your wetness, made a fire roar to life in the pit of your stomach.

“Jihoon,” you sighed, and felt your fingers tremble with a need to touch him—to get wrapped up in his hair, to trace his sharp jawline, to drift down his abdomen and into his pants so they could curl around his…you shook your head to dislodge those thoughts from your brain. You’d only come here so that he could get this toy working again, then you’d be back in bed with it in no time, definitely not thinking about him. He was still staring down at it when you grabbed the vibrator and hurried to his kitchen, ripping a dozen paper towels off the roll on his counter and beginning to wipe it down.

“It won’t turn on, and I don’t know why, I mean, it was working at the shop? I haven’t done anything to it since then, I had just taken it out of the box and was ready to use it, and no matter how many times I pressed the button nothing fucking happened, so I decided to—” You were abruptly stopped by the feeling of a hand grabbing your shoulder from behind, and you froze.

Jihoon hadn’t touched you since that night you were drunk and he had to get you into his place. You felt a chip of the wall you’d built up around your heart ages ago slowly, gently drift away as a long and jagged crack emerged.

“Shh, Y/N,” he cooed, “don’t be so nervous, it’s just me. Relax,” and then he had his hands cupping both your shoulders, deliberately pressing the heel of them into your tightly wound muscles. You couldn’t help the groan that escaped your lips and echoed through his living space.

“You want to get off so badly, don’t you,” Jihoon said, his voice soft while his touch was anything but, “you know, these are thin walls. I can hear everything—I hear you singing off-key in the shower, I hear you screaming at scary movies, I hear you laughing when someone tells a stupid joke, I hear you talking to your cat when you’re lonely…and I used to hear those pretty sighs and moans when you’d come. I’ve really missed that sound. I was looking forward to hearing it again tonight, I was kind of relieved when I realized that was you at work.”

Somehow, even though you’d always complained about hearing things from Jihoon’s apartment, the implications of him hearing everything from yours had never really crossed your mind. Though you couldn’t say you were surprised, maybe you’d have felt more humiliated about it if Jihoon’s massage didn’t feel so good, didn’t have you almost on your knees in pleasure.

“I don’t think the vibrator is gonna work,” he said off-handedly, a throwaway comment, “it has an 18-month warranty, don’t worry about that, but…if you still want to get off…obviously the real thing would get the job done better, don’t you think?” You were too far gone to protest, to think of all the hundreds of ways this could go wrong, to care that all the hard work you’d been doing avoiding him and keeping your guard up for the past couple of years was for naught.

Jihoon’s touch slipped from your shoulders, his fingers grazing your spine through your thin t-shirt and making your back arch, before each hand took a firm hold of either side of your hips and was spinning you around to face him. The vibrator fell to the tiled floor with a dull thud, but as you finally felt those plush, swollen lips of Jihoon’s press urgently against yours, that was the furthest thing from your mind.

You grabbed the collar of his sweater and tried to pull him closer, longing to feel every inch of him against you. He had the same idea, shifting to wrap his arms tight around your waist. It was unclear where your body ended and his began, and you wouldn’t have had it any other way. Jihoon pulled his face away from yours for just a moment before he was diving back in to latch his teeth onto your bottom lip, and you opened your eyes wide to see him watching you intently, gaze dark and hooded. You gasped at the intensity of his stare, giving him the perfect opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth.

Your eyelids gently drifted shut again at the sensation of his tongue brushing against yours, and you lightly pressed back before he retreated to tilt his head a different way, then dive back in. This time your tongue reached in first, slowly and gently pressing against his, and when you withdrew you felt his lips chase after yours. You let a soft giggle pass between you, and felt him shiver as your breath fanned out across his face.

“Let me take you to my room,” Jihoon purred, his fingers rubbing small circles into your sides, his eyes never once leaving yours as you peered up at from beneath your lashes, “please, let me make you feel good.”

How could you say no to him? All it took was the slightest incline of your head before Jihoon was unwrapping himself from around you, grabbing your wrist and dragging you out of the kitchen, past the living room, through his wide open bedroom door and into what was new territory for you. You didn’t have the time or interest to look around and inspect the interior, as Jihoon was already leading you on to his bed and pressing you back against his dark sheets.

When he crawled over you, he had already discarded his sweater. Of course, Jihoon was on the shorter side, but you could see now that his body was sturdy and firm despite that. You reached up to press your palms against his chest, and then let the fingertips of one of your hands drift gently downward, across his abdominal muscles that twitched beneath them.

“What do you think?” He asked, and if the crooked smirk on his face was any indicator, he already knew the answer to that question. Still, you told him, “I like what I see.” Inflating his ego was worth it to see the proud light flash in his eyes.

Your hand stopped at his waistline, and Jihoon took the next step, dipping back in to press more kisses to your jaw and neck as his own hands fiddled with the hem of your t-shirt. It was just as his tongue dipped in to taste the skin stretched across your collar bone that his fingers finally danced up underneath your clothes, teasing touches on your stomach until one of his hands cupped a breast at last. You thanked god that you never wore a bra at home.

“Let’s get this off,” Jihoon hummed against your skin before he sat back on his heels, giving you space to tear your shirt up over your head and fling it onto his floor. He didn’t waste a second, diving in and wrapping his lips around one of your nipples as he pinched the other between his fingers. You were breathless—it had been so fucking long since a man touched you like this, you’d almost forgotten how good it felt to let someone else get their hands and mouth on you.

As Jihoon gave your nipple a hard suck, you pressed both of your fingers into his hair, massaging his scalp with your nails in gratitude. He immediately rutted against your thigh, letting you feel his erection for the first time. The hard heat of it through his jeans made your mouth water. You could have laid there for hours with his tongue and fingers worshiping your chest, but you were overwhelmed by the need to get your eyes and hands on his cock. When he parted from your chest with a dramatic, wet pop! you grabbed his shoulders to push him away, only far enough so you could move onto your knees.

“What is it, baby?” Jihoon asked carefully, noticing the frantic look in your eye, instantly worrying that he’d done something wrong, pushed you too far. The idea of making you uncomfortable and upsetting you physically hurt him.

But you quelled his concerns with your hands on his waist, undoing his belt and slipping the leather from it’s loops so you could toss it aside and get to his button and zipper. Jihoon laughed as your hands fumbled with them, shaking hard with desire and rust since it’d been so long since they’d done this, and even some stifled nerves. You’d be an idiot to not be nervous right now—you’d just discovered that Jihoon was some sort of hot sex god and didn’t want to leave him disappointed in what you could do.

Jihoon did his best to ease your apprehension by reaching down and undoing the button and zipper himself with his steady hands over your own, keeping his eyes locked with yours. There was something so intimate about it, more intimate than making out and him slobbering all over your boobs, more intimate than everything you were getting ready to do. This is what made you blush, and your blush is what made Jihoon’s heart lurch in his chest.

“Are you sure you want to do this with me, Y/N?” He asked you. He wanted the answer to be “yes” so badly, but if it was no, he’d have to let you leave, and he’d have to be enough of a gentleman to leave you alone after that, for good this time. You deserved that much from him. But you couldn’t imagine saying anything but “yes.” God, you’d wanted this for so long.

You’d wanted him for so long.

“I wouldn’t leave this bed and stop doing this with you even if this building caught on fire right now,” you offered, before giving his jeans and briefs a sharp tug down to his knees. You’d never felt so empty between your legs as you did when you first laid your eyes on Jihoon’s cock; for such a compact man, that part of him was anything but. The length was decent, but it was the girth that made a whine bubble up from your throat. You wrapped your middle finger and thumb around him, and as he bucked into your hand, you considered the inch that kept them from touching each other.

“Please, please fucking move your hand,” Jihoon gasped, and you realized you’d been been just staring at him for several moments now. You didn’t need to be told twice, letting the rest of your fingers take hold and giving his cock a single dry jerk. You noticed him wince, and removed yourself from him so that you could grab his hands that were pressed tightly to his thighs.

“Jihoonie,” you sighed, “take my pants off, will you?” He did as asked, slipping your sweatpants off and then watching in awe as your spread yourself out for him. You could have sworn you saw a little drool dribbling out from his dropped jaw.

“Silly Jihoonie,” you purred, and slid one of your hands up your thigh before settling it against your folds, scooping up a generous amount of your juices, “later we’ll have to put your mouth to better use than that.” He slowly shut it, a touch embarrassed, but that was washed away the moment you wrapped your hand back around his cock, stroking it up and back down again to coat it with your wetness. A moan ripped out of him and made the heat at your core flare.

You gave him a few more jerks, then rolled your palm across his tip. He immediately fell forward, bracing himself with his hands on either side of your waist, mouth wide open in a silent gasp. Your other handed drifted down without him noticing and he whimpered when you suddenly grabbed his balls, squeezing them gently.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, Y/N, fuck,” he chanted, and you were sure you could feel yourself leaking onto his sheets. His cock felt so smooth and heavy in your hands, and as much as that was a feeling you had missed, there was a different feeling you’d been craving so, so much more. You tugged once with both of your hands, and he reached down to stop you right before you could stop yourself.

“Wait, wait, I want to fuck you, I need to cum with my cock buried inside of you,” he hummed the magic words. You let go of him and watched with bated breath as he scooted forward on his knees, letting yourself be manhandled so he could place the back of your thighs over the top of his, then wrapped your legs around him, heels pressing against his back, pressing him closer.

Jihoon leaned over to grab a tiny foil packet from his nightstand, and god, you were going to fucking melt all over his bed if he didn’t get inside of you already. When he finally had the condom on, Jihoon wrapped his own hand around the base of his cock and tentatively swiped it through your slit; just the brush of his tip on your clit made your whole body twitch, made you mewl.

“Mmm, that’s what I like to hear,” he whispered, and did it again, but this time deliberately pressed the head of his cock hard against your clit.

“Oh, god, Jihoon! Just put it in me, please, please please please, fill me up, I need to come, baby, I need you to make me come,” you begged him, eyes screwed shut, fingers clenching and unclenching against thin air. He snickered, and you thought he’d do as you asked when you felt him move again, but then he was slapping his length against your clit like a fucking tease. God, you could have cum right then and there, from that alone. It would have been the most unsatisfying orgasm of your life, and you were so, so fucking close to it, tears were already forming at the corners of your eyes.

“You really want it, Y/N? You want my cock that bad?” Jihoon growled, and just as you were screaming out a ‘yes!’ he took mercy on you and shoved himself balls deep into your pussy. Only half of the word got out before your breath was sucked out of your body, and you choked on thin air. Your eyes felt like they’d fall right of your head with how wide they opened, and you took in the beautiful sight of Jihoon on top of you.

Your imagination could never come up with something half as good as the real thing—a flush had spread from his face, down his neck, across his shoulders and chest; a layer of sweat had built up on his brow, and he had his eyelids screwed tight together from all his effort not to instantly cum.

You had been soaking for hours, but it had been so long since anything was inside of you and Jihoon was so wide that the light sting was inevitable. You hissed as he slowly drug his cock out of you, then slammed it back in. Your breasts shook with the force of it, and he took it upon himself to grab and squeeze one of them as he started a slow, steady rhythm of thrusts. You put your hands on his shoulders to brace yourself.

“I’ve been hard ever since I saw that was you at the shop,” Jihoon spoke up through gritted teeth, “I’d been ignoring how bad I’ve wanted you for years, and there you were, looking so naive and innocent trying to buy a fucking sex toy,” his statement came with a particularly hard thrust that made you cry out and clench tightly around him, “it was my every wet fucking dream come true.”

Jihoon opened his eyes to stare down at you, and you felt like you might dissolve from the pressure of the raw want they poured into yours. You’d never been able to read him very well, but now he was completely open to you, and you could see through his cold exterior to the simple, untainted affection he must have been harboring for you for awhile now. You felt a whole chunk of that wall around your heart ripped away.

You felt Jihoon’s touch on the outside of one of your knees, and then his hand was skimming up your thigh and around your hip until it dipped down to press a thumb to your clit. You ground down against it, inadvertently pressing more of his cock into you, and his tip scraped lightly against your g-spot. “Oh, fuck,” you wailed, and when he thrust back into you, you did it again, and this time he slanted his hips just so to stab at it again, but he didn’t pull out.

Now he stilled to let you rotate your hips, lips trembling around broken gasps as his cock brushed against your g-spot over and over and his thumb smoothed measured circles into your clit. You felt the pressure in the pit of your stomach bubbling up, past your belly button, dancing through your ribs, until it pressed desperately against your lungs. Just before you could burst, you wrapped your hands around the back of Jihoon’s neck and pulled him down with all the force you could muster—you slotted your lips over his and screamed into his mouth as you came. Jihoon started moving his hips again, and your orgasm faded only some before roaring back to life when his pace became frantic, his thrusts wicked and brutish, making his balls smack against your ass.

“C-Come for me, come for…come for me, Jihoonie,” you sighed against him, barely able to keep your eyes open, stars dancing behind their lids and beckoning you to drift into the most perfect of post-orgasmic naps, but you couldn’t do so until Jihoon had gotten his own release. You focused enough to suck that sinful bottom lip between yours, and clenched around him once, twice, a hard third time before Jihoon’s body went rigid on top of you. An animalistic groan erupted from him and bounced off the walls, the last thing you heard before you slipped into unconsciousness.

“’Cause tonight I’m making deals with the devil, and I know it’s gonna get me in trouble, just as long as you know you got me,” and Ariana Grande was the first thing you heard when you came back to the land of the living. Well, not exactly Ariana Grande, but Jihoon softly singing the song of hers that had been playing when you first set foot in Bits & Pieces Boutique. That felt like years ago after everything you’d just been through.

A soft touch on your thigh shocked you, but you controlled your body and didn’t jump away from what you could immediately tell was Jihoon’s hand rubbing up and down. You peeked an eye open and, god help you, you’d never seen anything more beautiful than Jihoon sat up against his headboard, scrolling through whatever on his phone with one hand while keeping the other protectively on you, the late evening sun spilling through his window and casting the most beautiful light against his soft, pale skin. His hair was going in a thousand different directions, his lips bruised, and he couldn’t have looked any better if he tried.

“I’ve been there all night, I’ve been there all day, and boy, got me walkin’ side to side,” he continued. You didn’t want him to stop, so you laid there silently, afraid to breathe lest he be alerted that you were awake, until he finished the song. And when he did he locked his phone and looked right down at you before he said, “You must have liked my singing, then.”

You gave him a girlish giggle, not physically capable of hiding the silly smile that stretched across your face. You went to sit up, but your arms were wobbly beneath your weight and you couldn’t manage it. Jihoon shook his head at you, turning and pressing your shoulders so you’d lay back back down, then petting your hair as you rested against one of his pillows. You noticed he’d put his briefs back on and you were a little disappointed.

“Just rest, that took a lot out of you,” Jihoon bragged, with a comically cocky grin, but instead of irritating you, it filled you with fondness. “I have to clean myself up,” you insisted, but Jihoon reached down and grabbed a wet washcloth off the floor before he reassured you, “I took care of you.”

He chose his words carefully, and you knew they were deliberate. You gulped down the rush of emotions that threatened to spill over. I took care of you. You’d never allowed yourself to think about it before, but he’d taken care of you so many times already.

“Thank you,” you whispered, and you meant it for everything. For putting that letter up on your door before you’d even met, for letting you into his apartment that night you were drunk, for plotting all those stupid ways to get back at you for all the stupid ways you were always getting back at him, for being at that party and taking you home and standing up for you against Seungri, for backing off and leaving you alone when he knew you needed it. For suggesting that stupid, beautiful vibrator that didn’t even work and brought you right to him. You didn’t say that it was for all of those things, but Jihoon knew, you were sure of it.

He shifted to lay beside you, and you rolled over to rest your head against his bicep and throw your arm across his chest. “You’re welcome,” he finally replied, “and thank you, too.” You didn’t ask for what—you knew what he meant, as well. The pair of you laid in silence for a few minutes, and Jihoon lifted the arm you weren’t laying on to reach his hand out to yours.

As you stared at your fingers and the way they fit so comfortably in between his, you suddenly remembered something that Seungri had said the night that you broke up with him: he believed you had wanted to fuck Jihoon all along. And maybe that was true, he was a good looking guy, after all…but ever since that first letter, you’d always wanted just a little more from him. At first, it was some respect. Then it was friendship, and a little over an hour ago, it had been sex.

You could feel the wall around your heart imploding and Jihoon was forcing his way inside, by way of squeezing your hand to break you out of your reverie and sending you a shy smile when you looked up at him. Yes, this was the man you’d wanted for a long time.

And as the dust settled, you hoped that maybe now, you could finally have him.

#woozi smut #jihoon smut #seventeen smut #kpop smut #woozi #seventeen #uhhh #seventeen scenarios #woozi scenarios #?????#i wrote this #hahahahahahha someone pls #read this n validate me #it took me like a month and a half to write this #and i probably nvr would have finished it if it weren't for #my angel of a bff breathing down my neck over it for weeks #i just want someone to like it :(

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