#Spotify keyring

[krln-kale]

MY KEYRING SOOOO CUTTIE <<<<<3333❤

[awrkive]

THE LOVE PROGNOSIS, pt. 2 — JJK (m.)

for as long as you can remember, you’ve always been a hopeless romantic.

the girl who’s always dreamt of cheesy encounters with her soulmate, grand love declarations, and a cute little beach wedding to boot. but reality pretty much slaps you hard right on the face, because love, unfortunately, doesn’t come grand — it’s simple and it’s quiet, but it is quite painful, especially when the love that you’ve been seeking for all your adult life has just been right under your nose all this time.

PAIRING jungkook x female reader // mingyu x female reader

GENRE r18+ (angst, fluff, smut) MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

CHAPTER WORD COUNT 27.5k

CHAPTER WARNINGS/MISC medical!au, roommates!au, surgeon!jk, surgeon!reader (they are both 4th year residents and are co-workers), corporate lawyer!mingyu, oc and jk are bffs since med school but their love language is fighting each other <3, jk and mingyu are bffs during undergrad, hopeless romantic!oc. shirtless jk in almost every scene ijbol he needs to get locked up, jk thigh tattoo 😔 a dash of sexual themes (ie: making out, grinding) and violence, this is pretty much MED SCHOOL LORE GALORE bcs boy, was there so much history mentioned here, 3/4 of this is in jk pov, so ladies.... prepare yourselves 🤔so much fluff, and we counter that with not major but not minor either ANGST, so many conversations and dialogues in this one lol, this hopefully offers every answer youre looking for from part one, when ur done reading the chapter this is how the keyring looks like

NOTES hi!! this chapter was supposed to be longer but i was like.. fuck that 😭 its getting too long. anyway. hope u guys enjoy this one!! this is my most favorite thing ive ever written i think n im weirdly very proud of this one idk. scream into my inbox and the reply section if u have #thoughtss 😄😄 [ important: pls make sure to read the note below ]

[ TLP MOODBOARD ] // [ SPOTIFY PLAYLIST ]

PART ONE | TWO | THREE

You take your sweet time trying to right your wrongs.

After that day, you were the one to initiate a call with Mingyu which he answered thankfully (you were a little skeptical about him calling you that night). You went over to his place after your shift, apologizing to him for lying about your roommate situation. Admittedly, Mingyu still doesn’t seem to be wholly okay with it – but he doesn’t really say anything more about it. He kissed you better that night, his lips making you forget all about the stress that you’ve went through for the day, convincing you to stay over.

The night bled into two when he said he couldn’t let you go. Mingyu was persistent and you were unwilling to go in the first place. Partly because who didn’t want to spend more time with their significant other? But it’s also because of a certain someone that is no other than Jeon Jungkook.

Those two nights are going on four – which means that you’ve been avoiding Jungkook for the past three days now.

It doesn’t seem like a difficult task though because Jungkook seems to be doing the same. That was your hunch. He replies to you with dry-ass “okay”s when you text him about not going home because you’re staying at Mingyu’s. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Which is unusual of him. Sure, in your almost decade-long friendship, you’ve fought a bunch of times. But it usually gets resolved in a day or two. And Jungkook wasn’t ever cold like he is right now.

See, the regular Jungkook would find you anywhere on your floor at the hospital just to annoy you. When your time allows it, you eat together with your friends at lunch.

But now, he seems to always have something to do – which, okay, fair. He’s a surgeon, after all. But he doesn’t even spare you a glance whenever you two meet halfway in the hallways. Yesterday, you coincidentally scrubbed in together for the same surgery but he did not say a word to you other than, “Scalpel”.

The rest of your friends are already asking about it. Doyeon told you he had lunch with Jungkook this afternoon, but when she mentioned that maybe you were free to go with them, Jungkook suddenly had to look over a patient’s chart.

It’s not just a hunch anymore. He really is avoiding you.

And to be honest, you’re tired of the whole pussyfooting around. He’s being childish – and you’ll be the better person to come and talk to him about it. Granted, you’re three days late. But at least you’re doing it.

You texted Mingyu earlier this afternoon that you’re coming home to your apartment tonight. He was bummed about it, you could feel it through his message, nonetheless he replied saying he’ll miss you, which put a smile to your tired face from work.

When you went home from your shift at 9pm, Jungkook wasn’t anywhere in the house. Which was a shame – because you were planning to talk to him.

Well. Maybe you’d wait for him.

But it seemed like you underestimated your exhaustion for the day because as soon you finished showering, dressing yourself with your bed clothes which consists of comfortable flimsy camisole and panty shorts, you went straight to bed and passed out – forgetting about Jungkook.

It’s past 2 am when you feel yourself waking up from your deep slumber, stomach grumbling at the emptiness, and you realize you did not only forget about waiting for Jungkook but also about eating dinner.

Walking out of your room, you head straight to the kitchen where you immediately go to open the refrigerator to see if there’s something in it you can consume. There are boxes of Chinese food take-out which makes your eyes light up. When you open to smell them, it seems that they’re still new.

You deduce it must be Jungkook’s.

That gives you the predicament of whether you should eat it or not. You take you’re not exactly on good terms as of the moment – therefore you can’t eat his food. But you’re really hungry.

Throwing away your inhibitions, you open one of the boxes, not even bothering to heat the food.

“Hey,”

You almost jump upon hearing another voice. Looking to your side, you see Jungkook approaching, with only his boxers on, upper half naked.  

“H-hey,” you say, pursing your lips into a thin line. “Are these yours?” You point to the take-out box in your hand.

Jungkook nods and heads straight to your direction. Taking one of the boxes, he hauls himself to the kitchen island, twisting his body so that he can face you.

“Yep.” he responds, dipping his fingers inside the box and taking out strands of noodles from it.

You wince at the sight. “Look like worms.”

“Just like worms.” Jungkook grins, chewing on them in that obnoxious way because he knows you don’t like noisy eaters.

Frowning, you decide to follow him to the island and haul yourself on top of it as well, sitting beside him. Jungkook scoots to the side to give you more room.

“It’s kind of like eating naengmyeon, I don’t like naengmyeon.” You tell him, opening another box and feeling delighted to see untouched stir-fried rice. “Did you just buy this earlier?”

Jungkook nods. “Left them in the fridge when I realized I wasn’t too hungry.”

“Then you woke up feeling hungry?” You smile at him.

He chuckles. “Yeah. When did you get off work?”

“Nine. You?”

“Twelve am.”

You grimace at that, but nod in understanding.

There’s a beat of silence before Jungkook speaks up again.

“Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”

“Just wanted to remind you I’m still your housemate…” you joke, brushing your elbow against his arm in a teasing manner.

Jungkook laughs as he shakes his head. He picks up another batch of noodles in his fingers and then offers it to you, prompting you to arch your brow at him. “Try it.”

You shake your head. “I hate cold noodles.”

“Just try,” He insists, placing it closer to your face. You scrunch your nose, skeptical. It makes Jungkook chuckle lowly. “Head back.”

Hesitantly, you tilt your head back and open your mouth as Jungkook puts the noodles inside it. You almost choke on it when Jungkook laughs mid-way, making you laugh as well, but thankfully, you were able to chew all of them just fine.

“What the fuck.” You frown, slapping his arm good-naturedly.

“Wasn’t so bad, huh?”

“It was bad.” You say, going back to eating your fried rice. Jungkook gives you a look that says he’s not convinced. Looking at his face, you roll your eyes, “It’s like eating–” you stop mid-sentence as Jungkook quickly wipes off something on the side of your lips. It’s so quick though that you brush it off just as instantly and continue, “—literal worms.”

“Imagine if worms tasted like noodles. Wouldn’t that be sick as hell?” Jungkook muses, stretching his arm over you to reach for another take-out box on the counter. It’s so sudden that your immediate reflex was to stretch your upper body backwards, feeling a little taken aback when Jungkook’s face gets a little too close to your stomach, with his arm rubbing over your bare thighs.

He seems like it doesn’t move him, though. Just goes back to his position casually and opens another box. As he does, you can’t help but take a quick look at his bulging thighs, the short length of his boxers letting you get a brief view of the tattoo that peeks out of the expanse of his skin. You’ve seen that before many times, but not the entirety – of course not. It looks like it goes up from way above. Anyway, it’s sort of like a flower, but you’re not sure. You never really asked him about it. He never brings it up either.

“Oh, man, the dumplings got cold.” Jungkook picks inside his box as if he’d miraculously find one that’s not cold.

You roll your eyes at his antics. “You stored them in the fridge for like how many hours now?”

Ignoring you, Jungkook takes out one dumpling, trying to eat it, and you watch as he visibly winces. In a moment, he shoots one straight to the trash bin across from you.

“Oh, that’s real mature.” You say dryly.

With that, Jungkook throws another one, giving you a cheeky grin when it lands in the bin successfully for the second time.

Pursing your lips, you sarcastically say, “Wow. Two points to Xavier from Jeon Jungkook.”

That makes Jungkook look at you instantly.

“How the hell do you know that?” He gives you a look of confusion but there’s amusement written all over his face at the same time.

“Well… Mingyu told me you both played for the basketball varsity team back in undergrad, so,”

Jungkook stops. There’s look of something in his eyes that you can’t quite point out, but then suddenly, he nods.

“He told you how good I was?” He says with a teasing tone, a contrast to his sudden and quick drop of mood a few seconds ago.

You throw him a tissue. “Don’t be cocky. He just mentioned it.”

“I was captain. Two-time MOP, 2018 and 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.”

You look at him with silent reverence. Well, Mingyu didn’t tell you all that, that’s for sure. It’s a bit surreal to picture Jungkook wearing a basketball uniform, though. You’re so used to seeing him in scrubs and lab gown and his usual casual, occasionally suits when you attend formal conferences. You’ve only ever seen him sweat it out whenever he works out in the living room.

“Impressive.” You say. Jungkook grins proudly. “It’s strange I only know about it now, though.”

“You never asked.” He shrugs. “What ‘bout you? I only know you’re little miss summa cum laude.”

Huffing, you jab at his arm when he mentions it, rolling your eyes at him which only earns you a chuckle. Regardless, you tell him, “2018 NCA College Nationals. We won Coed Division One.”

Jungkook arches a brow. “NCA… National Cheerleading Association?” You nod, eating from your take-out box so as to avoid Jungkook’s look after you do so.

“No fucking way,” He says incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” You bite your lip to keep yourself from smiling too much. You never really get to share this part about you with a lot of people. To quote Jungkook, they never ask. It’s funny when they do get surprised by it though, like he is now. When Jungkook stares at you – you don’t know if it’s just in disbelief – longer than necessary, you realize he’s staring at your face and that makes you consciously fix a strand of hair behind your ear. “Go big blue, go big blue, show ‘em what wildcats can do.” You sing a in fast tempo, chuckling about how silly it sounds.

Jungkook utters a sound of amusement. “That’s… wow. Right now, I’m just picturing you cheering but it’s a bit hazy and shit.”

“You’re saying you can’t picture me cheering?” You playfully accuse, but you know exactly what he meant. Even you still don’t believe that you actually did cheer in undergrad. When you signed up for it, it was just because you had to choose a club, and you weren’t interested in anything other than that. You thought cheering would be fun and it was fun.

“No, I’m just—” Jungkook cuts himself off and looks at you. “Okay, now I totally deserve a cheer for that two-point shot I made just now.”

You laugh loudly at that. Covering your mouth, you look at him to see if he’s joking but he seems to be serious.

“No.” You say, your eyes widening, body stiffening.

“Come on,” Jungkook chuckles.

You roll your eyes. “You have to do more than a two-point shot to get a cheer.”

“Okay, what do you want me to do?” Jungkook eagerly presents a challange. You stifle a laugh when he gears up for something. “I can shoot dumplings further from here with my left hand.”

“Ten feet away,” You muse, giggling when Jungkook suddenly gets off the counter, carrying the box of dumplings, and positions himself further away from you. Laughing, you shake your head before you say, “You can’t do it.”

“Try me.” He says as he begins to pick out a dumpling and concentrate on the trash can. Before he shoots, he tells you, “This one’s for you.”

You watch as the dumpling misses the bin.

Jungkook beats you to speaking first. “I admit. I’m a bit rusty.”

Sneering, you eat your fried rice, not straying your eyes from him. “You have to shoot, like, three dumplings.”

“That was a trial shot.” he insists, eyeing you playfully, before he gears up for another again. You watch closely when he makes a move to shoot another dumpling.

It goes in. Jungkook smirks at you when you look at him, impressed.

“Not bad.” You cock your head to the side.

“Tss.” He shoots another shot again and it’s successful for the second time. “That’s two.” Jungkook shows you his fingers and you chuckle at his enthusiasm.

“Let’s see if you can get the third.”

Jungkook nods, and you cover a snicker again at the way his stance suddenly turns serious, as if he’s really taking the whole thing seriously.

In a few seconds, he shoots the last dumpling straight to the bin just as successfully as the last time.

“What did I say?” Jungkook brags as he goes over to the island across from you, sitting on the high chairs this time. You turn your body to look at him, containing your smile. “Your turn now.” Jungkook says with a smirk.

Your purse your lips. “I’m a bit rusty.”

“So was I!” Jungkook claims which prompts a chuckle from you.

You look at him for a while, unsure. You close your eyes, bobbing your head side to side, covering your face as you suddenly feel a sense of embarrassment at the thought of dancing in front of him.

“Promise you won’t laugh?” You say after Jungkook tries to remove your hands off your face.

He raises his right hand and fixes his sitting posture upright. “Promise.”

“If you show your teeth I’ll stop and so will this friendship.” You threaten as you bring your legs over the island to his direction.

Jungkook chuckles while saying a series of “Yeah”s, holding your hand to help you hop off the counter safely.

You take a few quick strides to place yourself in the space between your counter and dining area and look at Jungkook who settles himself comfortably in the kitchen island chair, watching you with relaxed position and crossed arms.

Feeling uncharacteristically shy, you stand upright, suddenly aware that you’re only wearing a pair of panty shorts and a fitted camisole. You don’t work out so you’re a bit conscious in front of Jungkook who looks really good in his natural form. You don’t even understand how he finds time to go to the gym or do his little work-out sesh during some nights or weekends, but you shake away the thought and smile at him coyly. He has the better body, sure, but you know well enough he’ll never judge you for yours… besides, it’s just Jungkook. He makes you feel safe and secure, no matter the context of the situation.

Off the top of your head, you do whatever it is you remember from your college routines and begin your yell.

“Wildcats, get up and shout! We’re the team that’s gonna take it out! Give it all you’ve got, let’s hear you roar!” You chuckle mid-way, forgetting a step. “Sorry,” you apologize quickly, but then continue right away, trapping your bottom lip with your teeth to prevent yourself from completely losing it. “We’re the Wildcats, and we’re here to score! Go Big Blue! Go Big Blue—" You make a mistake again and skip a beat with your finger snaps, and when you look at Jungkook, you can’t help but give in to the laughter that’s been bubbling up inside you. “I can’t do it!” You say, cutting your “performance” short.

“What? It was good!” Jungkook says, encouraging you to continue further.

You stifle a laugh as you go back to the top again but then your mind forgets the next step and you’re messing up the choreography again. At that point, you start mindlessly cheering; jumping around and flapping your arms to make it look like somewhat of a cheer but none of the coordination. You know it looks messy, so you run over to Jungkook shamefully, plopping on the chair beside him. Bringing your legs up to the seat and covering your face in your thighs, you can’t help but giggle in embarrassment.

“Woah,” Jungkook says, but you can say there’s a hint of laughter in his tone. You know it’s not out of mockery when he lifts your head up and boop your nose. “That was cute. Best cheer I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re pushing it.” You hiss, kicking his knee slightly.

Jungkook captures your leg, and you squeal when he pinches your thigh. You both laugh at that and you thought Jungkook’s gonna let go of your leg but he keeps it on his lap.

“My stomach hurts from laughing.” You tell him, taking a deep breath, trying to regulate your heart. Everything feels funny. Your cheer was funny. You must’ve looked so stupid.

Jungkook chuckles. “Wildcats, get up and shout—”

“Jungkook!” You cut him off, removing your leg from his lap to kick him again on the thigh this time. That only prompts him to laugh louder.

When the high of the moment fades, Jungkook looks over at you.

“Do you feel sleepy?”

You shake your head. “Not really. At least not yet.”

He hums, and then takes your box of fried rice to eat from it.

There’s the silence again, but it’s quiet and comfortable. No weird tension sitting in the air.

“Jungkook,” You call him after a while.

“Hm.”

You clear your throat. “I meant to talk to you,” Jungkook stops eating and looks at you to acknowledge you. “I’m sorry.”

He stares at you for a moment. Then, he chuckles, shaking his head. “You know what’s funny? I was gonna talk to you yesterday to say I’m sorry but then you didn’t talk to me at all in the OR. I thought you were still mad at me.”

With furrowed brows, you tell him, “I thought you were mad at me. You only said “scalpel” in the OR and then that was it. No hi’s or hello’s in the hallways for the past three days.”

“Me? Mad at you?” He says, as if he can’t believe you would even think that. “I mean, you piss me off sometimes, but I don’t think I was ever mad at you.” You pout. Jungkook smiles. “I can never be mad at you,” His look is gentle and warm that you feel a little flustered for a reason unknown. It just ticks a little something in your brain, tugging something at your heart. Then, Jungkook sighs. “I’m sorry, too. For the way I went about it. The “bringing boys here” comment was out of line.”

There’s a wince on your face when you hear that.

That comment did hurt a little.

But you know it was just a heat-in-the-moment type of thing, and he just wasn’t able to think through his words well enough when he was… well, pissed – and rightfully so. Because you did something offensive to him, and you can’t blame him for feeling the way he felt.

You nod at Jungkook. “Thank you for saying that. I’m saying sorry because I realized what you said. I should’ve informed you I was bringing Mingyu home, and I should’ve told him about you being my roommate. We really could’ve avoided that situation.”

“You can just tell me beforehand if you’re bringing him to our place.” Jungkook shrugs.

You chuckle. “No. That won’t happen again.” And it’s true. It’s awkward and it’s rude when you have a roommate.

Jungkook looks at you. “Okay. I won’t do it as well,” You shake your head, playfully rolling your eyes at him. “I’m guessing you settled it pretty quickly with him?” He gestures at your neck and you realize he’s referring to the necklace you’re wearing – the one Mingyu gave you the very same day you fought.

You want to point out it’s not really new, but you settle with, “Yeah. Fortunately.” as a response.

“I really am sorry for what happened.” Jungkook says and you can feel the sincerity in his voice.

“It’s fine,” Touching his arm, you give him a small smile. “Have you and Mingyu talked?”

Jungkook shakes his head. Nibbling on your bottom lip, you think about how that’s… not good. They were friends before you and have just met each other again after so many years – you do not want to be that kind of person who gets in the way of some other people’s relationship.

And you really can’t have Jungkook not liking your boyfriend or your boyfriend not liking Jungkook, either.

But as much as you want to suggest that they talk it out, you know you can’t. Besides, you trust that they eventually will. They’re grown men.

“So…” you trail off. “Are we okay?”

Jungkook’s lips tilt upwards. “Are we okay?”

“Come on,” you roll your eyes. “Do we hug it out or like – I don’t know – handshake on it?”

“Let’s hug it out like we’re twelve.” Jungkook grins and in a moment, he scoots closer to you and wraps his arms around your waist, resting his head on your chest.

The angle is a bit awkward with Jungkook crouching too much you don’t doubt his position is anything but comfortable, but it works, and it gives you the opportunity to pat his head as you say, “I missed hanging out with you, buddy.”

“Can’t say the same thing.”

That earns him a slight pinch to the ear easily accessible to you.

“Ow!” Jungkook says and then add, “I hate to ruin the moment but… you’re not wearing a bra.”

You quickly grab both sides of his head to get him off your chest. He comes back sitting upright on his chair, laughing.

“Fuck off—” you flip him off and then look over your box of fried rice, but then you remember he was also eating it earlier. “You ate all of it!”

“Finders keepers.”

“I hate you.”

“Hm.”

You shake your head, standing up and starting to grab all the boxes to take them to the trash bin.

“By the way, I just got my approval from HR for our trip the next two weeks. Have you?” You ask him across the room. You can see Jungkook’s face light up at the mention.

“Yeah, of course. Got approved yesterday.” Jungkook grins. You watch as he stares at you a bit longer, his face showing a hint of confusion.

You arch a brow. “Why does your face look like that?” Jungkook shakes his head, obviously ready to dismiss it. But you’re persistent. “What is it?” You say, walking towards his direction and stopping in front of him.

“Nothing…” he trails off. Then he rubs the back of his head. “I just really thought that you…” You squint your eyes at him. Then he chuckles lightly and swipes his fingers through his hair. “I just thought the trip would be cancelled.”

Your eyebrows furrow. Frowning, you nudge at him. “What? Of course, not! We planned that trip like six months ago. I’m not backing out.”

Jungkook gives you a shy smile.

“Okay.”

You can’t help it. You bring your hands to his cheeks and pinch them.

“He’s so excited for his birthday trip!” You say, intentionally talking like you would to a toddler.

Jungkook predictably forces your hands out of his skin and holds your wrist a bit tight as he rolls his eyes at you.

“Knock it off.” He glares at you. But you’re not done with your fun, so you poke your finger to his waist, knowing that’s his weak spot, and tease him some more. “Seriously.” Jungkook huffs out and your laughter becomes louder because he looks like a grumpy child right now.

“Sorry.” you say, still giggling. He furrows his brows, and you can’t help it, you poke at his waist again. When you do it, though, Jungkook captures your wrist, effectively stopping another one of your juvenile assaults. Suddenly, you start noting the mirth in his eyes.

You’ve seen that look before and it always ends up with you almost dying from too much laughter because he always—

“You’re gonna regret that.”

You let out a squeal as Jungkook takes ahold of your waist, and before you can even voice out a protest, he easily hoists you up against his body, bouncing you up until you're hanging around his shoulder like a sack bag.

“What the hell, put me down, you prick!” You complain, slapping the rugged muscles on his back. But Jungkook just responds with a series of clicks of his tongue, carrying you across the living room.

You know he’s about to put you on the couch to tickle you to death, so you do what you could and bite down on the skin of his back.

“Ouch!” Jungkook immediately reacts, stumbling a little in his stride. You snort at that, but you immediately frown when you feel a slap to your ass.

“You asshole!”

“You just lowered your chances of being spared,” Was his last words before you feel yourself getting put down on the surface of the sofa. Soon after, Jungkook’s poking his fingers to your waist and stomach, prompting you to erupt in fits of giggles and laughter, thrashing beneath him like a caged animal.

“Pl—stop—oh my god!” You say, weakly reaching for his arms. When Jungkook doesn’t relent, you continue wriggling under him, laughing and choking, saying a variety of, “Stop! I’m —” giggle, “gonna—” then another snort, “—die!”

Jungkook chuckles. He torments you some more before finally stopping his fingers in their ministrations.

“You deserve that.” Jungkook says when you both came down from the high, laughing at the messy state of your hair and the way you try to catch your breath like you just ran a triathlon.

You breathe in and out deeply, clutching your stomach that still hurts from laughing.

“Fuck you.” You hiss, giving him the finger.

Jungkook bursts into laughter, and from his position in between your legs, he lets himself fall on top of you.

“Jungkook, no!” Pushing him off you, you try to get away from him but the goof just forces himself beside you instead, sticking his much bigger build in between you and the back of the couch. It makes you scoot near the edge as a result, and you hold onto his arm so that you don’t fall off, tangling your leg against his own for added support. Pinching his waist in which he lets out an ingenuine “Owe!” to, you face him as you say, “You are so annoying.”

Jungkook just gives you a shit-eating grin. “Who started it?”

“You almost killed me.” You say dryly.

“Don’t be dramatic.” He rolls his eyes.

Suddenly, you realize the position you are both in.

Your bare legs are intermingled against each other, Jungkook has one arm wrapped around your waist, and from the lack of clothes on both sides, you can feel pretty much everything.

There’s a weird feeling in the pit of your stomach upon the epiphany.

Jungkook’s looking at you with a playful grin, but as he notices you staring at him, he stills. From such close proximity, you can almost trace out the lines of his features. The scar on his cheek, the mole under his lip, and the pimple scar that was probably from a week ago. At that thought, you think about: if you can see him so close like this, he can also probably see you, and that’s when you break away from the contact.

“Shit.” You hiss as you let yourself fall off the floor by rolling around, away from his hold and touch and him in general.

Jungkook immediately scoots to the edge of the sofa to look down at you with confused eyes. “The hell?”

“Don’t worry,” you wave your hand at him.

He snorts. “Did you just fall?”

You roll your eyes. Of course, he’d think that. But you let him, standing up from the floor.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”

You hear Jungkook’s boisterous laughter as you walk towards the kitchen again, stopping in front of the fridge to get some water.

“You’re going to bed now?” Asks Jungkook, following you to the fridge and mirroring your activity.

Nodding at his question, you peer from the rim of the glass as you answer, “Yeah, I don’t want to be sleeping at the hospital later.”

“Fair.”

Soon after, you both decided to clean up a bit in the kitchen and when you finished, you two headed towards the direction of your bedrooms. It’s located just near the kitchen, with the doors located beside each other.

When you turn the knob open to your own door, Jungkook calls you, catching your attention.

You arch a brow at him, waiting.

“Good night,” Jungkook says. You drop your kitted brows and smile. You’re about to greet him the same but then he adds, “Also– that was a really great cheer.”

“Ugh, Jungkook!”

You look across the bed to see Mingyu still on his laptop on his worktable, working on something. An hour and thirty minutes have passed since you arrived at his place, but you’re still not getting the least bit of attention from him.

You get it, it’s work, but he asked you to come over… isn’t it only fair to expect a little bit of something?

Getting up from the bed, you trudge over to his direction.

“Hi,” you say, ducking down to wrap your arms around his neck from the back of his swivel chair and kissing the spot below his ear.

“Hi,” Mingyu meets the kiss you give him on the lips. He reaches for your hands resting on top of chest and holds it there, looking at you. You delight at the hint of attention. “I’ll just be in a few minutes. You’re staying, right?”

You grin. “Of course.”

“Good.”

Rolling your eyes, you take your hands off him and stand upright once again. Mingyu rotates his chair so he can look at you with his undivided attention, voicing out a low whistle when he takes in your outfit – or lack of it thereof.

You arch a brow, knowing well he’s ogling you only in your bra and panties, squinting your eyes at him. Slowly, you glide your leg over his waist and plop yourself down on his lap, waiting for any protest from him. It doesn’t come, and so you give him a grin before planting your lips against his.

The kiss turns heated in a matter of seconds, with Mingyu squeezing over your bra and taking in your soft moans against his mouth, feeling the delicious roll of your hips against his crotch where you feel a semi growing already.  

“Sweetheart,” Mingyu grunts. When you don’t answer that, he cups your jaw, making you look at him. “__.”

“What?” You say, more like a whine, looking at him with hooded eyes. You’re starting to feel sticky in your underwear and you need him to do something about it.

“Not now, sweetheart. I told you, I’m working.”

You frown. There’s a beat of silence before you let out a sigh. “Okay.” You say, getting off his lap.

“I’ll take care of you when I’m done.” He promises, taking ahold of your wrist, looking up at you.

Pursing your lips, you look away. “It’s fine.” When Mingyu lets go, you look at the direction of the bathroom. “I’m gonna take a shower,” you tell him. “You’re free to join me if you want or whatever.”

You know he can’t and that he won’t.

“Alright.” Was the last thing you heard before you walked towards the bathroom door.

You’ve been over at his place too many times to count now, and you’re slowly building your shower essentials in his own bathroom. Your body wash, your face cream, your shampoo, your conditioner – even your moisturizer and your eye mask are already placed inside his bathroom cabinet.

As you step out of the shower box, all clean and fresh, you go over to the lavatory to brush your teeth. At the sight of both your cups sitting beside each other, you smile.

You look in the mirror – noting the way your lips can’t stop from curling up at the thoughts running inside your head.

Shaking them off, you grab Mingyu’s robe and put it over yourself, turning the knob around to step out of the bathroom.

You see Mingyu on his bed this time around, but his laptop’s still perched on his lap.

He looks up when he sees you. “Ready to sleep?”

You nod, feeling at home the way you automatically go towards his closet to pick out a shirt and some panties you left over the time.

As you’re in the process of dressing yourself, a phone’s ding rings in the room.

Looking at Mingyu, you watch as he checks his phone, assuming it came from him. When he puts it down, he looks at your plugged phone on the bedside table.

“What is it?” You ask, now properly dressed, walking to the bed.

You note the way Mingyu’s gaze changes as he hands you your phone.

“It’s Jungkook.” He says with a weirdly clipped tone. Then another ding comes. A beat, and then your phone rings.

Your brow shoots up, taking the device from him and checking it yourself.

Jungkook’s face is plastered over your screen – a picture of him wasted in his room two years ago, taken from your Thailand trip with the rest of your friends. He’s sleeping with his mouth open, shirtless in the middle of the hut, only covered up with his trunks. You remember setting it as his contact photo because it was funny back then. Jungkook hates the photo, and your friends always made fun of him for it.

Right now, though, it doesn’t feel the least bit funny. Not when Mingyu’s certainly saw it. Not when he looks a little put off as soon as he sees a glimpse of it when he was passing your phone to you.

“I’ll just answer this.” You say, standing from the bed again.

You don’t expect Mingyu to suddenly shoot you a question, “You can’t answer here?”

Brows knitting together, you give him an uncertain look. “It’s just Jungkook.”

“Yeah… so, why not here?”

You relent, seeing the point he’s trying to make. Plopping yourself on the bed again, you answer Jungkook’s call and put the phone over your ear.

“Jungkook,”

“__,” he sighs out your name, sounding relieved. “Thank fuck.”

“What’s wrong?” You ask, growing a bit concerned at his tone.

You can hear some shuffling from the other line as Jungkook tells you, “Did you see me with my pager in the locker room earlier?”

“Oh, uh… let me think…” you trail off, trying to remember the events earlier. As you do that, you notice Mingyu’s fingers trailing his hands to your bare legs, but you ignore it as you answer Jungkook, “I think I didn’t, yeah. I didn’t.” Jungkook hisses. “Did you check your car?” you ask, trying to help out.

“Already did. It’s not in there, either. I really think I accidentally threw it out in the bin along with some trash in my pockets.” He says, sounding a little distressed now.

“Well… you can always just go to the operator, you know? Get a new pager?” you offer. There’s a drop of kiss on your shoulder that makes you shudder, and you look at Mingyu with furrowed brows. He doesn’t say anything, though, just let his fingers trail upwards, his hand sliding under your shirt, gripping your thigh. Your boyfriend just gives you a sly smile, and you squint your eyes at him, confused at what he’s playing at. 

“I know. But, ugh, you know I lost two pagers already this year. Sungkyun hates me at this point—”

Jungkook’s answer suddenly drowns out when Mingyu grazes his thumb on your clothed clit.

“Oh.”

“—what?” Jungkook halts, asking about your abrupt reaction.

You bite your lip in an effort to shut yourself up, and when Mingyu’s hand makes another move again, your free hand shoots up to stop him.

“Hold on a second, Jungkook,” you say, quickly pressing mute.

Mingyu looks at you with a smirk, playful smile painting his face. “You know you can continue, right?”

At that, your brows furrow even further.

“What are you doing?” You didn’t mean to sound curt but with the way Mingyu’s expression changes, it may have sounded that way.

You… couldn’t help it.

“I wanted to touch you,” Mingyu tells you after a beat of awkward silence. Then, his hand retreats to himself. “Do you not want to?”

There’s guilt that springs up inside you when you see the look on his face as he says those words.

“No, I’m sorry— it’s just… I want to. I just… not with somebody on the phone?” You put it out like a question, unsure of yourself.

The room is quiet for awhile and suddenly there’s a thick tension that hangs in the air.

You reach out for Mingyu but then drop your hand to your sides when he moves to sit on the edge of the bed.

He turns his head to you with an unreadable expression on his face. “Is it because it’s Jungkook?”

You frown at his tone.

It sounded accusatory.

“Excuse me?” You say, taking immediate offense. When Mingyu shrugs, you feel a bit of annoyance bubble up inside you. “I would’ve still stopped you if it was anybody else on the phone, Mingyu.” you say, tone firm and leveled.

“I’m sorry, then.”

But he definitely doesn’t sound like it. His sarcasm makes you snap. “What’s up with you?”

Mingyu opens his mouth to say something but then he closes it again. You watch him with confused eyes, completely at loss of context where he’s at. The night was going fine as usual and suddenly, there’s this.

After a few seconds, Mingyu sighs. “What are you even talking about right now?” He glances at your phone.

“It’s—” you take a glance at it too. “It’s just his pager.”

“Pager?”

“Yes.”

“He asks you about his pager in the middle of the night, knowing full well you’re with me?”

“I—” you stop yourself, words suddenly getting lost in your tongue. Not because you don’t know the answer to his question, but because you hate the way he phrased it – and honestly, you’re starting to feel icky about how he’s going with it. What was he trying to do? Pin you down with accusatory notions?

You don’t fucking get it. Jungkook’s his friend. It’s so bizarre to even think about how Mingyu is seemingly acting jealous over his supposed friend.

“You know what?” You say instead, not wanting to discuss it further with him anymore. It’s just gonna lead to an unnecessary fight – and frankly, you don’t want to deal with his jealousy. It seems so… futile. “Can we just sleep this whole thing off?”

Mingyu looks at you and for the first time, his eyes don’t look gentle. He looks at you with a bit of a frown, and you get it. You do. You’re not exactly happy, either. Not right now, with the way he’s acting.

“Do you want me to go?” You ask, ready to step out of bed.

“I didn’t tell you to.” Mingyu says, voice equally strained.

You sigh. “What do you want me to do, Mingyu? Are you jealous, is that it?” You meant it to be completely rhetorical, not at all expecting him to say anything.

But he answers instantly. “What if I say I am?”

Your lips part. You’re surprised at the confirmation, but you shake your thoughts off it.

“Then it’s completely unnecessary,” you tell him, as genuine as you can sound. When Mingyu doesn’t move in his position on the edge of the bed, you crawl towards him. Testing the waters, you touch his arm to see if he would avoid your touch, but when you do rest your hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t stray. “I like you, Gyu.”

Cocking your head to the side, you watch as his face still sports a cold expression. But he says, “I like you too, you know that,”

“But…?” you try to get out the words from him, because you knew there’s more.

“I don’t want you to think I’m being irrational about this whole thing,” he starts, and you nod your head, trying to show him that you get it. Mingyu licks his lips before he continues, “I just… I guess I just want you to put boundaries around your friendship with Jeon.”

That makes you stop. Nevermind the strange way he called Jungkook by his surname.

“How do you mean by that?” You ask with furrowed brows.

“You’re just really close with him. And you live in one apartment together.” He points out.

“Mingyu…” you say, suddenly feeling tired all over again. “I thought we already talked about that.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m a hundred percent comfortable with it, you know?”

It feels like you got electrocuted by his words the way you quickly retreat your hands. “That’s…” you trail off, not really knowing what to say.

Thankfully, though, Mingyu interjects before you can slip into a dilemma.

“I know, I know about why you’re living with him and all that stuff. We talked about it. It’s just…” he reaches for your hand. Entangling your fingers together, Mingyu brings your knuckles to his lips and presses a kiss there. “I want you all the time. And I guess I really am just jealous – even though it’s juvenile. I’m jealous that he’s known you far longer than me.”

“But— I’m here thrice a week. I make time for the both of us. And it doesn’t really matter how long you’ve known me for, Gyu,” you respond truthfully.

He nods.

“I’m sorry.”

You shake your head. “No, I’m sorry. I guess I just— I got in way over my head that I also forgot to take your feelings into account,”

Mingyu smiles, and there goes his soft gentle expression again.

“I know. It’s fine. You don’t have anything to be sorry about. It’s me who’s being unreasonable.”

“No, it’s not unreasonable,” you tell him. “I get it. Boundaries, Mingyu. I know what you’re talking about.”

Mingyu scooches closer and presses a sweet kiss to your lips. You gladly bask in it, smiling against his lips, keeping your gentle gaze towards him as he breaks away.

“I’m sorry for being a bummer.”

You kiss him again and the way he inserts his tongue in your mouth distracts you a bit but you manage to break the contact. Soon, he’s lying down beside you and when you check your phone, your call with Jungkook has already ended, but there are two messages from him on your notifications.

[12:35am] jaykay🤠: are you still alive [12:38am] jaykay🤠: ok nevermind i’ll hang the call i actually found my pager just now 😭 [12:38am] jaykay🤠: it was in the kitchen counter LOL [12:45am] jaykay🤠: ok bye. night

You were going to reply but decide against it for some reason.

Putting your phone down to the bedside table, you follow Mingyu under the sheets and as usual, you face against his direction just like he does.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t really like cuddling that much. He’d share his space to a certain extent, just like how you got into his bed in the first place, but not the lengths of cuddling together in bed. Mingyu didn’t tell you why – and you don’t want to come off as clingy, so you don’t bother asking.

It’s strange, though. Now that he told you a while ago that he, apparently, “wants you all the time”. Shouldn’t he like to cuddle you in bed, then? But you don’t want to dwell in it too much, afraid that you may be digging yourself a hole if you were to keep it up.

As you lay your cheek on your folded hands, you play back the events of the night and think about how you’ve seen this film before.

When you were in med school, Eunwoo always had something to say about your friendship with Jungkook. He wasn’t direct with it, but with the way he never bothered to make friends with Jungkook or always had a grimace on his face when you mentioned him in passing, it was enough for you to conclude that Eunwoo was always… wary of Jungkook – and definitely in a jealous type of way.

He said almost the exact same thing as Mingyu – that boundaries should be built; that Jungkook and you are too close, why is he calling you in the middle of the night to ask about mundane things, why does he know too much about your mother’s preferences, and why is he buddy-buddy with your dad who otherwise always had an uninterested expression on his face?

It wasn’t even just Mingyu. Your past flings for the past four years you’ve been single always got put off when they heard that you’re rooming with a guy – even more so when you mention that he’s your bestfriend.

You’re not stupid to not see how it looks like from the outside perspective – and you’re not dense to not ever consider the possibility of something romantic brewing within the friendship. You have thought about it before – had an instant crush on him the first time you met at the law library back in post grad school. But it was fleeting at best, especially when Eunwoo came into your life a few weeks later.

Nayeon, Doyeon, and Taehyung have also hinted at it. Sometimes – most of the time, really, teasing you two, especially Taehyung. Even the most mature one among your friends – Yoongi – once told you both to get married at forty. He was joking, though he looked way too serious for someone who was just supposed to be joking.

And there was that one dreadful time in third year of med school when Jungkook almost kissed you.

You buried that memory in the very depths of your mind – not ever wanting to revisit it again. It was a bad time, and it was just not a good thing to look back at. Jungkook acted irresponsible, and you stupidly let yourself be complicit in it, even though you knew better.

Nothing even happened – but that memory was just that. A mere memory. You doubt Jungkook even remembers that himself.

Here’s the thing: you’ve just never seen Jungkook past the person you consider as a friend. You’ve never been weird about the women he dated – or if he dated, at all. He’s also always been supportive of your relationships… as far as you’re concerned. Regardless of what everybody says, you both seem to agree that you’re just better off as friends. You work better that way.

Jungkook’s a good guy, though. He does have tons of flings – but he’s just conventionally attractive and works hard for a body that is to die for. Women like that. Additionally, he has a stable job and even though he annoys you about splitting the delivery fee when you do take-out, he’s actually quite rich – or, his family is – he’d always insist.

You get it though. As a co-resident, you both don’t really make that much (for the work that you do) – at least not yet.

But he was indeed born in generational wealth, coming from a family of doctors, which is why it’s quite impressive that he knows how to handle his life by his own hard work. His intelligence and perseverance are some of the things you admire about him, his drive to make a name for himself and never leeching off his family’s name. Jungkook doesn’t ever brag about how his neurosurgeon dad is one of the best in the country and how his mom is a legend in cardiac surgery – even though sometimes, he could use it a little. He’s playful yet charming; quiet when you’re just knowing him, but he’ll eventually talk a lot when you get close.

As a friend, he’s quite the best you’ve ever had.

And even though you don’t really see him past that, you know in your heart that whoever ends up with him romantically will be a very lucky person.

“You’re a pussy.”

“Doyeon.”

Doyeon huffs, rolling her eyes so hard at Taehyung’s reprimand and then goes back to glaring at Jungkook again who just looks at her with a pathetic expression.

“What? I’m right. He’s a pussy and you’re an even bigger pussy for defending him being a pussy.” She says, furrowing her eyebrows angrily.

“Why are we talking about pussies?”

Nayeon suddenly enters the on-call room and Jungkook nearly has a heart attack.

“What the hell, you should at least knock. Jesus.” Jungkook says, clutching his chest, looking at Nayeon with an almost offended expression who closes the door behind her.

“Were you scared it was __? See!” Doyeon sighs out in frustration. “Such a fucking pussy.”

“Such a fucking pussy,” Jungkook mocks, using a higher pitch to imitate Doyeon poorly.

“And a child too.” She rolls her eyes and throws him a pillow. It misses Jungkook and hits Taehyung instead.

“Seriously, what are you so mad about today? You have that mood. Did you and your secret boyfriend fight?” Taehyung spits out.

Everybody stills in the room when Doyeon gives him a sharp glare. That pretty much makes everyone shut up, especially Taehyung who makes a show of physically zipping his mouth.

Nayeon fakes a cough and trudges towards Jungkook sitting on one of the beds. She throws her heavy hands on his shoulders, more like slaps, and then looks at Doyeon as she asks, “What are we calling this man a pussy for?”

“Oh, ask him. Or his dumber best friend.” Doyeon rolls his eyes and looks at Taehyung, crossing her arms and leaning her back on the chair she’s sitting on from across the room.

“You’re starting to hurt my feelings and I hate you.” Taehyung says from the other bed.

“Why?” Nayeon ignores their banter and furrows her brows at Jungkook curiously.

Jungkook hisses under his breath. “It’s nothing. She calls me a pussy for literally everything.”

Doyeon butts in. “Yeah, are you gonna cry?”

“If __ was here, she’s gonna be on my side, you know that?” Jungkook rebuts.

“If __ was here, you’d be panicking because she’ll know about your little secret.”

“Oof.” Taehyung comments.

“Oh, Jungkookie…” Nayeon looks down at him with worried eyes. When he looks up with a sad look, she starts rubbing his shoulders as some sort of comfort, already knowing about what this might be about. “This is about… the thing?”

He nods weakly. “Yes. And no. Uh, well, this is… you know about the birthday trip in the next five days, right? So, she asked me if she could bring, uh, Mingyu along.”

“Oh.” Nayeon utters, looking at Doyeon for confirmation.

Doyeon nods, and then nags, “Ask him what he said.”

Nayeon looks at him. “What did you say?”

“I said yes.”

“Oh.”

Jungkook looks down in slight shame at Nayeon’s reaction. She completely stops her hands’ ministrations on his shoulder, indicating that even she could not believe what he just did.

This makes Jungkook even feel worse.

Leaning his elbow on his thighs, he runs his fingers through his hair as he says, “I mean, how could I have said no? I would’ve looked like an asshole. Besides, Mingyu and I are college friends. There’s no reason for me to prohibit him from this trip. Like, at all.”

“Yeah, you and Mingyu are college friends but, ultimately, it’s our trip, right? __ would’ve understood if you said no.” Doyeon says, still not over her justification from a while ago.

“I know, I know. But still… I didn’t want to say no to her.” Jungkook tells Doyeon, not having a lot to say more than that.

It’s the plain truth, anyway. He truly, simply does not want to say no to you. Not ever.

“But Jungkook…” Nayeon interrupts. “Would it be okay for you? We know how you feel about the whole – er – Mingyu thing. Can you really take them being close together? Especially on a trip for your birthday?”

Though Nayeon’s voice is soft and her gaze gentle, her words hit him like a ton of bricks.

Truthfully, he doesn’t know what to feel about the whole thing. You dating Mingyu is one thing, but you bringing him along on your trips is another. It means that he’s it.

That you’re getting serious.

He hates himself for hating the idea. Jungkook’s always wanted to be nothing but supportive of you. He’d done it perfectly well with Eunwoo before, and your flings in the past four years have never upgraded past to being solely flings so he never worried about them, but now with Mingyu… it’s hard to pretend like it’s not killing him when you talk about how much you like him.

You have that lovestruck look on your face when Mingyu comes up in a conversation. For the first time in a while, you look genuinely happy. Jungkook always thought that your feelings for Eunwoo still lingered over the past few years – and how could it not, when you were literally engaged to him for a year? You told him one time that he may have been your greatest love… and he fears that it might be the same with Mingyu.

Where does that exactly leave him?

“What I think doesn’t really matter. And it’s just for week.” he murmurs, but the others hear it anyway.

“An excruciating week, you mean.” Doyeon says. She stands up from her chair. “You know what, I’m over this whole thing. I’ve witnessed you pine over her for whole eight years – and I’m just – I’m moving on from this. And I have a surgery. I’m going out.”

Jungkook grimaces when Doyeon heads towards the door.

“Doyeon, don’t be mean to Jungkook. He’s trying his best, you know? The timing is just not right and—”

“What timing?”

As soon as Doyeon twisted the doorknob, pulling the door open to completely head out, you came barging in, cutting off Nayeon’s words.

Her eyes widen a little at your sudden arrival. And Jungkook scrambles to think of an effort to swerve the subject, but Taehyung beats him to it.

“__, heyyy,” he prolongs the word quite unnaturally, chuckling at the end of it for no reason. Jungkook internally notes to tell him later never dare try to save anything ever again.

That makes you furrow your brows in confusion. Directing your look to Doyeon who stopped on her tracks, you ask her instead, “What’s going on? What about Jungkook trying his best?”

Doyeon looks at Jungkook and then you. You wait, but then she just rolls her eyes – just completely done about the whole thing. Like she said earlier.

“He’s trying his best not to be a pussy – well, allegedly.” At that, she goes out of the room, ignoring your calls to pull her back in.

“Uh… I think I have a surgery in twenty. See you guys around. Gotta scrub in.” Taehyung jumps from the other bed and Jungkook makes sure to extend his leg forward so that the older guy trips on it as he walks. “What the fuck, man.” Taehyung looks at him, offense written all over his face.

Jungkook gives him a glare. Taehyung chooses to ignore it rather than prolong it and walks past you at the door.

“Bye, fuckers.”

“Don’t call me a fucker!” Nayeon chimes in but Taehyung’s already out of the room.

“Hey, seriously! What was that?” You head towards the bed where Jungkook and Nayeon are, situating yourself on the far end of the bed to lean on the frame. You take off your sneakers in one swift move and lay your feet on Jungkook’s lap.

“It’s nothing. You know how Doyeon always bullies me…” Jungkook says, ignoring the tingling sensation that starts to creep up his spine at the way you casually initiate physical contact.

He needs to get a grip. You most probably don’t really mean anything by it.

“She does not bully you.” Nayeon rolls her eyes beside him.

“You probably deserve it.” you say, pulling out and eating some strawberry yogurt.

Nayeon laughs at your remark, but then it’s cut short when a pager suddenly beeps. Instantly, all of you take out your own and check if it was yours.

“Alright, that’s my call.”

“Bye. Good luck.” You say, offering your cup to Nayeon, but she only shakes her head. Meanwhile, Jungkook gives her a pair of thumbs up.

When Nayeon leaves the room, you nudge Jungkook with your foot.

“Hey,”

Jungkook looks at you with a brow raised.

“Can you rub my foot? Please rub my foot.” You say, making the best rendition of puppy face, extending your sock-cladded foot in his direction.

He scoffs. “Do you think I’m a pushover?”

You gasp dramatically. “I do not! I think you’re a cool person who’d totally give me foot rubs.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not a cool person who would give you foot rubs.”

You groan. “I gave you a massage weeks ago.”

“That was, like, two months ago.” Jungkook says drily.

“It counts because you didn’t do anything to repay me for my kindness.”

“Oh, you need your kindness paid back?” Jungkook teases, wiggling his eyebrows at you.

You pout at him and then whine. “Please, just three minutes, I swear. I’ll even put up a timer.”

Indeed, Jungkook is a pushover. Pushover to your cute pout and every request. Again, he could just not find it in himself to say no to you. Not even in his wildest dreams.

But it’s never not fun to tease you before he relents. “Fine. Two minutes.” He says, pretending to begrudge the thought of giving you a foot massage, even though inside, he’s quite thrilled to be doing so.

It would be a lie to say that it isn’t one of his favorite past times in the quiet evenings of your apartment. Jungkook loves the weight of your leg on his lap, loves the way you thank him in between groans, and loves that he just gets to be close to you in almost such an intimate way.

“Your feet stink.” Jungkook decides to tease, scrunching his nose, feigning disgust.

“Don’t lie. Also, your feet stink even more, don’t try me.”

“My feet do not stink.”

“Let’s just agree to disagree,” You grin. “I’m starting a timer.” You say, grabbing your phone, pressing some stuff on it before you put it on the mattress.

“Let me see, for all I know, you set it to five instead of three.”

You look at him with widen eyes, stiffening.

“It’s three minutes.”

“Your nostrils are flaring, you’re lying.”

You groan. “Please. Dinner is on me later.”

That obviously catches Jungkook’s attention.

“You’re staying at home for the night?”

You look at him weird. “Yeah, of course. What’s with that face?”

Jungkook shakes his head, hides a small smile as he looks down to your feet on his lap and takes a hold of one. He takes off your sock for you and begins massaging the tendons of your foot, noting the way you immediately lean back and relax.

“Nothing. I just thought you’d be staying at Mingyu’s again.”

“Ah,” you nod your head. When Mingyu's name is mentioned, you visibly frown. It’s the kind of face that you make when you’re deep in thought. “I was supposed to. But I don’t know… we fought this morning.”

Jungkook raises a brow. “You wanna talk about it?”

You shrug. “Not really. It’s a weird argument. I don’t know.”

He wants so badly to poke around and find out… but somehow, there’s something in him that tells him not to bother.

Anyway, you’re going home tonight so that’s all that matters. Jungkook begins to think about what to eat for dinner… he’d love to cook something, nevermind that he’s tired from his overnight shift yesterday. He also only got around four total hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, and that was not even consecutive hours – just the sum. That is why he was in the on-call rooms, until Taehyung suddenly barged in, followed by Doyeon, Nayeon, and then you.

“Oh– there, that’s so good, Jungkook,” you say after a particularly hard press against the ball of your heel.

Jungkook knows better than to let his mind wander upon hearing that from you. He’s massaging you, of course that was gonna be the natural reaction.

It’s also quite pathetic to be even thinking about it in the first place – considering that your mind might most likely be weighed by yours and Mingyu’s argument – your boyfriend.

“Hey, about what I said a few days ago,” you started to speak again, breaking the momentary silence. Jungkook hums to acknowledge you. “I know you said yes to me bringing Mingyu along, but, uh, I’m not sure if he still plans to.”

“Ah,” Jungkook nods. Was the argument that bad? “Okay.”

“Yeah. He has to fly over to Arizona for something that week. Told me he may be able to arrive and join us on the second day, which is the exact date of your birthday, but honestly, I’m not sure. His sched changes a lot.”

Deep down, Jungkook wishes Mingyu just opts out of joining in altogether.

But he doesn’t have to tell you that.

“That’s a shame.” he comments, not really meaning it. He massages your other foot with ginger hands, which has you letting out soft sighs again. Jungkook buries them in the back of his head, lest his mind goes to territories that are absolutely humiliating.

“I know…” you trail off. You look like you have more to say as well, but then the door to the room opens. Again.

“Forgot my pager.” Doyeon announces, crossing the room with quick steps to reach for the forgotten thing she left on the table.

When Doyeon’s gaze falls back to the both of you, she raises a brow, and then her eyes direct their way towards Jungkook’s hands on your foot.

You’re about to say something when Doyeon rolls his eyes at Jungkook. Then, without giving you the opportunity to speak, she heads out of the room quickly, leaving Jungkook to look in another direction in quiet shame.

“What was that?” You comment, confused at what just happened.

“Eh, she’s in a sour mood today. It’s regular Doyeon.” Shrugs Jungkook, trying to swerve the subject.

You pout. “Are you two fighting again for real?”

Jungkook chuckles. “No, it’s not serious. You know how Doyeon and I get.”

You squint your eyes, but say nothing nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Jungkook hisses internally.

Jungkook gets Doyeon. You all have been friends since freshman year of med school – the founder of your study group – and she was also the first one to find out about Jungkook’s little crush. He didn’t even have to say it explicitly, she just knew. Eventually, Jungkook told Taehyung. He has quite a big mouth, unfortunately, so when you started your internship at the hospital – he lets it slip in a conversation with Nayeon who was just becoming your friend that time – leading the situation to where it is right now.

Out of all of them, though, Doyeon got it pretty hard. She’s witnessed the early stages of Jungkook’s infatuation towards you in the first semester of med school, had to keep quiet during study sessions. She was even supportive that time, telling Jungkook to just go for it – but then Eunwoo happened, and the confession never saw the light of day.

When they broke up, Doyeon became hopeful again, just as Jungkook was. But you were showing no signs of moving on and Jungkook had no choice but to step back for a bit.

The past two years, though, Doyeon became more insistent, telling him you’re single and it’s the fattest chance Jungkook can ever get.

But she’s right, after all. Jungkook’s a pussy. He hides his feelings well – a pro at the sport, really, at this point.

When Mingyu happened a few months ago, Doyeon’s just over it. She told Jungkook one time in a drinking session that the ship has sunk and he’s going to be in his sixties regretting not ever confessing to you. Sometimes, he wakes up at night in sweat from a nightmare that involved Doyeon murdering him because of his emotional constipation.

Jungkook knows she just wants the best for him – even though she’s more on showing him tough love instead of a gentle one. Doyeon’s always been like that, but she’s a good friend. When things went haywire, she was there to genuinely sympathize with him and console him – together with Taehyung and some of his other friends.

But in Jungkook’s defense, Doyeon just also doesn’t get it.

It’s so easy to just say fuck it and make a confession already, so easy to think about how things could turn positively – but she’s not – they’re not – in Jungkook’s shoes. They will never be.

So many things could go wrong if he ever were to listen to his heart. Sure, he’s had the chance over the past four years – most would say that. But it’s not a chance when you’ve spent half of it moving on from Eunwoo. It’s not a chance when you spent the other half trying to go on dates and fail – each one making you more miserable about your love life, as you told him so many nights ago in those rare special moments in the balcony of your apartment.

Those four years you were single was never a chance – not when you never showed any bit of interest.

It’s the reality that his friends always somehow miss when encouraging him to confess his feelings.

You’re friends for almost a decade now – eight years to be exact – but not once did you ever hint at wanting to be in a relationship with him. Your reaction to that always involved a disgusted expression and a variation of “No way!”. Might be a joke just to tease him – but also might be rooted in something genuine deep down.

Jungkook likes to think that physically, he doesn’t look so bad. He’s nice when he wants to be, especially towards people he cares about. He’s a resident surgeon who makes enough. Could be funny, charming… whatever.

Most of all, he likes to think he could deserve you one of these days. That he could be the man that you’re searching for.

But it’s been eight years and you’ve never once looked at him like how he surely does at you.

God knows how many times Jungkook has tried to move on – how many sleepless nights he has trying to erase the feeling of so much longing for you. Sometimes, it works, when he’s on his casual dates and hook-up with all those women that thankfully fancied him enough. He momentarily forgets about your laugh and your hair and the crinkles on the sides of your eyes when you smile and your soft hands and your gentle voice – but it cracks when the sex is done and he’s staring at the blank ceiling of his date’s apartment, hating himself for yet again seeing your picture in his memory when he’s buried in somebody else, wishing it was you instead.

It hurts so badly. Especially when you seem to look at everybody else except him. You wanted to weed out someone for you – meanwhile, he’s just right under your nose, and yet you don’t see him. It’s at this point, when you have Mingyu as your boyfriend now, that Jungkook is starting to realize that you don’t see him not because you can’t, but because you choose not to.

Regardless, he knows you love him. Knows you care about him on a deeper level. Would probably sacrifice a bit of your time to tend to him if he needs it. But it’s the kind of love that’s not comparable to the one he has for you. Jungkook’s feelings encompass every single kind of love a human could have for another being – but you only have one kind for him. The platonic kind.

And even though it’s painful to face the reality of that very idea, Jungkook thinks that maybe… just maybe… Mingyu’s actually it.

Mingyu wasn’t exactly a saint the last time Jungkook saw him, but people change and the way you seem so genuinely happy these days tells Jungkook that maybe Mingyu’s another version of himself now – the better one who will never hurt you or make you cry.

Maybe this is what love’s all about. You’re content with seeing them happy, even if it’s not with you.

Jungkook thinks that as he steals a glance at you looking at your phone – most probably playing that landlord game on your phone you’ve been obsessed with the past few weeks – and you’re so beautiful like this. Even when you’re probably running on limited hours of sleep just like him.

Your hair is put up in that tulip hairclip you have a lot of, stray hairs framing some parts of your face. But he sees your features just fine – notes the way they are structured so perfectly it truly awes him that men and women didn’t beg for your attention whenever you went out in public.

Because he would. He did. He does. He always teases you for the purpose of your reaction… because Jungkook likes it when you pay attention to him. So much that it kills him to think that maybe, that attention will die soon as you and Mingyu get closer as another week passes by.

The timer that goes off on your phone snaps Jungkook out of his thoughts, and you look at him with widened eyes.

“Don’t st–”

“It’s my turn now,” Jungkook cuts you off and gently places your legs on the mattress, bringing his own on the soft surface as well.

You jut your bottom lip out – and Jungkook feels himself wanting to give in.

“Five minutes is so quick.” You say, but nonetheless takes his shin to your lap.

Jungkook tries hard to sway the butterflies in his stomach at your touch.

“Favor for a favor, remember?” He teases, lifting one of his foot to your direction.

You pretend to gag. “I hate you.”

Jungkook laughs, quite boisterously. Because he knows you don’t mean it. I hate you basically just means I love you but you’re annoying me right now in your own little dictionary – and he always gets giddy whenever you tell him that – as weird as it may sound.

But Jungkook likes this, though.

Sure, it would be so fucking great if he could just confess and lay out his cards all at once, but the chances of you not taking it well is too big – and even though Jungkook’s usually a risk taker, he couldn’t ever risk you all over his dead body.

He can keep his hurt to himself over you feeling anything but romantic towards him – because if he confesses and you don’t feel the same way, he knows damn well that he��ll lose you completely.

And the thought makes him shudder.

That probably catches your sight, so you ask him about it.

Jungkook tells you it’s the AC.

[ DAY 1 | August 31st, 11:04am ]

The beating sun feels uncomfortable on Jungkook’s skin, but there’s no way he’s wasting a day like this holed up in the villa he and his friends chipped in to rent. It costed you all a shit ton of money – might as well enjoy every waking day he gets to spend here.

It’s why he decides to goad Taehyung and Nayeon into coming with him along the shore where sun loungers are lined up to accommodate the few visitors who were also at the resort. He tried to convince Doyeon, but she goes straight to sleep as soon as the rooms were assigned.

He gets it – you all did travel by plane instead of car (because that would've taken you twelve hours) and Doyeon gets airsick whenever she rides in a plane. Jungkook also tried to talk you into it, but you said you were just going to lounge about by the pool at the villa and follow after a while.

Your “after awhile” takes about thirty minutes, and Jungkook thinks you’re missing all the fun, especially when Nayeon and Taehyung are starting to strip off their clothes to submerge themselves in the ocean.

With his loaded watergun, he goes straight back to the villa, and it doesn’t take much time to spot you by the terrace, lying down on a sun lounger with your big hat and sunglasses on, a book opened in your hands.

Unsuspecting, you let out a sudden squeal when Jungkook presses the trigger of the toy in his grip, a spring of water meeting your bare legs. Jungkook obviously tries hard to ignore that you’re wearing a flimsy pair of white bikinis. He saw you pack it two days ago… and he remembers taking too long to move on from the image he’s conjured up in his head upon seeing it.

“Jungkook!”

He chuckles at your reaction, poorly hiding the watergun behind him. “What?”

“I’ll kill you.” You seethe, your body coming forward to sit upright, hastily taking your sunnies off so he can see the cute glare on your face.

“What are you going to do? I have this,” He points to his weapon. “Are you challenging me into a hand-to-hand combat?” Jungkook teases, wiggling his eyebrow.

You groan. Then, you lay back on the lounger again, opening your book, deciding to ignore him.

Jungkook can’t have that, of course. So, he walks closer to your direction, stopping beside you, effectively blocking the sun and in turn, dimming the light source of your book.

“You’re blocking my sun.” You say, looking up at him.

“You’ll get all the sun you want if you haul your ass off to the shore. Come on, we’re all swimming in there,” he tries to convince you, nudging your thigh with his knee.

You give him a pout. You sound whiny when you say, “But it’s too hot.”

“That’s why we’ll get in the water.”

“Don’t be sassy.” You roll your eyes. “I meant the water would be way too hot.”

“It’s not, Nayeon said so.”

You glance at the pool across from you. “Why can’t we all just swim in here?”

Jungkook deadpans. “Because this is a five-foot pool and absolutely no one will enjoy it.”

You frown at him, quietly telling Jungkook he’s right.

“Ugh,” you groan. “But I’ll have to reapply SPF first…” You grab the bottle of lotion that’s just placed on the small table on the side of the lounger. Then you look at him with squinted eyes, “Did you wear sunscreen?”

Jungkook rolls his eyes but nonetheless says yes, knowing how you always nag him about it whenever you guys are at the beach. It’s not even just him. It’s also with your other friends.

He watches as you rub lotion over your body, but when you get to the back, you look up at him and extend the bottle towards his way.

“Can you help me with this, please?” You say.

Jungkook automatically takes the bottle but it takes him a full five seconds to understand what you’re getting at.

You’re asking him to put sunscreen on your back. You’re very naked back that sports nothing but the tiny strings of your bikini holding your chest.

Of course, you don’t notice his dilemma. Twisting in your seat so that your back faces him, you gather your hair to the side, obviously waiting for him to do your request.

But Jungkook’s distracted behind your back. He’s distracted at how smooth it looks under the scorching sun and how easy it would be to paint it with something other than the natural color of your skin.

It’s not even the first time he’ll do this – you’ve been to trips before and putting on sunscreen over your friend is about as natural as it gets like how he would do it as well to Taehyung or even Doyeon or Nayeon if they ask to.

But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect him one bit when it comes to you.

Needless to say, his mind is pre-occupied as he sits down behind you where you left some space for him to sit, squirting the lotion into the palms of his hands, gingerly spreading it over your back once he got it.

“Be sure to cover everything,” you say, obviously not aware about Jungkook’s mental crisis behind your back.

He thinks it’s worth the crisis over though, as you’re so soft under his touch. Jungkook kneads the span of your back, squeezes your waist lightly to even out the cream, and makes sure to put it over your shoulders as well. When his hands fall, he hesitates.

“Should I – uh—”

“Yeah, just go under the strings.” You tell him before he can even finish.

There’s a lump in his throat that he swallows before he goes under the strings of your bikini top, his heart doing funny somersaults against his ribcage as he spreads the lotion over your skin. It guilts him to no end that his mind thinks about how he’s just inches away from your breasts.

He retreats his hand right away. “Done.”

You turn back to him. “Thanks. You want me to do yours?”

“Sure.”

Jungkook sits on the edge of the lounger and lets his back turn to you. He hears the cap of the lotion bottle being opened again and soon your hands are lathering the cream over the expanse of his back.

It’s embarrassing the way he lets himself savor the seconds of your every touch. Embarrassing the way his mind zeroes in on the way your soft hands caress the tendons of his back muscles. He thinks about the weight, how good this feels; your hands on him. Suddenly, there’s a zap of electricity that goes through his spine, and then he feels it.

The twitch in his dick and the blood that he feels rushing to it.

“Okay, you’re done.” You say, tapping his back twice so he can turn to you.

It snaps him out of his thoughts, but his dick is thinking about something else and as he subtly looks down, there’s already a growing semi on the crotch of his trunk shorts.

Jungkook curses himself internally, shutting his eyes close in slight frustration.

Fucking uncooperative dick.

He stands up from the chair when you nudge his back with your foot, thinking that he’d see you coming along in a few seconds. But you don’t, and as he turns his heel to look at you, you’re back in your cozy lying position on the lounger, with your book opened, just like how he saw you when he came in a while ago.

Jungkook parts his lips in disbelief, but also finding the whole thing funny.

“You minx.” He muses, playfully squinting his eyes at you upon realizing the trick you just pulled.

“Enjoy the beach, Jungkook. Send my regards to Taehyung and Nayeon.” You say, giving him a taunting flying kiss. “And thank you for reapplying my sunscreen.”

Jungkook chuckles at your remark, and just like that, he forgets about his stubborn dick, and goes over back to you, blocking your sun once again.

“You’re blocking my sun again— Jungkook!”

It’s predictable the way you hurl a series of creative curses at him as Jungkook forcefully picks you up from the chair, knocking your hat and your book on the ground as he hoists you against his shoulder, carrying you upside down like a sack of potatoes.

“Jungkook, I swear to god!” You squeal, repeatedly slapping his back as he walks to the direction of the shore, but Jungkook’s nothing but a solid muscle, firm over his hold on the back of your legs.

“Be quiet.” He says, chuckling at your sounds of opposition.

“I hate you, you’re such a prick, ugh!”

He picks up his walking pace and you scream again when you see the ocean water from your view.

Jungkook chuckles as you continue to plant your fists on his back, and when the water reaches his knees, he throws you in it.

“Fuck. You!” You say, glaring at Jungkook in the middle of his uncontrollable laughter.

“Come on, Taehyung and Nayeon are over there,” he points to the deeper part of the ocean a few feet from where you are, and when you turn your head, you see Taehyung and Nayeon with their floaties.

“Ugh…” Jungkook hears you groan before you follow behind him. When Jungkook looks back, he sees you paddling around the water like some puppy, and he snickers to himself. That earns him a splash on his way, with you rolling your eyes at him.

“Jungkook! __!” Yells Nayeon over their direction, waving her hand around. Taehyung and her are perched on the big floatie they fought over with at the villa earlier.

“Jungkook,” calls you behind him.

You’re starting to cross the deeper part of the ocean and it’s within Jungkook’s chest now. Meanwhile, your friends are still about a few feet away, so the level would definitely be on his neck by the time. You’re considerably tall, but Jungkook’s still half a head taller than you, so when he looks back at you, the water’s already reached your shoulders.

“This is way too deep!” You complain.

“Don’t be a pussy, __!” Comments Taehyung from afar.

“Fuck off,” you murmur and then beckons Jungkook to you. “Help me a bit here.”

Jungkook shakes his head, chuckling as he moves a few steps back to get to your direction.

“You big baby, you never learned how to swim, have you?” He teases, playfully clicking his tongue.

“What for?” You say when he gets near.

Jungkook feels pleased with himself about you asking for his help to cross the deeper part of the ocean, but he’s met with surprise when you heavily plant your palms on his shoulders, causing him to be out of balance and tripping over his feet under the water.

It causes a misstep and he nearly chokes as he comes back up for air again only to see you laughing your ass off. Nayeon and Taehyung are also laughing along, even from afar, and Jungkook wipes the back of his hand over his eyes to see clearly.

“That’s for throwing me in the water earlier,” you say in between your snickers and Jungkook’s just about to say something back when you suddenly wrap your hands around his neck from the back, your legs locking around his waist. “Carry me to the floatie, pretty please,” you say against his cheek in a sing-song voice.

With that, Jungkook feels your whole entire body against his back, your breasts pressing against his skin. He ignores the way the physical contact makes his body tingle, and he hopes you don’t notice his blush when he raises his arms to hold the back of your legs.

“Only because you’re annoying.” He pretends to sound annoyed, but the laugh that comes out of you at the remark makes him smile anyway.

[ DAY 1 | August 31st, 11:35pm ]

Your daytime activities at the beach included jetskiing – one that knocked Taehyung off the water way too many times that he just gave up halfway through it. When Doyeon woke up a little later in the afternoon, all of you decided to get food from the dining hall and ate your hearts out at the buffet.

The day ended with all of you back in your assigned rooms again. Since you rented a two-bedroom villa, Jungkook’s rooming with Taehyung in the secondary bedroom while Nayeon, Doyeon, and you are all inside the primary one since it’s bigger.

It’s past thirty minutes to eleven in the night when somebody knocks on Jungkook’s shared bedroom with Taehyung. When Jungkook looks at him from across the room, he’s knocked out on the sofa, soft snores coming out from his mouth. Him and Jungkook decided to take turns with the bed itself throughout the whole vacation. There’s an extra cushion Taehyung could’ve laid on the floor, but he was way too tired to set it up and to even care – looks like he doesn’t really need it, though, since he looks so peaceful in his position.

Grumbling, Jungkook gets out from the sheets, scratching his bare chest and rubbing the back of his head as he walks over to the door to open it.

When he does, he’s welcomed by the sight of you in your big grey hoodie and some shorts.

“Wear something.” You say as soon as you take in his appearance.

Jungkook’s habit of going to sleep with only his boxers knows no bounds. Even when it’s below 20 degrees Celsius outside, he always opts out of his pajamas, choosing to go bare in his sheets instead. In his defense for now, the duvet is thick and it provided him with enough protection against the cold of the AC and the summer night.

“What are you doing here?” He says as he trudges back inside the room to wear a pair of sweatpants hanging from the chair.

“Rude.” You comment, following him in the room. You look at Taehyung’s passed out state in the couch. “He’s going to wake up in the evening tomorrow and miss your birthday.”

That makes Jungkook smirk, remembering Taehyung’s high energy in the morning.

“No consequences. It’s vacation week.” Jungkook raises his eyebrows. “Seriously, what brought you here? It’s almost midnight.”

You sit on the edge of the bed. That’s when Jungkook notices the black plastic you’re carrying in your hand. “It’s not that late. Let’s head out for a bit.”

He raises a brow, confused. “Where to?”

“You’re going to find out. Wear a jacket, it’s a bit cold outside.” You say as you stand up from the bed again, heading for the door.

Jungkook’s confusion just grows with passing seconds. Nonetheless, he can’t say he’s not intrigued.

Unsure, he goes for his small luggage and takes out the only hoodie he packed. It’s grey as well, matching the one you have on. Jungkook tries to shake that thought off his head as you both quietly head out of the room.

It’s late into the night and when you head out of the villa, there’s not many people hanging along the shore anymore.

“Follow me,” you tell him, and Jungkook does.

It may have been his drowsiness that kept him quiet throughout the whole walk – just quietly following along with you, your rented villa no longer in his line of sight. Jungkook couldn’t exactly pinpoint where you currently are, but this side of the beach is a bit rocky, and much, much colder. He feels it even through the thick material of his hoodie.

“We’re here.” You announce, a proud lilt to your voice. Jungkook bumps with your back when you suddenly stop on your tracks. It prompts a chuckle from you, turning back to him so Jungkook sees the crinkles on the sides of your eyes as you do so.

It makes his lips curl. “What’s this?” He curiously asks, looking around.

Your grin grows wider. “We’re gonna take those stairs and it’s gonna lead us to some pretty view.” Jungkook looks to the direction you pointed at, seeing the stairs you just referred to. Still unsure, he glances back at you. You laugh. “You remember when Doyeon and I went out for a walk earlier for a bit? We found this place.”

Jungkook nods. “I see. Thought for a second there you found a place to dispose my body at.”

You snort as you take Jungkook’s wrist to hold on to as you climb to the stairs.

“I won’t do it as such a public place.”

“So, you really are thinking about it in the first place.” Jungkook nods his head, guiding your back up the jagged stairs. You manage to get to the smoother surface and Jungkook’s quick to follow you towards the straight path of the narrow walkway.

“It’s my favorite past time, really.” You look back at him cheekily, a playful grin painting your lips. Jungkook scoffs.

The hallway is colonnaded with some flags, and there’s an edge where the concrete stops, the ocean water splashing against the big rocks beneath the broken bridge.

You set aside the black plastic you’ve been carrying around and Jungkook realizes they’re Smirnoffs. Sitting on the concrete, you let your feet hang on the edge.

“Hey, be careful,” Jungkook comments as he sees you do that. This part of the ocean isn’t necessarily far – where you were earlier when you were swimming was far deeper, but still, it could be dangerous if you make a mistake. Jungkook wonders what the designers of the beach thought about when they made this plan.

“Come on, don’t be fussy. Sit here with me.” You say, patting the space beside you.

Jungkook follows, of course, and you scoot to the side a little to give him more room.

“It’s nice, right,” You look at him, cocking your head to the side.

Jungkook feels the breeze of cool wind passing, and it’s a bit strong that it moves his fringes and yours as well. You put your hair up as usual in that big metal clip you always wear, but some strands of your hair escape and they frame your face.

With your big hoodie on and smile, Jungkook thinks you look extra cozy. He may have been hot and bothered by your bikini ensemble earlier, but now he’s bothered for another reason. He can’t stop thinking about cuddling you under the night sky full of stars at the very moment.

“Feels good.” Jungkook comments. He plants his palms on the hard surface of the concrete behind him, leaning back as he looks to your side. “You wanted to drink here?”

“Oh, yeah,” You say, twisting your body a little to pick up the plastic cellophane. You take out two bottles of Smirnoffs and offer one to him which he gladly takes. Taking a bottle opener out, you’re about to open your drinks when Jungkook offers to do it for the both of you. You don’t protest, just let him do his thing, smiling when he hands you your Smirnoff.

“This is really nice.” Jungkook sighs after he takes the first sip, looking straight ahead to the mountainous view in front of you.

You hum, seemingly enjoying the moment as well. Jungkook takes a quick glance at your side profile and then quickly looks back ahead when he feels you do the same.

“Why’d you bring me here?” He asks.

“Nothing. I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I could bring you here. So.” You shrug.

Jungkook nods.

“I’m turning thirty-one tomorrow. Or, in an hour, actually.” He says, automatically looking at his wrist but then realizing he took off his watch and left it at the bedside table. He didn’t take his phone with him either.

“I know. You’re so old now.” You tell him with a teasing tone in your words.

“Fuck off,” he snorts. “I’m only a year older than you.”

“Hmm… still old. Imagine, you turn fifty, I would still be forty-nine.”

Jungkook laughs at that.

“Whatever makes you sleep at night, babe.” He lets the pet name slip, and he did not mean to. It just rolled off his tongue for some reason. Quite easily, too.

You don’t seem to care – or even notice – as you chuckle.

There’s a comfortable silence that hangs in the air again when Jungkook decides to break it.

“Hey, I really appreciate you for coming along. You and the gang, really. This is a really good trip so far.”

You give him a smile as you look at him. It’s one of those pretty ones that are a bit small but there’s a certain shine to your eyes and Jungkook just really loves looking at you with a smile on your face. You’re so pretty, he thinks he’s so lucky to even get the chance to look at you.

“You know we all need this trip, right? I think it’s all our first time vacationing in two years.”

He nods, chuckling to himself. It’s true. The last time was the Thailand trip and it felt like eons ago. Being a resident surgeon means less free time for leisure – and so you always make sure to spend your days off wisely. Even this trip took a lot of pre-planning to be possible just so all of your schedules would match.

“It’s crazy, though…” you say suddenly.

Jungkook cocks a brow at you. “What’s crazy?”

“That we’ve known each other for like – what? Eight years?”

Eight years and four months to be exact. Jungkook’s not keeping count – he just will never forget the exact moment he met you for the very first time.

It’s truly one of his core memories – knowing you. He remembers having to pass by the law library to meet Jimin – one of his closest friends who was studying law at the same grad school as him at the time. They were planning to eat out for lunch, but then he saw a woman at the individual study areas with a reading material that’s familiar with his. Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy. You wore that maroon hairclip you loved so much during first year (Jungkook remembers you losing it in the second semester and how he bought you another one in your birthday), and when you looked up from your book for awhile, taking a break from taking notes on your iPad, that was when Jungkook saw your face and he nearly falls over back then.

It’s common knowledge among your mutual friends and acquaintances that you’re pretty. It’s the first thing that Jungkook noticed about you, the reason why he harbored an instant crush. That pretty much turned into… well – something deeper as the years passed by and he got to know you more than just your beautiful physical appearance.

He found it strange at the time to find somebody who was obviously a med student studying at the law library, but he soon found out it was because you didn’t like studying at the med lib, said you felt too much pressure being among your fellow med students. Jungkook understood that in a spiritual level, and so when you became friends, you studied a lot at the law lib, until you met Doyeon and she formed a study group. It wasn’t long before Taehyung joined the equation.

Looking back at it, Jungkook thinks it’s surreal. How knowing you led to him knowing more people that would soon be important in his life up until the age of thirty-one.

“Almost a decade.” He says, can’t help but smile at the thought.

“Right? It feels so surreal sometimes that we all knew each other at, like, twenty-three and twenty two. And now we’re in our thirties.”

“When you put it like that…” Jungkook trails off, laughing at how young you actually were eight years ago.

“Yeah, I know!” You giggle. You look ahead, then you laugh again to yourself. Jungkook looks at you in confusion, giving you a questioning look at your sudden burst of laughter. Looking at him, you shake your head, “This is a bit of a TMI, but I was twenty-two when I entered med school, so I just lost my virginity three years ago. You know what’s funny? I’ve always thought I would lose my virginity, at like, thirty. Or twenty-seven. But that was even way too early for me.”

Jungkook almost splutters at the way you casually bring it up. He takes the bottle of Smirnoff away from him and looks at you with a chuckle. “Losing your virginity at nineteen is common.”

“Well, did you? Lose yours at nineteen?” You arch a brow.

“Nope.” Jungkook shakes his head, tipping his head back to drink again.

“Younger?” You ask again.

Jungkook chuckles at your curiosity. Much to your surprise, he shakes his head again. “Nah. Junior year. I just turned twenty-one. Lost it with my first girlfriend.”

Your lips part and Jungkook meets your shocked stare, brow cocked upwards.

“You’re fucking with me.”

“What? No, I’m not.” He laughs. He gets your surprise, though. Taehyung couldn’t believe it either when it came up in a random conversation.

You still look incredulous as you say, “You mean, like you never dated until junior year of undergrad?”

Jungkook shakes his head once again. “Yes, and no…? I mean, I had a… sort of girlfriend? Back in highschool, yeah, but it was more of like a mutual crush thing rather than an official relationship. But yeah, never dated and never had sex ‘til I found my first girlfriend in third year.”

You look at him suspiciously still, and Jungkook can’t help but laugh even more at your reaction.

“I really don’t believe you.”

“What’s so surprising about that?” Jungkook knows the answer, though. He sleeps around, and you know that. It’s probably why you can’t believe he’s only started having sex until third year of college.

You’re quiet for a bit.

“So… you and that girlfriend broke up, and then…” you trail off, letting him finish the pieces.

Jungkook chuckles, recalling some memories that he thought were already hidden well at the back of his head.

Jiyeon. Her name was Park Jiyeon, his first girlfriend. He was the one who ended things – and not because he didn’t have feelings for her. It was the other way around.

“Yeah,” Jungkook fills in. “Didn’t date seriously after that.”

“Uh… was it a bad break-up?” You say, and there’s hesitance in your voice. When Jungkook looks at you, you open your mouth to take your question back, probably, but Jungkook just gives you a warm smile.

“Yeah. It was bad. But I don’t really think about it now.”

You nod. “I see.” You say, looking ahead at the ocean again. “You dated… quite seriously again in our last year of med school, though.”

“Sora?”

“Yeah.”

Jungkook nods, remembering the only one-year relationship he had. Min Sora was a fashion magazine director at the time. Jungkook liked her as she did, but they had too many differences that lead to too many arguments. Sora ended things before the relationship dragged out. Jungkook was grateful for it. They’re casual as of now… good friends, maybe?

“I always wondered why she broke up with you.” You say quietly.

Jungkook doesn’t expect that. “You wondered about that?”

“Yeah. I mean, you seemed like you were both really into each other, so I just thought… you know,” you shrug.

“Ah. That,” Jungkook looks afar, recalling the day when she ended things with him. It had been because of the stress that the last year of med school brought – he likes to think that. But it was also during the time when Eunwoo proposed to you and what he thought was feelings forgotten for you came back resurfacing and Sora just… figured him out. She told him he loved you, and she’s got no spare time to compete with that. Denying it at the time was futile – Sora was smart. A wise, independent woman. She ended the relationship herself before she got deeply hurt. Jungkook has always felt sorry about how things turned out. No, he doesn’t regret the break-up – just regrets the way he hurt her – unintentionally – even though she didn’t show it.  “Just didn’t work out, I guess.”

You nod again.

Silence sits in the air.

It feels a little strange to talk about these things now. It’s not that you both never share these aspects about your lives to each other, but it’s the first time you ask him about Sora. He never really bothered to share, though, for the record.

From his periphery, he sees you taking your phone out from your pocket, then gasping.

Jungkook immediately looks at you to see what’s wrong. You show him your phone and he notes nothing of significance first before you say, “It’s 12:01 am. It’s September first!”

“Oh.”

“Happy birthday, Kook.” You say, smiling at him, and it’s an underestimation for Jungkook to say he nearly gets blinded by it. You look so gorgeous in your happy smile, so genuine, so warm, so cozy in your big grey hoodie.

Jungkook wants so bad to plant his lips on yours right then and there, but he reminds himself that he can’t do that. He reminds himself that you’re taken. That you like somebody else. The somebody else arriving tomorrow, as per your words earlier this day when he asked about Mingyu.

Still, it doesn’t stop Jungkook from mirroring your smile.

“Thank you.”

“And, before I forget,” you stuff your hands in the pocket of your hoodie and Jungkook watches as you take out a small rectangular box. As he pays you a glance, you’re a little bit shy, not looking straight into his eyes as you say, “Uh. I saw this somewhere, and I thought you’d like it.”

You extend your hand to him and Jungkook lets go of his beer to take the velvety green box from you.

He feels jittery as he takes it in, caresses the ribbon first before opening it altogether.

What’s inside surprises him.

“It didn’t cost much so don’t throw it away,” you say, uncharacteristically defensive. Jungkook can’t see your expression, but he bets your thoughts are going haywire as it takes him awhile to say anything about your gift. You always get nervous when it comes to gifts. “... and anyway, it’s not even my real gift. My real gift is a hairdryer, so I’m sure you’re gonna like that better. But it’s cute, right? You can hang it in your keyholder or something—”

“__,” Jungkook cuts you off, his eyes still on the keyring laying on the box. “You’re giving this to me?”

“Y-yeah. It’s… uh… cute, right? I thought it was cute.” You say, and when Jungkook looks at you, he sees the adorable way your brows furrow.

He chuckles, looking at the keyring again. It’s a silver Claddagh.

“Do you know what this means?” Jungkook asks.

“The what?”

Jungkook points to the Claddagh. “This symbol.”

You look away as you say, “No, not really. I just thought it’s a cool keychain. You told me you like keychains, but I don’t ever see you with a keychain. So.”

With your nostrils flaring a little, he knows you’re lying. You definitely know what the Claddagh symbol means.

But instead of goading you about it, Jungkook takes the keyring out of the box and hangs it over his finger, admiring the item.

“Thank you. This is really cute, and I love it.” Jungkook tells you, giving you a soft smile.

You stare at him and then cave into a smile of your own. “I’m glad you do.”

Jungkook looks at the Claddagh again and smiles heartily.

His heart aches with so much yearning and longing when you go back to the villa that night, spending about three minutes staring at the Claddagh you gifted him that he immediately hangs in his key holder. Jungkook thinks he’s going to transfer it to his work bag or the back of his rearview mirror, but his keyholder would do for now.

You love him alright, certainly not the way he does, but it’s enough for him.

[ DAY 2 | September 1st, 11:55pm ]

It was not a secret among Nayeon, Doyeon, and Taehyung that Jungkook’s mood considerably plummeted down as soon as Mingyu called you early in the morning that he’d be landing in the afternoon.

Afternoon came, and he tried to suck it up like a grown man – and because as far as you know, they’re both friends. And Mingyu’s your boyfriend. He should be nothing but supportive.

But it was especially hard when you gushed about being excited that he was finally here. It’s been four months since you started seeing each other, two months since you officially dated, but somehow, Jungkook still could not process it.

He knows he’s being unfair. To you and to himself. But he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help the feeling of ugly bitterness that sat in his heart as you told him about how Mingyu rented another villa so you both could room together, effectively taking you away from the rest of your friends.

Of course, you all spent his birthday together – doing tons of water activities in the ocean, eating at the dining hall, and roaming around for some more leisure time, but Jungkook could not help but think that ever since Mingyu’s arrived, you’ve been sticking with him, even taking the time away from the gang to show your boyfriend around the resort.

Even at the villa’s porch where all of you took out your foldable chairs to drink outside, you were with Mingyu, perched on his lap, laughing at the jokes getting thrown around in the circle.

He tried not to look too much at how Mingyu comfortably wrapped one arm around your waist while the other held a drink, how you leaned into his touch, and how easily he blended with the group with his charm.

“Where’d you get the ice cream?” Doyeon asked as Taehyung sat down on his chair with a small bowl of the sweet treat.

“Fridge. Nayeon and I bought it earlier.”

“There’s ice cream?” Mingyu asked, in which Taehyung nodded to. He turned to you. “Do you want it?”

Jungkook’s brows furrowed in confusion. “__’s lactose intolerant.” He noticed everybody suddenly looking at him. Feeling cornered, he drank from his beer to avoid their gazes.

Mingyu, obviously surprised by the declaration, glanced back at you. “Baby, you didn’t tell me that?”

You winced. “It’s not really a big deal.” you waved him off and when you laugh.

“Yeah, she’s stubborn about it. She can inhale five cones in one sitting.” Taehyung said which made everybody laugh. Jungkook knew it was to lighten the mood. So, he laughed as well, even though from his periphery, he could see you giving him daggers through your eyes.

Jungkook doesn’t know why you had to pretend it wasn’t a big deal. Sure, Taehyung’s right about you not taking your lactose intolerance seriously sometimes, but you’ve also gotten into a lot of trouble because of it, hence why you’ve been making conscious efforts to not eat dairy.

The whole day leaves a sour impression on him with Mingyu around. Quite a shame, really, since he started his birthday so well with you taking him to the far-end of the beach to drink and give him a Claddagh.

When the night becomes much darker, Jungkook sits on the terrace near the pool all by himself. Everybody’s fast asleep at this point. He doesn’t know about you, though, ‘cause you’ve probably transferred all your stuff to the other villa Mingyu rented around.

“Hey,”

Jungkook looks at the embodied voice that suddenly calls. He sees it’s Doyeon.

“Hey,” Jungkook smiles, taking the other bottle of beer on the coffee table and offering it to her.

She waves his hand. “Nah, I’ve had enough for the whole day.” Doyeon situates herself on the folding chair next to Jungkook.

Jungkook nods, looking straight ahead to the pool. They sit in comfortable silence for a while until Doyeon speaks.

“Hey, I’m sorry for the last week,”

Jungkook glances at her with a small smile. “What for?”

“For calling you a pussy. And just… being harsh. Had a tough week and your emotional constipation just pissed me off more. You’re still a pussy, but I shouldn’t have rubbed it off your face.” She says.

Jungkook stares at her with parted lips.

“Wow. I don’t know if that’s an actual apology.”

“It’s an apology with a hundred percent realness, you know I don’t baby anybody.”

“Hah,” Jungkook scoffs, amused. “Yeah. Well, you’re right, though. Today’s been…”

Doyeon sighs. “It’s hard on you, right?”

Jungkook can only give her a meaningful smile.

“But you don’t exactly have the right to get jealous… she’s not your girlfriend and you two are not anything,” Doyeon says, and it tugs at Jungkook’s heartstrings. Meanwhile, she looks ahead and continues to speak. “It’s hard when you have all these feelings for someone, but you have to hide it. You just want to show everybody they mean so much to you, but you can’t. It sucks.”

Jungkook thinks she’s still talking about his situation with you but then as he glances at her, she seems to be deep in thought. As if she’s actually speaking from her own experience.

He’s intrigued by that, of course.

“Woah, are you still talking about me?”

That seems to get Doyeon out of her trance.

She rolls his eyes. “Who else would I be talking about?”

Jungkook opens his mouth to say something. You guys have always had the theory that Doyeon has a secret boyfriend. It’s silly at best but sometimes, he thinks it’s true. Doyeon has never been the type to wear her heart on her sleeve, though. She’s tough and she’s frank a lot of times. But she’s the kind of friend who’d call you a bitch in your face but then would go to all the lengths to defend you from everybody.

“Okay.” Jungkook nods, dropping the subject.

“Has she told you yet?” Doyeon asks suddenly.

“What?” He mirrors back, knowing exactly who the she Doyeon’s referring to.

“She’s planning to move in with him some of these days.”

“I…” Jungkook stops, his mouth opening and closing like a fish in water. To say that he’s stunned is an understatement. Obviously, you haven’t told him anything.

“You don’t know.” Doyeon says upon realization.

Jungkook shakes his head. “She didn’t tell me.”

Doyeon lets out a loud sigh. “It’s not really set in stone, though, that’s what she said. But they’re discussing it.”

“Ah.” Jungkook nods and looks ahead at the pool. Another beat of silence, a sip of beer, and then he scoffs. “I really should’ve confessed even way back then, huh?” He laughs but there’s no humor in it.

Doyeon stares at him. “I didn’t tell you about that so you can regret not telling your feelings for her earlier.”

“I didn’t—”

“I told you that so you can move on, Jungkook.”

Jungkook closes his mouth shut.

She looks away. “You remember the time I liked you in med school?”

“Doyeon…” Jungkook’s lips part, not at all expecting for her to bring that up. It’s been so long ago and ever since… Doyeon’s confession, they never really talked about it again.

“Oh my god, look at your face,” She laughs. “God, do you think I still like you? I moved on the day after you rejected me.”

“I didn’t reject you.” Jungkook defensively says.

She rolls her eyes. “I asked you if you were interested and you didn’t say anything. You just looked at me like this,” Doyeon stiffens her body and widens her eyes in a comical rendition of Jungkook’s famous OJO face.

Jungkook can’t help but scoff. “That was the strangest confession that happened to me, though. You told me you liked me in the straightest face ever, I still think it was a cruel prank of some sort.”

Doyeon bursts into laughter, and Jungkook follows along, recalling that time.

“Yeah… that was funny. But… it was real, not a prank at all. I don’t remember why I liked you, though.”

Jungkook looks at her incredulously. “Okay, but that’s actually the most hurtful thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Doyeon rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile on her lips still. “Anyway, I brought it up because that was the same day when I realized you like __. I mean, I had my suspicions, but I confirmed it around the time.”

Jungkook shakes his head. “Was really surprised when you told me that. I thought I hid it pretty well.”

“Yeah, but not to me. You know, I don’t even know how __ didn’t figure it out herself. You’d always follow her around and in our study sessions, you always stayed up late with her and was overly attentive. Whenever Taehyung asked you too much, you sort of like reached a point where you just told him to suck it up. But if it was __, you were so patient,” Doyeon giggles. “She had a really hard time with Biochem. I remember you tutoring her all the time.”

“That was…” Jungkook bows his head down, a bit embarrassed at being read like that. “She cried a lot during first year.”

Doyeon purses her lips. “Yeah…”

Both stare ahead again, with nothing to say for a few more seconds. Jungkook continues to sip his bear while Doyeon quietly sits.

“I have this biased notion about Mingyu,” Doyeon speaks up. Jungkook looks at her she continues, “I keep on telling myself, he’s probably gonna fuck up anytime soon – and that’s because deep inside, I still want you and __ together. You know I’ve always wanted you both to be together. It’s hard to see __ struggling with her love life. She almost failed the internship when Eunwoo broke up with her, and I don’t want her to go through that again as her friend. It’s hard, because I can’t do anything about it. I think of you, and how much you love her, and I think you’re good for her… but at the same time, I feel bad for thinking that. Because I can see that Mingyu makes her happy. It’s different with the other guys she dated before him. She’s truly happy with him, and I find it hard to think that Mingyu’s gonna break her heart. He seems… nice… and that he’d be good for her, you know what I mean?”

Jungkook’s quiet, processing her words.

Doyeon sighs before she speaks again. “But that hurts you in the process, doesn’t it? Seeing her happy but not with you. You’re both my friends and I’m in the position where it’s hard for me to situate myself in a certain place. Because I want __ to be happy, but I also want you to be happy – but your happiness is interconnected and it’s… tricky. It’s a tricky situation.”

Jungkook doesn’t realize that he’s gripping the neck of the bottle quite tightly at Doyeon’s words, but he listens.

“I don’t normally say things like this, Jungkook, but I’m your friend so I’m just gonna let this go,” Doyeon finally looks at him, and he meets her gaze. “It hurts me to see you hurting like this. It hurts Taehyung and Nayeon as well, but they won’t say it. Just… just be… just be okay, please?”

Jungkook exhales a sharp, shaky breath.

He knows what Doyeon meant by that. She’s asking him to… find happiness on his own. Happiness that doesn’t lie on __’s reciprocity because with the way things are going, that’s impossible. She’s planning to move in with Mingyu, and most of all, she seems genuinely happy.

“I… I know. Thank you.” Jungkook says, not really knowing what to say.

Doyeon chuckles. “Do you want a hug?”

He looks at her with a smile. “I could use one right now, yeah.”

Doyeon laughs before standing up and going over to where Jungkook sits on his own sun chair. When she steps in front of him, Jungkook wraps his arms around her waist and lets himself rest the side of his head on her stomach, closing his eyes when Doyeon pats the crown of his head.

“Belated happy birthday, Jungkook.”

Jungkook chuckles. “Thanks. You’re unusually mushy today.”

Doyeon pinches his ear slightly which earns her a groan.

The two stay like that for a few more seconds when suddenly, Jungkook hears a familiar voice.

“Oh, h-hey guys,”

Jungkook immediately looks ahead to see you standing from the other side of the terrace, looking at him and Doyeon. At that, Doyeon lets go of him, twisting her body to look in your direction. Jungkook retreats his arms back to his side and smiles to acknowledge you.

“I thought you were sleeping already.” He says.

“Yeah, what brought you here?” Doyeon asks.

You approach them with unusually slow steps, as if reluctant. “Left my wallet here. Just realized it a while ago,” you say. After that, you stop on your tracks. Your gaze falls between them with an unsure smile on your face. “You two drinking?”

“Nah, Jungkook is.” Doyeon says, pointing to the bottle of Smirnoffs on the small table beside Jungkook’s chair. Then, she looks under her own. “Where’d you leave your wallet?”

“Over my chair earlier.” You give her a smile again. But somehow, it looks a bit awkward. A little forced. Jungkook knows you well enough to identify your smiles.

And as he looks at you longer, he realizes you have a certain color on your face, but it’s one of those expressions he can’t read.

“Well,” you blurt out after a beat of silence. Looking around, you go over to where you were sitting earlier then duck. “I think I left it here…” you trail off. Jungkook’s just about to stand up to help as well when you suddenly pull up a brown leather, grinning at both of them. “Yay.”

Jungkook chuckles. “That would’ve been the third wallet you’ll lose this year.”

You mirror his laughter, and Doyeon joins in.

There’s another pause and then hesitantly, you ask, “Did I… uh… disturb something? Or…”

“What?” Doyeon asks with furrowed brows. “No,”

“Ah, okay,” you smile at her and then insert your wallet in your shorts. “Anyway, I’m heading back to Mingyu. The villa he rented is just at the back of ours, so… feel free to visit anytime or whatever.”

“Sure.” Jungkook says. He didn’t mean it to sound clipped and short but he must have unintentionally let the tone slip, as you and Doyeon immediately give him a look. He clears his throat. “I mean, of course. Tomorrow?”

You nod.

You look at him. And then, you point between him and Nayeon. “Are you two staying up here late?”

“Nah, I’m heading to bed actually.” Doyeon says, picking up her phone from the sun lounger.

“Yeah, me too.” Jungkook puts the beer to the coffee table and stands up.

You nod. “Okay, then. Well, good night to you two.”

“Alright, good night. I’ll head out first.” Doyeon says before disappearing into the sliding door that leads straight to the villa’s living room.

You soon turn your heels back to head out as well, but Jungkook calls after you. Turning around, you hum, acknowledging him. “Hm?”

“Good night, stinky.”

You deadpan. “Night, fucker.”

Jungkook laughs, watching your retreating back as you leave.

[ DAY 4 | September 3rd , 3:05 am ]

Jungkook likes to work out when he has a lot in his mind. But sometimes, he opts for jogging or walking around to clear his head.

With the turn of events since Mingyu’s arrival and Doyeon informing him about your plans on furthering your relationship with Mingyu, he finds himself along by the shore at three am with high hopes to clear his mind. It doesn’t give the solution, but it temporarily does the job.

Inserting his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, he looks ahead at the view of the ocean, trying so hard to shut his head down with overbearing thoughts of you. It’s no use, though, it’s always filled with thoughts of you and you alone.

Jungkook thinks about the time in med school when he thought he was completely over you. It had been after you made it official with Eunwoo two months into seeing him. He thought it would be a “bigger person” thing to do, moving on, that is, after you announced that you got a boyfriend – but then later on, when he slept with other women or had his casual dates, you suddenly popped up in his head randomly, and his heart suddenly ached when Eunwoo would drop by the university to fetch you. He felt ugly bitterness when you smiled too much whenever Eunwoo was brought up in the conversation. He found himself wishing it was him instead – the guy you thought of buying shirts for, the guy you randomly thought of when you saw something at the mall or the park, or the guy you called when you needed anything.

It was that winter break in freshman year when he realized that he loved you, after trying hard to brush his feelings off for you as a mere infatuation because you were gorgeous and smart.

He finds himself thinking about the time when he almost let out his heart when you had a fall-out with Eunwoo during your third year. Thinks about how pathetic he was for thinking that he finally had the chance. It had been when you called him at midnight, crying onto the phone as you asked him if he wasn’t busy. Jungkook had been studying for a Clinical Skill Assessment at that time, but he’d have been a fool to make you feel lonely when you already seemed like you were not fine. So, he had set aside his studying that night and went right over to your place. You told him about how Eunwoo was going cold, how Eunwoo was getting too close to the senior architect at his firm which you’d been having huge arguments about during those days – Jungkook remembered feeling broken at the sight of you crying, could feel himself building up hatred for the guy who was fucking up his chance with the woman he did not deserve. He thought about how he would never do that to you, thought about how he could be better for you – the envy bubbling inside his heart too big to ignore.

Jungkook remembered thinking how he would never fuck up any chances with you, and how Eunwoo was a fucking idiot for even making you feel that way.

That night, he almost kissed you. And the day after that, you avoided him like the plague.

Doyeon told him he was just as much of a big fucking idiot as Eunwoo for doing that. And Jungkook remembered regretting that night, and swearing off to never, ever make a move on you ever again because your avoidance of him made him feel like the biggest fucking piece of shit to ever exist on Earth.

He remembers you didn’t talk to him for about a month. And he remembers fearing that that was finally it.  

Of course, you made up – you’re still in his life. You let him still be in your life even though he betrayed your trust. The trust that lies on the fact that he was your best friend. Someone who was not supposed to take advantage of your vulnerability, someone who did not suddenly try to kiss you when you were at your worst.

It was a memory you two weren’t fond of. Heck, you’ve never ever brought it up not even once since it happened. When you finally talked to him again after that, you did not let him apologize for what he did – just shut him down by saying that you two should just forget about it and never mention it again. You made it clear that you did not want to talk about it – not at all, not in a million years.

Again, Jungkook has had a million attempts to move on. Especially when you got back together with Eunwoo. He did temporarily, when Sora came into the picture. He genuinely did like her, even more than his first girlfriend in college, and he thought he could eventually love her the same way he does you, but Eunwoo suddenly proposed… and his defense came crumbling down. The fear of losing you once again was too overwhelming that he ruined the relationship with Sora because admittedly, he had always been pathetic like that.

Even now that you’re with Mingyu, he’s still pathetic. He still thinks that one day, you can finally look at him. Like, really look at him and feel anything but friendly towards him. It’s extremely pathetic that he keeps on telling himself that your friendship will be enough, but then deep down, it’s not.

Jungkook shuts his eyes close when he feels the cool breeze of the wind hitting his skin under the hoodie. He lets himself stand there for a while, just trying to bask in the surroundings, ignoring the heavy feeling that sits in his heart.

But then he smells a sudden waft of smoke, and he knits his brows as he opens his eyes back again, turning to the direction of the smell.

When he turns back, he sees a familiar figure of a man.

“Mingyu?”

Mingyu glances back at him with the same surprised look on his face, but it disappears just as quickly. Pinching the cigarette between his fingers, he blows smoke in the air and inserts one hand in his shorts.

“Jeon.”

“Still Jeon to you, huh?” Jungkook sneers, walking over to where Mingyu is. “Why are you here?”

Mingyu arches a brow. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Woke up a few minutes ago and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

Taking a hit of his cigarette again, Mingyu shakes his head. “That’s tough.”

“Same with you?” Jungkook asks.

“Nah. Had a discussion with my girlfriend. Just wanted to clear my head.”

Jungkook nods, not saying anything to that. It’s weird that you’ve been fighting a lot lately. He wonders if you’re okay.

Pulling out a pack of Marlboro and a lighter, Mingyu extends them to Jungkook.

He looks down at it and thinks about how this exact thing happened in college. Mingyu always had the pack of cigarettes and the link to the best weed man in college. He used to think they would be fond memories.

But Jungkook shakes his head, looking ahead.

“I quit years ago.” He says. And it is true. He wasn’t much of a smoker and only did it occasionally when he was extremely stressed, but it took him awhile to stop the habit completely, only dropping the cigarettes during second year of med school. Jungkook would say it was due to his own concern about his health – but there was an incident in the same year where you caught him smoking at the uni’s park after a particularly taxing exam, and how you did not hesitate to tell him that you hated – absolutely abhorred – smokers. You said you didn’t care if he smoked, but as a med student he should’ve known better.

He never touched that shit again.

“Changing your ways now?” Mingyu says with a teasing – more like mocking – tone, inserting the pack and lighter back in his pants.

Jungkook shrugs at that, which earns him a scoff from Mingyu.

“Do you smoke around her?” Jungkook suddenly asks.

“Who?”

“__.”

A beat of silence. And then Mingyu laughs.

“No. She doesn’t know I smoke. She doesn’t have to.”

Good. Jungkook thinks. Good that he doesn’t smoke around her. But what did he mean by saying she doesn’t need to know?

“She doesn’t like smokers, you know.” Jungkook tells him.

From his periphery, Jungkook sees Mingyu glancing at him. It takes a while for him to say something.

“You’d know that, huh?”

The dip in his tone makes Jungkook meet his gaze. Suddenly, the smirk on Mingyu’s face is gone, and there’s something behind his eyes that he can’t quite put a finger on.

Jungkook tries to ignore that. “I’ve known her for a long time. The others can also tell you that.” He says, referring to the rest of your friends on the trip.

“You think I don’t know?”

With furrowed brows and growing confusion, Jungkook stares at Mingyu.

“What?”

“That you like my girlfriend.” Mingyu spits the words out like venom in his mouth, but it’s in a way that tells him it’s been sitting with him for far too long. Jungkook’s surprised at the declaration, feels himself being taken aback by the blunt way he said it as if he’s so sure.

But Jungkook doubles down, to Mingyu’s surprise.

“So?”

That obviously wasn’t the answer the other man wanted to hear. So, what? He can dish it, but he can’t take it?

“You’re goddamn pathetic, then.” Mingyu says after awhile, taking a hit on his cigarette again.

It itches the bubbling anger Jungkook has had for him for the past ten years.

“I like __, and I’m not gonna deny that to you,” Jungkook faces him. “But you don’t have to worry about that, because unlike you, I have enough self-respect to not sleep with my friend’s girlfriend.”

It’s another response that Mingyu does not expect. Jungkook also did not mean to let that out. But his tongue glided with the words and he couldn’t help it. Suddenly, memories of junior year in undergrad comes back flashing to him; Jiyeon and Mingyu, fucking in his goddamn bed, his girlfriend cheating on him with his best friend.

Jungkook’s already moved on from that. Jiyeon was not a loss, even though she was his first girlfriend – heck, first love even, but she cheated on him. And not just with anybody but his best friend at the time. The worst thing was that Mingyu was completely in on it, and Jungkook doesn’t think he ever felt remorse about what happened back then. Mingyu gave him a half-assed apology the day he walked in on them, even had the gall to “explain” Jiyeon’s side, that apparently, she just wasn’t “feeling it” with Jungkook anymore, and that Mingyu and her had been hitting it off. Jungkook realized it was why Mingyu suddenly came over way too often over at his apartment.

It’s exactly why he never bothered to meet with Mingyu after graduation. Why he was not enthusiastic meeting him at the engagement party.

But that happened so many years ago that he thought Mingyu’s changed. He didn’t want to burst your bubble and tell you what happened between them back then because he’d be the one to ruin the happiness you’ve wished for all these years.

“I see you’re still hung up on that.” Mingyu says after a while. He throws the cigarette away and steps on it with his heel.

Jungkook’s jaw ticks in what he feels is growing rage. “I’ve moved on. I’m just letting you know that even though I like __, I’m never doing what you did back then.”

“You’re such good guy, then?”

“If not cheating makes me a good guy, then maybe I am.” Jungkook shrugs.

“Jiyeon was a bitch. She was never gonna be good for you.” Mingyu suddenly says.

It makes Jungkook seethe. “And so you fucked her?”

“She liked me better than you. Women always liked me more, that’s why I was going through them while your goody-two shoes virgin prude ass was daydreaming about dating to marry.  You remember that, right?” Mingyu looks at him with a mocking stare. “And Jiyeon was smoking hot. She offered, I just delivered. Said you couldn’t make her cum properly. We could have shared her, you know?”

“Fuck you.” Jungkook spits out. He feels enraged and pissed and disgusted all at the same time.

“Are you getting mad?” Mingyu levels him with an infuriating smirk. “You always got a stick up in your ass, Jeon. Kyungmi told me you’re just a regular playboy these days, said it was the effect of your first girlfriend cheating on you. Right now, though, is that just a front to hide your feelings from my girlfriend? A pathetic boy best friend just wanting to be noticed by his hot girl best friend? You play that role so well. Telling me she’s lactose intolerant, she doesn’t like smokers… you want to fuck her so bad it’s laughable because you know you can’t.”

“Don’t… fucking talk about her like that.” Jungkook growls, and he feels blood rushing through his veins.

Mingyu shakes his head. “You know what I thought when I first met her? I was completely interested right away, but when you showed up…” He chuckles in the way that makes Jungkook’s skin prickle. “It just made me want her more.”

“You’re fucked in the head.”

“This fucked in the head guy got the girl you want wanting to commit to him. I don’t know if she told you, but we’re moving in together.”

Jungkook pokes his tongue to his cheek. “You think I won’t tell her about this?”

“You think she’s gonna believe you?” Mingyu fires back. Jungkook closes his mouth, doesn’t really know if he’s confident enough to say yes. That earns him an arrogant smirk from Mingyu. “That’s right, she won’t. I have no doubt she’s gonna choose me over you. Jiyeon has had before. And if you’re gonna fight the same battle again this time, you’ll lose.”

Jungkook regulates his breathing hearing his words. He’s starting to not see clearly, his fist clenching on his side and he knows better than to resort to violence, but Mingyu’s testing his patience.

He’s completely wrong for thinking that he isn’t the same asshole he was back in college. He’s completely wrong for not telling you about him sooner. He’s completely wrong about everything.

Glancing at his hand, Mingyu looks him in the eyes, leaning forward. “You wanna hit me just like how you did back then? You almost fucking killed me when you gave me that head injury that kicked me out of the fucking team.”

The head injury. That fucking head injury. Jungkook was so mad when he found out that he just saw pure red. It wasn’t his best moment – he knows. He lost control and just… went for it. He still regrets doing it – not punching Mingyu – but for losing it when he could’ve shown him that he’d always be the bigger person between them both.

He’s quiet and Mingyu takes that as a win. Scoffing, Mingyu says, “I could’ve reported you to the admin and you could’ve been expelled, and if that happened, you couldn’t have gone to med. You are where you are right now because of me, so don’t fucking show that animosity towards me because you fucking owe me one.”

Jungkook can’t help but laugh. But he does so humorlessly. “You really think that?” He stares at the other guy. “You’re just as delusional as you were back then, Gyu. You think everybody liked you – but that was just because you were a touch-deprived loser who would fuck anything that breathed near him, and I wasn’t. I only entertained women I liked. You thought you were smarter, but I was always the one who got the better and higher grades, even though you studied way harder. Is that why you went with law? So you won’t have to compete with me in the med field? I also know you were pissed as fuck when the captain title was passed on to me instead of you,” Jungkook leans closer as well. “You’ve always thought of yourself so highly, but deep down, you were just an insecure little boy trying to compete with another guy that didn’t even see you as competition because you were that irrelevant.”

Mingyu, in his own fir of rage, grabs Jungkook’s collar, but Jungkook stays in his place, face stoic as Mingyu snarls, “You keep running your mouth while you cry yourself to sleep because those don’t mean anything when I’m the one fucking the love of your life,” Jungkook visibly recoils to that, and when Mingyu notices, he smirks, adding, “Yeah, yeah, you wanna know how __ is in bed? Because you’ll never see her sopping wet when you give her cock. That angelic face of hers… you’ll never know she’s a slut the way that filthy mouth asks me to fuck her harder because I am that goo—”

He wasn’t able to finish his sentence when Jungkook’s heavy fist suddenly lands on his cheek.

That effectively gets Mingyu to let go of Jungkook’s collar as he loses his balance and steps backwards limply, thumbing the side of his mouth only to see blood.

Whisking away his fist, Jungkook looks at Mingyu with fire in his eyes and venom in his voice when he says, “Don’t you ever fucking dare talk about her like that, you fucking piece of shit.”

The moon hangs low in the sky, casting a silvery white glow over the beach, but the comforting sound of waves and the calm of the surrounding is a contrast to the rising tension between Jungkook and Mingyu.

When Mingyu doesn’t say anything, Jungkook turns on his heel, ready to leave, but suddenly, he feels the back of his shirt getting pulled and being met with a fist right on his cheek, close to his nose. He barely dodges the hit, taken aback by the unexpected attack.

“Fuck you.” Mingyu grits, eyes blazing.

With that, the fight intensifies, with Jungkook throwing a quick jab back. Mingyu retaliates with as much fury, the two of them grappling, their bodies colliding with violent force. Soon, the sound of their grunts and the occasional crash of a punch against flesh is drowned out by the crashing waves.

And then a familiar voice calls their names.

“Jungkook! Mingyu!”

“Oh my god!”

Jungkook’s suddenly being taken away by somebody by his arms, and he realizes it’s Taehyung when he speaks up again once he and Mingyu are off each other.

“What the fuck are you two doing?” Taehyung asks incredulously, rightfully shocked at what he’s seen. Jungkook forces his way out of Taehyung’s hold in frustration, wiping the side of his mouth. Mingyu’s on the other side a few inches away being hesitantly held down by Nayeon, who looks at all of them with deep worry in her eyes. Turning to her, Taehyung says, “Call Doyeon and __. They’re sleeping in the same room together at the villa.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Jungkook says, glaring at Taehyung.

He looks at him angrily. “You’re fistfighting with somebody at fuck o’clock in the morning. We’re going to get run off by the police, be thankful we saw you.”

“I-I’ll call Doyeon and __.” Nayeon stutters, reluctantly pulling away from Mingyu and going to the direction of the villas.

When she leaves, Taehyung looks between the two beaten up men, not believing their busted faces. Rubbing his own with his hands in frustration, he looks back at them again, saying, “What the fuck happened to you guys? Why were you fighting?”

“It’s none of your business.” Mingyu says.

Taehyung glances at him with irritation. “None of my business? Fuck off, Kim Mingyu. You joined in on this trip. Everything that happens here is quite literally each other’s business.”

“Tae.”

“I can’t believe you guys,” Taehyung shakes his head, ignoring Jungkook. “Fighting like goddamn immature teenagers… are you not embarrassed?”

Looking away, Jungkook decides to sit on the sand and let Taehyung’s words go from one ear to another. His energy is waning and the rage he had a while ago is just simmering down to… nothing. He feels absolutely empty.

“Jungkook?” He doesn’t realize the steps that were coming towards them were you and Doyeon. It’s obvious that you’ve both been sleeping, still in your pajamas as you rush towards their direction. He looks at you when you call his name, but then suddenly, you turn to Mingyu. “Ming— what happened?”

Jungkook feels his heart break when you come towards Mingyu’s direction first. He knows why you did. He’s your boyfriend, of course you are going to tend to him first.

Suddenly, he remembers what Mingyu said. About you choosing him over Jungkook.

Jungkook didn’t doubt that, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt a little to see it fully realized.

“Jungkook– Jesus Christ,” Doyeon comes over to him and quickly checks his head. With knitted brows, she casts him a look.

“I’m fine.”

She’s about to say something, but then she closes her mouth and then glances at you.

Sighing, she turns to everyone and announces, “Look, let’s just get them back to the villa. Treat their wounds before they get infected.”

“Right.” Taehyung says and then comes over to Jungkook to help Doyeon guide him in walking. He relents first because he doesn’t need their assistance, but Taehyung looks at him and he knows he’s pissed. So, he lets them.

As he tries to subtly look over to where you were, you have your arm around Mingyu’s waist while Nayeon helps guide him as well.

It takes a tedious few minutes to get back to the villa where Doyeon and Taehyung decide to take care of him in his room while Nayeon and you tend to Mingyu back in your room.

Doyeon nor Taehyung doesn’t say anything the whole time. Just let the silence fall in the room as they clean his wounds and put bandages around the cuts on his face and treat his busted lip.

He knows they’ll talk to him in the next few hours. It’s inevitable. But at least they’re sparing him for tonight – or today, since it’s almost four am.

Jungkook regrets not seeing the sunrise.

[ READ BELOW ]

this chapter is not over yet! tumblr has a 1k paragraph/block limit in a single post and so i can't put the whole thing in this. please look thru the reblogs to read the last scene and the continuation of this chapter!

[captainofthedauntless]

Integration

Bayverse Donatello x Reader imagine

Info + Warnings: Donatello finds himself all over your life. No gendered language, pronouns, or Y.N used for Reader, but they use Spotify. Friends-to-lovers type beat. Set a few years after OOTS.

Commentary: While it's not strictly necessary reading, this is the sequel to Glow in the Dark, and is set to this playlist.

Donatello has always prided himself on his observational skills.

He notices things other people don't. He recognizes patterns, he collects data, he observes.

It's why Leo turns to him first for mission analysis.

It's why April sends him documents to proof-read.

It's how he fixes codes that refuse to work and reverse engineers biological weapons and is able to turn scraps into functioning gear.

He sees.

Especially when he's already interested in what he's looking at.

Which is why, in the middle of the night, he glances at your activity in his Spotify sidebar.

It's just in his nature.

He does it every now and again- well, okay, every time he opens Spotify- and it's become a bit of a game for him, to try and hone in on your music taste and then casually send you very casually considered recommendations.

He's the most casual turtle alive, everyone knows that.

Sometimes, he spots you playing a song he's given you, and he gets a dorky little smile on his face as he alt-tabs his way back to work.

This time, it's a song he'd given you months back- StarWaves, off of the Oblivion soundtrack, by M83- and just as his lips quirk up and his fingers find his keyboard, he notices something else.

Just below the song, he spots the playlist title.

It's a purple heart emoji.

He hesitates, hand over keys, eyes lingering on his screen.

His timing is fantastic, because the song changes. Little Dark Age by MGMT, which he'd sent you when he last updated the surveillance system- still on purple heart emoji.

This is why science is such a comfort to him- it ties all of those constant observations to something concrete, makes them matter. Observation alone means nothing; study gives him structure.

This means nothing.

But further study- tabbing back and forth between his latest project and Spotify every three-or-so minutes, noting song after song that he remembers giving you- suggests that the purple heart emoji means him.

It makes his heart do something dizzy in his chest, to think that you've tucked his suggestions somewhere safe. That you've taken them with open hands and set them in a display case.

That you make use of them.

It's not even a week later when you come into the lair with a smile and your computer bag over your shoulders and bags of take out in your hands. You set your phone and keys on his desk, both tangled in your headphones, and head off to dole out food, and he can hear a Phantogram song heavy in the earbuds.

Another one of his, he notes happily.

You come back a few minutes later, a tired and amused expression on your face as you offer him his food.

"I take it Mikey found you," Donnie says in wry, fond amusement, and he's rewarded by a little snort of laughter.

"He did," You respond, setting your own food on the desk- next to your things- and shimmying your bag off your shoulder. "I swear, it's like you all let that guy starve when I'm not here."

"He does a lot of things when you're not here. Starve is not one of them."

He almost misses your response- "Tell that to him, he nearly tackled me for his lo mein!"- because something green catches the light of his computer and, in turn, catches his eye.

It's a little piece of circuit board.

One you'd helped him pull out of a haul of scrap tech, and once he'd deemed that piece useless you'd made a joke about it making a cute keychain.

He'd taken an old soldering iron and melted a hole in the corner, threading a keyring through it, and passed it to you before you left.

It was mostly a joke. You'd been joking. He'd just tapped in and taken the bit to the next level.

And the joke was somehow still in one piece, hanging off your computer bag.

It makes his heart do something fluttery in his chest, to think that you carried that silly (warm, safe, delightful) memory around with you.

It's nearly two weeks after that when he climbs in your window in the early part of the night, a little earlier than he should probably be out, with a bag of snacks hanging from his elbow.

You're in front of your TV, flicking through movie options, and he intentionally scuffs his shoe in the doorway to make sure you know he's there.

He somehow still isn't prepared for the way you tilt your head back to smile at him in greeting.

"I know it's kinda warm out, but I made hot cocoa," You say sweetly. "I got marshmallows on sale, so..."

"I brought those chips you like," He responds, slipping the bag to his palm and holding it up as though you can see through it.

"You're the best!" You chirp, slipping off the couch and leading him to the kitchen.

You already have two mugs set out, filled to the brim with marshmallows- he assumes there's cocoa beneath them somewhere, but has little proof from just looking at them.

One mug is your favorite, the one you've been using as long as he's known you.

The other is new.

It's dark purple and large, with an oversized handle. About the same size as the one he probably left on his desk when he left the lair. Large enough to comfortably fit his hand, he suspects.

It nearly stops him in his tracks.

"What is it?" You ask.

"Is this new?" He asks in place of an answer, nodding at the drinks.

"The mug?" You're using that carefully nonchalant voice you use whenever you do something nice. The one that usually obscures a lot of time and effort. "Yeah, found it at that antiques place I told you about. The one with the iron giraffe by the door?"

He remembers.

"It's- pretty," He says haltingly, trying to keep himself in a logical, reasonable headspace.

It isn't a big deal. It's a mug.

(It feels big. Feels huge. Feels like he's going to suddenly collapse under his own emotional weight and leave a black hole in your kitchen where he had been.)

(It's you adapting to his- and his brothers', he reminds himself sharply, trying to stay in the realm of reasonable and unimpacted- quirks and needs. It's you accommodating him in your own home. It's his color. He thinks his unwieldy feelings for you grow a size right here, standing in your kitchen.)

"I thought so," You agree lightly, your back to him as you grab bowls. "Thought you might like it. Thought maybe it would be nice to have one here. For you."

Reasonable is rapidly becoming less and less realistic as his heart skips a beat. There's weight in your words, despite your best efforts- he's more sure than ever than you'd set out to find this mug, that this had been a mission for you.

You never act this casually about something you're actually casual about.

"Vank- er, very nice," He stumbles over his words, slowing down to enunciate. "Thank you."

You shrug, turning to him with the bowls, eyes trained on them. "Since I like having you here, might as well, like, make it easier for you, huh?"

He's glad, in a way, that he's green. When he blushes, it's a lot more subtle on him than it is on somebody like Casey.

(He hopes you're not feeling particularly observant.)

"Being here is easy," He says quickly, a confession he hadn't really meant to make.

It's simultaneously huge and just-the-surface.

Being around you is easy.

You look up now, eyes meeting his with a searching look, and you smile. "I'm glad," You say, that weight still in your voice, some extra, unknown thing just beyond his ability to figure out. Then it shifts, and you're more smirking than smiling, and the air shifts from uncertain warmth to a familiar playfulness. "That means you can easily pick a movie. I'm sick of looking."

He stays long after the credits roll, listening as you look up tidbits about the movie and the cast and how the effects were done. He's on your couch, one leg crossed beneath the other as he angles his body to you and rests an arm over the back (staying very carefully on his side, thank you).

He chimes in as you read out trivia ("I'm pretty sure that should be lucis, but my Latin's a little rusty." "You're right, according to this. Wonder if that was an error or a stylistic choice?") and laughs as you stop mid-sentence to re-read twice because something is so littered with typos that you can't immediately tell what it's saying.

Neither of you look at the clock.

You finish the chips he brought, and you make popcorn, and the two of you finish that, too.

The movie trivia gives way to a story about your friend's dog, and the laughter from that flows into him telling a similar story about Mikey as a child- because apparently, chewing on skateboards is a more common behavior than he'd thought- which shifts into you showing him the meme Mikey had sent you earlier in the day.

Mikey'd sent it to him, too, but he didn't mention it. He let himself lean into your bubble to half-look at your phone, just to be near you.

When he finally gets home- late, very late, the sun's already planning its ascent- he's grateful that everyone seems to be asleep.

Until he hears a throat clear behind him and he winces.

"Hi, Donnie," Leo says, knowing and smug and making Donnie stifle a groan.

Leo asks how you are.

"Good," He says simply, turning and holding his oldest brother's gaze. "We had lots to catch up on."

"Clearly," Leo says, a clear undertone of teasing.

Donnie resists the urge to roll his eyes.

"I'm glad you had a good time," Leo says, teasing fading from his voice, leaving an earnest tone in its place as he bumps a fist into Donnie's shoulder. "Just let me know next time movie night turns four movies long, yeah? Keeping your dinner safe from Mikey isn't my idea of a good time."

Don can feel the blood in his cheeks again. He hadn't meant to stay so long- disrupting your sleep schedule isn't his idea of a good time- but it just... was easy. "Yeah. Will do."

Leo nods and smiles and takes his mug- strong green tea, if Don's nose is to be believed- towards his room.

Donatello exhales softly. He'd expected worse-

"Oh, Donnie," Leo calls playfully, "Mike's come up with several new songs including "k-i-s-s-i-n-g", so I'd brace myself for a musical breakfast."

This time, Donnie does groan, not bothering to respond as Leo chuckles and leaves.

He eats the dinner Leo'd kept guarded- pasta with meatballs, cold, because Donnie thinks that if the microwave wakes either of his other brothers and he has to deal with them before he sleeps he's going to ask you if he can just live on your couch- before shuffling into his lab and flopping into the chair at his workbench.

He leans back into the chair, stretching his neck out with a soft groan before his eyes land on the little glass sun hanging above him.

He watches it for a moment, a soft smile creeping onto his face.

Then he stretches out- too lazy, too tired to get up- and flicks the lights off.

The sun glows, and it looks almost as bright as his heart feels, and he feels himself sink fully into the chair and memories of you and the unwieldy, bright feelings you spark in his chest.

After a few minutes in comfortable, sweet silence, he shifts forwards and boots his computer up.

Just for some music.

Work will have to wait until he gets some sleep. You'd be livid if he jumps in now.

He pulls up Spotify and his eyes go to the sidebar out of muscle memory more than conscious effort.

Your username is the first on the list, right above a purple heart.

He lets out a little laugh, a you-shaped feeling turning bubbly and warm behind his ribs.

Deciding you have the right idea, he pulls up Random Access Memories and hits play on his favorite track, letting the bass softly fill the room and enjoying the feeling of it beneath his fingers as he quickly types out the few ideas he'd had while at your place.

He's asleep before the song ends, face buried in his forearms on the desk.

[ellethespaceunicorn]

Don’t Take My Sunshine Away, Part I

Title: Don’t Take My Sunshine Away, Part I

Rating: Explicit, 18+, Minors - DNI

Pairing: Lloyd Hansen x Reader (Sunshine)

Fandom: The Gray Man

Word Count: 2.5K

Series Summary: You lived your life on a schedule. Everything is planned out from sunrise to sunset. But what happens when you go out on a limb and out of your comfort zone? Will it have dire consequences?

Chapter Summary: You’d agreed to meet someone from the internet and you find yourself tied up in a basement. 

Warnings: dark fic!, attempted mugging, drugging, abduction, suspension bondage, Murder Daddy™️, oral sex (m receiving), dub-con, non-con, unprotected p-in-v sex, knife play, biting, blood play

A/N: I had an idea about Lloyd Hansen. Here is that idea. I haven’t written for Chris Evans’ character since Steve Rogers pre-Infinity War so this was an exercise and a half! Also, many many many thanks to @peyton-warren and @raccoon-eyed-rebel for helping me entertain Lloyd and for helping me to not lose my mind whilst writing this. Unbeta’d, we die like people who tried their best. 

Dividers by: @firefly-graphics 

Support/Reblog banner by me

Cover Art: by me

Spotify Playlist is here. 

Series Masterlist

My Masterlist

It’s just your luck, honestly.

You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The place was a dark street. The time was 9:03 pm.

Well, technically you could blame your Tinder date for this. He didn’t fucking show up and he didn’t respond to your texts or calls. Like he just disappeared off the face of the Earth. You ended up waiting for an hour and decided to just pay for your third cup of coffee and leave.

Luckily for you, the buses were still running and there was a stop just across the street from the diner. You climb off your stool at the counter and exit through a particularly noisy door. It alerts some guys down the street and they turn to look at you before turning back to each other. Your sigh of relief is reversed when you get across the street and hear one of them shouting at you before moving closer.

You check the bus schedule that hangs in the bus shelter. You only have to wait for five minutes for safety. 

What could go wrong?

“Hey baby, can I have your number?” The overwhelmingly strong skunky smell of bad weed hits your nasal passage and you gag. “Oh, what? I’m disgusting to you? Stuck up, bitch!”

“Look, I’m just trying to get home. I don’t want any trouble.” Your hand went to your pocket where you had your safety keychain on your keyring.

“Too fucking bad because you just landed yourself in trouble, cunt,” Three long strides and he has you in his grip, pulling you behind the bus shelter into the empty alleyway. He pushes you onto the wet pavement and is on top of you in seconds. He watches as you open your mouth to scream and he clamps a hand around your throat, cutting you off. “Who do you think is coming for you, unlucky bi–”

“What the fuck…hey!” A voice is coming from the street and getting closer.

Your attacker is being pulled off of you and it’s so dark in the alley that you can’t fully see who grabbed him. You see a dark blur and you hear sounds of a struggle before a strong pair of hands is helping you up. 

“Are you ok, Miss?” You’re being ushered down the alley to the only lit streetlight. The more you walk under its glow, you notice the man who saved you. Your eyes are drawn to the push broom on his lip first, then to his slicked-back hair, and finally to his dramatically-patterned polo and pastel chino pants.

“Yeah, I’m fine…I think. Thanks.” You reach out your hand to touch his where it lingers on your arm. He doesn’t attempt to remove his hand, even after you squeeze it with yours quickly.

“No problem, why don’t I take you home? My car’s just around the corner here.” He does attempt to pull you towards the street. You know better than to let anyone take you to a second location, so you put your hand up with a smile.

“That’s quite alright. I’ll just wait for the bus if you don’t mind.” You try and remove your arm from his hand but his grip on you gets tighter.

“Let me at least walk you back to the bus stop?”

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” You try to turn away and he pulls you closer to him.

“Why did you have to make this difficult, Sunshine?” His angry growl is quiet but no less intimidating.

“I’m sorry, wha–” You don’t get to finish as you feel a sharp prick in your bicep. Looking down, you see a syringe sticking out of your skin. You go to pull out the needle but darkness fades into your eyesight and you slip off into the void.

You awake to a pounding in your head. Your arms are sore. Your legs are numb. And you can feel the stiff presence of duct tape over your mouth. Opening your eyes, you try to raise your hand to shield your eyes from the sudden brightness but you realize your arms and legs have been immobilized.

Looking around, you see that you’re suspended about three feet above the ground in some pretty elaborate rope bindings. Your wrists are crossed against your bare chest. Your left leg is being held up straight, while your right leg is only supported by two lengths of rope on your thigh, leaving your foot to dangle which means your pussy is on full display. 

You hear a door open and two sets of footsteps walk down the stairs. As the steps get closer, you hear two voices as well. 

“...didn’t have to punch me so fucking hard!”

“Yeah? Well maybe if you didn’t have your slimy hands all over my things, I wouldn’t have had to bruise your fucking spleen. Don’t be such a pussy, Dougherty!”

 “Fuck you, Hansen.”

“Don’t be sad I have a new plaything and you don’t.”

“Yeah. Just don’t wreck this one like that last girl.”

You struggle in the ropes and try and grunt loudly through the duct tape and the metal anchor that holds the rope loudly jostles. You pick your head up and look to your right as the men come into view.

As you recognize the man who had you on the ground, you couldn’t believe your eyes when you saw the geometric-patterned polo-wearing man who tried to “save” you. 

“I’m so glad you’re awake. I know you must have a lot of questions. But, you’re gonna listen first,” He walks until he can grab onto the ropes that hold you up. Looking down at you, he smiles sweetly. He begins to swing you toward him, letting go and watching as you swing back and forth, “Now, my name is Lloyd Hansen, but you are to call me Sir. You now belong to me. From every thought you have to every step you take. I own all of it. You may be wondering why I chose you of all people. Well, it had to be you, Sunshine. You’re the one.”

You are at his mercy as his hands grope at your tits and he pinches your nipples. You turn your head to look away but he just grabs you by the chin and makes you look at him.

“Now, Sunshine, you take what Sir gives you and you are appreciative. Trust me, this will all make sense later. But for now, I think it’s time I claim what’s mine.” He stalks over to your legs, standing between them. He places a kiss on your left ankle as he grabs at your right thigh. Pulling your core flush with his clothed hardness, you can feel exactly how excited he is to own you.

“I’d hate to interrupt, but–”

“But yet, you are interrupting. What?” Lloyd says as he trails kisses down your calf, his mustache tickling you as he moves.

“Well, I just…you said you would pay me. And I don’t really wanna stay around for whatever this is, honestly.” 

Lloyd finally turns his head to the other man in the room before patting your leg, “I’ll be right back, Sunshine. Don’t you go anywhere, ok?”

Fucking asshole.

Pulling out a wad of cash from his pocket, Lloyd starts counting bills, “So what do you say to…a hundred bucks?”

“I say fuck you if you think I’m taking less than half a yard. Shit, I didn’t even get to fu–”

The pop of a gunshot cuts through not only his sentence but also his left eye. You watch as Lloyd pockets the money and turns back to you with a smile.

“Fuck, ok. I didn’t plan on shooting him in front of you. But…well, I did,” He caresses your cheek before ripping off the tape from your mouth. He tilts his head and raises his eyebrows, expectantly waiting for you to speak.

“What do you want from me?” Your wrists hurt from struggling against the ropes.

“Oh, Sunshine. I want everything from you…eventually. But for now, I want to use your mouth.” He unbuttons and unzips his pants, “Those fucking lips of yours look so delectable.” He traces your bottom lip with his thumb and you debate biting it. Then, you remember the dead guy in the room.

Just comply. He won’t have to hurt you if you comply.

You clear your throat to get Lloyd to look at you. “Um…S-Sir?”

“Look at you calling me Sir already like a good girl,” He beams, looking down at you and holding your face in his murderous hand, “What do you want to ask me?”

“Are you going to kill me, Sir?” You couldn’t stop the fat tears from falling as you blink up at his face. You watched as his smile fell and he crouches to bring his face to your eye level.

“I would love to tell you that I won’t kill you, Sunshine. But it really all depends on you. If you don’t give me a reason to kill you, I won’t kill you. It’s as simple as that, Sunshine.”

You feel your eyes glaze over as you thought about what Lloyd had said. You didn’t want to give him a reason to kill you. You also know that there was no one coming to save you. You had no family, no friends, no roommates. You had lived a solitary life. 

The sound of Lloyd clearing his throat brought you back to reality.

“Use my mouth, Sir.” 

No sooner does the half-sultry half-terrified sentence leave your mouth, than Lloyd is reaching into his chinos to pull out his fat dick as he walks around you. You tilt your head back and are met with his impressive package. Eight inches of veiny length in your face suddenly is a lot to handle. As he strokes himself, he makes sure to keep it just out of reach. You hate yourself for licking your lips and following his hand with your eyes.

He positions his dick slightly over your mouth and squeezes his length from base to tip so that a dribble of pre-cum hits your lips. You snake your tongue out to taste him, the salty bitter taste you expect turns out to be almost sweet. Why couldn’t he just taste terrible?

“Open up, Sunshine.” He steps closer to you as you part your lips. He doesn’t stop pushing in until you feel his balls touch your nose. You close your lips around him and breathe through your nostrils. 

Inhaling deeply, you’re hit with the familiar scent of sweetness mixed with musk—sort of Earthy. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say it was African black soap. You knew the smell very well, you used the body wash every day.

“Fuuuuck, baby. Gonna fuck this throat.” He wraps his large hands around your throat as he pulls out slowly, leaving just the tip before he slams back in making you gag. 

He starts a steady rhythm and soon his balls are slapping you in the face. You can deny it all you want, but the way he fits perfectly in your mouth is obvious. The way your hands clench into fists and unclench denotes the urge to grab him and pull him deeper. 

One of his hands moves from your throat to your tits. Pinching your nipples and groping the soft flesh must not be enough because soon he is slapping at your breasts, getting you to grunt around his dick. The groan that leaves him is so sinful, you wish you could squeeze your thighs together.

But you don’t have time to worry about that because Lloyd is pulling out of your mouth. A string of saliva connects you until he steps back. You try to follow him with your mouth but he’s out of reach too soon.

“Sir?” You don’t like the air of desperation in your voice when you speak. You watch as he moves to the other end of your body and you soon feel his hand roam from your thigh to your pussy.

In one swift motion, Lloyd is inside your cunt. With the grip his hands have on your hips, you know it’s going to hurt tomorrow. But, that’s a later problem because Sir is fucking you like he hates you. You should hate this, but you don’t. At least not yet.

“Fuck, Sunshine…knew your pussy was gonna feel good but DAMN!” 

You can’t help the slew of sounds that escapes your mouth as he fucks you. The last of which sort of sounded like “Hnnnngg”. You feel as if you are going to explode at any minute but a spike of fear hits you as you think about where Lloyd is going to finish. You’re not on birth control. The speed of his thrusts picks up and you can feel him swell inside you. Fuck it.

“Sir, cum with me!”

“Fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuuuuuck…” Lloyd latches onto your stretched left leg with his teeth, leaving behind deep and angry bite marks as he empties inside you. Pulling out, he watches his spend leak from you, righting his pants.

You are in a state of bliss so deep that you barely register as Lloyd bites into your right thigh enough to break the skin in a few places. But you can feel the sting of his butterfly knife as it moves over your skin.  The letters “LH” well with blood on your leg as silent fat tears roll down your face.  

“Now you can wear my bite mark like the badge of honor that it is. And when that fades, you’ll still have my initials so you can be returned to me if you are ever lost. I don’t plan on losing you, so you better not plan on getting lost, Sunshine.”

“I don’t want to get lost, Sir. I like it here with you.” The tremble in your voice doesn’t hide your fear, and part of you doesn’t want it to. You want him to know he doesn’t have to worry about losing you somehow.

“Think you can behave for a bath and a meal? I’ll have to supervise the bath, of course. And we’d be eating together. Unless you like being hungry, in your own filth with my cum dripping out of you all night. What do you say?” Lloyd offers, the fingers of one hand ghosting over his initials on your thigh.

“Would I still have to be tied up, Sir?” So many questions you could have asked, but you picked this one. 

Maybe if your hands were free, you could…do what? Fight him? Pick a lock? 

No, just comply. You can do this. 

“You won’t be tied up, but I do have a gift for you upstairs. But you can only have it if you’re a good girl. Are you gonna be a good girl, Sunshine?” While he spoke, he dragged a fingernail from your thigh to your upper torso as he walked around your body to your head.

“I’ll be a good girl for you, Sir. I promise.” The words on your tongue felt both foreign and familiar. Almost like you weren’t afraid for him to hurt you. 

You were afraid that he wouldn’t. And that scared you more than anything. 

Part II

A/N: There will be more of this. I’ve never written for Lloyd before but I enjoyed him as the little devil on my shoulder.

@raccoon-eyed-rebel @peyton-warren

If you would like to be tagged in the next installment, lemme know 🫣

[asimplearchivist]

"𝓘𝓼 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓶𝔂 𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓻𝓽?"

𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐘 𝐈 𝐨𝐟 𝐗𝐗𝐕

[𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓶𝓹𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓬𝓱𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓼𝓽'𝓼 𝓶𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽] [ 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍 𝐊𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓 ] AO3 | SPOTIFY | PINTEREST summary ☾ ⤏ you and the boys have a set of rules. jake doesn’t like it when you break them. pairing(s) ☽ jake lockley/reader-centric | constellations!verse word count ☾ 2.3k a/n ☽ ⤏ my first entry for the moon knight bingo hosted by @juneknight and @spacecowboyhotch over at @moonknight-events ! I will eventually crosspost this to the main fic for constellations on ao3 when it will best fit the chronological progression of the chapters! this takes place post-chapter iii. ☽ MASTERPOST ☾ ☾ ☥ ⤏ NEXT ENTRY ☽

You froze midstep, a loaded fork raised halfway to your gaping mouth as your rounded eyes darted over to Jake’s silhouette darkening the doorway, the fluorescent hallway lights accentuating the diaphanous material of his prized silk pajama top hanging from the topography of your form.

His question went unheard, and thus unanswered. The headphones covering your ears—set on the noise canceling feature, he knew all too well—had disguised the noisy, fumbling jangle of their keyring, the rasp of the tarnished key inserted into the jammy slot, and the rattle of the unyielding knob as he’d worked his way inside.

You had broken not one—not two—but three rules that they had long since established when you’d moved in with them for—primarily—the ease of travel and the ever-steepening cost of rent. Secondarily, of course, came the benefits of having an additional person to help maintain the neglected residence—chores and errands were remarkably less daunting now with one more pair of hands to fulfill the monotonous tasks involved. Tertiarily…well, waking up to the sight of you in their bed most mornings certainly had its perks, and it made them feel better knowing you were that much safer than living halfway across the city all alone.

Which was exactly why the rules had been established in the first place.

Marc had started them, of course—it should come as little surprise, that. He’d been transparent with you about the nature of his past, although he did omit the more gruesome details, and had made you aware of the fact that he was a wanted man. Thus the very first rule had been set in place—should anything dangerous ever happen involving his past mercenary work, you were to get to safety and wait until he came to you. Stay in public, stay in sight of cameras and civilians, stay away from the action. Of course you’d broken that the first time such a situation had cropped up and had gone directly south, but…that was neither here nor there, at this point. Fortunately, the incident had yet to have been repeated, and you were far better prepared now that he had taken the time to train you on protocol. He’d since made many more.

Steven added domestic ones over time—cutesy and saccharine in contrast to the first—and he invited you to, as well. They mostly revolved around your shared daily lives to set up a stable routine in the midst of your sometimes busy, stressful, and fast-paced lives, although there were a few errant ones sprinkled in that were odd by comparison. He’d eventually sat down and typed them up to print them out and pin them to the fridge, mostly as a joke, but that had devolved into a chart and to-do list thanks to yours and his tendencies to organize things.

Jake’s—while few and far between—were simple, blunt, and short, and rules never with which to be trifled due to his immovable stance on them: like working on the sabbath, allowing him to be a gentleman, or binging ahead on TV series that you both were watching together.

Some were harmless, some were important for the health of the relationship, some were rooted in inside jokes or straight up ridiculous…and some were intended to make sure that harm never befell you because of them, which was why Jake was not pleased in the slightest when—under any other normal circumstance—he would be ‘chuffed’ to see you, for lack of a better word.

Firstly, you hadn’t set up all the locks like you were supposed to do while they were out and you were at home by yourself.

Secondly, you had blocked out all sounds with those headphones—he couldn’t fault you for that, he knew you got overstimulated by noise sometimes (and he even resorted to using them himself at times when the world grew just this side of too loud), but they’d requested that you not use them while they were gone just on the off-chance that someone tried to break in.

Thirdly…perhaps not as egregious a mistake as the prior two, but…you’d cooked and cleaned the kitchen, when it had been agreed upon to split the job between each of you—one person would cook, then (on rotation, in their case), the other would clean, so that preparing the complex meals their individual diets required wouldn’t be so tedious an affair.

The chagrin creasing your expression told him that you knew exactly where you’d erred.

“Hola, chaparrita,” he crooned, pursing his lips to hide the twitch of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as you hurried over to the kitchen island to set down the bowl and to tug the headphones from your ears to hang around your neck. He could hear the music from where he stood, shutting the door behind him and rectifying your initial oversight. You fumbled your phone out of your pocket and paused the track before tucking it away once more. “Qué haces?”

“Hola, amor,” you greeted without meeting his gaze, moving over to the stove to dish up a bowl of pasta. You didn’t look up even as he approached, easing in behind you and sliding his hands around your waist to coil his arms around you. He heard you swallow as he hooked his chin over your shoulder. “How was the traffic?”

“Horrible,” he rumbled, eyes falling to the bowl in your hand, as well as the steam curling up towards his face. As delectable as it smelled, he wouldn’t be so easily distracted by food. “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

“You’re honestly home sooner than I expected,” you confessed, voice quiet as you attempted to twist around—but he didn’t budge. “Here, it’s still warm. Steven forgot his lunch so I know you’re probably starving. Want to sit on the couch?”

“Que linda,” he chuckled, tilting his head to skim his lips along the sweep of your neck. You squirmed and shrank away with a noise of protest—the rasp of his five o'clock shadow against your sensitive skin always tickled. “Are you going to fess up or am I going to have to drag it out of you, hermosa? Hmm? Qué dices?”

You hesitated, setting the bowl to the side. It wasn’t long. You weren’t trying to make excuses. It was clear that you were perfectly privy to the implication of his low, even tone, and that you were merely ruminating on how best to soften his evident malcontent. Jake didn’t set his foot down in many matters, but when it came to his protectiveness over you…there was no winning on your end. Some might call him overbearing, but you (fortunately) found it endearing.

“Honestly?” you finally ventured, the tension in your frame dissipating as you sank back into his grasp with a blustery sigh. “I forgot.”

“You forgot the habits you’ve had for months?” he pressed, kissing the tender place below and behind your ear to feel you shiver.

“It…it’s a long story.” You craned your head back to return the gesture, bestowing one upon the arch of his wind-blistered cheek.

“Dime,” he murmured, squeezing you and pulling you more tightly against his frame. It was a miserably cold and rainy evening, and walking all the way from the parking garage on the other side of the block had made him consider moving out of England as soon as possible.

“Well, to begin,” you said tersely, though he could tell that it wasn’t directed at him—your repressed exasperation bubbled to the surface as you flicked off the burner and covered the pot with more force than you would normally, disliking making harsh sounds if you could help it, “I started in the middle of the day.”

“Marc warned you it was coming up,” he reminded you.

“I know, but my cycle is also a capricious bitch who’s more indecisive than me, so forgive me if it slipped my mind,” you returned flatly. “So I had to deal with all that during rush hour. Then a whole table came in right before closing and took up an extra thirty minutes because one of them couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted an English Breakfast or an espresso.”

“At ten o’clock,” he surmised.

“Obviously she didn’t need the sleep because she opted for a cold brew instead,” you continued, “like an absolute mad lad.”

“And then?” he prompted.

“Finally got them out of the door, locked up, headed home—then it started raining and just guess who forgot her umbrella this morning?”

“That wasn’t my fault this time,” Jake pointed out indignantly, “since mi hermanito can’t keep his hands to himself when you prance around here looking like that.”

“With baggy sweatpants and crusty eyes? Yeah, the real pinnacle of beauty, right there,” you huffed, although your fondness leaked into your tone. “So I got soaked running from the bus stop to here, dripped all over the floor, pissed off Miss Hutcherson in the process—”

“I’m sure I can smooth her feathers down for you,” he assured, reaching up to skim his fingers along the side of your head, curving around to grasp your chin gently so he could direct your eyes to meet his. “Nothing a little sweet talking can’t fix.”

“She loves you for your churros,” you groused while pouting, “and you should really stop getting involved in all the gossip in the building, it’s going to get you in trouble one day.”

“I’ve got to keep my ear to the ground, cariño; besides, it’s more entertaining than television,” he laughed quietly, muffling the sound by pressing his lips to your forehead in apology. “Did she give you a lecture?”

“On posing a falling hazard without her offering a towel so I could dry off or anything? Yeah.” You reached up and clasped your hands around the nape of his neck, delving your fingertips into his curls and succeeding in not jostling his cap. That rule, it seemed, would be one you did manage to keep tonight. “I finally got up here and had a disagreement with the doorknob—you or Marc need to oil it again, by the way—and dropped my bag trying to get everything locked up, dumped everything everywhere, got pissed off and showered after.”

Jake was doing his damndest to restrain the brunt of his amusement, but you apparently perceived the glitter of mirth in his eyes because you turned your head while rolling your eyes. “I’m glad you find my shitty day so funny.”

“It’s not funny, chaparrita,” he soothed. (It was hilarious.) “Do I need to jot all this down so we can publish the next best-selling kid’s book?”

“Oh, I’m not done yet,” you warned. “I started getting hot flashes and couldn’t get the water adjusted so I just about froze my ass off cleaning up. I nearly burned the butter and almost ran out of parmesan and the pepper grinder got stuck and…stop laughing, this is serious!”

Jake clamped his mouth shut as his eyes dropped to observe the colorful silk draped over the line of your shoulders. “Is that why you’re wearing my shirt?”

“It’s the coolest thing in the house and I sure as hell am not walking around naked since all three of you refuse to buy any decent curtains,” you griped.

“It looks better on you than it does on me, anyway,” Jake said, caressing your arm, side, and settling to grasp your hip. “You know where it would look the best, though?”

“Ha ha,” you scoffed. “Good luck on that front, jefe. We’re not adding having to wash murder-scene sheets to everything else I’ve dealt with today.”

“That all explains why you forgot to lock the door,” he digressed, “but what about these?” He tapped the headphones resting against your clavicle. “Don’t like you not being able to listen for the door.”

“The neighbors made up,” you deadpanned. “I’m lucky there was any hot water left.”

“Ah.” He nodded, acquiescing on that front, at least. “Already? They only lasted two days this time. She really ought to have higher standards.”

“Jake,” you groaned, “I don’t want to hear about her sordid trysts again. Especially after she hit on you on a rebound to get back at her ex…or whatever the hell he’s classified as now.”

“Fine,” he grinned. “...I take it that you did the dishes to distract yourself?”

“The only thing louder than them was the screaming inside my head, so…yeah.”

“Lamento que hayas tenido un día tan malo, mi vida,” he said softly, tugging you into the crook of his arm so your head rested against his shoulder. He cupped your cheek and kissed you properly this time, humming in satisfaction as he felt you relax fully. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you returned. “I’m sorry I forgot the other stuff. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know. Just try to remember next time.” He bopped the end of your nose with his finger, smirking as you went cross-eyed for just a moment before you frowned. “I’d rather not have anything other than a series of mildly inconvenient events happen to you.”

“If this happens again anytime soon, I’m holing myself up in bed and hibernating,” you grumbled. “Everything else be damned.”

“And I’ll wait on you hand and foot until the world is deemed fit enough for you to light upon its unworthy surface once more,” he purred. “But for now I’ll kiss it better, yes?”

That did the trick—as his flirtations usually did.

You glanced away, flustered, but allowed him to herd you over to the couch, bowls in hand, and settled you under a blanket to keep your bare feet warm, despite your claims not to need it.

“Just indulge me. At this rate you’ll get hypothermia or frostbite,” he quipped, “and I don’t really feel like digging frozen toes out from between the cushions after the idiocy I witnessed on the road tonight.”

[happy-lemon]

What's in my OC's bag?

I was tagged by @kuroashims — thank you! — and we're peeking into Eliana's bag today. She carries her laptop and appointment book back and forth to the University of Britechester, and her keyring has keys for the Big Ass House, her home office, and her university office. She's currently listening to this on Spotify.

If you'd like to play, here's the link. And I'm tagging @papermint-airplane, @onsweetpeahill, @citylighten, @anamoon63, @therichantsim, @simsaralove, and @zosa95. If you've already done it, ignore me. And anyone is welcome to play. (Seriously! I nearly did this on my own until @kuroashims tagged me today.)

[wilt3d-r0zes]

Fic Name (and link): A Fox is a Wolf who sends Flowers Series: Teen Wolf Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, Melissa McCall, The Nogitsune Pairings: N/A Trigger Warnings: Standard Season 3b TWs Important Tags: Spark/Magic Stiles Stilinski, Slow Updates, Season Rewrite Summary:

"Do not meddle more, Mieczysław. We will wait." The world tilts, the white fading into grey to black. His bed seems to reach up and yank him downwards until suddenly he’s screaming himself awake in the early hours of the morning. Or, The Nogitsune is not what it seems, and also sassy

Official Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/wilt3d_r0zes/a-fox-is-a-wolf-who-brings-flowers/

Official Acronym: FWSF

Official Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6mqurPYscPgQacj4VpKfeH

The key he found on his keyring fits into the chemistry door. It isn’t that he didn’t expect it, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t hopeful. Hopeful that maybe it’s just a coincidence, that maybe he got paint on his fingers and they got on the key sometime at the rave, or maybe someone tried to steal it with paint or chemicals on their fingers, and only managed to grab it but not take it.

But no, the chemistry closet door responds well to the mystery key on his keyring. He stares at the now cracked-open closet door. Surely not. There’s no way, maybe someone put it on his keyring somehow, somewhere, somewhen without him realizing, to frame him for it.

Right?

(He’s losing his mind again.)

He turns back to the blackboard, to the riddle still written in chalk for their teacher to wipe away the next morning. Stares at it in hopeful, frail denial and listens to his sneakers squeak on the tiled floors.

(He thought it was over.)

Picking up the chalk reveals just how shaky his hands really are, when it almost falls and shatters on the floor upon being picked up. His fingers don’t want to hold it like he’s telling them to, but he manages to write on the board anyways.

19

53

88

(He thought he was free.)

It’s the same handwriting.

…

Transition

He’s waking up in his bed.

He’s waking up in his bed?

Why is he in his bed?

He’s not in his bed.

Well, technically he’s in his bed, but when he looks up and explores the room with his eyes it’s that same weird all-white parking garage-esk room he remembers from the sacrifice they did to find their parents. His bed isn’t the only furniture in the 'room,' however. His desk is in the same spot it would be if he were in his room, except there’s someone sitting in the chair, reading through a book he doesn’t recognize.

The first thing he notices is that their head is wrapped in old, browning bandages with dried blood and dirt soaking through some of the less wrapped areas or the crevices. It fills him with an uncanny feeling of discomfort and fear that grips his heart and shakes it. Still, he looks around again before saying, "Hi?"

His voice cracks enough for him to wince and clear his throat. Logically, he knows this is a dream-- what else could it be? So it doesn't matter if he angers this weird creation of his subconscious. Yet, he's filled with a level of fear that feels disproportionate to Some Dude sitting on the other side of a non-existent room.

"Hello?" he calls again when he gets no response, the being at his desk slowly turning the page of an old book made up from tarnished leather and browning parchment, "Where am I?"

"Where dreams are made and come to die, clear or full will it be," he(? The voice is masculine, so is the build he can make out from around the chair and under the brown bomber jacket) rasps. Man. Stiles hates riddles.

“Uh, okay, that… makes no sense. Who are you?”

“Watagushi, na ke de wa nai.” He responds, and it doesn't take a genius to realize that that wasn't English. Considering the only other language Stiles knows is Polish, and it certainly isn't that either, he decides it's something made up by his brain-- or, maybe it was a language Stiles knows and was just muddled by the bandages, surely those go all around his face?

"Sorry, didn't quite catch that, man," the human responds, sitting up full in his bed from where he'd barely propped himself on one arm.

“Kore wa wa re ran ogu tu na no cha.”

"Still not a language I know."

The man(?) turns another page in the book, and this time it creates a horrible, gut-wrenching ripping sound, that screams into Stiles's ears and drowns out the rest of the world regardless of the lacking sounds of life. When the page is carefully released, Stiles is left with ringing ears, “Not ‘Who are you?’, Mieczysław, ‘Who are we?’”

"What the hell was that?" he squawks, fumbling to get out of the bed. He can't move his legs, though, in what he assumes is dream logic. Somewhere in his brain he thinks it's because he's tangled in the blanket.

"We were getting too close." Mummy Man responds, voice growing no less raspy despite how much he's talking. Stiles almost wishes this is the kinda lucid dream he can control, just so he could summon a glass of water.

"Who's we?"

“We are us. I am we, you are we,” he sounds like he’s thinking, tilting his head to the side and looking up from the book, “We are meddling, we need to stop.”

Stiles stares. What? That makes no sense. Actually, that makes less than no sense, even his not-english-polish gibberish had made more sense than that. Yet, he's filled with fear at the statement. He thinks back to what he was doing just before this dream, the chalkboard, the chemistry closet--

This must be what's causing that. The part of his subconsious or brain or whatever that's doing that, killing people. Even if indirectly. He saying that he is Stiles, and that Stiles is meddling in his plans of murder.

"No!" Stiles yells, struck with a startling amount of indignant anger, "I'm not just gonna sit- sit idly by while you kill people!"

The Mummy Man turns slowly, an unnatural creak, not unlike the sound of a rusty door hinge, following the movement. He reveals his 'face', something obscured by bandages save for what can only pass as being described as a mouth. It's a gaping hole in the bandages, with teeth and tongue and black goop. Blood and black stain the bandages surrounding it, like he'd eaten something alive and not tried to clean himself up after. He doesn't even have any lips.

More fear surges through him, warring with the anger for a place in his actions.

"In due time, Mieczysław."

"You using my name is fucking weird, Mummy Man," Stiles snarls, drawn back into himself and pushed to the far side of the bed like the mere foot of extra distance will save him.

"Do not meddle more, Mieczysław. We will wait."

The world tilts, the white fading into grey to black. His bed seems to reach up and yank him downwards until suddenly he’s screaming himself awake in the early hours of the morning.

…

Silver finger

“Scott, hey!” Stiles skids to a stop, only to grab his best friend by the elbow and drag him down the hallway, free hand waving about as he starts talking, “Remember the key I was telling you about yesterday? Well, when we were at that rave I was talking to Caitlin– the girl who's girlfriend died recently– and when I pulled out the bottle opener I’ve got she saw the key and, apparently, it had phosphors on it- which means it glows in blacklight, right?- and then I asked why I would have phosphors on my key and she asked if I’d been handling chemicals and so that got me thinking about the chemistry closet,” he rambles, pushing open the chemistry classroom door and taking in a gasp of air, shaking out that same free hand, “And the fact that someone had to let Barrow in, and once I got here the key worked on the door and–.”

He wilts. The blackboard had been erased.

“It’s gone,” he knows he sounds unreasonably defeated, bumping his palms together anxiously before spinning on his heel from where he’d gotten halfway across the room, “Well, that’s fine, I still have the key and– what the hell?” The key’s gone from his keyring now. It makes him think back to that weird, stupid dream he had last night. Was that real? Did the other in his head really take action in getting him to stop meddling? “I had it. I had it, right here,” he holds his keyring up and shakes it for effect, the sound rattling almost painfully around his skull, “I swear to god, I had it here this morning.”

“The key you were talking about last night?” Scott has that very confused, lost puppy dog look on his face and in normal circumstances Stiles would laugh at how easy it is to compare his werewolf best friend to a puppy, but instead he’s starting to verge on a panic attack so he just keeps talking.

“Yes! Yeah, that, I showed it to you, didn’t I? Please tell me I showed it to you.”

Scott’s head shake makes his chest squeeze painfully, “No, you told me about it but… I never actually saw it.”

“I was here, Scott! And just a few hours ago I unlocked the chemistry closet door and there was Kira’s name in atomic numbers in my handwriting on the blackboard.”

“So… you unlocked the chemistry closet so Barrow could hide from the police, and then you wrote him a message telling him to kill Kira?” He sounds so beyond disbelieving and it’s not helping Stiles in feeling like any of this was real. He glances down at his hands, wanting to count his fingers in the way he’s started doing too many times for too many days. That’ll just make him look more nuts.

“I know how it sounds, Scott, but– but look at this!” he scrambles to pull the news report he brought with him for extra proof, hands beyond shaky and nearly ripping it on its violent trip out of the bag, “This is the news report that came out about Barrow when they caught him, okay? About the shrapnel bomb that he used. See this, see what he did? He put nuts, bolts, and screws, and then he hid the bomb and the detonator in a box that he wrapped as a birthday present. What does that sound like to you?”

“Coach… It sounds like the joke we played on Coach.”

“That was my idea, remember? That was my idea, that can’t be a coincidence, it can’t be.”

Scott winces, gesturing vaguely for Stiles to quiet down. The human blushes, not even realizing how loud he’d gotten in his growing panic, “I don’t want to tell you that you’re wrong, but I don’t think you’re trying to kill anybody either.”

“It was here,” he runs a hand through his hair and turned back towards the board, “It was all here.”

“Dude… are you feeling okay?”

(He’s losing his mind again, please, please, he thought he was better.)

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just… haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Why don’t you go home?” Stiles turns back around, confused, “Take a sick day?”

“...Yeah, yeah,” he sighs– again, “Yeah, maybe I will.”

(He thought it was over.)

…

“Well, Dr. Gardner’s not back until next week. Do you want to try and wait for one of the other Urgent Care doctors, or…?” Stiles shakes his head, pushing off from the desk and trying to keep from losing himself. He’d come here straight from the school, because he feels like he’s falling apart and some part of him urged to come here, “Stiles? Are you okay?”

His eyes sting with tears and he feels like there’s a dull knife sawing away at whatever is keeping him from going nuts and getting locked up in Eichan House. He brings a hand up to his chest and thumps it against his ribcage, like it’ll slow down his heart rate if he shows it how to work, “I guess, uhm,” thump, thump, thump, “I guess not really?

“Alright,” it’s the way that she says it that makes Stiles want to melt to the floor and cry, while simultaneously making him want to lash out at the way she sounds like she’s handling a feral cat, “Alright, kiddo, come with me.”

He feels like his limbs are going to fall out from under him while they walk through the halls until she stops outside a door, giving him the chance to shake out his hands and rock back on his heels.

She gestures for him to sit on the bed while she grabs a clipboard, “Can you tell me your symptoms?” she glances towards him, then back towards the papers on the clipboard. He’s rocking in place, arms crossed over his empty-feeling chest and flexing his hands to keep from freaking out.

“Blackouts,” he clears his throat and looks away, “But not for that long. Uhm, and sleepwalking, which I used to do a lot as a kid. Some really bad anxiety, too.”

“Panic attacks?”

“Yeah, a couple,” he breathes shakily and it feels like he’s electrocuted his heart in the way it races, “I also temporarily lost the ability to read but, uhm, that might’ve had more to do with the whole human sacrifice and- magic tree thing.”

Melissa is looking at him with an amused smile when he glances over at her and the paper she’s still writing on, “I seem to vaguely remember something like that, yes.” she looks back towards her paper when he doesn’t respond or react, “How many hours of sleep are you getting?”

“Eight.”

“A night?”

“In the last three days.”

He sees her turn to him with the kinda face he usually associates with him having done something wrong in his peripherals, but he’s looking down at his hands and counting on his fingers, cataloging all the times he woke up from nightmares and each night he stayed up until the sun rose only to pass out in class.

“Have you been feeling irritable?”

“Yeah, uhm, possibly to the point of homicide.”

“Inability to focus?”

“No, the adderall’s not working.”

“Impulsive behavior?”

“More than my usual? Hard to tell.”

“Vivid dreams during the day?”

He huffs nervously, “Okay, basically all of the above. Do you know what it is?”

(Please be something normal. Please.)

“I think so,” she turns away, setting the pen down with a deafeningly loud tap that reminds Stiles he’s been in sensory overload for the last twenty-four hours and it’s been slowly dragging him further into the pit of insanity.

He shakes his head, feels his brain rattle around, and then looks up towards Melissa and the needle in her hand, “What’s that?”

“Do you trust me?”

“When you’re not holding a needle.” and when his mind isn’t slipping through his fingers like old jell-o.

Still, he doesn’t stop her when she wipes his upper arm down with an alcohol wipe and sticks it into his skin, “It’s midazolam. A sedative.”

More panic tries to spark, his lungs quivering and his rocking resuming once she’s removed the needle and he can self-soothe again. What if this isn’t real? What if he’s hallucinating again and really he’s acting nuts and this is his hallucination telling him he’s being sedated? “Why are you giving me a sedative?”

“Because you, Stiles, are one profoundly sleep-deprived young man. You need rest, and you need it now.” she puts her arms on his shoulders, effectively stopping his rocking, “Lie down.”

He stares at her, because now it feels like reality is far away and nothing is quite real, like it’s taking years for everything to process while simultaneously not even taking a second, “How long’s it going to take to–,” she pushes him back and he falls with the light pressure, losing the ability to hold himself up with the sudden exhaustion that ripples over him, “Oh. Not long at all.”

“Get some rest, Stiles,” he hears, before reality slips between his fingers.

(Thanks, mom.)

…

It’s startlingly dark when he comes to, wide awake, in the hospital room however long later. The blinds are shut on all the windows but it’s still obvious the sun has set, leaving him in almost pitch black.

At least, it would’ve, but there seems to be a yellow-ish green light coming from somewhere in the room. There’re little specks of opaque something floating in the air, like how you'd see dust particles in a camera. His first thought is that maybe this is another dream, and it makes it that much harder to force himself to sit up.

Instead, he clenches his hands and counts them without looking at them.

(One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine- ten.)

He sits up.

On the folded heavy blanket at the foot of his bed, there’s a fox curled up. It’s not a real fox, no, it’s more like the shape of one made out of yellow-green neon lines. He furrows his brows at it, counting his fingers in the dark again.

(One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.)

It moves. One of its ears twitches. Once, twice, and then it slowly blinks its eyes open. There are two startlingly black dots where its iris and pupil should (probably) be, and they lock onto Stiles.

They stare at each other for a long moment in silence. The restless fidgeting and stimming that Stiles is almost always doing slows to a still while they stare at each other, completely unmoving.

Then it blinks, and its ear twitches again. It turns towards the door, pushing itself into a sitting position.

“They are coming.”

Stiles jolts, breaking out of his trance with a surge of panic, “Who?”

“We are in danger. We must not be caught.”

“Who’s we?”

“They are coming.”

Stiles looks towards the door, and counts his fingers again.

(One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.)

“What do you want me to do?”

It’s weird, the way he knows it's the fox speaking into his mind. The way he doesn’t feel confused or alarmed by this creature, like it’s something he’s gone through hundreds of times–

Something familiar.

“Do not let them touch us.”

“Who’s us?”

“We.”

The fox turns back to him and stares. The statement itself reminds Stiles of the dream - the one with the mummy man. The way he connected it to a potential part of him that aided the mass murderer– maybe it’s something more than that. Something supernatural.

Maybe that’s why there’s a fox here, in reality and not a dream, talking to him in his brain. That means the fox is talking about him, and not itself.

“How do I do that? Who are we talking about?”

“They will come out of the shadows.” the fox rasps into his brain, turning back towards the door, “Bide our time. He will help us.”

“Who’s he?”

“The wolf. He will hide us.”

Stiles looks back at the door, at the closed blinds that hide the light from the hallway. “Should I stay here?”

“There is only one exit.”

“That’s a no then, got it,” he pushes the blanket off himself, disturbing the fox into hopping onto the table by the foot of the bed. It leaps onto his shoulders as he passes by, startling him in the fact it seems to have a weight despite being nothing but a spirit-like creature.

The hallway is empty. Shockingly so, he remembers hospitals always being so overpopulated by nurses and doctors in every hallway. Yet, it’s silent. Not even the sounds of patients in the neighboring rooms reach his ears, and it draws unease into Stiles’s chest.

“Melissa?” he calls, as if she’ll suddenly appear from wherever it is she is. Possibly at home, maybe on the other side of the hospital. Of course, she doesn’t appear, leaving him alone in the hallway with a ghost fox on his shoulders.

He stays close to the wall, praying that the fox is watching his back because it’s going to drive him nuts to keep looking back and forth with the groggy remnants of sleep and a sedative still dragging him down.

Only the faint buzzing sound of fluorescent lights that he normally wouldn’t notice unless already in sensory overload is heard in the hallways. It’s almost funny, actually, how once you hit sensory overload your brain just collects more sensory input for you to notice. Why is that?

He pushes open a door and it brushes against the ground but doesn’t creak at the hinges like he expected it to. It feels like he’s in a horror movie when the double swinging door reveals a small, dark hallway.

“We should turn back.”

“Yeah, agreed,” Stiles backs up, letting the door swing shut, “If they come out of the shadows, does that mean we’re safe if we stay in the light?”

“Without shadow, there is no light.”

“Okay, then what’s the point of avoiding the creepy hallway?” he gestures behind himself toward the doors he’s actively walking away from. He’s moved away from the wall, now standing in the center and under the lights, hopefully giving him enough space to avoid whatever when it ‘comes from the shadows.’

(Why exactly is he following the instructions of a weird ghost fox that appeared after he woke up from a sedative?)

“More light means less shadows, it is harder to reach us in this light.”

“Got it,” he swings around a corner, pushing open another door and thankfully revealing a lit hallway. He makes it about four steps in before the fox on his shoulder pushes itself into a sitting position, ears perking up and mentally alerting Stiles to a threat.

“They found us.”

“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” he lowers his voice, turning in a slow circle and surveying the area. Nothing has appeared yet, but he can hear a quiet grumbling coming from the walls. When he squints at them, the shadows almost look like they’re shimmering. Something seems to tap, tap on the shadowed wall, and it ripples like when you throw a pebble into water.

A gloved – is that a glove? or is it bunched up skin? -- hand reaches out in a sharp, singular movement before halting just below the wrist. Stiles startles backwards, signaling him to turn around and see two more hands coming from the wall behind him.

“Shit. How likely am I to die if I run out the door?”

“The wolf is waiting.”

“Not very, then, awesome,” he stumbles over his shoeless feet, socks sliding on the tiled floors uselessly, but successfully makes it out of the creepy room and into the next hallway. He looks both ways, still seeing no nurses or doctors and being invited into an eerie silence punctuated by buzzing lights and growling walls. Internally, he feels a nudge, and turns on his heel toward the left.

He’s sprinted halfway down the hall when Scott turns the corner ahead of him, “Scott!” he shouts, sliding to a stop and looking back at the way he came to see a trio of black clad beings with swords and weird masks that he can’t make out the details of.

“Stiles! Mom said you were asleep!” Scott breaks into a jog, if his sped up footsteps have anything to say, before he appears in the side of Stiles’ vision.

“I woke up,” he flashes a grin.

“We do not have time for this.”

The creatures take a step forward, so he grabs Scott’s wrist to start dragging him away, “We should go!”

“No, wait,” Scott sounds startlingly calm for the actively approaching demons in front of him, “...Why are they after you?”

[pookha]

No tengo las llaves

Chapter 2

Vee keeps up appearances for Camila, makes empanadas and has their first meeting? date? with Masha. They compare notes and discuss where they're going.

Originally, I just meant for this to have the one chapter, but I'm enjoying it and it will have more, probably 4 or 5. It will be updated whenever I can, but I work full-time, it may be a while. I will aim for weekly or fortnightly, but if it takes longer sometimes, I apologize in advance.

Thank everyone who read, left kudos and especially those who commented. I love you all. Let's spread the Owl House love.

Vee slid out of the top bunk and onto the floor. They went to Camila’s room and got her laptop. They logged in as Camila and found her password manager. They tried a couple of times to log into it, but couldn’t get the password correct and stopped before they got locked out. They dug around in Camila’s dresser drawers and eventually found a piece of paper at the very bottom of Camila’s jewelry box. Vee laughed and went back to the laptop.

They logged into the password manager with “C0sM1C_Fr0nt13r” and got access to Camila’s bank account. They looked over Camila’s desk for bills and made sure to pay them, noticing that most of them had already been set up for autopay. They used Zelle to transfer some money to Luz’s account, which Vee had a debit card for. Vee saw the brochure for the camp sticking out from the bill pile and touched it fondly.

“I never would have known how to do this without you,” they said and then shivered at the empty house.

They looked at the clock, sighed and shifted to Luz’s shape. They got Camila’s spare keyring and then got on their bike and rode to where they had left the car the night before. They loaded the bike in the trunk, shifted to Camila and drove to the clinic. They drove carefully, obeying the speed limit, using turn signals and the mirrors. They were happy that they’d insisted Camila teach them how to drive and that they picked up skills quickly.

When they got to the clinic they got everything ready for Camila’s suposed unexpected trip back to the Dominican Republic to visit her abuela. Everyone took it well, with Vee getting lots of sympathetic hugs from Camila’s staff. They hoped it wouldn’t be too long; Dr Simonson could help out, but not forever and they could call in Dr Jensen, but she had her own concierge service.

Vee left as soon as they could, stopped at the grocery store to pick up some fresh apples. They also picked up some soda and chips.

When they got back home… home… they thought of Camila’s house as home now. They knew that they’d never go back to the Demon Realm unless they had to. Hopefully, Belos would lose and they could open the portal whenever they wanted so Vee could get magic to eat. They couldn’t think about the alternative.

They switched back to their natural form and started working in the kitchen. Cooking and especially baking had become stress relief and they loved learning all the recipes that Camila had learned from her mom and her abuela. They put their phone on the dock and turned Spotify onto shuffle. They’d combined Camila’s and Luz’s and Masha’s playlists and the mix was…eclectic to say the least.

Kpop blared from Luz’s playlist as they laid out their ingredients in the order they’d need them, a thing they’d learned recently was called mise en place. If they managed to stay in the human realm, they thought they’d love to open a bakery: fresh doughnuts, savory and sweet empanadas, cakes and pies, brownies and cupcakes. They’d recently learned how to shape fondant and it was art …art was the only word that they thought applied.

Their phone buzzed on the dock with a text and they paused to look at it.

I have detention today (talking back to a teacher…again), so I won’t be there until around 5. My mom’s going to pick me up around 8ish. Should I bring something for dinner or snax?

Vee texted back quickly, not wanting to leave them on read.

I’m making something. You’re not vegetarian, right?

They saw the ‘…’ of Masha typing and then;

Nope. see you around 5

Vee went back to their baking. They made their fillings first and sat them aside before making their dough the traditional way with masa rather than white flour. They made the apple ones first and while they were cooling, they baked the chorizo filled ones. The smell of the nutmeg, cinnamon and apples tempted them enough that they had to eat one. It was still warm and gooey from the oven and Vee blew on it to keep it cool. Now that the baking was done, their mind raced as they ate. Thoughts of Camila and Luz and Luz’s friends ran circles and then Masha’s face filled them. They sighed, finished their empanada and started cleaning.

They had just loaded the dishwasher to run when the savory empanadas were done. Their sensitive nose let them know that they were perfect; they were improving rapidly.

After they had cooled for a few minutes, Vee broke one open to look at it, just look at it, but then ate it. It hadn’t cooled enough and they gasped around a burnt roof of their mouth; a fitting punishment for lying to themself they thought.

They sat down with Luz’s laptop and went back to Duolingo. They were getting through the Spanish lessons much more quickly than Camila had thought they would. Being a basilisk and changing shape gave them a lot of knowledge and language skills, but still learning the slang and idioms was challenging.

They lost themselves on the internet for a while and only looked up when a knock came at the door. They shifted back to their human Vee shape and got up.

“Ah, shoot, it’s already five,” they said as they opened the door.

Masha stood on the other side, covered against the damp chill by a long black coat, not quite a trench, but not just a windbreaker either.

“Going to let me in or just stare at me,” Masha asked.

Vee blushed, hating that they would blush no matter their form.

“Sorry,” they said and stood aside to let Masha in.

Masha entered, opened their jacket to let the heat of the house in as Vee closed the door. They both stood awkwardly for a moment before Masha broke the silence.

“I trust you, but there are some things I’ve got to ask first, okay?”

Vee nodded.

“You’re not planning to kill me and eat my skin?”

Vee blinked in surprise and put their hands to their face.

“What? No, I’m not a fairy. I don’t eat skin. I won’t hurt you.”

“Wait, fairies eat skin?” Masha asked.

“In the Boiling Isles they do,” Vee said.

Masha laughed.

“All right. Are you super old? This isn’t a Twilight thing where you’re like a hundred and I’m a teenager, right?”

Vee’s blush deepened.

“No, no, I’m…”

They thought for a moment.

“I—I think I’m about fifteen in human terms?” It sounded like a question.

“You’re not sure?” Masha asked.

Vee shook their head.

“Not one hundred percent. I feel about that old and I know that we mature about the same as witches and humans. I don’t know exactly when I was made, but I’m no older than eighteen and no younger than fourteen.”

“Wait, you said ‘made.’ What do you mean?”

Vee lowered their head.

“Can we talk about it in the living room?” they asked in a very small voice.

Masha nodded and followed Vee to the couch. They looked around curiously as Vee sat on the couch and patted the cushion next to them for Masha. Masha took off their jacket and draped it on the arm of the couch before sitting next to Vee. Vee’s hands were knotted together in their lap. Masha reached over and put their hand over Vee’s. Vee looked up and smiled.

“Basilisks had been extinct in the Boiling Isles for a long time, hunted by the witches because we eat magic. Belos brought us back using magic and alchemy or whatever to study how we drain magic so he could kill all the witches.”

Vee’s voice, which had been small, was now tiny.

“It’s not your fault,” Masha said, picking up on Vee’s guilt right away. They squeezed Vee’s hands. Vee released their own hands and gripped Masha’s tightly.

“I just learned recently that Belos was a human who came through a portal a long time ago and he was some kind of witch hunter. He killed his brother; Luz said something about it before Belos escaped back to the Demon Realm.”

Masha went very still.

“Is—was his name Philip?”

“I think that’s what Luz called him,” Vee said.

“Okay, tell me everything,” Masha said.

Vee told the whole story of the previous night, with flashbacks to how they came to the Human Realm and took over Luz’s identity.

“I—wow, that’s a lot,” Masha said finally. They reached up to brush nascent tears from the corners of Vee’s eyes.

“You weren’t at the hayride, so you don’t know the story from the human side.”

Vee shook their head.

Masha told them the story of the Wittebane brothers and Vee nodded. It fit what they knew and what had happened the night before.

“And Mrs Noceda followed Luz and her friends to the Demon Realm?”

“Mom—Camila did,” Vee said.

“You already think of her as Mom; I love it. That alone speaks well of you,” Masha said.

Masha’s stomach rumbled and there was silence for a second before they both laughed, tension released.

“I made food. Sorry I forgot!” Vee stood up suddenly and bustled to the kitchen. Masha paused just a moment before following them. Vee turned around and saw them following.

“Aw, I was gonna bring it to you, but this is better.” They waved their hand for Masha to sit at the table.

Vee grabbed a plate with a cloche on it and put it on the table.

“Those are the apple ones; just a moment and I’ll get the savory ones warm.”

They pulled a plate, opened the fridge and put six empanadas on a plate. They put them in the microwave for about 40 seconds while they pre-heated the oven.

“If you just microwave them to reheat them, they get soggy and if you just use the oven, the outside gets too crispy before the filling is hot, so I microwave them for a little bit and then crisp them in the oven to reheat.”

Masha nodded like they knew what Vee was talking about.

The microwave beeped, Vee opened it, put the empanadas on a baking sheet and put them in the oven.

“It’s not fully pre-heated, so it’s going to take a few more minutes,” they said. They set a timer for ten minutes.

Vee sat at the table across from Masha.

“I—I have a question and I hope it’s not rude,” Masha said.

“It’s okay,” Vee said.

“You said yesterday that you wanted to change your pronouns to they/them from she/her. Are you female, do you identify as non-binary…or?” Masha trailed off, embarrassed to be asking such a pointed question.

Vee smiled.

“It’s complicated. In my natural form, I’m non-binary; basilisks don’t really have male/female sex. We can be one or the other, or both or neither. I prefer to be female when I shift to other shapes, but I don’t have to be. From the few of us I knew, most of us had a gender and sex preference. They/them just feels better to me right now. Maybe I’ll go back to she/her at some point or she/they, but I don’t know right now. So much is in flux. I might have to go back to the Demon Realm to live, assuming they can even re-open the portal. If not, I’ll probably starve to death.”

“Sorry if it was rude, I wasn’t sure how gender and sex worked with basilisks.”

“It’s all right,” Vee said.

“I can tell you about me,” Masha said, their voice now choking a bit.

“If you want, but you don’t have to. Remember that I was at camp and I know your deadname and how you presented then,” Vee said.

Now Masha was crying. Vee slid their chair closer to Masha’s and put their arm around them.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

Masha leaned their head on Vee’s shoulder, which got soaked with tears.

“Sorry, I don’t cry much,” Masha said, lifting their head and wiping their eyes with their sleeve.

The timer beeped, causing them both to jump and then laugh.

Vee got up and went to the oven and got out the pan. The scent of chorizo filled the kitchen.

“Damn, that smells amazing,” Masha said.

Vee dished them up and got plates.

They pointed at the empanadas.

“The ones with the two fork pricks are spicy and the ones with the four fork pricks are very spicy. The ones on the other plate are apple, for dessert.”

Masha grabbed one each of the spicy and very spicy. They took a bite of the very spicy first, chewed it thoughtfully, stood suddenly and went to a cabinet.

“Glasses are in the one on the left. Get milk, not water, it will cut the spice better,” Vee said.

Masha got two glasses and the carton of milk from the fridge. They sat them on the table, filled their glass with milk and drank a big gulp of it.

“You—you weren’t kidding when you said very spicy,” Masha said.

“Too much?” Vee asked.

Masha nodded.

Vee took the spicy one off their plate and switched it with Masha’s very spicy.

“You don’t mind it has a bite out of it?” Masha asked, taking a bite of the spicy one. Their eyes went wide, but they managed to swallow it.

“Nah, we’re gonna be making out at some point, you said, so what’s a bite?”

Masha choked a bit on their milk and Vee laughed.

“I know you were saying that to just make your mom laugh some, but were you serious?” Vee asked, lowering their eyes again.

“I was mostly tweaking my mom, but also serious. I do like you Vee and maybe it will happen when we get to know each other better or maybe we’ll just be friends, but I really do want to find out. When it happens, it’ll happen, you know?”

Vee nodded.

They ate mostly in silence; Masha had to refill their milk twice more.

“Sorry it’s too spicy,” Vee said and Masha waved them off.

“I’ll get used to it,” Masha said.

They finished their empanadas and Vee piled the dishes in the sink. Masha picked up one of the apple empanadas and looked at it.

“What’s the glaze?” they asked, taking a nibble.

“Just powdered sugar and milk,” Vee said.

“They’re really good, both the apple and the chorizo.” Masha smiled.

“I remember when we first met at camp, you were so shy and didn’t really seem to know what was going on. Do basilisks all learn this fast?”

Vee nodded.

“Taking a shape gives us some basic knowledge and language skills, but it can be a bit of ‘hello fellow youth’ like that meme if you get what I mean.”

Masha laughed again; Vee was beginning to like making Masha laugh.

“I get you,” they said.

Vee turned around from the sink.

“Would you like to see my real shape?” they asked suddenly.

Masha put the apple empanada down and nodded.

Vee changed back to their natural shape. Masha’s eyes widened, then they smiled.

“You’re super cute,” they said.

Vee blushed.

“You can blush!” Masha laughed. They stood and moved to stand next to Vee.

“May I touch you?” Masha asked.

Vee nodded, grabbed Masha’s hand and put it on their neck.

“You’re warm,” Masha said.

“Where can I touch you safely?” Masha asked.

“Anywhere above here,” Vee said, indicating approximately where their waist would be in human form.

Masha slid their hand.

“You’re smooth; I was expecting scales like an alligator, but you’re more like a garter snake.”

“We’re not reptiles, but I understand,” Vee said. They put their hand over Masha’s and held it.

Masha’s gaze saw the ring on Vee’s tail. Vee noticed.

“That’s where I was chained before I escaped.”

“Can—can you remove it?” Masha asked.

“Maybe with magic, but it reminds me of what I was and what I’m becoming here.”

Masha got a sly look on their face.

“When you shift forms, does it stay with you like a piercing?”

“Yes,” Vee said, and then, “maybe one day I’ll show you.”

“Wait! What happened to your clothes?”

Vee laughed.

“Everyone always asks that. They’re a part of me.”

“Wait, you were naked the whole time?” Masha asked, reddening.

“No, I was wearing clothes, they’re just me. It’s complicated and…” Vee waved their hand, “existential?”

“Can you change your clothes at will?” Masha asked.

Vee nodded.

“I don’t want to waste too much magic, though. What I took off Belos will last me a long time, but who knows how long everyone will be gone.”

“Is that what you meant about starving? Without magic, you’ll die?” Masha slid their hands back up to Vee’s neck and put them around the back of it, embracing them.

“Yeah, human food reduces the amount of magic I need to just live, but I do need magic to change shapes and without it, I’ll eventually wither away, even with human food.”

“Well then, I hope they hurry up even more and they’re all safe,” Masha said.

A horn honked from outside.

They both looked up at the clock. It was already eight. Neither knew where the time had gone.

“Text me when we can see each other again,” Vee said and started to pull away.

Masha leaned in suddenly and kissed Vee’s cheek.

“I’ll text later when I get home,” Masha said.

Vee shifted back to their human shape in Masha’s arms, which made Masha’s eyes go wide again and then kissed them on the cheek, too.

After Vee closed the door behind Masha, they raised their hand to their cheek, which was still burning with Masha’s kiss. On the other side of the door, Masha was doing the same.

[sunflw3r]

turning the flipping frogs gay

sungchan x non!idol male reader reader prns: he/him word count: 5321 fluff

sungchan had a boyfriend, surprising

content warnings: token gay eunseok & sungchan, borderline homophobia, cursing, kms jokes, coming out (/pos outcome), making out, cringe ass dialogue, top-ish reader (sfw)

unedited</3

(masterlist)

spotify playlist link: <3

a/n: i actually have sungchan brainrot 24/7 it’s a whole problem i need him to marry me

happy riize day!! i love u my 7riize

“chan, why are we going to your dorms?”

the question lingered in the hallway, getting met with a stuffy silence. letting out a sigh, y/n proceeded to continue.

“that’s the perfect way to get caught by your members.” y/n complained, sungchan holding onto his wrist as they walked through the front door of the complex. he loudly huffed, upset with y/n’s rational opinions. “ugh, i want to kiss you, and you’re apartment is like an hour away in the rush hour traffic and i’m NOT making out with you in the car.”

hitting sungchan’s chest, y/n laughed quietly as they got into the elevator, holding sungchan’s collar with a grin in his eyes. “baby, those are some… interesting things to be saying in the middle of a lobby.” sungchan grinned, the corner of his lips curling up into a smirk. “mmh, i’m a little crazy like that.”

y/n’s face contorted into a look of discuss at the response. “ew babe, that’s seriously gross.” sungchan pouted, his previous demeanor gone in a flash as he whined about how “you don’t love him” and “you think i’m cringy.”

the doors closed, sungchan pressing their bodies closer together after he finished his mini rant. their breaths slowed down, allowing themselves to get entangled as sungchan put his hands on y/n’s jaw. “don’t you have something better to be doing right this second?” y/n asked, sungchan rolling his eyes.

god, he’s hot.

quickly, he pressed their lips together, y/n wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s waist. “does your elevator have cctv?” y/n asked as he pulled away for a second before he lost his mind, sungchan tilting his head. “even if it does i don’t care.”

“men.” y/n muttered under his breath, sungchan scoffing before y/n connected their lips again. as the elevator raced up, sungchan moved his mouth against y/n’s gently, pulling away from him as they came to a stop. the doors opened quickly, sungchan’s fingers brushing the skin of y/n’s palm. the words never had to escape his mouth; y/n knew what he was trying to say. even if you tease me, i know you love me. y/n smiled to himself, sungchan stopping in front of his door. 

“if i can remember where i put my keys, it’ll be really quick to get in.” sungchan said, turning to face y/n as he spoke. patting his pockets, sungchan bit his lip in concentration. “where did i put it…” he muttered under his breath, y/n letting out a soft giggle as he reached into sungchan’s back pocket. “i think you left them in here my love.” his fingers gripped around the edge of the keyring, pulling it up and placing it in sungchan’s now open palm. sungchan scratched his scalp for a few seconds before putting it in the lock.

“welcome to my home.” sungchan spoke, y/n letting out a small breath as he kicked his shoes off while sungchan closed the door. the front door was crowded with pairs of worn out sneakers of all sizes, the feeling of youth flooding through y/n’s body. “you really do live with some young adults.” y/n breathed out, sungchan laughing as he grabbed at y/n’s hand once more and pulled him through the house. “yeah, i have to constantly remind seunghan and sohee to put their shoes not on top of each other or they’ll get messed up, but they for some reason don’t listen. and anton…”

y/n could listen to sungchan ramble about his friends for hours. they walked through the dorm, sungchan’s smile bright and bold as he talked about all the things that they didn’t do and all the rules they broke. he didn’t even care that this time was about them. getting to see sungchan’s bright smile was the best gift of all.

“this is my room!” sungchan said, opening the door sharply which broke y/n out of his joyous spiral. the couple entered, y/n smiling as sungchan started pointing out specific things. “there’s my cabinet that has all the clothes you steal. that’s the vanity that holds nothing but your stuff because you forget it in my jacket pockets but then i forget to give it back. that’s where our 4-cuts go…” he continued to trail on, y/n smiling as sungchan went back and forth from different items in his room.

“and finally, this is the bed we’re going to make out on!” he cheered, plopping himself down onto the mattress. he looked at y/n expectantly, laughing at the cringe on y/n’s on his face. “come on, i thought you wanted to kiss me,” sungchan pouted, y/n nodding. “well yes.” rolling his eyes, sungchan pat the spot next to him, y/n quickly coming to sit down.

then their lips joined. y/n hadn’t fully sat down yet on the mattress, but his lips were already moving against his boyfriend’s. his stomach fluttered as sungchan’s teeth gently prodded against his lips, unconsciously gripping the edge of sungchan’s cotton shirt tighter, the stiff fabric hard against his fingertips. air escaped between them, sungchan quickly disconnecting their lips to take short, sharp breaths. “mmh, i love kissing you.”

he felt like a teenager, as cliche as it was. sungchan leading him closer to the bed, adjusting his back so he laid comfortably. “i really, really, truly love you.” y/n smiled so hard he almost couldn’t connect his lips back to sungchan’s the lines of his mouth spreading the gap between them. how could he explain how it felt every time he kissed sungchan? it changed so much from time to time.

this one was feathery. sungchan was so lightly pressing his lips against y/n’s he thought it was nothing more than a gentle kiss goodnight by the wind, yet there was so much passion and a deep, undying love in his every movement. y/n could feel himself spacing out as they kissed, sungchan’s caressing his hair gently to comfort him as their lips began to lock, y/n’s hands gripping gently onto the collar of sungchan’s shirt. 

the moment was perfect, and his worries faded away as sungchan held him gently.

“are you home chan? wanna go get some early dinner?” the door busted open, the voice screeching as he saw the position his friend was in. “sungchan who the fuck is the man you’re kissing?” sungchan pulled away, shotaro’s eyes staring straight back at him. “taro…” sungchan trailed off, sungchan’s eyes moving to look at y/n who was currently staring back at him with a frown. sungchan got off of the bed, y/n’s face slack with shock as shotaro stared at sungchan. 

“when did you get a boyfriend…”

“i didn’t want to tell anyone.” sungchan whispered, shotaro nodding slowly. “i told him no one would be home and nothing bad would happen, and i trust you but i think i broke his trust.” “i understand, don’t worry.”

shotaro started to back up, looking at y/n who sat on the bed. “hey i’m sorry. get back to whatever you were doing.” his voice returned to a calm whisper, the door opening and shutting quicker than y/n could process in his shocked mind. he called it.

“babe i’m so sorry- shotaro said he had schedules all day. i should have listened to you.” sungchan moved from the door to sit next to y/n, wrapping his arm around his boyfriend’s shoulder. “it’s alright my love. it’s not me you should be worried about. i was just shocked, i was more concerned because you didn’t want anyone to know.” y/n’s words escaped from his mouth slowly, a small sniffle coming from his nose. sungchan was… crying? 

“i really didn’t want them to know i like guys…”

tears fell onto y/n’s shoulder causing him to sit upright, putting sungchan’s face in his palms. “it’s alright my love. some things don’t go as planned, but i’ll stay by your side, i promise.” sungchan’s breaths began to slow, one shaky inhale followed by an exhale. “come on, let’s go to my house. i’ll run you a bath, cook you some dinner, and then drop you back off, alright?” sungchan nodded, standing up from the bed. 

y/n quickly followed him, pushing his hand into sungchan’s palm. they started to walk to the door, sungchan turning the knob so they could enter the living space. shotaro sat at the counter, a bag of some chips in his hand while he slowly grooved to the music playing in his headphones.

”i’m going to take him to my house. it was nice… meeting you of sorts.” y/n said, shotaro looking up to smile softly, waving at the two. “sorry for busting in there. nice to meet you!” he replied, sungchan nervously laughing as y/n pressed a kiss to his cheek, the two sliding their shoes back on to exit the dorm quickly.

“note to self,” sungchan started. “always listen to boyfie.” he had removed the fact he had started crying so easily to were it was almost concerning.

rolling his eyes, y/n looked back at sungchan with a smile on his face. “we’ve been out of your dorm for one second and suddenly you’re the biggest flirt again. you’re an interesting man sungchan.”

a grin appeared on sungchan’s lips, y/n squeezing his hand gently as they reentered the elevator.

breaking out of sm

sungchan hi my children

shotaro oh lord

anton nurse he’s out again!!

sungchan no one likes me here

eunseoki’m up!!

sohee erm why are we using this gc

seunghan I WAS NAPPING.

sungchan WHERE IS WONBIN.

wonbin unlike you i have friends and a job!!

sungchan erm.

shotaro anyways. did this conversation have a purpose.

sungchan it does!! we’re going to have a talk😊

eunseok oh lord

anton leaving this fucking company

wonbin erm. are we disbanding alr

sungchan well! no! just saying we’re having a chat i gotta… get some stuff off my chest

sohee ur alr hyung?

sungchan um. we’ll see

shotaro is it abt… yk…

sungchan DJSJDBEJSN STOP TALKING.

seunghan wait what

wonbin yeah erm… im missing smth

eunseok probably some weird ass neo shit

shotaro haha it’s not that…

sungchan keep talking taro. keep talking!!

shotaro okay!! basically he was-

sungchan S.H.O.T.A.R.O.

shotaro i'm just kidding i wouldn't tell them!!

sungchan sigh gave me a heartattack...

anton erm.

sohee it’s okay chan we know u dont pull😊 he was probably just watching smth weird

shotaro hahahahhahah

sungchan … anyways!! we’re having a TALK. when i get home from the studio

seunghan it better be a raise.

sungchan you all hate me!! i’m leaving now😋

eunseok oh bye bookie :((

sungchan kms

hitting his head against y/n’s shoulder, sungchan groaned. “i hate this oh my god.” he groaned, y/n readjusting himself on sungchan’s lap to hug his boyfriend tighter. “you’ll be okay baby.” y/n whispered, pressing a soft kiss to sungchan’s temple. “i’m about to tell my group i like dick, y/n.”

y/n smiled softly before he broke and bursted out in laughter, sungchan whining in annoyance as he pushed y/n’s shoulder. “not funny.” pressing another kiss of reassurance to sungchan’s cheekbone, y/n responded. “i hope you tell them it’s specifically MY dick you like, chan.” sungchan groaned, stuffing his face into y/n’s chest. “ugh you’re fucking annoying!”

curling a strand of sungchan’s hair around his finger, y/n paused, taking a deep breath in. “don’t sweat it bub. you’ll be okay.” the studio turned quiet, sungchan gripping tighter onto y/n’s sweater. “i’m just-“

the words were replaced with the sound of tears.

“oh my love,” y/n whispered, running his fingers through sungchan’s hair as he attempted to comfort the crying man. the only response he was given were soft hicks, sungchan’s shoulders shaking. “look up, okay?”

sungchan’s face appeared from y/n’s sweater, tears staining this face. “i don’t want to leave another group.” his words came out in a whine, y/n cupping his face. it caused his chest to ache as he looked into sungchan’s eyes. 

the water blessed his skin like diamonds, the brown parts of his eyes covered in a glaze as he began to weep. “i love you so much, but i love them too.” his sentence barely left from his pink lips before he continued his cycle of crying.

y/n wanted to say something to comfort the angel in front of him, anything to ease his mind from worry. “i’ll be with you, no matter what happens chan, okay? and i hope your members will support you. you’re such an amazing man and the person you’re dating shouldn’t affect that.”

sungchan’s breaths started to slow down, y/n smiling to himself before continuing. “and shotaro knows who i am. he doesn’t hate you, doesn’t think you’re weird. the rest of the members will be sure to think that way.” picking his head up, sungchan sniffled, wiping his tear-filled cheeks. “thank you babe.” he stuttered, y/n brushing sungchan’s soft hair out of his face.

“i’ll strike you a deal:” y/n started, sungchan staring attentively at y/n. “when you tell them tonight, if you feel too uncomfortable to stay in the dorms, i’ll come pick you up and take you to my house, and we’ll have a cozy night and i’ll do my best to call you out of work. how does that sound?” sungchan nodded before grabbing at his head, the dehydration from crying giving him a headache.

y/n chuckled, the noise lifting some of the weight off of his shoulders with the notes. “drink some water you dumb-dumb. and if you don’t start working soon i won’t sit in your lap.” sungchan quickly complied with both requests, y/n ruffling his hair as he opened his production software.

sungchan was just the cutiest.

putting his phone into his pocket, sungchan let out a long sigh. this was it. his life was going to change in the next few minutes, and he couldn’t tell if it was going to be good or bad. he was hoping it was good, i mean, any rational person would. you’re coming out to your best friends.

nervously, sungchan opened the door, the pit of negative emotions clustering in his stomach. “i’m home.” he yelled, the members staring right back at him as they sat on the couch. “we can see that.” wonbin said, a bag of chips on his lap as eunseok held the remote, flipping through shows on his netflix profile.

“what did you want to tell us?” sohee asked, staring attentively at sungchan with seunghan right at his side. “um…” sungchan started, the sound of wonbin and eunseok distracting him.

“hey, seok, bin, stop for a moment. i think chan’s stressed.” shotaro spoke, as he knew what sungchan was trying to say to the rest of the group. thanking shotaro was now on the top of his list of things to do, but yet he still couldn’t be happy.

he had to say it.

“i wanted to tell you…” he trailed off, taking a deep breath in. just say it as fast as you can, then it’s over. “i like guys.” sungchan’s ears buzzed over, not hearing any reaction that came from the rest of the group.

“a man kisser in the wild!”

god, why was eunseok the first thing he heard. “jeez eunseok hyung, you could be considerate maybe!” anton spoke, eunseok scoffing. “i like men too! and y’all know that! i was acknowledging my brethren!”

sungchan laughed softly, his tears welling up in his eyes. “so you guys don’t hate me?” he asked, tears dropping at the loud chorus of “of course not!”s and “we love you!”s that came from their mouths.

“oh thank god.” he cried, tears dropping fast as he put his hands over his eyes, shotaro running up to hold him. “aww, don’t cry hyung!” sohee said, running to join shotaro in hugging him. the remaining four walked up, surrounding sungchan as he softly cried.

“oh and,” sungchan said through the sniffles, finally calming down. “i have a boyfriend.”

the room erupted in chorus again, much to sungchan’s dismay, as they tried to figure out as much as they could by barreling questions at him. “for how long?” “when can we meet him?” “is he hot?” “eunseok…” “i need to know if he has taste! i’m very happy single thank you very much.”

sungchan laughed, still in disbelief that they hadn’t kicked him out of the apartment. “we’ve been dating for about a year and a half, and yes eunseok, i think he’s very hot. you can meet him whenever we’re free.”

sohee cheered, seunghan staring straight at sungchan. “i need to meet this guy… and interrogate him over dinner.” sighing, shotaro leaned on the younger’s shoulder. “is this so sungchan will buy you dinner?” seunghan nodded, putting a finger up. “why yes actually!”

sungchan laughed, a stray tear falling down his cheek. “let’s have a stay in night hyung! we can watch tv and order takeout. you deserve it!” anton said, wonbin nodding happily. “also, we only have chips in the house. there’s no food.”

nodding, sungchan sat down, sohee and seunghan moving to sit next to him, sohee snuggling into his arm. “i’m proud of you hyung. thanks for trusting us.” sohee whispered as shotaro grabbed the remote from eunseok, putting on the carebears movie.

oh he was going to cry if sohee kept this up. “thanks sohee. i appreciate it.” with that he remembered that he had promised to text y/n, quickly pulling out his phone to send him a message.

boyf🫶

channie erm. so i told them

loverboy rah good job lovie :( how’d it go?

channie fine. they wanna meet u now

TT they want a whole dinner sigh

loverboy ooo yay!! do you still want to sleep over?

channie mmh i want to see u but i should stay here :/ we’re kinda having a stay-in night i think they feel bad bc i was crying really hard

loverboy oh baby :(

channie i wish u were thereeee ngl im still a little bit sensitive 😭 might start crying again

loverboy i wish i could hug u :(

channie ngl that’s what’s gonna make me sob this little twink sohee is clinging onto my arm and it’s making me tear up a bit

loverboy ur so cute omg☹️ anyways ill see u tmrw! we’ll get some coffee?

channie that sounds yummy mmh give me a kiss tmrw too

loverboy ofc bby!! i’ll take u home too? if that’s alr ofc

channie thats alr bubs okay i gotta go now :(

loverboy RAHH BYEBYE BBY mwuah

channie mwuah mwauh

shutting off his phone, sungchan cuddled into sohee’s side, sighing softly. “texting your boyfriend?” sohee asked, seunghan making a soft “ooh” noise at the prompt. “tsk.” sungchan responded, anton taking the phone from his lap, wonbin leaning over to put in the code. “hey- how the fuck do you know my password?”

shotaro glared, mad he was the only one caring about the show. “leave him alone and watch the show!” rolling his eyes, eunseok put down his soda. “you’re watching the carebears movie. it’s not that serious.” dropping the remote, shotaro jumped on eunseok, the two tussling on the couch.

“ooh, he was texting his boyfriend!” sohee screeched, shotaro and eunseok stopping their fight to look over at the 5 surronded by the phone. “his contact is titled ‘boyf’ with a little hand heart next to it.” anton said, wonbin clicking on the messages. reacting his hand out, sungchan grabbed for his phone, a bright pink blush of embarrassment crawling up his neck.

“ooh, he’s embarrassed. what are you texting about with him?” seunghan asked, shotaro blocking his hand and scrolling up on the screen. “oh my god, you dirty dirty man.” eunseok spoke, wonbin cringing at the array of things the couple talked about. “jeez, you’re whiny hyung.” sohee muttered, anton stopping on messages of sungchan complaining to his boyfriend.

“he’s really all obsessed with you, huh? kept your whiny ass for so long.” eunseok said, shotaro hitting sungchan’s shoulder. sungchan’s heart jumped, his eyes staring arrows into shotaro’s chest. “you two are the bane of my existence.”

“let’s text him!” sohee cheered, wonbin nodding excitingly. “hello, the fuck?” sungchan asked, seunghan grabbing the phone and starting to type.

boyf🫶

channie hi!!

loverboy mhm hi baby i thought you had to go?

sohee and anton softly giggled, sungchan’s face covered in a bright pink blush. “hey, i can’t see!” shotaro complained, wonbin sticking out his tongue as he pointed the phone towards shotaro.

channie can you keep a secret🤭

loverboy ofc chan

channie ur not talking to sungchan rn🤭

loverboy HELLO😭😭 r u one of his group members?

channie yepppp ur talking to sohee and anton rn🤭

loverboy oh hihi! nice to meet you

channie is sungchan a good bf?

loverboy yep, he’s a very nice boyfriend

channie do u love him a lot????

loverboy i do!! bahah it’s like im talking to little kids😭

channie HEY

loverboy sorry sohee and anton😖

catching a glimpse of the messages, sungchan’s eyes widened, his heart beat quickening. “anton you’re dead!” he shouted, leaning over seunghan and wonbin to reach for his phone, sohee screaming loudly.

channie ahh your boyfriend is attacking me!!

loverboy help😭😭

channie SVAE MEBDJSGEJCSWUVE

loverboyoh no😭😭

channie HI BABE!!

loverboy oh god, hi my love😭😭 i’m so confused

channie they’re little demons IM GONNA GO NOW

loverboy ah byebye KISSES mwuah

channie MMMH BYEEEE

my love

channie hi bby, we scheduled dinner!

loverboy ooh when!

channie um. tonight at like… 7ish?

loverboy TONIGHT????

channie yes :( i’m so so sorry for such short notice, this is like the last night for the next month where we have the whole night together

loverboy hey my love, you don’t have to be sorry i was just a bit surprised, nothing to be sorry about i’ll be over around 6:45?

channie that’s good!

loverboy and um. i have a request

channie what’s up babe?

loverboy can u help me pick an outfit :(

channie AHH you’re so cute☹️☹️ yes ofc!!!

loverboy okay okay ill call u at 5:50ish?

channie alr bby!! goodbye<333

loverboy i love u sweetheart! see u later<3

propping his phone up on his desk, y/n adjusted the collar of his pajama shirt as he waited for sungchan to pick up the incoming call. “god, i’m so nervous.” he muttered, scratching a scab on his collarbone. his breathing shook as the call continued to not be answered, y/n turning his head to check the clock.

5:50

it was the time on the dot that sungchan should be there. a silent laugh that manifested more as a sigh escaped from y/n’s mouth as he curled over, sitting down on his bed. should he expect sungchan to be there immediately?

not really, but he wished that he was.

“hi baby.”

sungchan’s voice crackled over the line as he searched for y/n’s face. “oh you’re here!” y/n responded, standing up quickly to gaze into his boyfriend’s eyes. “yeah…” his voice dragged out, a lack of passion in his eyes as he stared into the camera.

“are you alright?” y/n questioned, not sure what emotions sungchan was experiencing over the call. “scared. but i’m excited to see you!” y/n’s soft laugh echoed through his bedroom, sungchan’s crackly audio joining him. “let me show you my outfits now!” he clapped, sungchan looking intently into y/n’s bedroom as y/n looked into his closet.

“i have two options to choose from. i want you to tell me which one is better.” y/n said, turning around slowly to not drop either of the full hangers. “i’m sure both of them are beautiful, just like you.” sungchan teased, y/n turning around with a furrow in his brows. “flirt…” he judged, sungchan softly laughing.

collecting himself with a clearing of his throat, y/n put the first outfit over his body. “the first one is more of a suit adjacent look.” sungchan took a second to look, admiring the shape of the clothes as they rested on y/n’s body. he found his answer, taking a deep breath before answering his boyfriend. “it’s cute and similar to the thing i’ll be wearing, but it might be a little too much for both of us together to wear suit adjacent pieces. i wouldn’t be surprised if eunseok showed up in sweatpants.”

the two chuckled, y/n nodding as he took in the opinion. “hmm, you’re probably right about that.” he turned to put the first outfit’s hanger on the dresser before showing sungchan the next outfit. 

“this one is more calm, nice, calm boyfriend who you want to be best friends with and not hate.” y/n spoke as he laid the sweater over his arms, sungchan laughing at the long explanation from his nervous boyfriend. “i think you should go with this one. you’re going to be super cute!” a flutter in his heart grew, y/n rolling his eyes. “thank you for helping me babe. i’m going to go change and MAYBE put on some makeup, so byebye.”

“ah, you’re not going to change in front of me? lameeeeee…” sungchan’s voiced trailed off, y/n sighing loudly as he got closer to the camera. “don’t be a perv chan. i’ll see you soon.” waving at his boyfriend, y/n laughed softly as sungchan blew him multiple kisses, his face disappearing as y/n hung up.

pulling on the collar of his dress shirt, sungchan let out a nervous breath. tapping his foot on the carpet, he played with his bracelet. electricity ran up his fingers, his mind short circuiting as he waited for his boyfriend.

ding!

“oh fucking god.”

he couldn’t see. “i’ll get it!” some yelled — sohee maybe? sungchan turned to stare at him, sohee proceeding to shut his mouth as sungchan stood up, legs wobbling as he opened the door and slipped outside.

“chan-“

they hadn’t even met eyes before sungchan wrapped his arms around y/n's waist, pulling him close to his chest. "i'm so scared." y/n started to reciprocate, gently rubbing sungchan’s back as he started to talk. “about what? that they won’t like me?” “exactly!” sungchan exclaimed, y/n moving his right hand to grip on sungchan’s belt loop. “how could they hate me! i’m handsome, amazing, i keep up with you, frankly, i’m a great guy!”

pulling away, sungchan rolled his eyes. “and totally not conceited at all…” y/n smacked his arm affectionately, reaching to lock their elbows. “are you ready to go inside your majesty?” he asked, sungchan nodding quickly, causing y/n to open the door to the dorm.

“guys, get in here!” sungchan yelled, although he was already greeted by shotaro, eunseok, and anton’s happy faces. sohee and seunghan soon filled in, seunghan appearing with the toss of a slipper at his head. but someone was missing. “wonbin! do you want to meet my boyfriend or not!”

“i’m cominggggg.” the male’s voice dragged through the dorm, wonbin’s figure sliding on his feet as he stared at his phone. y/n’s face began to heat up, sungchan staring at him.

“what’s up?” he whispered, y/n clearing his throat. “wonbin’s a cutie. you should dress like that.” sungchan gently hit y/n’s shoulder, laughing softly. “okay you goof. now!”

sungchan’s sudden tone change startled y/n, who was now face to face with the six remaining members of riize. “everyone, this is my wonderful boyfriend y/n.”

y/n was surprised how cheerful the group was. he was met with a chorus of “hi y/n!” and “nice to meet you y/n!” from the group. sungchan really did have great people around him.

“hi, nice to meet you. i’ve heard great things about all of you.” y/n smiled, waving as he looked at the six of them. sungchan’s face dropped as he remembered something. “oh right! this is shotaro, then eunseok, sohee, seunghan, wonbin, and finally anton!”

y/n recounted their names in his head, not wanting to get them wrong as his first impression. “come on, there’s kalguksu on the table, let’s eat!” wonbin said, y/n and sungchan walking side by side to go sit down.

sungchan’s hands found its way into y/n’s, a soft smile creeping onto his face as y/n sat down, bring the hand up to his lips to press a kiss to. “mhm, i’m so so proud of you my love.” he whispered into sungchan’s ear, pressing a gentle kiss onto his cheek. sungchan’s face turned into a bright shade of pink, shotaro smiling softly as he saw the action.

the dinner started with quiet as the members and y/n began to eat their meals, only for that silence to be broken by seunghan. “so y/n, how did you start dating sungchan hyung?”

y/n swallowed his bite of food, an enamored smile appearing on his face as he turned to look at sungchan, his hand now resting in sungchan’s soft hair. “he knew my best friend, and so when i was hanging out with them sungchan came over to pick up his jacket. we hung out a few times after that, and then i asked him out!”

the story brought butterflies back into y/n’s stomach, sungchan’s soft features from when they first met appearing back in his head. “what did you see in him?” wonbin asked, leaning in to listen to what y/n had to say. the answer came to him almost immediately, no need to think about it.

“he was sweet, gentle, kind. very loveable guy. sungchan’s also very pretty, i won’t lie to you.” y/n laughed slightly at the last part, curling sungchan’s hair around his finger as he looked at wonbin. wonbin giggled, sungchan’s face a bright pink as he heard his boyfriend’s voice.

maybe the realization this was real had set in yet?

y/n was so engaged with the group, listening to the funny stories they had to tell about sungchan while y/n shared similar ones, while still attending to his boyfriend by squeezing his hand or playing with his hair.

the dinner had gone exceptionally well, y/n fitting well into sungchan’s group of friends. “y/n hyung, stay to watch tv with us!” wonbin asked, anton resting his head on y/n’s shoulder. “okay okay, go turn on the show you want to watch. i’ll be right there.”

the two boys, now joined by sohee and seunghan, ran towards the living room as y/n walked to sungchan, wrapping him in a tight hug. “tonight was perfect. i’m so proud of you.” sungchan sighed, rubbing y/n’s back. “if you’re that proud of me, you should give me a kiss.”

gently pressing his lips to sungchan’s, y/n reciprocated his wish with a bright smile, sungchan locking their lips together like a magic key.

“just because i KNOW you kiss doesn’t mean i want to see it.” shotaro said, walking by with eunseok, dishes stacked in his hands. sungchan pulled away, tsking his tongue. “let’s go to the living room baby.” y/n said, sungchan begrudgingly following him.

“man, y/n’s turning the flipping frogs gay.” eunseok laughed, shotaro snickering as sungchan turned around. “i can here you!~” he called, y/n patting his back. “mmh, i love you chan. you’re so funny.”

looking at y/n, sungchan smiled happily. “i love you too.”

love, wasn’t it an amazing thing? sungchan sure thought so.

[megaimageuk]

Personalised Spotify Keyring with Custom Photo

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[laservectrix]

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[sunmiyane]

My little brother and I just had our "end of the year" convo. It's basically a wrapped of everything we dis/liked, and since we really value e/o's opinions, it's always a good way to get recommendations or just learn more about the other...

Our favs of the year don't necessarily need to be released within the year. It's just what impacted us the most within the year.

If you read it, please let me know of yours!!

His/Mine/Common

Fav color: Still Pink/Still Green

Fav movie: Barbie/The land before time

Disappointment: Oppenheimer (we're both history nerds. We were hoping for a more documentary like movie... it was too long and omitted too much)

Fav series: Bloodhounds and Reacher/My Mister

Fav series we watched together: Vinland Saga (we both agree on this one), The Devil Judge (it was a re-watch for me, but I still appreciated the moment and he loved the drama, so it's making the cut), Maid (I really loved it, he liked it, it's making the cut)

Fav song that came out this year: Wicked Ways by Eminem/Black Knight by Primary, Tablo and Kriz

Fav album that came out this year: Rush! Måneskin

Fav artist we discovered this year: Jessie Reyez (this means a lot to me bc he listened based on last year recap... she had released Yessie, which was my fav album of last year)/IMSEMO

Fav artist that didn't make it to our Spotify wrapped: Adele/Central Cee/Sabrina Carpenter

Fav games: Fortnite and Animal Crossing

Fav animals we rescued this year: spiders and geckos

Fav month of this year: April (He got an internship)/February (I saw Epik High)

Most difficult times of the year: September and June

Most painful memories that inconvenienced us this year: 2nd anniversary of when his best friend's little sister left us/somehow I thought that the 10y anniversary of my grandpa's death would be the most difficult but no it's now that I have spent the 2/3 of my life without him that it hurts like hell

Highlight of the year: Internship at his dream job (he got offered a job if he passes this year🙌)/seeing Epik High in concert

Best present we gave e/o: his headphones/IU and RV 2024 season greetings (they haven't arrived yet, but I would never buy such things for myself so I'm really thankful and excited)

Gesture that touched us: Asking him to carry the pink Hello Kitty keyring to match my purple one for mental support throughout June bc I had a hard time (he kept it, we remain matching... overall it meant a lot more than i could imagine that i allowed him to be there for me actively through one of my difficult moment, i'll work on letting him be more of a support system for me instead of feeling guilty since "I'm supposed to be the oldest")/When he called me 1st over anyone else after passing his qualification with honors

What we hope for 2024: Getting our license/ graduating high school/renovating the house/better health (especially dad)

[sterekshipper-writer]

Scented candles. Hot coco. Gardens

Thank you for asking. I'm sorry I am only just answering. I struggled a lot last year, and I am still trying to get back on track. This was for the Soft Asks. ❤❤

Scented candles: How do you relax?

I open Spotify and turn on my brown noise playlist. Essentially low frequencies similar to white noise, but it's in a different frequency. It helps soothe my mind while I either lay down, work or write (when my mind cooperates 😅).

Hot coco: Favourite Starbucks coffee.

I have never actually had Starbucks coffee before.

Gardens: What is the sweetest gift you have ever received?

I have to say anything I have received from the children I work with. I have received a lot of art over the years in the form of pictures, paintings, cards and sculptures. I was even given a painted keyring once. 🙂

[key23sblog]

En la vida hay muchas cosas que pasamos , debemos siempre estar con una actitud positiva y Con una gran sonrisa ❤️😃

[spotifive5]

https://www.Spotifive5.com

Pequeña tienda online dedicada en recordar tus mejores momentos con tu mejor música.   

 Además, garantizando los mejores precios del mercado. 

CORRE, QUE VUELAN!

https://www.Spotifive5.com