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perlelune · 5 months

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NDA | Coriolanus Snow

When you get hired as a nanny for President Snow and his wife's firstborn, you’re beyond thrilled and grateful. But quickly, the perfect facade melts, revealing the ugly truth of what actually goes on in the Snows' house.

Warnings: NON-CON, Capitol! Reader, Innocent Reader, Cheating, Coercion, Blackmail, Power Imbalance

This is a dark story. Heed warnings before reading under the cut.

Your worried eyes track the frenzied glide of the woman’s quill over the notepad. You squint, hoping to discern some of the words she’s scrawling that way, but they are indiscernible…just like the stone-cold expression of the bespectacled woman on the other side of the desk.

She catches you trying to peek. Your heart jumps.

As her sharp green gaze zeroes in on you, you clear your throat and shift in your seat.

She puts her quill down and twines her fingers.

“So what do you think sets you apart from the other applicants?”

You chew on your lip. When you arrived to offer your candidature this morning, you naively believed you’d be early. Instead, you were forced to join the tail end of the massive waiting line stretching far outside the Snows’ estate. It didn’t hit you before that moment, how prized the position is. Each of the women and girls you saw radiated excellent breeding and impeccable manners. Many probably attended the University and could double as a tutor if the need presents itself.

This isn’t your case. Your parents left you and your brother Laertes with nothing when they suddenly passed away in a rebel bombing. You couldn’t blame them. This wasn't the plan. Who plans on dying and leaving their two children to fend for themselves?

Still, you now have a list of bills the length of your arm coupled with a massive mortgage to pay every month. And as Laertes’ sole caretaker, you must ensure you can afford to send him to University once he completes his education in the Academy.

Circumstances denied you that chance. Despite being of university’s age, you couldn’t afford the cost of tuition and had to drop out as soon as you got accepted. You want better for your little brother.

So as soon as you heard the news that President Snow and First Lady Livia Cardew were in search of a nanny for their son Martius, you jumped on the opportunity to apply. You rose before the sun, rummaged through your mother’s closet to find her best dress, and hailed a car to come here.

It’s a long shot, of course. You’re not as polished and impressive as some of the other women. You’re also noticeably younger. But the wages promised alone compelled you to take a chance despite the odds being unfavorable.

Fiddling with your hands, you meet the woman’s impassive stare head-on.

“What sets me apart?” You mull over your answer. You could paint a false, august portrait of yourself, your skills and your accomplishments. Or try to at least.

But what would be the point of pretending to be someone you’re not only to be found out later on? So you elect to tread the path of honesty.

“Nothing,” you say. “But I’m a hard worker. A very hard worker. In fact, I already have three jobs, one at a bakery, another as a clerk in an antique shop and I assist Fabricia Whatnot at her boutique sometimes.” Panic quivers inside you as the woman quickly jots something down on her notepad. You swiftly specify, “...But I’ll quit all of them if I get the position, of course.” You lick your lips as knots tie your stomach. “I can learn everything there is to learn on the spot. I love children, and…” You trail off, gaze traveling to your lap as you muse if you should reveal more. Your fists clench as you add, “I have a little brother who’s a few years older than Martius, and I’m really hoping I get this opportunity so I can give him the life he deserves.”

An unnerving quiet occupies the air. The wait is agony, your nails digging painfully into your palms. The jagged drumming of your heart bleeds inside your ears as she studies you.

Eventually, she leans back in the velvet chair, her face betraying no thought or emotion.

“You’re dismissed,” she says.

Your heart plummets to your feet. You shakily rise, dispirited as you drag your heels towards the door. You steal a glance above your shoulder. The woman’s attention has already drifted away from you as she shouts for the next applicant.

You sourly exit the office. You try to swallow your dejection as you note how many women are still waiting in line, each of them likely more qualified and experienced. It’s obvious you tanked the interview. Shoulders slumping, you take resigned steps through the elegant, palatial hallways of the Snow’s mansion. You get lost in admiring the crystal and gold chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings. There isn’t an inch of the house that doesn’t scream excessive, unattainable wealth.

You take your time soaking it in. Chances are you’ll never step foot in such a place in your lifetime ever again.

Distracted, you don’t notice the person in front of you before it’s too late. You bump straight into a hard, inflexible body.

The sudden collision threatens your balance.

Fingers coil around your wrists as you stagger back, preventing your impending collapse onto the marbled floor.

As your attention drifts skywards, your jaw drops at who fills your vision.

“P-President Snow, my deepest apologies, s-sir,” you stammer, flames licking your cheeks.

As if you didn’t make yourself look dimwitted enough before, you now carelessly crashed into the leader of all of Panem. Just when you thought the day couldn’t possibly get worse.

You take him in. It truly is him. Shock fills you.

Tall and dazzling in a crisp white shirt and crimson vest that hints at his lean physique beneath the clothes, his signature blond waves slicked away from his face, he looks every bit the important figure that he is.

The flickering TV screen you own at home doesn’t do him justice.

A gentle smirk unfurls on his lips.

“It’s quite alright. I’m not made of sugar,” he jests.

“No…you’re not, your highness…majesty...I mean sir.”

Your blunder expands his smile. His cerulean gaze drags over your frame.

“Are you here for the nursemaid position?”

“I am, sir.” You unleash a deep exhale, his inquiry tossing salt on the fresh wound. The interviewer clearly wasn’t impressed by your less than stellar performance. Maybe you should have tried to mimic the way the girls with whom you attended the Academy behave more. They carry themselves with such confidence, wading through the world with the certainty of their destinies being secure, bereft of hardships unlike district dwellers.

You envy how carefree they get to be. Everyday you wake up worried you’ll come up short on a bill and you and Laertes will be forced to leave your family home. No matter how diligent you are at work, there never seems to be enough money to sustain the two of you. Even with three jobs, you’re barely eking out a decent living for you and your little brother. Many times, you’ve gone to bed hungry just so Laertes would not.

You don’t even realize tears have filled your eyes to the brim until a handkerchief is daintily pressed into your cheeks.

Flabbergasted, you blink up at President Snow.

“Thank you,” you exhale, stunned by his kind gesture.

“What’s the matter?” he asks.

You search his eyes. Genuine interest lights up his pellucid blue orbs.

Without much thought, you confess, “I just don’t think I did very well with my interview.”

As he scrutinizes you in silence, cocking his head sideways, embarrassment rushes through you.

Words anxiously leave your lips in a tremulous string.

“God, I’m so sorry, spilling my problems to you as if you’re not an extremely busy man, sir.”

He shakes his head. “It’s quite alright. And do not count yourself defeated, sweetheart.” Your pulse stutters when he bends over you to whisper, “You may have left a stronger impression than you think.”

He nudges the pocket square between your hands. It’s still damp with your tears. You gape at it in awe. President Snow’s initials are elegantly etched in the left corner of the fabric.

“Here. Keep it. Though I’d much prefer it if you didn’t cry.” He pauses, studying you. “Girls as lovely as you never should.”

His words send your heart into a frenzy. For a while, you’re too stunned to move. You then shake yourself back to reality, noticing you’re now staring at the empty space where he used to stand. He’s gone. You look ahead. He’s already miles away from you, wrapped in conversation with who seems to be an assistant of his.

Your thumbs press against the soft fabric of the pocket square. Cheeks ablaze, you hold it to your nose. It smells like roses, the same delicate scent that wafted from him a few minutes ago. Your back prickles. You pivot and are astonished to find the envious glares of some of the applicants still waiting in line zeroed in on you. Self-conscious, you rush to continue your exit, fleeing away from the hateful stares.

As the outside gates come into sight, you can’t suppress an elated smile. It’s not everyday someone meets President Snow and receives such a gift from him. Shoving the handkerchief in your pocket, you vow to place it somewhere safe and always cherish it.

When you return home, your brother’s already sitting in the living room, his tiny brows scrunched in concentration and his nose buried in his books. Your stomach sinks. Everything you did today was for him. You can’t help but feel you missed out on a huge opportunity, one that’d have changed the course of his life forever. You glance around at the apartment. The walls are crumbling. The wooden floors are creaking. The pipes in the kitchen have been leaking for weeks, a measly bucket you must empty every morning the only thing preventing a flood. And at night, the pitter-patter of rodents’ paws resonates from the ceiling.

Every inch of your family home is in dire need of repairs.

Unfortunately, every penny you earn goes into rent and food, meaning the house falls apart a bit more everyday. Perhaps one day, you and Laertes will awake beneath the rubble of what’s left of your childhood home. Nightmares of that sometimes keep you up at night.

“How was the Academy today?” you chime, rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. Worry twists your chest. There isn’t much left. You’ll need to make do with cabbage and whatever other veggies are left. Perhaps you could toss in some leftover dried meat and make a stew.

“My teacher signed me up for advanced trigonometry,” your brother announces.

You close the cabinet and beam at him.

“Oh, that sounds hard. I’m proud of you.” It doesn’t exactly surprise you. Laertes’ always been exceptionally smart. Even his teachers noticed how gifted he is from an early age. Unlike you, he breezed through middle school and now the Academy.

It’s why it’s crucial you make sure he can go to the University. A mind like his shouldn’t be wasted.

You brother shrugs, exuding nonchalance.

“It’s fine.”

You rush to him. You wrap your arm around him playfully and hug him in his chair, pulling his cheek like when he was little. You know he hates when you do that but you can’t help teasing him a bit. It’s your duty as a big sister after all.

“Don’t downplay it. My little brother’s a genius.”

He wriggles his way out of the hug, rolling his eyes.

“Stop it.”

You head back to the kitchen and fire the stove.

“I’ll make you something,” you say, smiling at your brother.

His brows knit. “Make something for yourself first.”

You nibble your bottom lip. You truly hoped he wouldn’t notice, how much smaller than his your portions are. But he’s growing; he needs it. Much more than you. Besides, how can he focus at the Academy and be the brilliant boy he is supposed to be with a growling stomach? You won’t allow it.

“Laertes…”

He shakes his head, his expression firm.

“No. You always do this. This time, we split whatever is left.”

Heaving out a resigned exhale, you nod. You whirl to resume preparing dinner.

You gather a boiling pot from the overhead cabinet and place it on the stove. With the ease of practice, you begin chopping vegetables and tossing them into the pot. You add spices and water. The mouthwatering aroma quickly fills the kitchen. Pride swells in your chest. Your cooking skills have improved so much in the last year since your parents passed. You now manage to bring flavor to the blandest of meals.

Once the stew’s ready, you pour a portion in each bowl, putting just a little more in your brother’s and praying he will not notice.

You place the steaming bowls on the table and take a seat opposite him.

“No books at the dining table,” you admonish, mimicking the exact tone your mother used with your brother. Admitting defeat, Laertes sighs and sets his homework aside. The tiny victory tugs your lips skyward.

He tells you about his day at the Academy while the two of you eat. You’re delighted to hear he’s making a lot of friends and he’s at the top of his class for most science subjects. He’s struggling a bit more with his poetry and ethics classes, but you encourage him by reminding him he can just ask the teacher for extra assignments to keep his grade up.

“I interviewed for a new job today,” you reveal, stirring the spoon in your bowl while waiting for your brother to eat more of his food.

“How did it go?”

“Well, it pays really well so I’m hopeful.”

The hope dancing in his eyes makes your chest ache. You don’t have the heart to tell him you made a fool of yourself today. You may not be gifted like your brother, but you want him to know he can rely on you at least.

Pursing his mouth, he looks down at his stew.

“That’s great. It’d be good if you didn’t have to work as much.”

Your smile falters. “Don’t worry. I have everything under control.”

“Okay.”

His dour tone stirs your concern. You wish you were better at hiding things from him, making his childhood as normal as possible. But your brother’s twelve now, and that’s old enough to sense when things are wrong.

He rises from his seat. You frown as you note there’s still food left in his bowl.

“Finish your plate before going to your room.”

Annoyance pinches his features but he still picks up his bowl and hastily guzzles down the remainder of his stew.

“Happy now?” he says, wiping his mouth.

“Yes. Very,” you cheerfully respond.

He gathers his books and strides towards his room.

Your voice rises.

“Don’t stay up too late to study, okay? I love you.”

“I…love you too,” he mumbles.

You bask in the moment as you clean the table. Thankfully Laertes is still at an age where he says it back. One day he might not. So you must cherish every instant. Every conversation, every hug, every ‘I love you’. Because it could all vanish in a second. You learned that the hard way a year ago.

The day of the interview recedes to the back of your mind as you keep living your life. Work is harrowing, as usual, but you tend to your tasks as best as you can. Your arms ache as you knead the dough in the back of the bakery. You give yourself a second to wipe the sweat off your forehead. It’s been a hectic afternoon. There’s a massive pastry order for some Capitol heiress’ birthday due tomorrow. So you’ve been racing between the front desk and the kitchen in the back. A baker called in sick today, leaving you with twice the workload.

You know it won’t take much to crash into your bed and fall asleep tonight.

To make matters worse, the day hits its nadir when you get your pay that day. You peer inside the envelope for the umpteenth time. An anxious chuckle peals out of your lips.

“I’m sorry I don’t want to complain, but…this doesn’t match the hours I put in.”

The owner scratches the back of his neck, a contrite expression etched on his face.

“I’m sorry too. With the new taxes imposed by the Capitol, I had to cut your salary.”

Slack-jawed by the news, no word leaves your mouth as you stare at him. He sighs.

“If it’s a problem, we can find someone else-”

“No, no,” you interrupt, blinking in panic. “Please, I need this job.”

He acquiesces and you’re forced to thank him despite feeling cheated. You actually scaled back your hours for your other part-times since this one paid more. What a waste.

Dispirited, you return home. As you give the driver a bill for the fare, your insides wrench. Every bill counts. Perhaps you’ll need to walk back home from now on. The streets of the Capitol are notoriously dangerous but you can’t see any other way to save your dwindling wages. You already know you’ll need to request an extension for rent this month. How will you pay it, however?

You suppose you’ll have to figure it out. You always figure it out.

These are the somber thoughts swaying in your mind as you check the mailbox.

Bills. Bills. And more bills. Your already sour mood plummets even more. But a slim, silver envelope sticking out from the pile corrals your focus. Curiosity surges inside you. It looks fancy and there’s a wax seal with the Capitol’s symbol keeping it shut. You rush to open it, heart fluttering in strange anticipation.

You unfold the neatly folded letter inside. As you read the words, you gasp, dropping the letter. Still trembling from shock and excitement, you bend to pick it up.

You take a deep slow breath before reading it again.

This time, a squeal escapes from your lips.

You read it many more times to make sure your eyes aren’t just conjuring wild fantasies.

After a while, you realize they aren’t. It’s true.

Holding the letter to your chest, you toss yourself on your bed and kick your feet excitedly.

You then place your palm on your forehead. In disbelief, you beam at the ceiling.

Somehow…you’ve been hired to work for the Snows. You actually got the job.

Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel.

You fidget before the iron gates, smoothing absent wrinkles on your skirt. It’s one of the best outfits you could find on short notice that wasn’t moth-eaten or visibly overworn. You pray it’s enough. You let your gaze wander. The Snows’ estate truly is majestic. The lush gardens. The beautiful architecture. You feel a little small as you admire the mansion.

Remembering yourself, you pivot to the man who drove you there. You fish inside your pocket for a bill and hand it to him. He stares at you blankly from the driver’s seat.

A weary sigh ripples behind you.

You turn, your eyes widening. It’s the woman who interviewed you that day. She wears the same stern expression.

“You don’t need to pay him,” she explains, dismissing the man with her hand. He nods and drives away. “He’s your assigned driver. He’ll pick you up each day and take you back home.”

“Oh.” You offer your hand. “Nice to meet you…again.”

She gives you a lengthy onceover, completely ignoring your gesture. Then she motions at you to follow her. You let your hand fall to your side. Heat blooms in your cheeks. Perhaps, you were too enthusiastic just then. Straightening your spine, you try your best to keep pace with her quick strides.

“I’m Pandora. I supervise most housekeeping duties for the president. I’ll show you around the estate. Then you’ll meet the young Master.”

She gives you a tour of the mansion. You’re even more amazed than last time though you try to suppress your awe and not stare excessively. She shows you the garden as well. The sea of snow-white roses makes your head spin. She specifies that the only part of the house that is off-limits is the west wing of the mansion, as these are the First Lady’s apartments and she must have rest and quiet.

She ends the visit by taking you to the nursery. A smile spontaneously finds its way onto your lips. A toddler plays with his toy train on the floor. With his blonde curls and bright blue eyes, he bears a striking resemblance to his father.

“That’s him? He’s so cute,” you whisper. Even the stern woman’s expression thaws a little as she looks at the child, softening ever-so-slightly. You send her a questioning glance. She gives you a nod of approval.

You approach the boy and crouch in front of him.

“Hi. You’re Martius, right?”

He lifts his head and beams at you. You’re immediately endeared. Again, his smile reminds you of President Snow. You suppose one could probably take over the world with a smile like that.

You turn to Pandora.

“Is his mother around? I should probably introduce myself.”

Her face pinches. “Mistress Livia has been unwell as of late. She is not to be disturbed today as she is quite tired.”

“Of course.” Your lips squeeze shut for a few seconds but curiosity gets the better of you. A question burns on your lips, one that nagged you ever since you got the job. It slips out before you can think it through. “Is this…Is this why the president and his wife require a nanny? The First Lady is sick?”

Pandora glowers at you. You flinch as she steps further inside the room, her searing tone like a whip.

“You are here to do your job, and nothing else. Mistress Livia’s health is no concern of yours. Do you hear me?”

You rise on shaky feet. You forgot yourself.

“I-I understand. I’m sorry I asked.”

“This reminds me. You have to sign this,” she says, handing you a pen and clipboard. A thin stack of papers are attached to the clipboard. The front page spells ‘Non-Disclosure Agreement’ in bold letters at the very top. You scowl as you flip through the pages.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a contract, one signed by every one of the President’s employees.”

“I don’t understand most of what’s written here…”

A frustrated exhale peals from her lips.

“I’ll make it simple for you then. For the duration of your employment here, nothing you see or hear must ever leave this house. You are here to care for the young master, that is all. Nothing else should concern you. Is that clear enough?”

You swallow thickly. It doesn’t sound hard at all. Discretion is essential in every job, isn’t it? But the way Pandora makes it sound, you’d assume there are bodies buried beneath the Snows’ estate. You’d laugh if her death stare weren’t so disquieting.

You peruse the contract, perplexed by most of the legal mumbo jumbo filling the pages. None of it rings any bell. You understand the gist of it however. You must preserve the president and his wife’s privacy. While you don’t know the specifics of the first lady’s condition, her public appearances have been few and far between in the last few years.

She used to be the envy of every woman in the Capitol. Beautiful, young and married to the dashing President Snow.

She was a fairytale princess come to life.

Then their son Martius was born. And when they held him up from the balcony of their mansion for all of Panem to gaze upon, they truly seemed like the perfect family.

Until one day, Livia Cardew simply…vanished.

She was noticeably absent from all the events of the season, some she even hosted herself. Tongues wagged of course, rumors and wild theories spreading like wildfire.

But no one knew the truth of what had happened to her.

The matter seems delicate. You promise yourself not to bring it up again.

You click the pen and scribble your name at the bottom of the very last page.

“I’ve…never signed a contract like that before starting a job.”

Pandora lets out a wry chuckle.

“Well, you’ve never worked for President Snow.”

As promised, you quit your two other jobs to focus solely on Martius. You’re hesitant at first. Your departed parents taught you never to put all your eggs in one basket. And it’s exactly what you’d be doing by trusting the Snows. But when you receive your first paycheck, long before the end of the week, every qualm you had fades. It’s more money than you’ve ever had, more money than you expected. Rent isn’t an issue anymore. Neither is food.

Besides, gifts keep coming from the estate. Clothes mostly, for both you and Laertes, but also jewelry, perfume and other fancy things you don’t need. Overwhelmed by President Snow’s generosity, you try to send some of it back, but you don’t have the heart to return everything when you see your brother’s happy face when he opens his wardrobe one day.

You’ve caught the self-conscious glimpses he casts at his classmates sometimes, when not wearing the Academy uniform. Their clothes are always brand new and custom, perfectly tailored while his are stitched back together by your clumsy hands whenever they fray at the seams. You’re not a seamstress but you’ve always done your best. But you know your best doesn’t compare to the access and privilege those kids have.

Other than those blessings, your time with Martius has been a breeze. Only hazy memories of your brother as a toddler linger in your mind, but you don’t recall him ever being as sweet and calm as the little boy is.

It hardly feels like work, caring for the small child. You spend the day playing along with his games, reading stories to him and, as the day nears its end, the two of you feed the ducks in the massive pond behind the mansion. He even gives them names and gets upset when they fight with each other.

“Lily doesn’t like James anymore,” he whispers to you one day, a sullen pout scrunching his tiny features.

“And why is that?”

“I think she’s angry that he steals her food.”

You chuckle and ruffle his golden locks. The little boy always has a story for everything he sees. At all times, his world must make sense. So if he cannot find a reason to explain what fills his gaze, he’ll weave a tale that matches it. His stories are each more wild than the other and he sometimes utters words you’ve never heard a four year old use.

But you surmise it is expected from the son of the president. When he isn’t with you, the little boy is often with his private tutor. Even at his tender age, the importance of manners and eloquence is impressed upon him.

Martius tugs at your skirt when you make your way to the door. You look down. His blue eyes are pleading.

“You’re leaving again?”

You heave out a long exhale. The little boy wasn’t so clingy before but with your bond growing, he’s been expressing more sadness from watching you go at the end of every day.

You hunker down to his level.

“My little brother’s expecting me.”

His forehead puckers. “Stay…”

“I told you before, Martius. I have a brother. He’ll miss me if I’m not here.”

“Okay,” he mumbles, giving a begrudging nod. Tears already swim in his eyes though. Panic flows through you. You didn’t want to upset him. You pick him up and bounce with him in your arms to try to soothe him.

“Oh, no. Don’t cry, sweetie.” He buries his head in the crook of your neck, nearly squeezing you to death when he wraps his arms around your neck. His loud, tearful sobs swell in the room. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll see you tomorrow like always, okay? So I need you to be brave for me.” His grip on you loosens as he sniffles. You put him down and the two of you pinky promise that you’ll return. Your heart twists at the sight of his tear-stained little face.

You give his hair one last affectionate pat before rushing outside. If you stay, he might throw another tantrum. No matter what, you can never get mad at Martius. He’s just a child. In the absence of his mother, he’s bound to grow attached to any woman filling a role adjacent to hers. You loathe that you’re taking those moments from the first lady. Though it pleases you to have a steady job and spend time with the sweet boy, it feels wrong that she isn’t there. She should get to see her baby grow up. She should hear his inane ramblings and eccentric stories.

As time wears on, you’re dying to meet her and tell her about Martius. Is she truly so sick that she can’t even see him for a mere few minutes? You’re itching to break the rules and visit the west wing of the mansion. Sometimes you hear blood-curdling screams and wailing coming from the dark halls but you never dared venture through them. You know that if you did, Pandora would crucify you.

Laertes’ well-being matters more than your curiosity.

Humming absently, you halt in your tracks in the middle of a hallway. Confusion has you blinking. A peculiar noise bounces faintly against the walls. Your gaze drifts sideways, where the noise seems to come from. You’re clocking out. Whatever’s going on in the house isn’t any of your business at this hour.

But what if someone needs help? What if it’s something bad? You’d feel awful if you learnt something happened the next day and you pretended to ignore it. So you gingerly approach the wall. Your fingers graze the tapestry covering it.

Your eyes widen when the wall moves, a tiny crack forming in it.

Your eyes bulge. It’s an ajar door, you realize. A secret door one wouldn’t notice if they weren’t aware it was there. Light spills from the slight opening.

Confining your breath, you bend over the crack in the wall to get a glimpse of what’s behind it.

The vision crowding your sight makes the blood in your veins freeze.

President Snow rutting into a maid with his pants down to his ankles. His usually neat blonde locks are tousled, a few damp curls kissing his forehead. His massive cock glistens with the girl’s essence, disappearing into the girl’s spread lips over and over again. Her body is bent over the railing of the bed and her maid outfit is bunched around her hips, exposing her ass, the flesh trembling with each of the president’s harsh, pointed thrust.

Each time he snaps his hips he draws a broken moan from her. One of his hands is around the back of her throat while the other’s on the small of her back. He grunts low in his throat as she clenches around him, thrusting into her even faster than before.

The obscene sound of their coupling rises, coalescing with the feral grunts spilling from the president’s mouth. In that moment, he’s not the poised gentleman you’re used to seeing, he is an animal in rut chasing his high.

A shocked exhale escapes your lips. Your hand flies to cover your mouth. President Snow’s head snaps up, his gaze landing straight on you.

Your heart slams against your ribcage.

You jump back from the door and push the secret door closed. You dart across the hallway, determined to find the exit as quickly as you can. You don’t glance back, your steps hasty and panicked.

Pandora was right. It’s best not not to hear or see anything, to become a tomb in which secrets are buried.

You can only hope he didn’t recognize you through the tiny crack in the door.

Though you’re shaken to your core, you continue your work as a nanny. You still need money. You may have set aside everything you made thus far, but it will only sustain you and your brother for a month or two. Besides, you’ve already handed in your resignation for your other jobs. The positions have likely been filled. You can’t exactly show up out of the blue and ask for your former job back.

No. So you convince yourself that it’s alright. You have a good thing going anyway. You’re making more than you hoped. The child is happy. You’re happy. All is well. Or it would be at least.

…If you could conjure the memory of President Snow railing into the maid far away from your mind.

You want to forget it, bury the moment so deep in the abyss of your thoughts, it can never be unearthed.

But it isn’t so easy. Because every time your mind wanders even a little, you see him again. Skin glistening with sweat and blue eyes alight with lust. The image is tattooed into your brain.

You wonder if the first lady knows. Perhaps it’s why she’s hiding away. The weight of her husband’s indiscretions may have grown too heavy to carry. It sours your heart. President Snow seemed so kind, good and noble. He was nice to you. You still have the breast pocket he gave you tucked away in a drawer. You loathe to think he’d do that to his wife. No woman deserves this.

You lift your head when your name is uttered. You get to your feet. Adrift in your thoughts, you didn’t realize Pandora was in the nursery.

“Yes?”

“The president wants to see you in his office.”

Dread wrenches your gut. It’s exactly what you feared. Does he know? Did he see you? Your pulse picks up. What other reason would there be? He never summoned you before.

“Really, why?”

“He didn’t say, but I’m assuming it’s to congratulate you.”

Befuddlement wrinkles your forehead. “Congratulate me?”

Pandora heaves out a weary sigh. “Well, you’ve done much better than we thought,” she begrudgingly admits. “The young master smiles all the time.” She rolls her eyes. “Even if we must deal with his tantrums when you leave.”

A sliver of pride flutters through you with her admission. Pandora made her doubts about your capabilities plain and obvious from the beginning. It gladdens you that you may have changed her mind a little.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She turns to him, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “It’s a small price to pay for his happiness.”

Your smile vanishes as she adds, “Now let me escort you to the president’s office. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you trail behind her. The entire trek to the president’s office, your stomach’s in knots. You keep wondering if it’s the day you’ll lose your job for being too nosy. You should have walked past the noise. You shouldn’t have peeked.

You inhale a lungful of nerve as Pandora opens the door to his office and frees room for you to enter. Your clammy hands wrench in your lap. He’s sitting behind his desk. You stagger further inside the room as he motions for you to sit in the chair on the other side of the desk. He looks the same as the first time you stumbled into him, disarmingly handsome in an impeccable shirt and pants that flatter his long legs.

A sharp contrast to the version of him that has plagued your thoughts lately.

His sky gaze follows you as you take a trembling seat.

“Are you settling in well?” he asks.

“Hm, yes,” you stammer, anxiously twining your fingers. “It’s pretty much the perfect job. I get to be around a cute child all day.”

“I hear my son is very fond of you.”

You bashfully dip your head. “He’s very easy to like. He’s such a good boy, sweet, kind, and curious. You and your wife are raising him well, sir.”

He hums in thought. “I can’t take much credit for that. I’ve tried my best to carve out time for Martius…but work’s kept me busy. As for Livia...” He lets out a humorless chuckle. “Well she isn’t quite herself these days.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He places one hand under his chin, scrutinizing you. You try not to twitch beneath his stare, your insides tight with dread.

“Hm, it’s strange,” he states after a minute that goes by like an eternity.

Your head rises. “What’s strange?”

“A girl like you.” His lips drag upward. “Sweet, nurturing, beautiful. Shouldn’t you be married already?”

Your lips part in astonishment. This isn’t the line of questioning you expected. “I-I’m not.”

“No fiancé?”

“No, sir.”

“A lover then?”

Warmth rushes to your face.

“No…”

He laughs, mirth dancing in his cobalt orbs.

“You must pardon me for being so forward but I simply find it astonishing. No suitors? It’s hard to believe since you’re so lovely, sweetheart.” He tilts his head. You shift in discomfort, his attention making you feel see-through. “I mean, a husband would have made your life easier than it’s been thus far, wouldn’t he, dove?”

A long exhale flows from your lips. “I’ve had offers, after I graduated from the Academy. There was even this boy, he was so kind to me.” The memory draws a small smile from you. “He proposed. I’m sure he’d make a great husband, but…”

“But…”

Your mouth dries.

“I know it’s probably naive and unrealistic but I want to marry for love, that great, life-changing love, like in those romance novels my mom used to love, not money or status.”

His eyes twinkle. “Or financial stability?”

Shame gathers in your chest. You know it sounds silly when uttered aloud.

“I know, I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re not. It’s sweet that you still believe in love.” He appears lost in a faraway memory, his gaze hazing over with remembrance. “I used to believe in it too. I used to think, ‘Who needs wealth and success and power when love conquers all?’”

He chuckles but it’s bereft of amusement.

“Really? What happened then?”

His gaze locks with yours.

“I grew up.”

Confused, you frown.

“But aren’t you and the first lady in love?”

Another laugh bursts from his chest.

“God, you’re sweet.” His tone lowers to a dulcet whisper. “It’s like none of the world’s ugliness has gotten to you yet.” He reveals matter-of-factly, “My wife and I hate each other.” His smile widens at your flabbergasted expression. “Always did. It’s best that way, more…efficient. Of course, there was a time, when we had…passion.” He licks his lips, something you can’t pinpoint flickering in his gaze. “But not anymore. She’s far too gone for that.”

He rises from his chair. You stiffen as he circles the desk, making slow steps towards you.

“Which is why I must…satiate my needs wherever I can,” he mumbles, fingers lurking under your chin, forcing your eyes to fall upon him. “Do you understand my meaning, dove?”

“I…yes.”

Discomfort flares within you. Tension hangs in the air, so heavy it clogs your airways.

He cocks his head, lips slanting crookedly.

“Do you really? With that innocent look in your eyes, it’s hard to tell.” His thumb sweeps over your shuddering bottom lip. “Men have needs. And am I not a man, sweetheart?”

“Y-Yes you are, sir.”

He bends over you to whisper in your ear. “You saw everything that day, didn’t you?” Your heart stops.

Flames lick your face as you bow your head. “I-I didn’t see anything.”

His warm breath ghosts over your earshell.

“Liar,” he mumbles.

Your pulse quickens.

He leans back and nudges your chin upward.

“Since my wife fell sick, I’ve been very lonely. And sometimes…” He looms over you, crowding your space as you peer up at him, fingers squeezing the arms of the chair. “I need something soft and warm to forget that feeling.”

President Snow slowly falls to his knees in front of you. His fingers find your thigh, starting to creep under your skirt. A devilish glint sparkles in his cobalt gaze. He finds your center, pressing the sheer fabric into your folds. You gasp. He chuckles at your reaction. He starts teasing you through your panties, tracing your slit and dragging over your tender bud. Your breath hitches as the air around you grows hotter. You grow slick beneath his finger, your thighs shaking as tingles bloom on your flesh.

“Sir…” you whimper, tears welling up in your eyes.

He pushes further inside you, adding another finger, and you unleash an audible breath. You try to close your thighs. He places his other hand on your knee to keep you open for him.

The air in your lungs grows thinner as he rubs your core through your soaked panties. The friction is a delicious torture. Pleasure pools in your belly causing your face to burn with shame. You’re getting embarrassingly wet with President Snow’s attention.

“I just want a little taste,” he murmurs, his deep timbre bleeding lust. “Just one time and it’ll never happen again,” he promises fervently as his lips graze your ankle. You find some relief when his fingers disappear from your drenched center. But your respite is ephemeral. He slips his hands under your ass and tugs at your panties.

Panic widens your eyes. Cheeks ablaze, you pull at the material between your legs with both hands. But he’s stronger than you and effortlessly drags the fabric along your legs. A wicked smile plays on his lips as tears glisten in your eyes. It’s soon down to your ankles. You squeal when the president yanks the panties off your foot, tossing them aside. Cool air sneaks beneath your skirt, swirling over your bare folds.

Hands over your knees to keep you spread, his wolfish gaze sweeps over your glossy folds.

Your skin heats, embarrassment gathering in your chest. You’ve never been this vulnerable and exposed in front of anybody before.

“Please, President Snow, s-stop…”

“But you’re dripping, sweetheart,” he states smugly, sinking a finger inside your weeping core, as if to make a point. Your breath hitches. He takes his finger out sluggishly. You clench when he grazes one of your sensitive spots. “Just as sweet as I expected,” he hums, obscenely licking your essence off his long digit.

Without a warning, he buries his head between your thighs. A sharp exhale leaps from your mouth. His cool tongue traces a wet trail over your folds. President Snow traces maddening patterns over your swollen bud causing your eyes to roll back.

You card your fingers through his silken platinum locks, hoping to push his head away. But the delightful sensations grow too overwhelming. You unravel beneath his sinful ministrations, your limbs twitching as the thread of your thoughts comes loose.

Your grip on his hair weakens. Your belly tightens, your chest rising and falling rapidly.

You jolt as his tongue flickers over your tender heap of nerves.

“P-President…”

He purrs against your folds and the vibrations rock through your core. You squirm in the chair. Your thighs quake. Your vision dims, your mind blank as waves of pleasure swaddle you in their tide. Protests scatter on your tongue, replaced by wanton whimpers and moans.

Electricity ripples through your spine as you cry out.

Bliss engulfs you and your legs turn liquid. Shame swirls in your gut as your juices coat his tongue. He drinks your nectar, elation rumbling in his chest.

When he lifts his head, you hardly recognize him. The feral glow in his gaze chills your blood.

There is no time to collect yourself, realize what just occurred, as the blonde gathers your limp frame from the chair and places you on his desk. Documents and papers are flung to the ground as he grabs your thighs and presses his throbbing hard-on against your cunt.

He hastily unbuttons his pants, freeing his hard length. He fists his cock and guides it through your wet entrance. Your back arches, the sudden intrusion robbing you of air. He reaches the hilt of you in a few seconds, giving you no time to accommodate his thick girth. You collapse over the desk, weak whimpers leaving you as your walls are stretched to their limit. He drags out of you, his pupils flaring as they trace the motion of his length in and out of you. Coriolanus leans over you. He snaps his pelvis into your hips, each of his thrusts tearing tearful moans from your throat.

When you turn your head, hot tears flowing down your cheeks, he grabs your chin so you’re forced to meet his lustful stare. Bracing himself on the desk, he reaches between your bodies to pinch your swollen clit. He plucks at your soft bud until you shatter around him with a sob. His throat bobs, a look of sheer bliss flitting across his face when you clench around him.

“I’ve been dying to fuck you the minute I saw you,” he confesses, trailing soft pecks over your collarbone. A sinister chuckle peals from his lips. “The way you looked at me with those sweet, innocent eyes…it made me rock-hard.” He tilts your chin towards him, his thumb skimming over your parted lips.

Satisfaction glimmers in his eyes as they flick over your prone form.

“You should thank me. Those boys at the Academy wouldn’t know what to do with a girl like you…” His cock twitches inside you. Sticky warmth spills from him, painting your walls and dripping past your hole. Drops of his seed leak onto the desk. A throaty sigh pours from President Snow’s throat as your cunt flutters around him.

His teeth nip the skin of your neck.

“...But I do.”

After what occurs in his office, you hope to avoid President Snow. Those hopes are swiftly dashed however. President Snow lied to you. It doesn’t happen once. In fact, you begin to lose count of the actual number.

Every time the president finds a little spare time, he summons you.

Sometimes you end up bent over the desk in his office as he pours the frustrations of the day into your warm hole. Sometimes he prefers you sprawled on your back in one of the multitude of luxurious beds in the mansion while he devours you as if you were his very last meal. And at times, he grows even more impatient and simply shoves you against a wall before ravaging you.

More than once, a maid or footman has walked in on the two of you, and you’ve had to swallow your shame and embarrassment.

As you’ve come to learn, the entire staff is aware of Coriolanus Snow’s insatiable appetite and none of them seems to care.

You feel sick, desperate, trapped in something twisted and awful you never signed up for.

But how does one say no to President Coriolanus Snow? The entire Capitol yields to his every whim. And you are the same. Here to bow and smile and lie back whenever he demands it.

You long to focus on your job, to care for Martius and nothing else. Whenever the boy looks up at you with those innocent blue eyes, eerily similar to his father’s, your stomach wrenches. You pray he never comes to learn what kind of man his father is. You wish he’d stay just as kind and sweet as he is now.

Those are the thoughts drifting through your mind as you watch Martius play with his toy trains. Your eyes wander towards the window. Outside, orange and purple hues are bleeding into the sky, the afternoon nearing its end. Your stomach coils. It’s during times like these that President Snow often seeks you out. You’ve tried to run away from him but it’s all a game to Coriolanus, and he always delights in chasing you through the hallways.

Your brows crumple as you note that Martius has stopped playing. He drops his toy and rushes to your side. Confounded by his behavior, you’re on the cusp of asking him what’s wrong…but your gaze follows what caught his attention on the other side of the room.

You fall silent, your eyes rounding in shock.

“Martius. Come here, my love,” says the blonde woman in a white robe and nightgown, her arms wide open.

Time stands still for a few seconds. It takes you a while to realize who stands before the door. She looks so different, more ghost than woman, her glassy blue eyes hollow and sunken. But her likeness is unmistakable. Even with her graying, limp tresses and ashen complexion, you recognize Livia Cardew. The president’s wife.

You bolt to your feet. Arms still open, Livia takes slow steps towards Martius.

“I’m your mom, sweetie. Don’t you remember me?”

The little boy’s fists clutch your skirt as he hides his face against your leg.

“You’re not my mom.”

A stricken look twists Livia’s features as she shrinks. As if her own son just drove a knife through her heart. Your chest twinges. While her abrupt appearance is a shock, you can’t imagine how she must feel. You place a hand on Martius’ back and try to nudge him forward.

“Martius. It’s the First Lady, your mother. Go on, hug her,” you urge softly.

He shakes his head, tears filling his eyes as he hides behind you even more.

You’re stunned. Has it truly been that long?

“Martius-”

You don’t get to finish your sentence, Livia lunging at you, her eyes wild with fury.

“You! This is all your fault,” she hisses. She points at you and scoffs, “You’re his new whore, aren’t you?” Her mouth wobbles as she grips her head. “First you take my husband, now my son.”

Martius begins to sob. His loud cries overlap with his mother’s frantic yelling. You cover his eyes, tossing Livia an apologetic look.

“First Lady, I never meant-”

Before you can explain yourself, she grabs a nearby vase and smashes it. White roses scatter on the floor. Stomping all over the petals and broken glass, she collects one of the shards and races towards you. Terror numbs you. You freeze as Livia aims the shard at you, scarlet droplets dripping on her nightgown as she squeezes her fist around the glass.

Your eyes shut as you wait for the inevitable strike.

You shiver, waiting still.

But it doesn’t come.

“Livia, darling, that’s enough. It’s time for you to sleep and take your medicine.”

The familiar sound of Coriolanus’ voice causes your eyes to snap open.

You watch him restrain a struggling Livia. She curses at him, fighting him with all her might. It’s a painful spectacle.

“No, don’t touch me!” Other staff members rush into the room. It takes several people to hold Livia down, colorful expletives pouring from her mouth as she punches and kicks whoever comes close. “You’re killing me! You bastard! Give me my son back! Martius! Martius!”

The child trembles against your skirt, his tear-filled gaze stuck to the floor.

Eventually someone manages to stick a needle into Livia’s neck. She instantly goes limp, arm still reaching for her son in her last conscious second.

“Take her away,” Coriolanus instructs.

The first lady’s flaccid form is dragged out of the room. Still shaken by what you just witnessed, you don’t move a muscle. President Snow approaches you, worry swimming in his blue orbs.

“Are you alright, dove?” He cups your cheeks, his brows crumpling as his gaze settles on your neck. “I’ll have Doctor Gaul look at you. She has an ointment for that.” He caresses your cheeks, smiling. You gape at him. How can he smile at a time like that? “It won’t even scar. I promise.”

You graze your neck. Your fingers come away bloody. Oh. Livia nicked you with the shard but you didn’t even feel it. Perhaps adrenaline numbed you to the pain.

“Dada,” Martius chimes, lifting his chubby arms.

Coriolanus’ face warms as he picks up his son. He tosses him in the air and catches him. Martius giggles through his tears.

“My sweet boy. That was very scary, wasn’t it?” he says, balancing his son on his hip. Martius nods and wipes his nose. Coriolanus flicks his cheek, beaming at him. “Don’t worry, son. The scary lady won’t bother you anymore in a few months.”

A wave of ice blows through your veins. You wonder why the president uttered those words with such certainty. Like a promise. Or a prophecy. Almost as if he knows exactly when the grim reaper will come knock on his wife’s door.

The next day, you hand over your resignation to Pandora. Her expression is skeptical as she gauges the manila folder you give her.

��This is for the president,” you announce.

She unleashes a deep exhale. “You should reconsider, sleep on it.”

You almost laugh. Sleep on it? You can hardly find rest, the picture of a disheveled Livia Cardew crying out for her son haunting your nights. Whatever befell upon the poor woman, you wouldn’t be surprised if her husband somehow had a hand in it. It broke your heart, seeing her like that, her own son unable to recognize her. You also despise the role Coriolanus forced you to play in erasing her memory.

All of it feels wrong.

And most of all, you don’t want President Snow to use you to satisfy his lewd desires anymore. He took all your firsts, all the moments that should have been beautiful, and made them a nightmare you have to relive every time he touches you.

You respected him; you admired him. Now you can’t be in his presence without dread whispering through you. What will he make you do this time? How will he make you small and powerless again?

“I can’t…I can’t do this anymore. He can hire someone else to care for him.”

Pandora purses her lips and shakes her head.

“It’s really not that simple. The president has developed…a fondness for you.”

You bristle. “I have to go back home. Laertes is expecting me.”

“You won’t like what comes next, trust me.” Her gaze narrows. “No one leaves the president.”

Ignoring the shudder elicited by her daunting words, you pivot and make a beeline towards the exit. Pandora’s voice echoes down the hallways.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Depleted, you glumly make your way to the gates. You enter the car that takes you back home everyday. Your thoughts wander as the Snow’s house grows smaller through the car window. You were thrilled when you got this job. It felt like kismet after the year you and your brother had. A rainbow after the rain. A slice of hope.

How it all went to hell so quickly. You’re still reeling from it. You’ve no idea what you’ll do next. The only thing you know for certain is that you will not step foot into the Snows’ estate ever again.

The car suddenly halts. You bump your head into the passenger’s seat. Wincing, you grip the sides of your head. As you retrieve your senses, you look around. You stopped.

You toss a questioning look at the driver.

But before he can respond, the car door opens and you’re yanked outside. Two pairs of strong arms drag you away from the car.

You take in the blue uniforms of the men. Terror pulses through your blood.

Peacekeepers.

Noting the guns at their sides, you stop trying to resist. There’s no fighting against them, ever. They are the Capitol’s fist and carry the President’s will. You don’t stand a chance. In fact, you likely never did. You slump in their grip, despair thrumming inside you.

They escort you to a black car with tinted windows. Your pulse soars. You’ve only ever seen one individual step out of this car.

The peacekeepers toss you inside and slam the door shut.

Your fearful gaze rises to him.

He casually sits in front of you, his eyes narrowed.

“You disappoint me, dove.” He lets out a weary sigh. “After everything I’ve done for you…you try to leave me. I thought you were smarter than that.”

You twine your hands, sputtering, “I-I’m not the right person for this job, sir.”

He slides his fingers under your chin, tilting it upward.

“Oh but you’re perfect. My son loves you. You’re sweet, dutiful and most importantly…” He smirks. “You are mine. Mine to hold, spoil and fuck whenever I please for however long I please.”

The prospect fills you with dread. He wants you to be his toy again, submissive, available whenever he pleases.

“Sir…”

His jaw ticks, his hold on your jaw tightening.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your brother could attend the University, free of charge? A bright young mind such as his, I believe he deserves it.” His blue eyes twinkle. “Instead of, let’s say…end up in a District, his name chosen as a tribute in the next Hunger Games.” Your heart sinks to your feet. “That’d be awful, wouldn’t it? So cruel…” he mumbles, stroking your trembling bottom lip.

“No, please,” you beseech, tears swelling in your eyes. Your brother’s all you have left in the world. Nothing can happen to him.

Coriolanus fondles your cheek, the tender gesture a sharp contrast to the wicked words rolling off his tongue.

“It’s all up to you, then, dove. As long as you behave, I’ll give you the world. But if you act like a little brat again…” A threat lurks in his soft tone, a glint of madness swaying in his cobalt orbs. “I really don’t know what I might do.”

Chills dance over your spine.

“I promise to never do it again,” you blurt out.

He pulls out a square from his breast pocket. It’s identical to the one he used the first time.

But a lifetime seems to have passed since that moment, the world now so different from what you imagined, and the man before you…even more so.

“Good girl,” he lauds while swiping away your tears.

He shoves the pocket square back in its place. Coriolanus then beams at you as he starts unbuttoning his shirt and undoing his pants.

“Now, I’ve had a long, exhausting day. So how about you get on your knees for me and make it better with that sweet mouth of yours, dove?”

#dark!coriolanus snow #tbosas fanfiction #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #coriolanus snow #hunger games #coriolanus snow x reader #dark!coriolanus snow x reader

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bekkathyst · 1 year

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BEKKATHYST 10th Business Anniversary Giveaway!

~This giveaway is in no way affiliated with Tumblr.~

Please read thoroughly before entering!

Hello lovely Tumblr folk! It’s that time again- I have a giveaway for you all. This one is extra special because my business/shop turned 10 years old earlier this year! 💜

We have an online store that could use your support!

You can also find us on Instagram.

About us: My business is a small, family-run establishment that I started here on tumblr in 2013. I’ve been lucky enough to grow to the point where this supports me, my partner, and our daughter. In the US we also had a brick-and-mortar shop in which I employed my mom and a few of my siblings. However, we closed it to be able to move to Austria, my home country! 💜 I strived to put compassion and ethics above all else in my business, and I hope that shines through. We have a website but also run many fun sales directly here on Tumblr!

One of our long-term customers graciously asked to sponsor this giveaway, so I'd like to give a huge thank you to @classicintp !! Also thank you to everyone who voted on which crystal should be featured in the giveaway. Opal won in a landslide!

This giveaway will have two winners.

What the first winner receives:

The two amazing specimens of opal shown above! The darker piece is a boulder opal from Australia with a hole drilled through it (so it can be worn as a necklace) and the lighter piece is a massive rough chunk of welo opal from Ethiopia. The retail value of both of these opals is approximately $650.

What the second winner receives:

A $50 gift card that can be used for our online store or tumblr sales!

Rules:

You must be 16 or older. (If under 18 you MUST have parent’s permission)

You can be from anywhere in the world! I am shipping from Austria.

Shipping is entirely free, I will cover it. But if you live in a country that charges import tax on gifts, you are responsible for it. If it gets sent back to me, you will need to pay shipping to have it sent again.

You must be following me, so you can get updates if anything about the giveaway changes.

Please check out our online shop!

Reblog this post to enter. Likes count as additional entries. No giveaway or spam blogs. If you reblog on a side blog, let me know in the tags what the name of your blog is that you’re following me with.

Please don’t spam people with reblogs- limit 2 reblogs per blog per day.

At the end, each entry will be assigned a number and the winner will be chosen by a random number generator.

The giveaway ends Tuesday, August 1st, 2023.

The winners will be messaged and must respond with their full name and address within 24 hours, or a new winner will be chosen.

Please respect me and my rules, and have fun!

#item #summer 2023

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asahicore · 1 year

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cherry pits - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. dad!sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. Your alarmingly empty bank account forces you to find a last-minute summer job so that you can afford a trip with your friends. The extremely handsome customer that comes into the store just happens to be a young single dad who's renovating the old house next to yours. The tension that settles between the two of you as you start helping him fix up his house soon becomes unbearable, but it's all one-sided anyway, right?

(Spoiler: wrong.)

genre. DILF AUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!, neighbors au, s2l, summer au, slight age gap (reader is 21 and hoon 26), reader is so down bad over sunghoon its actually crazy but also extremely relatable cause this is sunghoon we're talking about, fluff and smut, sex gets freakyyy ngl

word count. 12.9k

a/n. hey sisters had no time to write anything this week so i am coming back (everybody boos) with a repost yayyy!!! i actually love this story idkw i just find it fun so i hope you guys will enjoy rereading / reading it !!!! as always let me know ur thoughts.. even if they're just incomprehensible screaming (bad or good).. im happy w anything ok bye!!!

You’ve always wondered about the ratio of cherry to pit. Such a big pit for so little flesh, isn’t it? Yet that’s never stopped you from biting into the small fruit, eating what you could and spitting out the unwanted part. You actually rather enjoy this whole process. Bite, eat, spit. You could repeat this with huge bowls of cherries at a time until they upset your stomach and you had to stop for your own good.

Bite, eat, spit is exactly what you’re doing when, with a trembling finger, you finally brave to open your banking app and check your balance. It’s the beginning of summer, and after two semesters of intense studying and too-much-coffee drinking, you think you deserve three long months of doing nothing but hanging out in your childhood bedroom and eating the food your parents buy and make. You’re especially looking forward to the vacation in Mexico you have planned with your friends at the end of August.

One look at your bank account and your dreams of white beaches and seas so blue you couldn’t tell them apart from the sky shatter around you, the sad, low numbers on the screen sneering at you mockingly. You were sure you had saved enough money from part-time jobs and generous relatives, but now you regret all of those night-outs and lazy takeaways. If you had cut down on those, maybe you wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of finding a summer job at the last minute, which you would definitely have to do if you wanted to eat something on that dear beach of yours and not just starve to death under the glaring sun.

That was it - tomorrow, you’d go and get a job. Today, however, you’d enjoy your last day of respite and eat some more cherries, or maybe make some jam and a pie so your parents wouldn’t chide you for eating them all, and then go pick some more from the three trees in your backyard. You’d sit outside, enjoying the warmth of the sun while you read or, if you couldn’t be asked, while you listened to the bustle of the old and worn-down house next door being renovated. You’re surprised someone had the courage to buy it and give it a new life, but you assume that’s the kind of courage that comes with having time and money.

Yesterday night, you’d heard a little girl playing outside until her mom called her in saying it was time to go, so you made up a story of your neighbors being newlyweds that had decided they’d had enough of the city and wanted to raise their daughter in a calmer town far from busy streets and loud honks. You could bring them some cherries, maybe in jam or pie form, as a housewarming gift.

Unfortunately, the day passed and you were too busy doing nothing to actually get around to baking, so you decided to do nothing some more and then go to bed, needing rest before your big job hunt.

You’d gravely overestimated the amount of job opportunities in your small hometown, only receiving apologetic looks from the store owners as they tell you they don’t need any help, or worse, already have someone. Damn those 16-year-olds who only get summer jobs so they can blow their whole pay in a couple weeks before school starts again. You, on the other hand, need that money for important things, like sipping on a cocktail at a bar with a seaview.

The local hardware store next to the train station is your saving grace. It looks quite small from the outside, but once you step inside, rows of lamps and mirrors in all shapes and sizes along with all kinds of household needs welcome you, followed by a section for gardening and pet caretaking. The basement is where all the paints and brushes were, as well as the more technical (technical to you, at least) products, like bolts and tools or kitchen and bathroom appliances.

A lot of people undertake renovations in their homes during their free time in the summer, so it’s important for the store to have their experts helping out customers in their dedicated aisles rather than working behind the till and restocking the shelves, which is what you will be doing for the next two months. The pay is slightly above minimum wage and with twenty-one hours of work a week, you’ll earn more than enough to enjoy your vacation. You start tomorrow.

Your co-workers are happy to welcome a new face into their team. They’re nice even if they have the tendency to drone on about different types of tools and the importance of choosing the right brush for the surface you’re painting, which you don’t particularly care about, but you think you might as well learn as much as you can during your time here; it might always come in handy later.

As you expected, it isn’t the most stimulating job ever, but you aren’t bored out of your mind either. You make small talk with customers as they explain their purchases, some more defensively than others, even if you didn’t ask. You make sure to restock the shelves correctly and sometimes ask for help when you feel your arms giving out after hours of carrying heavy stuff. When no one’s in, you like to rearrange the cute bathroom decorations so that they make a little rainbow of toothbrush and soap holders.

You were daydreaming about what you would do with your friends in Mexico and all the cherries you could eat there when a man so handsome you thought he was a part of your dream walks in. He doesn’t notice (or maybe he just ignores it, you’re not sure) your gawking and smiles at you, saying “hello” before turning his attention to the map which details where everything is stored at the entrance of the shop. You manage a small “h-hello” back that probably doesn’t even reach his ears, and you curse yourself for doing a poor job of greeting a customer just because said customer looks like he’s been pushed from the heavens above onto this unworthy earth by the other angels who were jealous of his beauty.

You stay put behind the counter the whole time he’s there to avoid the potential embarrassment of running into him in a random aisle and making a fool of yourself. There isn’t much to do anyway, so you rearrange the organic protein bars and chewing-gum at the counter and count all the money in the cash register to distract yourself. He doesn’t spend a very long time browsing and after twenty minutes, you see him approach with a cart full of the biggest cans of paint the store offers. It’s mostly white paint, but there are some browns and grays, and one of pink as well.

You thank God for those twenty minutes because they allowed you to get a hold of yourself so that you didn’t gape at him like a dead fish instead of scanning his articles, which is what you are very professionally and expertly doing. “That’s a lot of paint,” you comment lightheartedly, partly just to prove to yourself that you can also speak in front of this man.

“I know,” he chuckles, and it seems unfair that his voice should be just as attractive as his face. “The previous owners of the house I just bought had terrible taste in wallpaper and wall colors, so I have to repaint basically the whole house. Everything has to go, really. The floors, the furniture, the lights.”

“Sounds like you’re going to have a busy summer. That’ll be $132.76, please.”

“I’ll pay by card,” he says as he brings his wallet out from his back pocket and inserts his card into the reader, which allows you to look freely at his tanned arms and the veins that protrude here and there. He can’t be older than thirty, so there’s probably not that much of an age difference between the two of you, but damn does he look more mature in the sexiest way possible than all of the male college students you’re used to seeing on a daily basis. If anything, he reminds you of the hot young Linguistics professor your whole department likes to drool over.

The beep of the payment being accepted snaps you out of your daze. “And yeah, it’ll sure be a busy summer. I’ll need a lot of stuff from here, so you might have to get used to seeing me around,” he says with a smile that makes your heart skip a beat. There’s no way this walking Greek god of a man is actually flirting with you, but the glint in his eyes tells you it wasn’t just an off-hand comment.

“I could get used to that,” you surprise yourself by replying confidently, your smile mirroring his as pretty dimples appear on each side of his face.

You hand him the receipt and notice his eyes flickering down to your name tag before trapping yours in his gaze once again. You don’t think you ever want to look away. “I’ll see you around, Y/N,” he says and walks out with his cart and his tons of paint before you can say anything, lest ask his name, except for “see you.”

You take a deep breath in and another out when he’s out of sight, trying to calm your racing heart. You can’t wait to rave to the girls’ group chat about this, but one of your coworkers calls you for help and you have to put the handsome stranger to the back of your mind for a while.

—

That weekend, your parents ask you to do something about the cherries slowly starting to spoil in the fridge, so you put on your headphones and listen to an audiobook for entertainment, then get to pitting. It feels wrong to listen to The Kiss Quotient and its many smut scenes when your parents are coming and going out of the room, but what they don’t know won’t kill them; you just try to keep your reactions to a minimum during the extra spicy scenes.

Pitting cherries is an arduous task that always takes longer than you think it will, but you never complain about it. You’ve found the perfect technique of cutting them in half around the pit, turning the small fruit without squeezing it, extracting the stone and making sure it doesn’t get confused and end up in the bowl with the pitted cherries, all without tiring your wrists after ten minutes. A surprise pit in a cherry pie can add to the charm of a homemade dessert, but you’d rather not have to spit out five of them while trying to eat one slice.

You prepare a crumbly dough to make two classic American-style pies and fill four jars with cherry jam that you cook while the doughs rest. It’s almost offensive how small the cherries become as they cook, the amount that fills those four jars having filled eight before, but you decide there’s no reason to take it personally since the cherries don’t do it on purpose, and put the jars away to cool down. You roll out the first rested dough and despair for a bit when it keeps on falling apart, but it just makes it more satisfying once you have it perfectly thinly rolled out and covering the tin. The second one is a bit nicer to you and you only have to try rolling it out twice.

Two hours later, as the sun finally starts to relent and a cooler breeze flows through the air, the pies are all baked, cooled and ready to be eaten. You leave one for you and your parents to enjoy later, then head over to the next house to greet your new neighbors with the other pie. You knock and wait for a good thirty seconds before getting any sort of response, making you think no one’s in.

“Y/N?” a semi-familiar voice calls out, and your head whips in its direction. If this were a cartoon or a 2012 teen show, you’d probably drop the pie tin, but thankfully, your hands aren’t that sweaty, and the shock of the man from the other day at the store being your neighbor isn’t that great, because of course, of course he’s your neighbor. You’re Y/N, after all; the almighty gods above would never let you have a boring, uneventful summer. Of course the hot new man in town is your neighbor.

“Oh! Hi! Guess we’re neighbors. Ha,” you say with a clumsy smile, holding the tin over your forearm as your other hand shields your eyes from the sunlight so you can look at him without squinting your eyes.

“Neighbors?” he repeats as he joins you on the front porch, taking off his gloves dirtied by the mud and using the back of his hand to wipe off some sweat from his forehead. The sweat makes his hair stick to his face and there are small beads of it falling from his hairline down onto his white t-shirt. You detect the slightest of stubbles on his chin and upper lip, probably from not having shaved for just a day or two. He’s even tanner than when you saw him a few days ago, and his thick eyebrows form a straight line as he frowns in what you guess is tiredness and perhaps confusion from seeing you in regular clothes and holding a pie tin on his porch. For a second, you’re scared he might think you’re some kind of stalker, but you nod and tilt your head towards your house.

“Yep. That one just over there behind you.”

He turns his upper body to take a look at your house and nods slowly as he turns back around, gaze finding yours again like the other day at the store. You have no idea who this man is - hell, you don’t even know his name - but good lord are you attracted to him, especially when he gives you that unreadable smile that shows off his dimples.

“Huh. What a coincidence,” he says, and that could mean anything in the world, but you hope he means it in a good way. “I’m Sunghoon, by the way.” he adds, extending his hand for you to take, which you do, and the simple action of shaking his hand without eye contact ever breaking is enough to send shivers down your spine. Hopefully, this goes unnoticed by this Sunghoon.

A walking wet dream. That’s what this man is. He’s walked right out of your deepest Wattpad-induced fantasies and into the house next door. Probably doesn’t help that you’d been listening to literary porn just fifteen minutes prior.

“Is that pie?” he asks as he releases your hand.

“It is, cherry pie I made myself with cherries from our backyard. A housewarming gift, if you will. Here,” you reply, offering him the tin.

He takes it from your hands, the tips of his fingers slightly grazing yours, on purpose or not, you’re not sure. He lifts some of the aluminum covering the pie and peeks underneath, then hums appreciatively. “Thanks, it looks really good. I’ve been living off of ready-meals and casseroles from the neighbors, so this’ll be really nice.”

“Well we’ve got tons of cherries, so feel free to ask whenever you want some,” you offer, and he nods. A small silence settles between the two of you and you’re about to excuse yourself so it doesn’t get awkward when he invites you in, asking if you’d like to have a piece with him.

“If you want to, I mean. I was gonna take a break anyway,” he says somewhat coyly, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. You’re surprised to see him being anything else other than confident and self-assured, but it only makes him look cuter in your eyes.

“Sure,” you accept with a smile, letting him lead you inside the house.

“Sorry, it smells like paint all over the house. That’s why I was outside, doing some gardening while I aired the house out,” he explains. “Let me just get some plates and a knife out. And something for us to drink. Do you want to drink something? I’ve got water, or some iced tea or lemonade. The grandma across the street made some for me,” he says all at once, and you suppress a giggle at his sudden nervous behavior.

“Sunghoon?”

“Yeah?” he responds almost immediately, turning to you just as you both reach the kitchen.

“Just water is fine.”

A shy smile makes his dimples appear once again as he nods. “Okay, sounds good.” You help him carry everything to the back porch and set down the glasses and a jug of water on a table with two chairs around it.

“The porches are the only parts I won’t have to fix up too much, for some reason.”

“You’re going to redo the whole house yourself?” you ask, surprised, as you pour two glasses of water and he serves you a slice of cherry pie (“there might be some stray cherry pits, so be careful,” you warn as he sets a slice on his plate).

“A lot of it, yeah, but I’ve also got some people to help out. My dad’s a carpenter so I know my way around these things, but I also know it’s better and faster to have more than one man on the job, so some guys he works with come a couple times a week.”

“Yeah, with the state this house is in, you’d need more than a summer if you did everything yourself,” you comment, and he chuckles, agreeing. “My friends and I used to make stories about how this place is haunted, you know,” you say jokingly.

“Please don’t jinx my house from the get-go,” he says, making you laugh.

“Sorry, sorry. It’ll be nice seeing it all fixed-up, actually.”

“Have you lived here long?” he asks, looking at you thoughtfully as he takes another bite of the pie. “This is really good, by the way.”

“Thanks. And yeah, my whole life. I go away when semester starts but come back for the holidays and the summer.”

“So you're a student?”

“Yeah, just at the state university a few hours away. Not too far away that it’s a hassle traveling back, but not too close that I go home every weekend. What about you, what do you do?”

You wait for his answer while he swallows his mouthful and take another bite yourself. “I teach,” he starts as he dabs the corners of his lips with a napkin. “Fifth graders, on the other side of town. I used to live in a small apartment near the school I work at but it’s nicer, having more space. I saved enough money to buy this house and fix it up, so here I am now,” he says, gesturing to the house and the garden with his arms.

You notice his use of the first person pronoun when he talks about where he used to live and his house now, which makes you wonder if it’s just him, even though you were sure you heard a woman and a young girl’s voices the other day. Surely, if he wasn’t single, he wouldn’t have invited you in or given you flirtatious looks, right? Or were you reading totally wrong into this and he was just an exceptionally friendly person?

You put these questions to the side and continue chatting with Sunghoon, letting the subject of his marital status come up on its own during your conversation. And indeed, you get your answer when he tells you about the different parts of the house he plans on having, one of them being a bedroom for his daughter.

“Oh, so you have a daughter? How old is she?” you ask as you take a sip of water, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. Considering his age, you expect that his child will be one, two years old max, so his answer makes you almost choke on your drink.

“She’s turning eight this summer.”

“Eight?” you repeat as you set your glass down, looking at him wide-eyed. So much for nonchalance. “But you’re so-”

“Young? Yeah, I know,” he interrupts with a knowing smile, probably used to this kind of reaction. “I’m 26,” he adds, then watches as you do the simple math in your head. When you turn to him with a surprised look, he answers your question before you’ve even asked it. “Yep, I had her when I was 18.”

“Wow,” is all you can say. “Can I ask what happened?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s nothing extraordinary or anything. I was in my last year of high school, and I got my girlfriend at the time pregnant. We’d only been dating four months but her parents wouldn’t let her get an abortion. They’re really religious. They took care of our baby, with the help of my parents, while I went to community college and she retook senior year since she had to drop out halfway through the year. No, we’re not together anymore, if you’re wondering,” he says, catching you off guard, as if he’d read your thoughts.

He chuckles before sighing and continues. “If none of this had happened, we’d probably have broken up before going off to college and proceeded to forget about each other. We started out living with her parents, then got that small apartment I told you about when she found a job. We’re not on bad terms by any means, but we’ve just not been in love since Chaeryeong turned 2, probably. We’ve been more roommates than a couple for the past six years. And you know, we kept on living together for Chaer mainly, but she’s found a new boyfriend and I wanted to have my own place. Which has led me here.”

You nod slowly, letting the whole story sink in. “You’re both handling this situation really maturely, it sounds like. I’ve heard of so many teenage parents fighting all the time and not taking care of their kids properly.”

“She’s already got a weird parental situation, it’s the least we can do for her to behave like adults, you know.”

“Right, of course,” you say, nodding again. Your hot new neighbor was actually a DILF, you realized a bit inappropriately, perhaps. Cherry on top.

He tells you a bit more about his daughter and you keep talking until your dad calls you, asking you why you’re not home at dinner time, and you only notice then how long you’ve been sitting there with Sunghoon, just talking. You tell him you feel bad for taking up so much of his time but he shakes your apologies off.

“It was my pleasure, really. And thanks again for the pie, I think Chaer will love it.”

He walks you to the front door and calls out your name after you’ve waved goodbye and started walking. You didn’t know you had been expecting him to do anything until you heard the hopeful tone in your own voice. “Yeah?”

“You any good with kids?” he asks, leaning against the doorway with crossed arms and a smirk that makes your heart flutter.

Although you’ve only got one older brother, you have younger cousins as well as older ones that have babies of their own, so you’re not a complete stranger to kids, but more importantly, you like them. They have the world to learn, but they say surprisingly smart things and have really cute faces.

“I’d say that I am, yeah,” you reply, a smile growing on your face, mirroring his expression.

“Good,” he says, and pauses a second for good measure. “I’ll see you later.”

“See you later, Sunghoon,” you say as you turn back and head to your house, letting him enjoy the view of you walking away.

On the short way home, you realize that you completely have the hots for your neighbor, although you probably knew that before. Is it twisted that you like him more now that you know he’s got a kid? Probably a little bit, but you’re not going to fight it. He’s single, after all. And not even thirty. A five-year gap isn’t unheard of.

Your parents ask you where you’ve been as you set the table and get ready for dinner. “Just over at our new neighbor’s house to give him some pie and say hi,” you say as you toss the salad in its bowl, spreading the dressing evenly.

“Ooh, the neighbor,” your mother echoes knowingly, wiggling her eyebrows, and steals a leaf of lettuce when it falls from the bowl because of your vigorous tossing. “We should have him over at some point, welcome him into the neighborhood. I’ve seen him a bit, you know. Out painting on his front porch or when he was in his garden the same time as me. He’s a very attractive young man,” she says, lowering her voice so your dad doesn’t hear even though he’s outside grilling the meat. “Do you know how old he is? Looks a bit young for a homeowner to me, but who knows what young people are up to these days.

“He’s twenty-six, and he’s saved a lot of money. Plus, I don’t think that house was very expensive. From what he’s told me, the renovations will basically cost as much as the house itself. He’s also got a kid.”

“Aw, must be a cute baby,” she says as your father walks in, carrying a tray of steaming barbecued steaks and potatoes.

“She’s eight,” you say bluntly, causing them both to look at you with wide eyes.

“Oh, right, then. Happens,” your mother says, bringing her glass of water to her lips and taking a sip from it. “Is he still with the mother?”

“They broke up a while ago, but they’re on good terms,” you say, and your mom nods slowly at the information.

“So, he’s single, huh?” she says, trying to hide her smile, earning herself a groan from your dad and a chuckle from you.

“C’mon, mom!”

“What? You can’t deny that he’s attractive, and he’s single. Plus, you two must get along well if you spent a couple hours talking. Sure, he’s got a kid, but you love those, don’t you?”

“Mom, you of all people would know kids aren’t pets. Dating someone with an eight-year-old isn’t the same as dating someone with a cat.

“No one’s asking you to be that girl’s mom,” she says, dishing out some meat for the three of you. “I’d go get that man, if I were you.”

Your dad shakes his head and you eat your food as you listen to them bickering with a smile. You think about what your mother said - should you go and get Sunghoon? Your heart says yes, but your brain is a bit more reluctant. Another part of your body, lower down there, is screaming ‘yes’ at you.

He does live right by, after all.

That night, you FaceTime your roommate and best friend from college and bring her up to date about ‘the hot man from the store the other day.’ She paints her toenails but listens intently as she always does when you talk about boys, humming and chuckling here and there.

“God, Y/N, I didn’t know you had daddy issues, of all things.”

You gasp fake-dramatically. “Excuse me, I do not! I was attracted to him before I knew he was a dad, I’ll let you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let me know when you guys actually hook up, I’m curious whether older men are actually better,” she says, making you scoff.

“I hope he is. I’m very much tired of those boys that don’t know where the clit is and use too much tongue.”

“You know, when I complain to my mom about guys, she always tells me to wait it out a few years. She says they get more mature and, well, she didn’t say that outright, but she very heavily implied that the sex is much, much better. Kinda gross hearing it from her, but it’s good information.”

You hum. “Well, he’s not that much older… But let’s hope that it still makes a difference,” you say, and then move on to another topic.

—

One thing that eating cherries has taught you is that if you want to enjoy eating the sweet flesh, you’ll need to deal with the pit as well. Ever the grand philosopher, you realized soon enough that this was applicable to real life and not just your favorite fruit. Wanna get a good grade on your test? Gotta study for it. Wanna go on holiday to Mexico? Gotta find a summer job and earn money.

Wanna make your way to Sunghoon’s bed? Gotta seduce him.

Over the following days, you stand behind the counter at the hardware store, elbow perched on the hard surface, head resting on your palm and vision fuzzy as you daydream about your next encounter with Sunghoon. More often than not, a customer will clear their throat to awkwardly let you know of their presence and you’ll have to exchange your imagined dialogue with Sunghoon for a quick apology and some pleasantries; more often than not, a coworker will call out your name for some help just as you get to the juicy part of your reverie. In those moments, you always feel like you’ve been caught red-handed watching softcore porn, even if no one knows the last thing about what goes on in your head, nor do they care.

Much like the first time he walked into the store, when he does again on a Thursday morning, you think your daydreams have just gone too far and you’re now hallucinating. But, lo and behold, this is the true Park Sunghoon in the flesh, and he smiles and waves at you as he strides in before disappearing behind one of the many aisles.

You spend the next fifteen minutes going over witty conversation starters that will surely make him fall for you, only for you to stutter out a “h-hi, Sunghoon,” when he finally reaches the counter.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he jokes, and you laugh a bit too hard for a comment that isn’t that funny.

“How are the renovations going?” you ask as you scan his articles - some more paint and brushes, lots of tile glue, a bunch of nails and two different sizes of turnscrews. He frowns in concentration at the snacks next to the counter until he caves in and gets a chocolate protein bar that’s more sugar than protein.

“Pretty okay,” he starts. “I’m in a bit of a rush, cause Chaer is already coming in two weeks and I need to have finished at least the interior by that time. My dad’s friends helped me get the roof done, so that’s good, but now they’re all busy with other sites so it's just me. Right now I’m redoing the tiles in the bathrooms. You need so much damn glue,” he says with a chuckle.

You think for a second, then timidly offer, “I could help out, you know. If you needed me to.”

He looks at you with raised eyebrows, halfway through getting his card out of his wallet. “Really?”

“I mean, I don’t have much experience with this kinda stuff, but I’ve picked up a few things here and there from working here. If it saves you time, I could do the easy things. This job isn’t particularly physically demanding so I’ve still got energy at the end of the day. That’s $78.96, please.”

A small smile appears on his face as he inserts his card into the reader. He punches in his code and then returns your gaze. “That could be nice, actually.”

And that’s how you find yourself over at Sunghoon’s house in denim shorts and your dad’s old t-shirts almost everyday for the next two weeks, helping him fix up the old two-storey home. He measures out the perfect length for wood planks or marble tiles that you assist him in fastening to the floors of different rooms and he fixes holes in walls that you paint over afterwards. Sometimes on your breaks, you share a bowl of cherries that you brought from your garden. (One morning, you tried to make cherry juice out of them, but when after almost two hours of pitting the liquid barely filled a glass, you decided that it was too much effort and that you’d keep on just eating them and baking the occasional pie.) You asked him to tell you what each of the rooms upstairs would be and you realized that the window of his room faced yours directly. The blinds were down as they had always been, so you hadn’t known what the room would be.

“I’ve been sleeping on the couch since I haven’t gotten around to fixing up this room yet. Guess I should get to it, though,” he says, giving you a look that blurs the meaning of his words so that you’re not sure what he’s implying, which happens a bit too often with Sunghoon.

And you’d think that spending the better part of two weeks with the current man of your dreams would be amazing, right?

Wrong. It’s unbearable.

Maybe that’s exaggerating it - it’s mostly fun, and sometimes unbearable. Usually, you’re an avid fan of sexual tension, especially with attractive men like Sunghoon. Lingering gazes, eye contacts when there shouldn’t be any, remarks with a deeper meaning that they let on, barely-there touches on the back of your hand or on your waist that manage to take your breath away. These are all very fine things that keep your heart bouncing and a blush on your cheeks, but they are supposed to amount to something more in the end. Maybe you’re impatient, but after two weeks of sending sex through your eyes to Sunghoon, you get the feeling that he doesn’t reciprocate your desire. One afternoon, you’d made sure to go and sunbathe in your bikini at the exact moment he was doing some work outside, and even then, he merely gave your body a one-over and disappeared a few minutes later inside his house. When he came back about ten minutes later, he could still barely look at you.

At the same time, there’s no way he doesn’t know what he’s doing when he stands close behind you, letting you feel the warmth of his chest against your back, big, rough hands enveloping yours as he demonstrates how to cut a plank of wood with the machine. There’s no way the way he smirks when the action turns you into a stammering mess is innocent, either.

Yet nothing happens. The tension is thick enough to be cut with a knife, but maybe Sunghoon hasn’t bought cutlery yet. The air is already heavy from the heat and the relentlessness of the sun, but this thing between you and him makes it almost suffocating, in somehow the best yet worst way possible. You’re this close to simply throwing your naked body at him, and it doesn’t help that you see his flexing, working muscles and beads of sweat on his hairline everyday. On the days he wears shorts, which is most days, all you can think of is getting off on his thick thighs, of his hands holding you tightly by the waist, of the way he’d look at you, eyes clouded over, of the words he’d whisper in your-

Your phone buzzes, interrupting you in your horny downward spiral. It’s your dear mother telling you to come home for dinner. As you pick up your phone, a second buzz. Ask Sunghoon if he wants to eat with us.

You find him in his bedroom, adding the last touches to the walls. “I think I’ll be able to sleep here starting tomorrow night. I just need to go buy a bed,” he says when he sees your figure standing in the doorway.

“We can go together if you want,” you blurt before you can stop yourself. Hoping it’ll make you seem less weird, you add, “I’ve got really good taste in furniture.”

“Is that so?” he questions, turning to you with a smile. “I’d appreciate the second pair of eyes, actually. There’s a lot of things I need to get.”

“Yeah, I didn’t wanna comment on it, but I think you’ll end up needing more than a couch, a plastic dining table and two chairs,” you tease, making him roll his eyes lightheartedly. “We can go to that huge second-hand store they have just outside of town. You’ll be surprised how good - and cheap - the furniture is there.”

“Sounds good,” he nods, and checks his watch. “Are you going home?”

“I am. My mom’s invited you over for dinner, if you’d like,” you say, tilting your head at him.

He raises his eyebrows in delighted surprise. “I’d love to. Just need to shower first.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go home, just come over whenever you’re ready.” You exchange quick see you laters and you head home, taking a shower yourself and making sure to use your best-smelling body lotion.

Sunghoon arrives half an hour later with a bouquet of roses in his hands and an award-winning smile on his face. You let him in and he greets your parents, offering your mother the bouquet. “Sorry I took so much time getting here, I wanted to pick these out as a thank you.”

You can tell your mother is pleased to the heavens as she waves him off, leading him inside your house. “That’s awfully nice of you, Mr Park-”

“Call me Sunghoon, please,” he says with a warm smile.

“Right, Sunghoon. And no worries, you’re just on time. Please, sit.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Oh, no, you’re working all day fixing up that house, just sit and relax. We’re very happy to have you over, aren’t we?” your mother says, sending a very obvious smile your way, which makes you furrow your eyebrows and shake your head lightly at her, silently telling her to shut up. Sunghoon chuckles at the exchange but says nothing and you want to bury yourself and your mother ten feet underground.

Sunghoon sits across from you at the dinner table, which allows you to stare unabashedly at him as he works his charm on your parents. He’s the neighbor, so technically, he’s not a boyfriend you brought home to meet them, but still, you can’t help but compare him to those few boys that you did bring home. None of them were a disaster, but none of them went as smoothly as this, either. There were always some awkward silences and dry chuckles with your past boyfriends, but Sunghoon clearly knows how to make parents happy. Maybe because he lived with his ex’s parents for so long, or maybe because he’s a parent himself. Either way, it only adds to your desire to take all of his clothes and let him rail you into next week. Too bad he clearly doesn’t feel the same way, you remind yourself with an audible sigh, which makes him look curiously at you, but you brush it off with a smile.

You watch as he accepts a beer, compliments the food and the house, talks football with your dad, accepts another beer, and shares teaching anecdotes with your mom, who herself is an elementary school teacher. You jump in every now and then when you have something witty to add or someone asks your opinion on something, but most of the time, you sit back and enjoy, happy that everything is going well.

You bring out your infamous cherry pie that you’d baked the previous day along with some vanilla ice cream for dessert, and smile when Sunghoon tells you how much he’d been waiting to have some of it again, trying not to blush as his gaze stays focused on yours for a second too long. Thankfully, your parents don’t notice, too busy cutting themselves a slice.

He stays for another hour or so, until the sun has set and the streetlamps and the moonlight are the only things keeping the world visible. Your mom forces him to accept tupperwares full of leftovers from the night and makes him promise to come back with his daughter. Sneakily, she tells you to help him carry the tupperwares home even though he’s more than able to do it himself, then hugs him goodbye, hurrying you out of the door.

Sunghoon hasn’t yet changed the lightbulbs to more efficient ones, so his kitchen bathes in the faint glow of the overhead lighting as you put away the leftovers in his fridge. He stands a bit to your right close behind you, closer than needed to simply hand you the tupperwares he was holding. When everything is stored, you turn around, but you’re trapped between his body and his arm that holds the fridge door open. With his free hand, he takes you by the waist and pulls you gently towards him. “Careful,” he says so quietly, it’s almost a whisper, and closes the fridge door behind you.

He’s never been this forward with you, and even though you’ve fantasized many times about this exact moment, now that it’s really happening, you don’t know what to do except to search for an explanation in his eyes. His eyes that are looking right into yours and are a bit clouded over, from the alcohol or the proximity between the two of you or both, you don’t know, but that also have the twinkle of a smile in them.

His lips are close enough to kiss, you think, and as if on cue, his gaze drifts down to your slightly parted lips. “You’re very pretty, Y/N,” he says, before sealing your lips with his own. You respond immediately to his kiss - you’ve thought too much about it to stand there and do nothing - but it’s all so slow and so soft that you’re not sure if it’s actually happening, so dreamlike it all feels.

You’re called back to reality when his other hand finds your waist, your own hands coming up to his shoulders before one of them snakes its way to the nape of his neck, tugging lightly at his hair. This seems to change something in Sunghoon, who all of a sudden tightens his hold on your waist, his arms wrapping around it to bring you closer to him. His kiss gets faster and deeper too, and, to your surprise but not your distaste, a bit desperate. You’re happy if you have on him half of the power he has on you. You taste sweet vanilla ice cream and tangy beer on his tongue, and it’s not at all unpleasant. It makes you want to eat cherries together so you can then taste them in his kiss.

A lustful sigh escapes your lips and then the warmth disappears all at once. Sunghoon looks at you like you just woke him up from a deep slumber and takes a step back away from you. You call out for him worriedly and the sound of his name seems to make him think he did something terribly wrong.

“I-I’m sorry, Y/N, I don’t know what came over me. We shouldn’t do this, it’s not- I shouldn’t have done that,” he sighs, looking defeatedly at the ground.

“Why?” you ask quietly, almost inaudible.

“You should go home,” he snaps, then closes his eyes as if in pain, cringing at his harsh tone. “I’m sorry. I think you should go home, it’s getting late,” he repeats, softer this time, but the words still sting.

“O-okay,” you say to the floor, already feeling tears well up in your eyes. You feel like you just got rejected by your high school crush, and the humiliation makes you want to crawl into a hole and die.

Sunghoon sighs again. “I’ll let you know tomorrow about the furniture shopping, yeah? Chaeryeong is coming in the morning so we can go with her.”

“O-okay,” you repeat, surprised he still wants to do that with you. “Good night, Sunghoon,” you say without looking at him and scurry out of his house.

“Good night, Y/N,” Sunghoon answers to the emptiness after you’ve left, touching his lips with the tips of his fingers and feeling the ghost of your kiss there.

—

Truth be told, you haven’t always loved cherries. Because of a heinous lie your older brother had made you believe when you were just six years old, you hadn’t eaten cherries for two summers in a row. It was the summer your parents had finally allowed you to eat cherries as they came from the trees in your backyard - beforehand, they’d been too scared that you’d choke on the pit or swallow it unknowingly, and had always prepared purées or other forms that cherries can take for you to eat, so to be finally handed the small fruit and told “go ahead, try it,” felt like an honor.

A simple “don’t forget to spit out the pit” from your mother had sufficed for you to be careful, and yet, your brother had thought a fear tactic would be more effective. “If you swallow it, a tree will grow inside your belly and make you puke out cherries,” he’d lied when it was just the two of you at the outdoor table.

“Really?” you asked him in disbelief, horror written all over your face as you looked at the seemingly harmless yet deadly fruit in your hand. You’d already eaten two and were in the middle of eating a third; your brother nodding ‘yes’ in response was all it took for you to spit out the cherry furiously and immediately start sobbing, afraid you’d swallowed one even though all three pits were right there on the table, a guarantee that no unwanted flora would grow inside of you.

Your mother rushed outside at the sound of your wailing and quickly put two and two together when she saw your brother laughing uncontrollably while you hid your face in your hands, desolately imagining your future as a walking cherry tree. She held you tight in her arms as she told your brother off and reassured you that he was just playing a stupid prank on you. Still, the simple thought of swallowing a pit had terrified you and you were unable to eat cherries for the remainder of the summer and the one after that.

This is the story you tell Chaeryeong and her dad as the three of you sit outside together, making them laugh - although, a few minutes later, when Sunghoon is gone to the bathroom away, Chaer leans over the table and whispers, “It’s not true, is it?” so you reassure her that you’ve eaten cherries your whole life and have never had one single root take life in your tummy.

It’s been a bit over a week after you shared that kiss in his kitchen, and the awkward atmosphere is just starting to fade. You’re glad he didn’t ignore you after that night, even if pretending nothing happened when both of you are very aware that something did happen is only the slightly better alternative. It’s a refreshing change from boys that sleep with you and then act like you don’t exist, for sure.

The kiss hasn’t done anything to burst the tension; if anything, it’s made it even more electric. You catch him looking at your lips more than once and you wonder why he still acts the same way as before when he’s made it very clear he didn’t think kissing you was a good idea. Catching him shirtless one night in his bedroom doesn’t help, and neither does him catching you staring at him - you’d quickly shut the curtains, but it was too late, and he’d seen you ogling his toned chest and abs.

At least, the fact that Chaeryeong is here forces a bubbly atmosphere upon you, and you hope you’re not crazy when you notice him fondly looking at the both of you interacting. Chaer is an outgoing little girl and seems to have liked you as soon as you complimented the toy puppy in her hand, saying you used to have the same and it was your favorite.

The day you went food shopping was practically hell to get through. One evening, you were holding onto Sunghoon for dear life, finally kissing him, and the next afternoon, you were browsing through the endless aisles of your local IKEA, holding his daughter’s hand and pretending like you hadn’t kissed her daddy.

When it got to the bedroom part of the store, you and Chaer decided to try all the mattresses and find the most comfortable one. You usually were never one for seating and laying on random beds in stores, but there was a kid with you, so you were sure it’d be fine. When you found the one you liked most, you looked up at Sunghoon from your position and said, “This one’s pretty good, Sunghoon.” His immediately reddening cheeks told you everything you needed to know and you quickly sat up, clearing your throat. He tested the mattress by pushing his palm against it and muttered a “yeah, it’s pretty good” before scribbling down the number of the mattress onto the small sheet of paper customers use to remember which products they wanted.

Of course, now that Chaer is with him and most of the work in the house is done, save for some minor things that Sunghoon can finish up on his own, you spend a lot less time together. You hate that you miss him so much. You miss the way he makes you feel, like your whole body is on fire with just one look or one touch, the way his stupid jokes make you laugh or how endeared he looks when he talks about his daughter. Seeing him with her only adds to your stupid crush - he’s doting, protective and caring, makes sure she has everything to be happy and manages to treat her at once like the kid that she is but also like a human that has opinions and feelings. He’s a really good dad, and that does nothing whatsoever to stop your DILF fantasies, although now, it’s really Sunghoon that you want, and the fact that he’s a dad isn’t a dealbreaker, it just makes him that much better.

You hate that you miss him, and yet being with him is somehow worse, because you can’t do any of the things you want to do. You fall asleep one two many nights dreaming about his lips and how nice it’d be to feel them again - on your lips, on your neck, everywhere. You want to feel him everywhere, and this longing lust is starting to drive you crazy. You’d never wanted anyone this much.

He invites you over for dinner one night, and the look he gives you when he opens the door sends a shiver right down your spine. “Hi, Y/N.”

“Hi, Sunghoon.”

He leads you into the kitchen with a hand on your waist, even though you’ve been in his house many times before and need no assistance getting there. A small, horny voice at the back of your head tells you that tonight may be the night, but you quickly shut it down, not wanting to get your hopes up all on your own.

Sunghoon serves you a glass of red wine, and you ask him what the occasion is. “Just to celebrate the house being almost done,” he answers with a smile.

Dinner would have gone as usual if Sunghoon wasn’t practically staring you down the whole time, eyes full of something you can’t quite put your finger on and that drives you crazy. His gaze lingers on you every time you speak, and he punctuates the syllables of your name like he’s trying to get a feel for them on his tongue.

Your heart is pounding in your chest when the clock strikes nine p.m. and it’s time for Chaeryeong to go to bed - you don’t know if you’ll be able to handle being alone with Sunghoon, and you might have to make a run for it, Cinderella-style.

Chaer goes to the bathroom to wash up and change into her pajamas, and when she comes back, she asks - no, demands - that you’re the one who tucks her in, and who are you to say no to the cutest little girl on Earth? She holds you by the pinky as she drags you up the stairs to her room then buries herself in her covers, tapping on the bed next to her body for you to sit there. “Okay, now we can talk without Dad around,” she says all business-like.

She tells you about the boys at her school and the birthday party she went to last week and the latest drama with her friends. The both of you are too busy chatting and giggling to hear footsteps coming up the stairs and stopping at her door, hiding behind the wall. After ten minutes, she yawns loudly and says, “Can you call Dad? I think he’ll be sad if he doesn’t wish me good night.”

“Of course,” you reply and kiss her on the forehead, wishing her a good night yourself. You’re only half-surprised to find Sunghoon at the doorway, waiting for his cue.

“Wait up for me, yeah? I’ll just be a minute,” he says, that smile still on his lips, that smile that keeps you hoping.

“Okay,” you whisper, and head downstairs, nervously taking a sip from your wine glass as you wait for him on the living room couch.

He is indeed back in a very short time, too short a time for your nerves to settle, so when he sits down close to you on the couch, body turned towards yours, you can feel your heart in your throat. He traces the rim of his glass with the tip of his pointer finger and you both watch the slow movement for a bit, a heavy silence hanging over both of your heads. You wait for him to talk because you’re too scared of what you might say if you start the conversation.

“Y/N, I’ve been thinking,” he starts shakily, “about um, our kiss, the other day-”

“Oh, we don’t need to talk about that,” you quickly interrupt, waving your hand in dismissal at him. “You made it clear you didn’t like it-”

“No, that’s the thing-”

“And that you thought it was a bad idea-”

“No, just listen-”

“So let’s just forget about it, and-”

“Y/N,” Sunghoon says in a stern voice, raising his tone just enough to make you stop in your rambling.

“Yeah?” you look up at him, eyes wide open. Expecting, as always.

“I haven’t once stopped thinking about that kiss,” he says, sounding out-of-breath. “I handled it awfully, and I’m so sorry that I made you feel like I didn’t like it, because, God, I liked it. A lot,” he chuckles. “Maybe even too much.”

There they are, the words you’ve been dying to hear. Yet all you can say is a stupid “Oh.”

“I just… I was tipsy, and Chaeryeong was coming the next morning, and I panicked. I didn’t know what to do for the rest of the week, and you didn’t say anything, so I didn’t, either. But I can’t pretend like it isn’t there.”

“Like what isn’t there?” you echo, voice almost low as a whisper.

“You know… this,” he replies, voice as low as yours. Slowly, one of his hands comes up to trace your jawline. You release a shaky breath as you set your wine glass on the coffee table and rest your hand on his knee.

“Are you sure about this? ‘Cause if you tell me that you want me… then I’ll be all yours, Sunghoon,” you murmur, hands slowly sliding up his thigh. He takes you by the wrist and puts your hand right on top of his already growing erection, letting you know exactly how he feels about you.

“God, can’t you see what you do to me? I want you so bad, Y/N,” he almost growls, and with that, his lips are on yours, trapping you into a kiss far hungrier and more ferocious than the previous kiss, your mutual intentions finally laid out in front of you for you both to see.

Sunghoon wastes no time as he grabs you by the waist and brings you to his lap, sitting you on top of his crotch so that you can feel his hardening cock against your core. The kiss turns desperate in mere seconds, and you’re relieved to see that Sunghoon seems to have been waiting for this as long and with as much ardor as you have. Your hands are fisting his hair, tugging almost harshly, while his hands roam the expanse of your back until they settle on your ass, grabbing at it to press you closer to him. You can’t stop yourself from moaning into his mouth when his erection rubs over your core in just the right way, and he takes that opportunity to add tongue to the kiss, deepening it.

You start to grind yourself against him, which he helps you do by slightly rutting his hips into yours and bringing your ass closer at every movement. Quickly, you fall into a rhythm so perfect and that feels so good, you think you might explode right then and there. Forget riding his thigh, this is infinitely better.

Needing to catch your breath, you pull away from the kiss, but your lips find his jaw immediately and you start pressing wet, needy kisses there and down his neck, sucking in some spots so that light bruises appear. “Fuck, Y/N, that feels so nice,” he breathes, eyes shut closed. His scent drives you crazy, and his small praise makes you double down on your actions, almost biting the soft skin of his neck.

As you continue kissing him there, occasionally returning to his lips for more, his hands roam your thighs and then up your back, snaking themselves under your t-shirt and finding the clasp of your bra, quickly doing away with it. He pulls away just so he can help you out of your top and takes your bra off of you, hands caressing your sides as he admires your half-naked body in all its glory. You take his hands and bring them to your chest, resting your hands on top of his as you continue grinding onto him and let him play with your boobs. “You’re so fucking hot,” he practically moans, making you chuckle. You reach for the hem of his t-shirt, because it’s only fair that you get to see him too, and you bite back a moan when he uses the absence of your hands on his to pinch your nipples lightly, then takes one in his mouth, catching you off-guard. You forget all about your plan of undressing him as his tongue flicks at the perked bud, your hands finding his hair again as you moan unabashedly.

“S-Sunghoon,” you breathe, the combined feelings of his now fully hard cock pressing against your clothed but soaking cunt and of his warm mouth around your nipples really getting to your head and making you see stars, so that all you can say is his name. “Please,” you beg, you’re not sure what for. Mercy, perhaps. Or release.

“Please what, baby?” he asks, and the nickname goes straight to your core.

“I don’t- just, please, Sunghoon, please,” you say incoherently, making him chuckle.

“Okay,” he says as if he can read your mind, and you think he actually does when he lays you down on the couch, fingers finding the zipper of your shorts. He unbuttons them and slides them down your legs along with your soaked panties. He makes sure they’re fully off of your body before running his palms up both of your legs, from your ankles to your hips.

“Don’t tease, please,” you plead, too desperate for him to take his time.

“As you wish, princess,” he smirks, and brings a finger to your folds, sliding it down to gather some slick before pushing it inside your hole. Your back arches as an instant response to his touch and you let out a small whine, already craving for more. “Fuck, so wet, and all for me, yeah?” he questions, his eyes not once leaving your glistening pussy.

“Yes,” you breathe out, mind too fuzzy to produce a longer sentence.

“That’s a good girl,” he coos, and adds another finger, pushing all three of his knuckles in and massaging your sweet spot as soon as he finds it. When he’s found a rhythm for his motions, he finally looks up at you and curses himself for not having watched your face earlier. Head tilted back in pleasure, mouth agape as your breathing gets more and more irregular and eyebrows scrunched together, you look like the definition of sex, and it takes everything in Sunghoon to not start touching himself.

He forces himself to look away from you only to focus back on your pussy and notices your swollen clit that is begging for attention. He licks it tentatively, and when your back arches at the feeling of his tongue on you, he dives in completely, licking a stripe up your folds before wrapping his lips around the bud and sucking at it like he did with your nipples earlier. The pace at which his fingers are pumping out of you quickens and you’re pulling so hard at his hair, you think you might rip some strands off. You feel yourself getting close, and you’re reminded of all those frustrating encounters with college boys where they stopped right before you came, so you can’t stop yourself as you desperately chant “oh my God please don’t stop please don’t stop,” not even noticing the way you’re holding his head down against your clit and bucking your hips into his face.

Your orgasm hits you like a truck - this is probably the first one you’ve received from someone other than your own hand or your vibrator in the past year and a half. It takes your breath away, and you’re left gasping for air for a good thirty seconds, your mind reeling from the intensity of such pleasure. When you calm down, you lift your head to look at Sunghoon who’s already watching you with a grin on his face, your slick coating his chin and mouth.

You plop your head back down with a groan when realization hits you. “I’m sor-”

“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Sunghoon commands, hands rubbing your still-trembling thighs. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he marvels, and you can’t help but giggle.

“Really?”

“Really.”

After another couple of seconds, you sit up on the couch and send Sunghoon a mischievous look. My turn, you think, and if his smile is any indicator then he seems to have understood. “Let me thank you,” you say, gesturing at him to sit up himself as you lower yourself to your knees on the couch in front of him.

You look up at him from between his thighs then unclasp his belt and undo his jeans. He lets out a shaky breath and says, “You don’t need to do this, you know-”

“Don’t be a gentleman, Sunghoon. I want to do this and I know you want it too. It’s pretty obvious,” you tease as you run your hand over his erection, watching in delight as his eyebrows furrow and his eyes close. “Now help me get these off of you.” He nods and raises his hips so you can take his jeans and underwear off, imitating his actions from before as you take your time to get them over his ankles and caressing his legs until they reach his crotch, watching as he takes his t-shirt off as well so that you can finally see him entirely. You’d caught glimpse of him shirtless before as he worked in his garden, but the sight still manages to take your breath away. Taut muscles and sun-tanned skin, laid bare right before you. This is what they mean by sculpted like a Greek god, you think.

You haven’t done anything, yet his head is already laid back against the top of the couch, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he gulps in expectation and chest rising visibly at every intake of breath. You must’ve saved a thousand souls in your previous life to be deserving of such an image.

You spit in your palm before taking him, starting out by slowly moving your hand up and down his shaft, then rubbing small circles against his tip, the small moan-like sighs that leave his lips letting you know you’re doing a good job. You gather some saliva in your mouth and spit on his length to add some lubricant and smirk when he lets out a low fuck. You bring your head closer and lick his balls, taking one at a time in your mouth and sucking very gently, making the volume of his moans increase. “Just like- fuck, just like that, Y/N.”

You then lick a long stripe up his cock and swirl your tongue around his tip when you reach it, humming at the taste of precum there. Sunghoon gathers your hair in a makeshift ponytail so it doesn’t get in your way, and finally looks down at you, blown away by the beautiful sight of your flushed cheeks and your mouth around his cock. He groans when you take him deeper and unconsciously bucks his hips into your throat, making you gag around him. He loves that feeling but doesn’t want to hurt you so he grabs your face and makes you look up at him, lust and worry written all over his face as he apologizes, but you quickly stop him. “It’s okay, I like it. You can do it again,” you say, and smile before wrapping your lips around him once more.

“Fuck, are you sure?” he asks and you hum, sending vibrations all over his body.

“God, o-okay,” he says, in disbelief that you’re okay with him practically fucking your throat and even liking it. And you do like it - you love letting him use your mouth to get off, just like you had earlier with him. He must have amazing core strength because he’s able to buck his hips into your mouth rapidly as he holds your head tight in his hands. The way you keep coming back for more every time he lets you breathe is enough to drive him crazy, but after a couple minutes, he stops you from taking him in your mouth again.

“I can’t- I don’t wanna cum like this,” he breathes, looking just as fucked-out as you do.

“Where, then?” you ask, kissing him all over his thighs as he trails his fingers through your hair. “Inside?”

He groans at the offer but shakes his head, eyes shut as if trying to calm himself down. “I haven’t got any condoms.”

“I’m on the pill,” you tell him, still pressing kisses on his warm skin. You’re far too desperate to feel him inside you to let a lack of condom stop you, especially when you don’t even need one.

He lets out an umpteenth shaky breath and makes you look up at him. “Are you sure?”

“Sunghoon,” you say, looking him dead in the eyes, “I’ve never been more sure of anything.” You’re relieved when he smiles and nods, bending down to trap your lips in a heated kiss for good measure. Something about being in this position, kneeling in front of his spread thighs and having to look up at him, turns you on even more.

“Okay, then,” he says, still smiling as he pulls away, holding you gently by the chin. “I don’t think I’ll be able to last long, and I want to feel you cum around me. So, tell me, what’s your favorite position, princess?”

The question takes you aback but you answer it anyway, looking at the ground. “Reverse cowgirl…” you admit shyly, a small smile spreading on your lips.

“Reverse cowgirl, huh?” Sunghoon repeats, and you don’t need to look at him to know he’s smirking. “Come here, then,” he says, and helps you up, making you turn around so your back faces him and seats you down on top of him, keeping your hips raised. He takes his cock inside his hands, pumps it a few more times before guiding it to your entrance, pressing kisses to your shoulders and nape to make you relax.

You moan at the simple feeling of his tip teasing your entrance and Sunghoon whispers “I know, baby” against your skin. “Sit down for me,” he commands gently, and you oblige, lowering your hips slowly to feel all of him stretching you out, the both of you moaning in synchronization when he bottoms out.

Sunghoon wraps an arm around your middle and pulls you onto him so that your back rests against his chest and you can let your head hang back next to his. “Let me do all the work, yeah?” he murmurs into your ear, and you hum in response. He doesn’t move for a bit, roaming his large hands all over your body until he feels your walls relax around him. One of his hands finds your breasts, playing with each nipple in turn, while the other finds your clit. It’s all so much but so good that you’re already a moaning mess before he’s even started moving. “Ready?” he asks, but you’re too far gone to answer.

His pace starts out slow, but you’re impatient and whine as you try to move your hips against his to go faster, which makes him tut. “I told you I’d do the work, didn’t I?” he asks, pinching one of your nipples in reprimand. “So be good for me and stay still, Y/N. I promise I’ll make you feel good.” You whine again but stop moving, heeding his words.

“Perfect,” he whispers and kisses your neck before picking up the pace, shushing you when your moans get too loud.

“I’m sorry, just feels too good,” you manage to let out.

“I know, but you need to stay quiet, baby,” he says, yet gets rougher with his thrusts, which does not help in the slightest. His hand that was on your breasts comes up to cover your mouth, but he quickly decides to make you suck on two of his fingers instead, muffling your moans a bit.

His fingers on your clit haven’t relented this whole time and after just a few minutes, you feel that familiar knot tying itself again in your stomach and you know you’re mere moments away from it coming undone. Judging by his rapid but clumsy thrusts, Sunghoon must be close too. He pounds into you like you’ve been wanting him to ever since you first set eyes on him as he entered the hardware store, hitting your g-spot over and over again. Tears roll down your cheeks and you whimper around his fingers, biting down on them as your second orgasm hits you.

You’re practically sobbing as he helps you ride out your high, his movements sending your body into pleasant overstimulation until he reaches his high too, the feeling of your pussy clenching tightly around him pushing him over the edge. Ropes of his semen paint your walls white, and there’s enough of it for him to become a father of two. You whine as he pulls away, and feel his cum slipping out of you and onto the couch underneath you. Before you can catch your breath, he asks, “Baby, can I do something very dirty?” and you nod without thinking much. This man could do anything he wanted to you, and you’d thank him for it.

He settles you back down onto the couch, kneels on the floor, head level with your core, and sticks his tongue inside your hole, making you yelp in surprise and overstimulation. You don’t understand what he’s doing until he comes back up and makes you open your mouth with his thumb, then spits inside it, telling you to swallow. You do as he says and taste his cum, laughing in disbelief at what he just did - and at how much you liked it. “Fuck,” you giggle.

“Was that too much?”

“God, no,” you say, and he smiles. You open your arms, gesturing for him to get back on the couch. He rests his head between your breasts, the both of you sighing in contentment as he rubs small circles on your belly and you graze your fingers through his hair. He’s so silent that you think he’s fallen asleep, but he speaks up after a while, voice soft and calm like you’ve never heard before.

“We should go get cleaned up…” he says, and you hum in agreement, “...but it’s so nice here,” he finishes, making you giggle.

“If we get cleaned up quickly now, we can cuddle in bed right afterwards,” you argue.

“You’re right. Infallible logic. You’re so smart, you know that, Y/N?” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

“Of course I know that,” you joke. “Let’s go,” you say, kissing the top of his head.

You take a shower together, cleaning each other and leaving kisses here and there, or touching in places you shouldn’t touch and that maybe lead to more, right there in the shower. Now that you’ve had a taste, you’re insatiable, and you warn Sunghoon that the both of you are in for a very long night, to which he answers that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Once you do fall asleep, (which isn’t until two rounds later, and you’re surprised either of you have this much energy), however, you’re holding each other tightly, the fan on high so that you don’t feel all sticky, being so close to each other. Even if you wake up here and there because he shuffled or he snored too loudly, it’s one of the best sleeps you’ve ever had.

—

You wake up the next morning by small giggles and snorts that come from none other than Park Chaeryeong herself, who’s buried herself between you and her dad, shaking her body to wake the two of you. You’re glad that you listened to Sunghoon when he told you to put on a t-shirt of his as well as some underwear so neither you or Chaer would have a fright when she came and woke you up as she liked to do every morning. “You had a sleepover!” she exclaims excitedly when she sees you’ve finally opened your eyes, looking at her with a sleepy expression and a smile.

“We did!” you reply, trying to keep the same level of excitement.

“We did,” Sunghoon repeats, taking his daughter in her arms to hug her tightly and blows a raspberry in her neck to make her laugh.

“You didn’t invite me!” she shrieks when her dad’s left her alone.

“Sorry, sweetheart. It was just me and Y/N.”

“No fun,” she pouts, laying on her back and crossing over arms before turning back to her dad. “So, is Y/N my new mom?” she whispers even though you’re right there. You gasp at her question, making wide eyes at Sunghoon who just snorts, and you can’t tell if she’s genuinely asking or if she’s an eight-year-old with an advanced sense of irony.

“Of course not. Is Heeseung your new dad?” he asks, mentioning his ex’s new boyfriend. Chaer shakes her head.

“No. He’s Mommy’s boyfriend.”

“Exactly, and Y/N is Daddy’s girlfriend. Isn’t she?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at you, smirking.

“She is,” you reply, and Chaer turns back to you, giggling. She snuggles close to you, wrapping an arm around your middle, and you’re taken aback by the sheer cuteness of it all. You look at Sunghoon with a fake pained expression, and he smiles endearingly at the two of you before sighing and joining you in your hug. He rests his arms around you and his daughter, kissing the top of your heads in turn.

“My girls,” he mutters in your hair, and you smile peacefully.

There’s a lot of things you have to talk about with Sunghoon. You know your parents - especially your mom - will be okay with the two of you together, but will his parents be? And once semester starts again, what will happen? You’ll have to go back to campus and he’ll have to stay here - will a three-hour drive be a dealbreaker, or will you make it work?

The thing is, there’s no point in thinking about all of this at this moment. You’ve got the whole summer to figure things out. For now, you’ll eat cherries and spit out the pits, and everything will be perfect.

this is a one shot, there will not be a part two!

permanent taglist: @k-ingzo @bbujiikseu @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts (ask to be removed/added!)

#enhypen x reader #sunghoon x reader #enhypen smut #sunghoon smut #enhypen hard hours #sunghoon hard hours #sunghoon fluff #enhypen fluff #enhypen fanfiction #sunghoon fanfiction #enhypen imagines #sunghoon imagines

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httpsserene · 6 months

Note

hey can I request something that’s angsty to fluff and then smut for Oscar where reader gets a ton of hate for dating Oscar so she kind of ghosts him for a bit and they figure things out

𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐰/𝐨𝐩𝟖𝟏

📖𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: oscar really just wants to hear you laugh again. 📖𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴: 18+ only. angst. fluff. happy ending. reader is exhausted physically and mentally. reader's internal monologue is not not nice. bad eating habits. bad sleeping habit. self-deprecation. don't worry she's back on her bs at the end. reader neglects herself (?) and her relationship. implied self-sabotage. people are mean. don't worry oscar is meaner. oscar piastri is a good boyfriend. emotional hurt/comfort. tenderness. intimacy. baths and pampering. crying (non-sexy). implied sex. implied bath sex. logan and lando as plot devices. no beta we die like my will to live during finals. 📖𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 5.1k words. 📖𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: oscar piastri x fem!reader 📖𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: oneshot w/ blurbs. 📖𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸: best i ever had • drake

𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲: sorry it took me so long, i've changed this fic like multiple times :/ hope it fulfills you request properly :))) this is not my favorite thing in the world, i feel like if i went on a smaller scale i would've enjoyed this more but what can you do. this is also not very black reader coded? idk but feel like it's lacking there. i also apologize for my inability to write an oscar fic without including lando, he's such a willing plot device though even if he's a little ooc. i also couldn't find the mental space to write smut but there's smth for you at the end. dedicated to us women in stem! i hope you have fun reading this because i didn't have fun writing it :)

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oscar is worried. you haven’t responded to his texts for a week, he hasn’t seen your face for two weeks, and he hasn’t heard your voice for three weeks. four weeks ago, you told him you wouldn’t be able to fly out to see him at the austin grand prix, like you promised. you sounded exhausted and incredibly guilty when you explained that your course load this semester is extreme, and finals are rapidly approaching. oscar understood; he won’t ask you to sacrifice your education for one of his races, there will be plenty you can come to in the future. what he doesn’t understand is how you’re still functioning. it’s your senior year of university at an american ivy league school, you're pursuing an engineering degree, and you’re also working nearly five days a week as a barista. oscar thinks the last time he’s seen you relaxed is before your fall semester started, you spent your entire summer break with him, making appearances at the only three races you’ve been to this season (silverstone, hungary, and spa). the last time he recalls seeing your smile and hearing your laugh is in august—it’s the end of october now.

you’ve been ghosting him. oscar wants to believe that it’s unintentional, that it’s just a side effect of the amount of work and pressure on your shoulders—but he can’t accept that. if you were unintentionally missing his calls, facetimes, and texts, you’d spam respond to all of them with a voice message or paragraphs of texts before you went to bed or class. you would send him daily or weekly recap videos of how life is treating you, like you used to do. you would send him stupid videos of you messing around on your shifts during a pause of customers. you would send him thirty reels a day on instagram of brain dead shenanigans with little captions of how you reacted, or if you thought it would make him smile. you would send him fit checks every morning before you went to class, even though your outfit consists of a hoodie and sweatpants. you would send him tiktok edits of himself and tell him that he needs to stop being ‘so hot’ because you almost barked in the middle of class. you would ask him how he’s doing, you would respond to his texts the minute you could even if it's hours late, you would leave him voicemails if he doesn’t pick up, you would make an attempt to communicate.

except, you haven’t. so, he knows that you ignoring him is intentional, and that your lifestyle right now makes it easier for you to disguise your avoidance of him as accidental.

you didn’t say ‘i love you’ back.

“mate, what are you frowning for?” oscar jumps, eyes flying up from the phone screen and meeting lando’s. the brit is staring at him in confusion, the two of them are still in their race suits, tied around their waists. the sprint race ended an hour ago, and they’ve just finished celebrating oscar’s win.

“you’ve won a race, oscar—what could possibly make you sad after that?” lando says teasingly. but, the smile on his face is quick to fade as he must see oscar’s dejected mood.

the australian debates his next move for a moment, before deciding that telling lando isn’t a bad idea; they’ve been getting closer—they’re friends, oscar would say. he sighs, and hands his phone to lando, maybe he’ll tell oscar he’s worrying over nothing.

“oh,” lando says, eyes widening, “i’m sorry, mate.”

oscar brushes off lando’s words, and buries his face in his hands, “she’s pulling away from me. that was five days ago, and she hasn’t answered any of my calls. she’s only responded to my texts since then with one word answers or very dryly. she’s ghosting me.”

oscar feels lando fumbling for words, not needing to look at him to know that the older man has no idea how to go about reassuring oscar.

“look, mate, if it were me i’d go see her anyways.”

oscar huffs, “she literally said she doesn’t have time.”

“oscar,” lando stares at him in disbelief, “she hasn’t seen you in two months. i guarantee she’s probably dying to see you again, fuck whatever time she doesn’t have. she also can’t ghost you, if you see her face to face. you should go and try to fix whatever’s wrong, before you let her slip away.”

“maybe…maybe she’s just burnt out,” oscar suggests shakily, “i’ll go see her after the triple header–i’m probably just overreacting about this. she’ll be back to her usual self in time.”

oscar is enraged. he’s pissed off at his fans for attacking you in a sick twist of ‘defending him,’ ‘protecting him’ and the supposed ‘ownership’ they think they have over him. he’s pissed off at you deciding to ghost him instead of confiding in him about the hate you receive. he’s pissed off that his flight to you has been delayed for four hours. he’s pissed off at his race in brazil, if you can even call what happened a race. he’s pissed off at the fact that you can’t make time to see him before vegas. he’s pissed off that you lied to him about picking up extra shifts at the cafe.

he stalked through your instagram the minute after he was allowed to escape debrief, hunting down your roomates accounts from where you’ve tagged them in an older post. he innocently made a group message to the two girls, figuring it would be kind and proper to inform them of his impending arrival to surprise you. and the two girls you shared an apartment with responded eagerly to his message telling him that you’ve been extremely stressed and almost depressed this semester, and that hopefully his appearance will break through to you in a way they are unable to. oscar asked them if they knew your work schedule for the week, since you never told him when you're working–and learned that you lied. you didn’t accept any extra shifts, matter of fact, you got all of your shifts covered for the next two weeks. apparently, all you have been doing is going to class, working, studying furiously, and crying. when he asks if there’s any reason besides the stress from work and school that has you crying, the girls decline to speak for you, and strongly suggest that he asks you himself when he arrives.

oscar’s no longer pissed at you for lying to him or for ghosting him–he’s hurt, but, he already understands your motive. you don’t want to worry him, so you bottle it up and distance yourself to not make him aware of how you're struggling. he won’t let you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders alone anymore, he’s going to see you and he’s going to take care of you, and then he’ll sort out the ignorant people on the internet.

when he’s at your apartment, you’ll be coming home from your last shift before your time off. and then, once he has you in his arms, he can make everything right again.

your hands are shaking; a result from the mix of stress and exhaustion that has been plaguing you for a few weeks. it takes you four and a half attempts to unlock the front door to your apartment—this is an improvement, yesterday it took you six times. a trembling sigh of relief exits your lungs as you shut the front door, triple checking that you lock the door properly. you remove all of your outerwear and slip out of your shoes, half-heartedly making an attempt to neatly place them in the organizer you have by the door. (you fail to register how there’s only two pairs of shoes stored away; yours and a pair of shoes that look too big to be one of the girls you live with—the usual sneakers the girls wear are nowhere to be seen.) you grunt as you tenderly put on your backpack and slowly make your way into the kitchen, off-handedly murmuring a “hi,” in the direction of the living room since you can hear the tv playing, but you don’t even spare a glance to see which roommate it is—you can’t stomach anymore human interaction today.

your walk is more of a waddle; your legs and feet are sore from working nine-hour shifts five days in a row, and also from going to class four out of those five days. you place your backpack on the small island, and continue to gently meander towards the fridge. your stomach aches at the thought of food—which is unfortunate, considering you’ve only had one meal today. regardless, you will shove a sandwich down your throat, you need the energy if you’re going to study for three hours before you go to bed.

you pause before you open the fridge, a note is stuck on the door with a magnet. your roommates are gone; the two girls have spontaneously decided to go spend the weekend with their boyfriends—you’re not going to complain, you have the apartment to yourself. a brief wave of loneliness washes over you, you were kind of looking forward to venting about the week you had to the girls in the morning, and also, couldn’t they have texted you this earlier today? who leaves old-fashioned notes on the fridge anymore? you pull out your phone to send a text in your group chat wishing them a nice weekend, and see that they did, in fact, text you that they would be gone—three days ago. and, you never responded, because you never saw it. you shrug, and send the text anyways, you’ve been incredibly busy and you’re bound to miss a few texts (especially the eighteen texts from oscar that remain unopened).

you're just going through a little bit of a slump, and you’ve had a bad day. you accidentally messed up three orders today (out of the hundred you fulfilled, so three isn’t really terrible), your running off of four hours of sleep (you’re more energized when you sleep less, anyways), and a customer accidentally bumped into you as you were walking to bring coffee to a table, causing the hot liquid to spill and burn a little spot on the back of your hand by your thumb. well, you know it wasn’t purely accidental, as the girl giggled to the group of friends she was with after she “bumped” into you. based on the way she was wearing a mclaren hoodie, you can make several guesses as to why she did it—you’re kind of shocked that she noticed you even though you wear a mask at work (you have for about a month, too many fans have noticed who you are), her hate for a relationship that’s not hers should be studied for science.

incidents like these have made your coworkers start to…dislike you. the decrease in tips when you’re assigned to the register causes you to be forced to be hidden behind coffee machines the entire shift, only making drinks the entire nine hours you’re there. it’s better for you though, at least you can have a physical barrier blocking the prying eyes you feel are judging you the entire time. if anything, the recent atmosphere at work made you want to put in your two weeks—but, you have bills to pay. you’re just glad you managed to find a way to get two weeks off so you can focus on school and prepare for your exams—you can’t afford to fail, it’ll cost your scholarship and then you’ll need more than the job you have right now to finish school.

the buzzing of your phone pulls you back to the present—oscar’s calling. you squeeze your eyes shut for a few seconds, before you blink and silence the ringer. if you speak to him, you won’t be able to hide your troubles from him any longer; he reads you as easily as a kid’s picture book. he definitely doesn’t need to deal with your problems after whatever the hell happened in brazil. the noise of your phone startled you into a new thought, however. if the girls aren’t in the apartment, why the fuck is the tv on? who did you greet when you walked past the main room without a glance?

“i was calling to tell you that i’ve got takeout from the asian restaurant you like, if you’re looking for something to eat,” oscar says gently.

it’s a testament to how extremely exhausted you are: you don’t scream, you don’t fight, you don’t run—you just flinch slightly, and turn around slowly to face your boyfriend…the man you’ve been avoiding for nearly a month. at the sight of him (his fluffy hair, his soft sweater, the confused and concerned glint in his eyes) your lip starts quivering, and your eyes start watering. oscar’s gaze softens into something sweet yet empathic, and he says, “i know it’s been a while since we’ve last talked, but i didn’t think you’d cry at the sight of me.”

you burst into tears with a sob, and in a second oscar’s got you wrapped up in his arms, one hand soothingly massaging your back, while the other cradles your head on his shoulder. your borderline hyperventilating, your tears have started to soak his sweater, and you’re sniffling every two seconds to avoid getting snot on him too. oscar doesn’t try to quiet your tears, he doesn’t ask about what’s making you cry, he doesn’t even try to tell you that everything will be fine—he just holds you as you cry it out and presses kisses into your hair. eventually, the flow of tears dries and you focus on pulling in shaky breaths of air to calm down. oscar switches to holding you to his chest with one arm while he uses the free one to reach across the counter and grab a tissue. wordlessly, he wipes the wetness off your cheeks and under-eyes, he even uses another tissue to wipe your nose, clearing away the snot that managed to escape. you almost start crying again at the tender treatment and the matching look in his eyes, but you muster enough strength to keep the happy tears from falling over the waterline.

oscar nods once, deeming his cleanup complete, and clears his throat, “i’m going to heat up the food. then, we’ll eat and you’ll tell me what’s wrong and if that has anything to do with why you’re ignoring me.”

there’s no attempt from you to keep the façade up any longer, all you do is nod and step to the side so he can grab the food from the fridge.

oscar has already cleared his plate and you’re still picking through half of yours. the two of you are sitting on opposite ends of the couch, teen wolf is playing on a low volume, and your eyes are tunneled on the screen even though oscar can see that you’re not paying attention at all. one of the characters is screaming about having to get his arm cut off (stiles, probably) and suddenly you start talking to oscar.

“it’s been a shit semester. if i wasn’t graduating in spring, i honestly think i would’ve dropped out or taken a gap-year. and, i knew what i signed up for as an engineering major, and i knew that working was only going to add more on my plate—but, it’s not like i can quit my job, i have bills to pay. so, juggling school and work is difficult, and i was managing fine. but, i guess i made the mistake of scrolling through twitter—which is truly my fault i think—and everyone on the internet was calling me a ‘terrible girlfriend’,” oscar watches you scoff out a choked laugh, “and, i obviously didn’t believe i was. in the beginning, at least. i mean, it’s like they expected me to be at every race by your side, like i’m not working my way through a hellscape of a degree. i watched every practice session, qualifying, and race—they’re literally the only hours i don’t spend studying or working. i brag about you to everybody who would listen, i missed hours of sleep just to speak to you on the phone for five minutes, i work as hard as i can so i can finish this degree early so i can be with you as early as possible, and they say that you deserve a better girlfriend.”

you pause and rub at your eyes furiously, mouth opening and closing as you take time to find the words to continue. oscar quiets the flare of anger at your distress, and stays silent, not wanting to interrupt your speech, this is the most you’ve said to him in a month.

“the thing is: i-i i let their words get to me. i think it’s because i was being kicked while i was down—or whatever the phrase is. i was already mentally exhausted, and i already believe that i’m not doing my best this year, i’m disappointing everybody who knows me, i’m a shit student—and just seeing everybody agree, even though they’re just randoms on the internet, tore me down. i even deleted all of the apps off my phone,” your voice has shifted into something desperate, “so i couldn’t see what they were saying about me anymore, but it’s like once i saw it, it never left my mind. i feel like everybody is staring at me with condescending eyes, like they all think i’m terrible. and, logically, i know that’s probably not true. but, this semester has pushed me past the point of being able to rationalize properly. so as a result, i have become a ‘terrible girlfriend’ to you; like a twisted self-fulfilling prophecy.

“i avoid your calls, i leave you on delivered for days, i respond with one word, i lie to my friends and say i was up all night talking to you on the phone when i was really crying and studying at the same time, i hold back from bursting into tears in the middle of my shifts when one of your ‘fangirls’ spills their drink over me for the third time. and while doing all of this, i was hoping you’d do the hard part and just break up with me,” your voice rings out sharply and you refuse to look at your boyfriend, afraid to see the look on his face.

“because…” you whimper slightly, tongue flicking out to lick at your lips anxiously, “you do deserve a better girlfriend.”

oscar is lost for words at your conclusion; seeing you, one of the strongest women he knows break down, is a sight he never imagined. a sense of guilt builds within him, knowing that he’s added to the deprecating thoughts in your brain by postponing this intervention for weeks. you may think that he deserves someone better, but he hasn’t been the best to you either recently. if oscar was half the man you think he is, he would’ve never allowed you to avoid him in the first place. oscar stands up, collects your plate and his, and places them on the coffee table. he turns and drops to his knees in front of you, resting his hands on your thighs, and squeezes them gently to grab your attention. it takes a minute, but eventually you allow your eyes to fall to meet his, and oscar breaks further at the lack of light in your eyes.

“i think,” oscar starts quietly, “that you expect me to break up with you and leave—am i guessing correctly?”

you blink down at him and shrug, biting your lip to prevent it from quivering.

“i also think, that if i flew all this way to see you, and that if i listened to your heartbreaking recollection of how this semester and how the world has been incredibly unkind to you, and that if i sat here and still broke up you—it’s not me that deserves a better girlfriend; it’s you that deserves a better boyfriend.”

stunned, you stumble over your disagreement, but oscar steadfastly continues.

“you did the right thing by deleting your socials—and that would explain why all three hundred of the reels i’ve sent you have gone unseen,” he laughs lightly, “and even if their words took root, you prevented yourself from being able to see more of it every time you used your phone; so even if my pride is not needed, i am proud of you for doing that. i’m even more proud that you sat here and told me that you aren’t doing well, that you didn’t make an attempt to lie, and that i didn’t have to force you to tell me,” oscar says seriously, holding steady eye contact with you to make sure you're hearing him.

“i wish that you would have mentioned the hate you’re receiving as soon as it started, and that you would have told me your mental health was suffering too. you know i do everything in my power to avoid reading anything with my name in it unless it’s a credible article—so imagine my surprise, when i learned about what people were saying about you through a twitter thread logan, of all people texted me about,” you snort out a laugh at the feigned disdain in oscar’s voice when he mentions the american driver.

“you know i have no issues embarrassing people on the internet for their incorrect claims—and i’d especially tear them to shreds for trying to drag you down. we’ve been together too long for you not to come to me about things like this, even if it’s something that mildly upsets you—i want to know, because then i can make it better, or i can at least try to. you haven’t complained to me about the grueling lifestyle once, as i worked my way up to f1; if anybody could be perfect, it would be you. so, let me try to be as perfect as you, and support you properly and thoroughly as you finish up this degree, baby.

“we’re soulmates, aren’t we?” it’s a question, but oscar states it like a fact, “and i know i can’t magically make the self-loathing disappear with one conversation, but i'll tell you that you’re the best girlfriend i’ve ever had countless times, until you believe me unquestionably.”

oscar watches your nose scrunch cutely as you sniffle, unable to stop the tears that leak from the corners of your eyes. sweetly, he catches them with his thumb before they fall. he stands up and tugs you to your feet, pulling you into a tight, warm hug.

“i love you, kanga,” oscar coos as he kisses your forehead.

“i love you the most, roo,” you answer back, leaning up to press a kiss to the corner of his lips.

“i’ve bought some lavender epsom salt and an embarrassing amount of bath bombs. will you let me take care of you tonight?” oscar asks quietly.

he sees the mix of awed-disbelief and confusion as you stare up at him, like you can’t imagine why he’d want to love you tenderly tonight, and that hurts him more—the words of his ‘fans’ online have done enough damage to cause you to doubt him. maybe he can convince you to come to vegas with him so he can keep you close, but first, he needs to focus on caring for you here and now.

oscar grabs his duffle bag and smiles as you hold his hand to lead him to your room and the attached bathroom (rent is ridiculously expensive, but at least you don’t have to share a bathroom with your roommates.) oscar sends you to grab pajamas while he starts filling the tub, epsom salt already poured in. he fiddles with the temperature for a while before it’s set to the boiling-your-skin-off hot you enjoy. by the time you join him in the bathroom, he’s added the salts and soap in the water and has placed the bath bombs out for you to choose one. oscar can’t help the small smile that rises to his face at the sight of the serious furrow of your brow as you pick out your favorite from the bunch.

oscar hums as you hand him the jade-infused bath bomb, and asks, “can i wash your hair too? or will it mess up your schedule?”

“i actually really need to wash it,” you murmur with a humorless chuckle, “i’ve been so busy that i haven’t been taking care of my hair properly.”

oscar blinks and continues non-judgmentally, “i’ll give you an extra scalp massage to make up for that—you can start getting undressed now, the water’s nearly ready.”

he turns around awkwardly, he’s seen you naked before but he feels like it would be slightly perverse to watch you while you’re clearly in a more sensitive state tonight. he fumbles with the faucet for a few seconds before turning it off, and drops the bath bomb into the water so it can start dispersing. oscar faces you again carefully making sure he avoids staring at your body and locks eyes with you, he beckons you forward with an outstretched hand and holds your hand as you submerge yourself in the water. once you’re settled comfortably, oscar grabs your hair products (he holds up any bottle he thinks you may not want to use tonight, and you give him a thumbs up or down to decide), and then kneels at your side.

he starts to roll up the sleeves of the hoodie but your hand halts his motions, the water splashing loudly at the quickness of your movement, “you’re not getting in with me?”

“uh,” oscar stutters, “i-i wasn’t planning on it. i just wanted to give you a nice bath.”

oscar pinkens as you stare at him wordlessly and when your unimpressed gaze shifts to a slight glare, he finds himself shedding his clothes and sinking in behind you at an impressive speed.

his heart began to race as the two of you shifted into as comfortable of a position you could achieve in a too-small tub, but calmed at your pleased hum as you settled between his legs with your back resting on his chest. this may be the most romantic experience oscar has ever indulged in. sure, it’s not a candlelit dinner at an obnoxiously expensive restaurant but, it’s him detangling your hair, it’s him massaging shampoo into your crown, it’s him scratching softly along your scalp as the deep conditioner sits, it’s you playing with the water innocently, it’s you whispering every detail of your life that he’s missed out on, it’s you gently directing him through braiding your hair, and it’s him pressing kisses to your shoulder when he finishes. there isn’t a single moment where the two of you become unsettled during lapses of silence; the intimacy of his actions is loud enough to fill the gaps. oscar can’t imagine ever being this comfortable with anybody besides you, he hates that he almost allowed you to pull completely away from him. moments like these, where you allow yourself to be thoughtlessly vulnerable with him, are exactly why he’s completely enamored with you.

your body has loosened against him, muscles syrupy and lax from the effects of a toe-curling scalp massage, and oscar gently guides you to sit upright while steadying most of your weight with a single hand splayed against your abdomen. the sound of the cap of your body wash clicking open startles you into the present, and you shift around to straddle his lap. it’s amusing; he inaudibly chuckles at the sight of you struggling to complete your change of position without sending water over the edge. you make a triumphant noise when you’ve managed to turn around to face him, and oscar’s hands cradle your hips when you rest on his lap.

“can i–”

“shouldn’t you–”

oscar bursts into laughter and you into giggles, at the interruption of each other's sentences. it’s definitely not that funny, but oscar’s heart skips a beat at the sound of your laugh–he hasn’t heard that sweet noise in what feels like forever. he motions for you to speak, ever the gentleman, and eagerly awaits for our question with a smile still stretched across his lips.

“shouldn’t you fuck me before we wash up? so we don’t have to clean up twice?”

oscar chokes on his breath, his grip on you tightening in surprise, and he babbles, “what? no-i mean, yes, i mean—wait. i didn’t do all of this just to have sex with you, you know that right? i genuinely just wanted to pamper you–”

“oscar,” you cut him off, intentionally this time around, “after the semester i’ve had, and the less than kind words i’ve heard and thoughts i’ve had describing myself–i really do appreciate the bath, i feel reminded that you love me. however, i really think that having sex would help…solidify your devotion for me.”

oscar blinks up at you, he wasn’t quite expecting you to return to your normal sassy behavior as quickly as you did. but, he is thankful that you’ve opened up to him with no further hesitation–it’s actually incredibly attractive of you, how you’ve resumed complete comfortability in expressing exactly what you want to him. at least, that’s the excuse he’s telling himself to cope with being half-hard already.

“...at least let me take you to bed, then?”

“no,” you whine down at him, your hips sneakily twitching forward, oscar moans lightly at the light grind, “too far! saves time later if we don’t have to come back to shower.”

“you’re right,” oscar hums distractedly, moving his right hand off your waist to slip between your thighs and brush along your cunt, “i’ll fuck you here as long as you let me do all of the work.”

oscar’s blood heats at the sound of your whimpering moan and he takes his other hand off your waist to grab at your chin and he pulls you down for a kiss.

oscar groans when you pause before your lips touch his, and he feels the breath of your giggle ghost over his mouth, “mmm, i’ll never say no to that—and, didn’t i agree to let you take care of me tonight?”

taglist: @saintslewis @cherry2stems @lorarri @inloveallthetime @mindless-rock @biancathecool @barnestatic @my-ylenia @katekipshidze @darleneslane @lovingaphroditesworld @smoothopz

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supernovafics · 9 months

Text

•*⁀➷ ❝ 𝐈’𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐘𝐎𝐔. ❞✧∘ ✭・.✫・゜·。.

supernovafics!

✭•*⁀➷ a bestfriend!steve harrington roommate au slightly inspired by the tv show “friends” ·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。.

a year in the lives of you and your best friend steve harrington. you never thought that you would be living with this guy you’ve known since you were ten— although it was a hypothetical topic that was discussed at length during the many sleepovers you had over the years. but somehow on a hectic day in august, the stars managed to align, and the next thing you know a lease is being signed and the two of you are moving into a two-bedroom apartment. so far it’s been two months of countless late nights and too many really early mornings where you’re running late to class or steve’s rushing to get to his shift at family video. for the most part, though, it’s a perfect situation. until the lines that felt as if they were clearly drawn in the sand— and had been there from perhaps the moment you and him met— start getting blurrier and blurrier

warnings: bestfriend!steve, roommate!steve, childhood best friends to (eventual) lovers, two idiots in love (but neither wanna admit it), Big Big slow burn, besties being besties, minimal angst, mainly just a lot of fun vibes, eventual smut (minors dni!), many familiar faces (robin, eddie, sometimes the kids), no use of y/n, specific warnings will be tagged per chapter

important note! this will be a very “low stakes” series (there’s not really a super specific storyline happening in this), and i’m really just gonna post for it whenever i’m in the mood/feel inspired for it. i already have a bunch of random ideas for this universe that i wanna eventually do, but requests are open for anything you wanna see with these roommates/besties<333 (also oneshots/blurbs will be posted non-chronologically but will be listed chronologically, so you can pretty much read in any order you want to!)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

fall 1985

love is a game (the one where you and steve have a “housewarming party”)

let’s forget it (the one where steve sees you naked)

third street (the one at the diner in the middle of the night)

silly promises (the one at dairy queen)

take a picture (the one with batman & robin)

from the dining table (the one with the early thanksgiving dinner)

never talk about it (the one where you see steve naked)

just a feeling (the one with steve’s date)

winter 1985/1986

the first fall of snow (the one where the kids spend the night)

care for you (the one where you’re both sick)

maybe this year (the one with the bet)

closing time (the one at family video)

while you were sleeping (the one with steve’s epiphany)

only for you (the one where you and steve play basketball)

in the middle of the night (the one with the ski trip)

worth waiting for (the one after the ski trip) (18+)

spring 1986

between you and me (the one where you and steve are secretly dating)

tell me a secret (the one where everyone finds out)

take my hand (the one where you and steve are chaperones at a school dance)

stay with me (the one where you come home drunk and steve takes care of you)

much better (the one with the "celebratory dinner")

summer 1986

one more second (the one with the barbecue)

#steve harrington series #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington smut #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington x you #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x fem!reader #stranger things fluff #steve harrington #stranger things imagine #stranger things series #stranger things smut

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marlenesluv · 8 months

Text

Book Lover. Part 2. (LN)

summary: more of being landos booktuber girlfriend who posts books, music, coffee, and her boyfriend lando.

check out part 1: part 1

warnings: none

masterlist link -> masterlist link

^ check out my list for all posts! ^

liked by: landonorris, saracarrolli, and 271,824 others

y/n.user: paddock reading while your bf trains >

view comments…

landonorris: you could train with me

↳ y/n.user: like…workout?? no. thanks

↳ yukitsunoda0511: i also don’t like working out

bookbabes: the perks of being a wallflower 😩🫶

haleypham: reading while your bf does his sport >

↳ y/n.user: sooo true

formula1fan: the way y/n goes with lando everywhere is so cute

↳ y/n.fp: shes said before that shes never missed an event and always makes sure to go🥹

pagesgalore: my book queeeennnnn

saracarrolli: when is ur new vid coming out, bestie😁

↳ y/n.user: this friday at 8am!!😁🤗

↳ user5: A COLLAB I SUSPECT????

_______________________________________________

liked by: y/n.user, oscarpiastri, and 362,820 others

landonorris: she looks around for books, while i suck down a strawberry acai refresher 😋

view comments…

y/n.user: you INHALE those refreshers….

↳ landonorris: they are DELECTABLE

↳ carlossainz55: that’s a big word for you

f1wags: when your favorite wag reads >

papayaboys: he is so whipped, your honor

formula1edits: the way he spoils her?? need

↳ user4: does he buy her books or sum?

↳ formula1edits: hes said that he likes to buy them and spoil her 🫠

francisca.cgomes: need me a bf like this fr

↳ pierregasly: you HAVE a bf like that

↳ francisca.cgomes: you hate shopping with me🙄

↳ pierregasly: because you shop for 10 hours KIKA

↳ francisca.cgomes: SO?????

booksbabyyy: that’s so freaking adorable

maxfewtrell: you forgot to mention that i was also there….

↳ y/n.user: yeah, eating a bagel and looking at legos for us

↳ landonorris: which we appreciate because we love legos

↳ y/n.user: so true

aaronwarnersgf: when they are a book and lego couple >

_______________________________________________

liked by: landonorris, haleypham, and 278,194 others

y/n.user: french novels and landos hat 🧡

view comments…

austen4life: our girl is finally reading some french literature yesss

landonorris: you were too focused on the book and not me :(

↳ carlossainz55: oh no, she must like reading more than talking to you

↳ y/n.user: when will you STOP BEING MEAN CARLOS

inbetweenpages: why does he look so grumpy

↳ landofanpage: hes a sassy scorpio💁‍♂️

charles_leclerc: you’re finally reading the french novel i told you about?

↳ y/n.user: yes 😌 and it’s so good

↳ charles_leclerc: i told you

user5: lando do be staring hard LMAO

swiftie22: my fav swifties <3

↳ taylorandf1: realllll

booksgalore4: y/n’s book posts >

_______________________________________________

your instagram story:

seen by: landonorris, pierregasly, and 243,018 others

_______________________________________________

liked by: y/n.user, oscarpiastri, and 329,014 others

landonorris: “august slipped away into a moment of time”

view comments…

y/n.user: you’re too cute, lan❤️

↳ landonorris: i used her quote correctly??

↳ y/n.user: yes, babe

↳ landonorris: 😁

user2: the pictures he takes of y/n are so sweet

bookgirlieeee: was a book fan first, but now i’m an f1 fan too thx to y/n

↳ f1inthebooks: but we all love it

carlandoo554: who took the carlando pic omgggg

↳ y/nandlandoo: prolly y/n lol

lilymhe: CUTIESSSSS

↳ y/n.user: 🫶🫶

user7: lando sleeping on his clothes LMAOOO HELP

f1wags: august was such a good content month fr

_______________________________________________

liked by: landonorris, danielricciardo, and 289,024 others

tagged: landonorris, pierregasly, danielricciardo, carlossainz55, charles_leclerc, maxverstappen1, oscarpiastri, georgerussell63, and lewishamilton

y/n.user: first video on my yt with no books and all grid! had a nice dinner, partied, slept, games, and lando taught me how to dj…okkk🪩

view comments…

danielricciardo: all of y/n’s fans bc theres no books: 😰😬

↳ y/n.user: 😓

landonorris: my multi talented gf☺️❤️

↳ y/n.user: 😁❤️

bookbabes: living for dj y/n

user4: okkkk i’m living for this

rhysbatbae: missing book content rn

↳ y/n.user: i promise i’m still posting my books, dw

carlossainz55: i am the monopoly champion🤪

↳ maxverstappen1: no, you’re not. we were all j too drunk

↳ y/n.user: LOL

↳ carlossainz55: whatever 🙄

des.sidster: you just casually learning how to dj in monaco is so iconic. miss you sm!

↳ y/n.user: it was so fun. miss you sm too, des!

aaronwarner554: living vicariously through y/n, she has sm fun ugh

dr3edits: lmaooo, daniel sleeping 😭

f1wags: the cutestttt

pierregasly: i cant wait till we all hangout again!

↳ charles_leclerc: i cant either! it was a lot of fun

↳ lewishamilton: i liked when y/n fell down the stairs at charles’ house, i’d like to see that again

↳ y/n.user: that rly hurt🤕

↳ landonorris: guys. don’t be mean.

↳ pierregasly: okay dad

_______________________________________________

your instagram story:

seen by: landonorris, saracarrolli, and 257,183 others

_______________________________________________

(reposts, comments, and likes are appreciated!^-^)

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nxrrislando · 1 month

Text

WRITTEN IN INK ೯⠀⁺ ⠀ 𖥻 o.piastri

𝐨𝐬𝐜��𝐫 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 — ᝰ.ᐟ SMAU

PLOT ━━･❪ When he finds an annotated book in his garage unattended at a grand prix and can’t help but read the annotations in his free time only to find her again and be entirely obsessed. ❫

WARNINGS ━━･❪ everything written is fake and for the purpose of entertainment, sexual innuendo, not proofread ❫

a/n: i am alive however it is exam season and it’s kicking my ass so bare with me, also not 100% sure how i feel with this one shot but idk

my fics!

comment or message me privately if you want to be on my taglist !

( INSTAGRAM POST — JULY, 2023 )

yourusername

uploaded a post — 3m ago

liked by nataliepinkham, jensonbutton and 3,121 others

yourusername made my long awaited appearance, you’re welcome dad🤗 (day 1)

view all 532 comments

username OMG Y/N BUTTON IS BACK IN THE PADDOCK

username bro how much you wanna bet jensons been begging her to watch him do presenting

yourusername @ username oh he has been but i only agreed cause nico freaking rosberg is also presenting and that’s my king

jensonbutton @ yourusername thank you my daisy feeling your love right now!

yourusername @ jensonbutton I TOLD YOU TO STOP CALLING ME THAT DAD I ATE A BUNCH OF DAISIES ONCE I WAS FIVE

username would it be y/n if she didn’t bring a book everywhere she went

nataliepinkham lovely seeing you, y/n think you should take your dads place!

liked by yourusername!

nicorosberg🙈

yourusername NICOOOOOO

username how far into the book are you??

yourusername should hopefully be finished it by sunday with how busy the weekend is gonna be!!

( INSTAGRAM STORY — JULY, 2023 )

yourusername

posted on their story — 7h ago

viewed by jensonbutton, and 4,386 others replies to your story

yourusername

posted on their story — 1h ago

viewed by jensonbutton, and 3,386 others replies to your story

yourbestfriend why would you take a book to qualifying??

| yourusername cause qualifying doesn’t run all day and I’d have nothing to do whilst my dad did his job, gotta be prepared

username im literally so jealous of you omg

username tell your dad he’s a dilf

( IMESSAGE — JULY, 2023 )

dad🦖

0 new notifications — 0s ago

( INSTAGRAM STORY — JULY, 2023 )

mclaren

posted on their story — 3h ago

viewed by yourusername and 971,555 others replies to your story

username LETS GOOOOOO

username big things coming for mclaren, we’re on the up

username overtake max into turn one pleaseeeee

( SKY SPORTS F1 CHANNEL — JULY, 2023 )

post qualifying interview — 50m ago

( IMESSAGE — JULY, 2023 )

lando👍🏼

0 new notifications — 0s ago

( INSTAGRAM DMS — JULY, 2023 )

oscarpiastri

1 new message — 21m ago

( INSTAGRAM STORY — AUGUST, 2023 )

yourusername

posted on their stories — 4h ago

viewed by oscarpiastri, jensonbutton and 5,681 others replies to your story

user UM YN BUTTON OFF THE MARKET WHAT IS THIS??

user this is suspiciously timed after you were spotted talking to oscar at the belgium gp last week

user no way piastri has game😭

yourbestfriend you’re obsessed with him already my lord we’re doomed. STAND UP

| yourusername we’re still getting to know each other you’d be obsessed with every little detail too, especially since this man has given me flowers the several times i’ve seen him, you’ll love him i promise

| yourbestfriend we will see.

jensonbutton when does your old man get to meet him?

| yourusername so you can tell him the daisy story? no thanks dad

| jensonbutton oh cmon it’s a great story to tell and maybe i’d add a little interrogation at the end of meeting him again to balance it out

| yourusername that’s even worse.

oscarpiastri i’m not complaining…it’s very insightful

| yourusername you’re so cute

( INSTAGRAM POST — SEPTEMBER, 2023)

yourusername

uploaded a post — 5h ago

liked by oscarpiastri, jensonbutton and 8,111 others

yourusername he knows the way to my heart 🙈

view all 299 comments

user hmmm🫣

user you and oscar are so dating omg 😭

user for a girl who didn’t go to grand prixs often and her dad HAD TO BEG her you’ve sure been there a lot recently near a certain garage🤗

user looking very papaya yn ???

jensonbutton the daisies were a nice touch🤔

yourusername it’s your fault that he knows about that now he won’t stop calling me that. oscarpiastri @ yourusername it suits you

username UM OSCAR???

username hard launch??

username OSCAR JUST SOLD THEM BOTH OUT

username i love them together already

oscarpiastri

uploaded a post — 1h ago

liked by yourusername, landonorris and 921,581 others

oscarpiastri sorry for ruining your soft launch, daisy.

view all 5,444 comments

yourusername was gonna say i forgive you but then you used that god awful nickname (WHEN I CATCH YOU DAD)

jensonbutton hey woah woah no violence young lady yourusername @ jensonbutton😐

yourusername has anyone ever told you you’re so cute (i forgive you again)

oscarpiastri i’m glad🤗 username @ oscarpiastri oscar reminds me of a facebook mum

landonorris from stalking her instagram to spoiling on her instagram, what a journey

oscarpiastri go away lando.

username this hard launch is so cute😭😭

username the way oscar always gets her flowers with daisies always mixed in is so cute, he’s not letting go of that nickname any time soon

username who could have predicted that she was dating oscar piastri? I DID AFTER THE BRITISH GP YOURE WELCOME

(INSTAGRAM STORY — SEPTEMBER, 2023)

yourusername

posted on their story — 40m ago

viewed by oscarpiastri, francisca.cgomes and 7,881 others replies to your story

oscarpiastri come back to the garage please and thanks

| yourusername oscar mate i’ve been gone for two minutes

| oscarpiastri no mate thanks and 2 is long enough

| yourusername PAUSE

| oscarpiastri shut up and come back

tags — @edwardslvrr @kika-writes🫶🏽

1K notes · View notes

rileyslibrary · 10 months

Text

The Log Cabin: Wish and Hope

Synopsis: You go on a vacation with the Lieutenant at his log cabin.

Relationship: Simon “Ghost” Riley x GN!Reader

Word Count: 2,617

A/N:

Wholesome fluff.

This is the final part of the story, but you can also read it as a one-shot. (Part 1 & Part 2 if you’re interested)

The inspiration behind the exterior/interior of the cabin.

Also, writing this chapter was quite the journey.

———————————————————————

The sun has almost set by the time you reach your destination.

Simon parks the car at the bottom of the hill, where the road ends, marking the boundary between civilisation and the wilderness. He retrieves his balaclava from the back seat’s pocket and scans the surroundings before getting out of the car.

“Get the axe and Bourbon from the backseat,” he instructs as he steps out.

You follow his directive, picking up the well-worn axe and a bottle of amber liquid from the backseat.

Simon slings his rucksack over his shoulder and tucks his mask into one of the front pockets. He takes your bag with one hand and a red toolbox from the car’s floor with the other.

You show him the axe and Bourbon from across the car, shaking both in your hands. With your supplies gathered, you exchange a nod—a habit you picked up from the field—and begin your way up the hill, leaving the car behind.

———————————————————————

You walk beside him, but he’s gaining ground quickly. He looks unfazed by the long journey—as if he hadn’t spent the entire day driving.

You, on the other hand, are exhausted. Each stride feels heavier on your legs, and the uneven path doesn’t help. The moss cushions your steps, making it difficult to gauge the depth of the ground beneath you.

Sometimes, you stumble, and he glances back to check on you. He looks you up and down, assessing you, before returning his attention to the trail ahead.

“Tired?” he asks, which feels more like a rhetorical question—an observation, a statement—than as a genuine concern.

You shake your head. Fatigue clouds your thoughts, and you fail to register that he can’t perceive your nonverbal response. He turns around once more, waiting for an answer.

“Nope,” you reply, forcing yourself to stand a bit taller. “Not tired at all.”

His gaze shifts forward, and you slump.

You try to focus on your senses, hoping to distract your mind until you reach the cabin. You look up at the tree branches, outlined by the fading light, casting a dark shadow above you. You listen to the birds calling, the insects responding, and a stream nearby. You take a deep breath, smelling the pine and wet ground. It seems like it rained not long ago. It’s a bit chilly. You wonder why you didn’t bring your jacket, only to recall that it’s August. Then you realise it’s August but in the Scottish woodlands.

———————————————————————

You must have walked for another fifteen minutes before the cabin finally reveals itself. It’s almost dark now, but you can see the worn wood that graces it. The hut is tiny, way smaller than you imagined, with a triangular roof and a chimney. How does one fit a fireplace in there? How does he fit in there? How are you both going to fit in there?

A small front porch extends from the cabin’s entrance, complete with a lone chair and a lantern hung next to the door. A serene pond reflects the darkening sky nearby, its surface motionless, still, mimicking the night.

As you approach the cabin, you notice a smaller room that you assume to be the toilet—a logical consideration given the cabin’s size. An open shower is nearby, next to a tree, shielded by strategically placed vertical logs for privacy.

Simon places your bags on the porch and retrieves the lantern. He fills it with fuel, lights it up, and hands it to you. He unlocks the cabin door, pushes it open, and motions with his head for you to take the first step inside.

It’s cosy. Intimate. How will he handle such closeness?

A two-seater brown leather sofa invites you to relax while a small fireplace stands against the wall. A compact table with a lone chair marks the boundary between the living room and the kitchen, which consists of a fire stove, a single counter, and exposed cabinets stocked with plates, cups, and utensils.

You concentrate on a nook at the far end of the kitchen, where a double bed is placed. It’s so snug it looks like the room was built around it. A small window in the bed’s headboard frames a view of the outside shower.

“Did you build this by yourself?” You ask, placing the axe and the Bourbon on the table.

Simon’s head pops in from the doorway at the sound of your voice.

“What?” he asks.

“This,” you gesture to the cabin. “Did you build it on your own?”

He seems surprised by your question. “Me?” he points to himself. “Nah, I found it like this.”

“You found it like this,” you echo, raising your eyebrows.

“I bought it that way and made a few tweaks,” he explains as he places your bags on the sofa and proceeds to get into the details of his modifications.

You focus again on the interior, capturing the nuances he points out. The stove, the sofa, the solitary chair beside the table – they all reflect his choices. That’s him; you’ve never seen him like this. Or, at least, this side of him.

“Also installed a couple of solar panels; I’ll go check on ’em,” he concludes, grabbing a flashlight from the toolbox. “We eat when I come back, yeah?”

You nod, but he’s already heading out, leaving you alone in the cabin. You set the lantern on the kitchen table.

You want to rest, but the sofa is covered with bags and equipment, and you’re too weary to clear them away. The lone chair by the table doesn’t look like it would do any favours for your achy back. Instead, you opt for the bed. You sit on its edge and pat the mattress.

Thoughts bubble to the surface, and your mind focuses on a particular issue—the sleeping arrangements. Yes, you’re comrades who shared a bed out of necessity before, but that was a different scenario—now, sleeping together in a bed while on vacation? A shared vacation? That’s an entirely different matter.

As you reflect, your fingers graze the sheets. They’re soft—inviting. Leaning back, you sink into the mattress, its comfort drawing you in. The hiss of the lantern, paired with your breath, becomes a lullaby in the cabin’s silence. As the emotional strain and the tension in your body eases, the bed cradles you, its comfort pulling you deeper into its embrace. The day’s worries fade away with each breath. You close your eyes one last time for the day.

———————————————————————

The morning sun filters in through the bedroom window, gently nudging you awake. You blink, focusing on the wooden wall that stands inches away from your nose. You sit up slowly. Strange—your body isn’t positioned the way it was when you drifted off to sleep.

You turn at the empty space beside you; he is not there, yet the slightly flattened pillow and the tousled sheets hint that he has occupied that spot. There’s also a subtle change in your clothing; while you’re still dressed the same as yesterday, your shoes are missing. You wiggle your toes.

The sounds of the outdoors seep into the cabin, and you look out the window. Yesterday must have drained you completely. Sliding to the edge of the bed, you plant your bare feet onto the cool wooden floor, spying your shoes near the cabin entrance. As you approach them, you instinctively reach for Simon’s jacket, hanging over the chair. Wrapping yourself in it, you inhale deeply at its collar.

You slip into your shoes and open the cabin door. The brisk morning air greets you first, biting at your skin, and you hug Simon’s jacket tighter around you. A weird sound is coming from somewhere nearby that feels out of place from its surroundings.

Your eyes narrow toward the source—something by the pond. You shield your eyes from the sun’s glare, and the source becomes clearer. Simon stands at the pond’s edge, wearing a grey shirt that clings to his sweat-dampened chest. Gripping the axe with both hands, he raises it overhead, the blade briefly shining before descending with a solid thud. It bites into the wood and splits it in half with an audible crack. Then again. And again. And again.

Occasionally, he lets out a soft grunt as he swings the axe, releasing the tension from his body until he repeats the same movement. The sweat glistens on his skin, and his biceps flex with every lift, then relaxing with each hatch.

“Morning,” you finally say.

He pauses mid-swing and looks up. He sets the axe down against a log and wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Dark patches are spreading from his underarms. He’s breathless, so he nods at you instead.

“What happened in there?” you ask, motioning towards the bed.

Simon’s lips curl up. A single droplet drips from the tip of his nose as he bends and picks up the axe again.

“You confused sleeping with dying; that’s what happened.”

You chuckle. “You couldn’t wake me up, huh?”

He shakes his head, still smiling. “For someone who claims to be ‘not tired at all,’ you sure fell asleep like a rock,” he says, swinging the axe once more to split another log.

“Tea?” you offer.

“Please.”

You grin. “Beg a little, will you?”

He lets out a chuckle. “Careful now,” he warns you jokingly, giving the axe a casual twirl in his hand and keeping on working.

You roll your eyes and make your way to the kitchen. You grab a kettle, fill it with water, and place it on the stove. Opening the tea box, you browse the selection with your finger, then turn to search for Simon outside, thinking of asking him about his tea preference. However, he’s nowhere to be found. Redirecting your focus to the options, you speculate he’d be content with whatever you choose; he wouldn’t bring them here if he didn’t like them. You settle on Earl Grey.

As the water heats up, you ready the teapot with the tea blend and look out the window above the bed. There’s movement. You take a closer look.

Simon stands right by the shower. He slowly peels off his shirt, revealing his upper body inch by inch, and drapes it over the partition as he steps into the shower. His jeans and boxers follow suit, finding their place next to his shirt. He lifts his hand and turns on the shower head, finally releasing the water he yearns for after his hard work. His eyes shut as he lets the water flow down his body, starting from his head, tracing the line of his neck, and continuing down to his shoulders.

Did you lose your ability to breathe, or did time slow down? Does it matter? And, close your gaping mouth; you’ve seen nothing extraordinary. I, on the other hand, have seen every inch of him. Pathetic.

At least, that’s what the kettle appears to be screaming at you as it whistles for your attention. You remove it from the heat, pour it into the teapot and set it aside. You return to the window above the bed; Simon is no longer there.

You curse at the kettle.

———————————————————————

With the soothing warmth of tea inside you, you set out on a hiking adventure into the forest. It’s a familiar trail to Simon, yet the landscape seems untouched—whispering leaves, twittering birds, the distant murmur of a nearby stream. Sunlight filters through the foliage, draping the ground with a delicate pattern of golden lace. Moss and decomposing leaves mingle with the sweet fragrance of wildflowers to create a unique scent.

As you continue on the trail, you get captivated by an ancient tree standing alone, gnarled and weathered by time. Its roots grip the earth like they were there before your kind began to call this place home, and its branches reach for the sky as if praying to the gods. You touch its trunk and feel unworthy.

“Naychuh.” Simon’s voice breaks the silence. It takes a few seconds for you to register what he just said.

“Indeed,” you add. “Nature.”

“It’s amazing how they can withstand everything and remain so strong,” he observes, tracing the tree’s bark with his fingers. “Resilient.”

“I wish I were like that.” You murmur.

He averts his gaze, releasing his grip on the trunk. “The environment definitely helps,” he comments, shrugging. “Plant this tree in the Caribbean, and it’ll be dead in a week, but here?” He taps the trunk. “It flourishes.”

“Our environment isn’t very… flourishing, Lieutenant.”

“Simon,” he corrects you with a smile and motions towards the path ahead. “This way.”

The walk continues, each step leading you deeper into the woods. Neither of you utters another word. The nearby stream does all of the talking for you.

———————————————————————

The journey back to the cabin is easy; you both seem relaxed, no matter the distance you have walked. The forest’s inhabitants appear to switch shifts, preparing for the night; birds cease to chirp, and owls take their positions. Shadows lengthen, and the air carries a gentle chill, hinting at the approaching evening.

You’re filthy but content. Happy. You light the lantern and pull out fresh clothes from your bag.

Simon squats in front of the fire pit outside, preparing it for grilling. He piles the logs he cut earlier into the pit, tosses in some dried pine needles, and lights them up.

Two very different ways of getting burned stand before you. You step closer to him.

“Mind if I hit the showers?” you ask.

“Go ahead,” he says, nodding towards the enclosure.

“Promise you won’t look?”

“Not a fucking pervert like you are,” he jokes with a playful smile on his lips as he pokes the fire. “Spying from the windows.”

“I beg your pardon,” you snap, your face slowly turning red. “I wasn’t spying!”

“Sure, you weren’t.”

“I wasn’t!” You retort and smile. “I was simply enjoying what nature had to offer.”

He stifles a chuckle and shakes his head. “We eat in 20,” he announces. “Go.”

———————————————————————

With the sun now entirely gone, the fire glows brighter against the darkness.

You sit side by side, close to the fire, content from the shared meal. Each of you holds a glass of Bourbon and looks up at the sky, admiring the shooting stars.

A chuckle escapes you, catching Simon’s attention.

“What?” he asks, his brows knitted together.

You look down at the glass in your hand, then back up at the sky.

“Nothing,” you mutter. “I just find it funny how trees stay resilient while stars fall.”

He follows your line of sight to the night sky.

“Trees fall, just like stars,” he says, swaying his glass. “And just like us.”

“Interesting perspective, Lieut—”

“Simon,”

“Interesting perspective, Simon.”

He nods. “We all fall when the time comes.” He whispers.

You tilt your head, studying his profile. He’s aware of your gaze, yet he doesn’t shy away.

“But every fall serves a purpose,” he continues. “Trees offer us warmth, for example.”

“And what about us?” You ask.

“We put ourselves on the line to protect others.”

“Is that what you think we do? Protect?”

“I try to find some reasoning behind it,” he admits, shrugging.

Your focus shifts back to the night sky.

“And what about stars?” you wonder. “What purpose do shooting stars hold? Creating a spectacle for us, the protectors?”

He takes a sip from his glass, a soft smile on his lips.

“They make us wish,” he murmurs. ��They make us wish and hope.”

———————————————————————

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sohnric · 5 months

Text

to. my first – k. sunwoo

pairing: kim sunwoo x fem! reader

genre: 90s au. twenty-five twenty-one au, friends to lovers au, exes to lovers au. fluff, slice of life, coming of age, suggestive. highschool au, football player! sunwoo, baker! sunwoo. cheerleader! reader. first love au. what we call wet cat sunwoo. meeting your ex after years and falling back in love with him kind of thing.

warnings: alcohol, throwing up, swearing, reader has hair long enough for a ponytail, a heated make out session or two that alludes to them having sex but no actual smut happens, finger sucking, the reader moping around a lot, no plot just vibes.

word count: 31k

a/n: inspired by me telling @/csenke that sunwoo is my first love. why am i so soft for this man i truly dont know... thank you best friend for betaing this monster i appreciate it a LOT! also thank you to sana @/heemingyu and izzy @/from-izzy for the help on some parts of the fic and brainstorming the ending w me, as well as beta reading small parts of this.

spin-off to my fic millennium bug because sunwoo deserves love too! the reader from eric's fic is referenced to as MB!Y/N in this. you don't have to read the first fic to understand this one, but there are a lot of references in this and i highly encourage you to do so!

they say you never forget about your first love. you guess that's true. (or– a story about reckless love, first kisses, growing up, ambition, and inevitably, failure.)

August 2007

The laughter all around is electric. The music playing in the background makes you sway and hum to the melody, the familiar tunes making your insides light up with a different sense of nostalgia when you remember the times in which these songs were popular. Your tired limbs make you cut your way through the room and sit down on a vacant chair, not really caring about where your designated seat was anymore, just needing to rest for a second before you either throw up from exhaustion or faint from how tired your legs are from all the dancing. Paying a quick goodbye to Juyeon on the dance floor, you heave out a satisfied sigh when your bottom meets the cushioned seat of the chair, eyes zeroing on the filled dance floor.

Feeling a cramp in your foot, you scowl and lean down, ready to do the thing you’ve been desiring for at least the last three hours– if not the whole day. Hands playing with the strap on your heel, you make the shoe come undone before you slip the uncomfortable footwear off your feet, relaxing when your naked limbs meet with the cold tile on the floor.

You don’t really know who in their right mind would have a wedding in the middle of the summer heat, but you guess there are people that are out of their mind like that– and those people are your friends from high school.

Everything about coming back to your hometown has made you feel unpleasantly nostalgic so far– the streets haven’t changed a bit, your childhood home still looks just the same, furniture unmoved, and the air is still as crisp, yet humid as it always was during late August. It’s only tonight that finally makes the weird bittersweetness turn into joy. You’re back home with everyone you’ve ever known, with everyone who’s made you into who you are today. You’re seeing all their faces for the first time in ages– and frankly, it does feel good.

The satisfaction in your veins stays for a bit until a figure dressed in a suit comes into your point of view. It’s not like you’re seeing him for the first time tonight– he’s a big character, even when it comes to this wedding, so it’s hard to not notice him– but as his legs take him towards you in a wobbly nature, it dawns on you that now is maybe finally the time you get to talk to him. Don’t get me wrong– there are no hard feelings between the two of you (or at least you don’t have any, you’re not so sure about his side of the story). It’s just that seeing him dressed in a tux, tie now a little loose around his neck, the twinkle in his eye still present as back when you were both a lot younger, there’s still a strong aftertaste of your feelings towards him somewhere on the tip of your tongue.

His walk is a little lopsided as he grins at you and takes a seat on the vacant chair next to yours, a huff of air escaping his lungs as his body relaxes, limbs falling freely down the sides of his chair. His cheeks are a little red and his hair a little messy– there’s only so much to explain his composure apart from all the dancing he’s done.

“So I see that you still can’t handle your liquor well even after all those years?” you joke, making the boy turn his head to face you, an amused twinkle appearing in his smile.

His eyes are still the same chocolate orbs you know, still the same soft look adorning them whenever he feels particularly ecstatic. He shrugs, jolting his bottom lip out before he sighs to himself. “Well, it’s not every day you are the best man at your best friend’s and your sister’s wedding,” he muses, shrugging.

Laughing at his remark, once again taking in the state of the room– Juyeon, Hyunjae and Haknyeon each dancing somewhere in the middle of the dance floor, MB!Y/N’s friends from university twirling her around in the right corner, Eric staring at the bride with a warm gaze in his eyes, sipping on a drink while resting against one of the tables, clearly taking a mental image to look at every time he feels the need to– it all feels kind of surreal. Who would’ve thought all those years ago that it would end like this?

Well, Eric Sohn, for starters. He confessed to everyone in his wedding speech that he knew he wanted to marry MB!Y/N the moment she kissed him on New Year’s Eve of 1999– him being this cheesy was only acceptable because it was his own wedding. In any other circumstance, Sunwoo wouldn’t be able to let his best friend live this down.

It’s not like you ever expected those two to break up– it just makes you a little in awe at how fast time is passing. “It’s kinda crazy, isn’t it?” you hum, squinting at the flood of people on the dance floor.

“It is,” Sunwoo hums, tonguing the inside of his cheek, “still can’t believe they’re dating. Hell, they’re getting married right now…”

“You can’t believe your sister is dating your best friend?” you laugh, wiping the sweat that’s accumulated off your forehead, the mist appearing there both because of your reckless dancing and because of the unbearable heat of the August night.

“That, and also the other way around,” he hisses, “but I guess they’re both so insufferable that they go well together, so I don’t know why I’m still so surprised.”

Chuckling at his comment– you guess the bond he has with his sister is never to be changed, no matter how many years have passed– you watch as he shrugs off his suit jacket and throws it over the back of his chair, starting to roll up his sleeves to expose his forearms. Eyes following his motions, you clear your throat and force yourself to look back into his eyes when he asks you a question. “What about you, though? Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I am,” you nod, no hesitation, “it’s really nice to see all of you after so long. Plus, I’m having a lot of fun, so that’s a nice bonus."

“I can see that,” he grins, “by the way you sat on my seat just now, and all–”

“Oh god– I’m sorry,” you gasp, suddenly feeling a little silly. And here you thought he went up to you because he wanted to catch up… “I’ll move, if–”

The sound of Sunwoo’s hearty laugh lands into your ear– it’s just the same as it was back when you were both high schoolers, making your heart soar– before he shakes his head and urges you to stay with a motion of his hand, putting his large palm on your thigh to keep you from moving. “No, no, don’t be stupid,” he says, “I don’t mind. I was looking for you anyway, so you just made it easier for me by sitting here, actually.”

He was looking for you, resonates in your head, the familiar buzzing in your fingertips alerting you of the effect he has on you even tonight. God, maybe you were the one that had too much to drink…

“You were?” you ask, tone of voice light– not at all suspicious.

Sunwoo nods, shrugging. “Well, I guess we have a lot of catching up to do,” he smiles, “don’t we?”

Eyes meeting his, the contact feels electrifying to the point it makes your head spin when you look at him, taking in his glossy eyes and the flush of his cheeks. They’re less round than when you two were young, but his eyes still stay the same– big, round and tender.

He reminds you a lot of the time when you saw him drunk for the first time.

to. my first time getting drunk

April 1999

Havoc rings in his ears like jingle bells, the world around him spinning like he’s on a rollercoaster. His head feels like someone is installing a nail to the middle of his skull and when he looks around, Lee Donghyuck is staring at him with a glass bottle of soju in his hand, urging him to drink more.

Sunwoo doesn’t have it in him to do much else other than shake his head. It feels like he forgot all his vocabulary, not a single word coming out of his mouth or to the awake parts of his brain, watery eyes begging his classmate to not make him drink any more.

What seemed like a good idea just a few moments ago– see, it’s prohibited to drink on school trips, but Kim Sunwoo is infamous for loving to break the rules– now seems like the worst idea of his whole entire life. He feels so sick he thinks he’s going to die of alcohol poisoning, but the laughter around keeps painfully reminding him that he hasn’t even had that much to drink in the first place. The amount of times he’s been called a lightweight this night is making his pride severely hurt, and even graciously intoxicated, he can’t bear the sting this is putting on his already hurt ego.

“Come on, birthday boy! I’m sure you can handle one more,” Donghyuck urges, uncurling Sunwoo’s fist and placing the bottle into his grasp, making the poor boy wince and battle back tears.

He knows he’s being embarrassing. The choice between not dying and not humiliating himself is rather a difficult one, but the moment he finally finishes the crossword puzzle in his brain and puts the glass opening against his lips, the bottle is thankfully taken out of his grasp and discarded somewhere where his eyes can’t reach.

“You’re done for the night, Kim Sunwoo,” you haul at him, shaking your head at the poor boy, “you’re done.”

Sunwoo wants to open his mouth and protest, maybe ask you what you mean, but the moment his lips unseal, he gets a sniff of the alcohol in the air and suddenly, he feels like throwing up. Your eyes lock with his, a pleading– maybe a warning– mirrors in Sunwoo’s gaze, and even though he’s so drunk he feels like he crossed dimensions, he applauds your ability to know just what he means by a single look into his eyes.

“Oh, Christ–” you curse, hurried steps moving to the corner of the room, swiftly grabbing the trash can and running back towards your friend sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor.

You make it just in time to catch the contains of Sunwoo’s stomach into the trash can, making the boy insanely grateful– he’s wearing the new shoes his mum got him for his birthday, and god knows he’d hate it if he ruined them the very first day he can show them off to his football friends.

The whole world disappears into the background as he throws up while making a mental promise to himself to never drink again. The only thing keeping him from losing it all is the feeling of your hand on his back, comforting rubs grounding him back to earth. Giggles fill his ears and he’s sure everyone’s laughing at him– even in his drunken state, he can recognise the shame filling his veins– but before he can open his mouth to argue with his classmates, the sound of your angry voice makes him seal his lips close and listen to the scolding you offer to his teammates for making him drink so much.

“You know he has a weak stomach, Donghyuck!” you huff and puff, your hand still drawing comforting circles to Sunwoo’s back as his head stays stuck in the bucket, not having enough energy to even straighten his spine.

“It’s his birthday! Come on, don’t be so tight-arsed.”

“Well, do you want him to die on his day of birth? That’s not very cool of you,” you growl, the shuffle of your clothing and a pained “ow” escaping his friend’s lips hinting to Sunwoo that you just kicked the right wing to his shin.

Deserved, Sunwoo thinks.

“Can somebody get Eric? I’m pretty sure he’s in Daehwi’s room with MB!Y/N, Minjeong and Jihoon,” you hum, waiting for anyone to follow your orders.

Sunwoo blinks in and out of it, his consciousness giving up on him with the incredible pain in his temples. He feels incredibly grateful to have someone like you by his side not only now, but all the time. The two of you have gotten incredibly closer ever since he joined the football team– and with you being one of the cheerleaders, you’re always somehow around. Not that he’s complaining, of course. It seems like you are one of the more responsible ones in this room right now, and god knows Sunwoo needs a bit of guidance on his day to day ventures.

“Do you think you’ll be sick again?” you ask, voice soft in his ear. “Or can I take the trash can off you now?”

Sunwoo thinks for a bit, then he nods and lets go of the plastic bucket. He doesn’t know what happens to it after and nor does he care– it seems like the alcohol in his veins took away all his sense of object permanence. He can barely see anything in the yellow lights of the room (which makes him believe he is going blind from all the alcohol he’s had– don’t tell him it’s just his eyes getting hazy and confused with how much his head is spinning), but he’s sure he can feel you wiping his tear-stained cheeks (he wasn’t crying– his eyes were just watering) and pulling him closer to you when he threatens to fall over even in his seated position. Your hand comes up to play with his hair when you let him rest his head against your shoulder, your actions making him sleepy, eyes closing on themselves like a threat for him to fall asleep any second.

Something about the care, the loyal protectiveness you take over the boy makes his heart soften. He breaths in your scent, trying his hardest to focus on your presence and not the weird feeling in his stomach– although it’s settled a bit since he threw up, it’s still a little uneasy– and before he knows it, there’s a tap on his shoulder waking him up from the haze.

Sunwoo mourns, not really wanting to move from his position, too comfortable with your fingers threading through his hair– but much to his dismay, your soft voice appears in his ear, telling him he has to get up. “Can you walk on your own? We’re gonna get you back to your room,” you hum, your lips accidentally brushing against the shell of his ear, making everything in him light on fire. He’s not really sure if this is the effect alcohol has on you, but if it is, he’s certain he never wants to drink again.

“Sunwoo?” you call, the way you say his name suddenly all too angelic in his ears– but still not enough for him to answer. “Alright,” you sigh after the dreadful silence, taking charge of the situation, moving away from the boy and offering him your hands to hold on to as you try to get him on his feet, “I guess we’re gonna find out.”

His fingers intertwine with yours as he stares up at you, his vision blurry, but still sharp enough to make out your tired face. The sight is enough to make Sunwoo worry– is he being too much? Are you mad at him? Do you not want to be his friend anymore? – but before he has a chance to address any of those concerns, he’s being tugged up to his feet. Not ready for the weight of his own body, his knees buckle and refuse to work. There is a pair of hands clutching his arm automatically– yours– as another pair holds him up from behind by his waist.

He’s not really sure who was his other savior, but by the silent curse heard from behind, he thinks he recognises Eric’s voice.

“I know I shouldn’t have left him alone,” he hears his best friend say, voice full of frustration.

“You really shouldn’t have,” he hears you sigh, making the poor boy scowl.

It still feels like he can’t really speak, exhaustion taking a toll on him, but he follows the orders as you tell him to get on his best friend’s back– Eric’s crouching figure ready for the impact, waiting for the taller one to clutch onto him so he can carry him into the safety of their shared room. The operation has to be quick if they don’t want to be caught by their teachers while walking through the hall, and somehow, in the distant crevices of his brain, Sunwoo recognises that and he makes no battle to resist, doing exactly as he’s told.

“Man, you’re heavy,” he hears Eric huff under him as the poor boy carries him through the hall. “You’re gonna have a killer hangover tomorrow, dude…”

Sunwoo’s head rests against his friend’s shoulder, hands carelessly hanging around Eric’s neck. He tries to blink away the sleep, desiring to stay awake, when your concerned face appears in his vision and suddenly, he feels insanely guilty.

“I’m sorry,” the two words escape his mouth with no trouble– the first words to appear in his vocabulary after the few minutes of him being surprisingly mute– only to hear his friend chuckle.

“Well, you’re going to be dying from a headache tomorrow, not us,” Eric hums, “so I think you have to apologize to future you first.”

Sunwoo pouts, bangs falling into his eyes making him blink in a desperate try to get the stray hairs away, attempting to make eye contact with your side profile. “Are you mad at me?” he asks, voice a little groggy from all the screaming and drinking.

“What?” you ask, genuinely surprised to hear his question. Your face morphs into a confused expression, the one where a wrinkle appears in between your brows– and it takes everything in Sunwoo not to poke the little line with his pointer finger in utter endearance.

“Are you… mad…?” he asks again, watching as your face morphs into amusement.

“No,” you shake your head, a hint of a laugh in your tone. “Why?”

“You look grumpy.”

“I’m just worried,” you note.

“About?” Sunwoo asks, his intelligence morphing into a one of a 10-year old with the influence the alcohol has on him.

“You,” you say, sighing and shaking your head as you move two steps in front of Eric and open the door to their room, closing it swiftly behind you and following the duo towards Sunwoo’s bed.

The younger one drops the boy into the cushions of his bed with an exaggerated sigh (that might as well be real, for all we know– god knows you wouldn’t be able to carry Sunwoo on your own), and the comfort of the pillow around his head is enough to make Sunwoo’s eyes start closing again, sleep threatening to take over his consciousness.

There’s some noise interrupting his sleep, though, making the boy tear his tired eyes open to notice you walking through the room. Sunwoo finds Eric putting a glass of water onto his bedside table and watches as you put a trash can beside his bed, hushed whispers sent Eric’s way resonating in the quiet room. “Make sure that he sleeps on his side so if he throws up again, he doesn’t choke–”

“Y/N?” he calls your name, watching as you look at him with careful eyes.

“Hm?”

“Are you leaving?” he asks, maybe a little foolishly.

“Yes.”

The boy nods at your reaction, showing his acknowledgement. In the drunken state of his mind, he knows he doesn’t particularly want you to leave, but he’s also fairly certain, finding the rational thought in the sober part of his brain, that you have to leave, and so he lets it go. The drunken state of his mind wins, though, when the next sentence foolishly escapes his lips.

“Please don’t stop liking me after this,” he mumbles, words slurring.

“What?” you ask– confused because you either don’t fully comprehend what he’s trying to say, or because you truly just couldn’t hear what words escaped his mouth– but when you don’t get a clarification, you just nod at the boy, seemingly desperate to keep him happy tonight. “Okay, I won’t.”

“You won’t stop liking me?” he asks, a big pout playing with his features.

“No.”

“Okay.”

That seems to put his mind at ease– enough to make his brain finally turn off and lead him to sleep. He doesn’t really remember what he dreamt of that night, but the last memory he has of the night of his 18th birthday is that you promised to not stop liking him after seeing him a drunken mess, and how he so deeply wished you’ll continue to like him forever.

It hits him only a few months later that the thing he so desperately hoped for that night was that you’ll keep liking him even at his worst– that he didn’t drive you away and one day, maybe, you’ll like him more than just a friend.

to. my first detention

September 1999

Sunwoo was never the one to break the rules.

Well, if you don’t count that one time he skipped class just because he got too bored of it in the middle of the lecture. And it wasn’t even that hard either– he just asked if he could go to the bathroom, and when he got the approval, he stood up and left, never returning.

Or if you don’t count that one time he climbed up the ladder on the side of the school building with his friend Juyeon and had his lunch there. Or that one time he cheated on an exam and made a scene about it when accused of the act, leading the professor into letting him off just that one time.

Sunwoo is usually too lazy to break the rules. Some days, paradoxically, his laziness is what leads him to break the rules. He can’t really help it, even if he tried.

The one time he does break the rules, expecting to be punished by his teacher for coming late to class, it’s not even his fault in the first place. Morning football practice ran late and he didn’t feel like rushing to change out of his practice clothing– see, the laziness is playing a part in this as well– so when he arrived into his Physics lecture, the clock was already 15 minutes after the bell rang for the first period.

Much to his surprise, his teacher didn’t even punish him. “Well, you’re an athlete, so it’s understandable,” he heard, making his lips stretch out into a subtle smile. If he knew that joining the football club would lead him to have such privileges, he would’ve done it a long time ago.

How did he still end up in detention, you may ask? Well, that’s a funny question.

Your flushed face appears in the doorway of the classroom exactly 2 minutes after Sunwoo does, breathing heavily and wiping the sweat off your forehead with the back of your hand. Your hair tied up in a ponytail is loose now, stray hairs falling out to frame your face, your school uniform wrinkly, shirt not tucked in properly, as you spit out endless apologies to your teacher about being late for lecture.

“I’m really, really sorry about being late,” you bow, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you look around the classroom with apologetic eyes, “I had cheerleading practice and it ran a bit late, so I didn’t have enough time to–”

“Sit, Ms Y/L/N,” the teacher hums, “if you have time to do any other activities other than being in class, I’m sure you’ll have time to stay after class for detention, am I right?”

“Sir, I really–”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Now, are you seeing the difference in the way you and Sunwoo were treated? That’s right. It may not look like it, because the young football player rarely puts effort into anything (other than the game), but when something angers him, it’s quite difficult for him to keep it in.

And that’s exactly why his ass is currently sitting in one of the chairs of his classroom, legs spread wide as he looks around the silent room in boredom. Accusing his teacher for being sexist and holding to double standards wasn’t the best idea, but it was enough to get him into detention alongside you.

His eyes get caught up with something– someone– sitting two desks in front of him, one to the right, scribbling their homework into their notebook. At least you are using up the detention time for important and useful things, he thinks. That won’t stop him from interrupting you in your task, though. Even better– it encourages him.

Tearing out a piece of paper from his notebook, Sunwoo fishes for a pen in one of his pockets, writing a short note that says: Wanna get ramen after this? before he crumbles the paper into a small ball. After watching the teacher for a few seconds, making sure that he’s not going to get caught, he throws the ball in your direction, aiming straight for your head.

He misses. Well, that’s why he plays football and not volleyball– he doesn’t have good aim when it comes to his hands– but nonetheless, the note ends up hitting your shoulder before it bounces off and falls to the ground.

Confused, you look around before you find Sunwoo staring at you, pointing towards the paper on the ground with a grin on his face. You sigh, sending a telepathic signal of ‘you’re acting like a child again,’ straight into his brain before you reach for the paper ball and take it into your hands, fingers uncurling the thin material and reading out the words he’s sent to you.

Only a few seconds pass before you throw the ball back to him– he catches it in his hands, earning an approving look from you at his strangely fast reflexes, making a sense of victory flow gracefully through his veins. A frown settles on his face when he reads out your reply, though.

can’t. I promised Aeri I’ll hang out with her later. we’re going for frozen yogurt.

Sunwoo furrows his brows. Oh how he hates to be denied.

I can join!! i could use some froyo

You send a tired look to him over your shoulder when you receive the message, rolling your eyes at his comment. It’s obvious that Sunwoo can’t join– he knows it by the look in your eyes. Hell, he knew he wasn’t invited even before he asked– he just likes to see your frustration. Something about the way your face scrunches up, clicking your tongue against the roof of your mouth, amuses him in a way he can’t really describe.

you could’ve gotten yours instead of staying in detention. what was that about, by the way?? I’ve never seen anyone willingly do detention… you must be out of your mind

The message makes him chuckle, shaking his head in disbelief. His motives are clear– well, at least in his brain. If he stays in detention, he can see you for some more. Which means he can hang out with you more (or look at the back of your head from afar, whichever you grace him with on that particular day). And he wants to spend as much time with you as he can, well, because… because he just likes to do so. Why?

Don’t ask. He hasn’t thought it out that far yet.

I just like things to be fair. I came late too :((

He writes back instead. Fairness is the last thing he cares about if the world is in his favor. If the world is unfair to you, though– that’s another thing.

weirdo.

You write back. The pen is already in his hand, ink getting hotter as he masters up a reply, when the loud voice of his teacher cuts through the classroom and announces that detention is over and they’re all dismissed. Something in Sunwoo’s stomach drops.

Sighing, he puts the note back into his pocket (and will forget to throw it out. Then, he’ll find it there after a few days, unravel the ball and read over the letters with a smile. He won’t throw it out then either– he’ll crumble it back and keep it there until the paper wears out and forms into litter in the pocket of his pants). Gathering his things into his bag, he swings the backpack over one of his shoulders before catching up with you, already halfway out of the classroom. You seem to be in a rush to meet Aeri– he understands– but there’s still one more thing he needs to do.

Clearing his throat, Sunwoo approaches you from the back. “Hey!”

“Hi,” you hum, adjusting the bag on your shoulder. “Aeri’s waiting for me outside, so I gotta–”

“Wait, I– I have something for you,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. Why does he suddenly feel so nervous? The words his sister said to him yesterday keep resonating in his head, and although he knows it’s not true and he doesn’t see you in that way, his stomach churns and he clutches his hand into a fist by his side, a desperate act to ground himself.

“What?” you look at him, eyebrows furrowed, all confused. Sunwoo’s not the one to give gifts– sure, he pays for your meals sometimes, but that’s only because you share them and he comes to the logical conclusion that he eats more of the portion than you do anyways, so it’s only fair.

“Um… well, my sister… she was making those bracelets yesterday and she made me do it with her, because she’s really annoying when she wants to be,” he mumbles, fishing for the bracelet in the front pocket of his backpack, lying straight through his teeth.

You stare at him with wide eyes, completely unreadable to Sunwoo. Well, he already said it, so he may as well just dig his hole even deeper. The yarn is soft under his touch when he twirls the bracelet in his fingertips, eyes focusing on the shades of red and pink, suddenly too afraid to face you and look you in the eyes. “And, uh… we made too many, so I brought you one, because… you’re my friend, and all,” he mumbles, chewing the inside of his cheek.

His sneakers are oh so interesting to look at in the few seconds he spends waiting for your reply. He feels like he’s in court, waiting for his ordeal– anxiety making him bounce on the tips of his feet, his other hand clutching the strap of his backpack for dear life.

“Did you make that?” you ask, tone of voice genuinely appreciative.

“Yeah,” he shrugs.

He did not.

“That’s– that’s really cute,” you gasp, making the boy finally look up. When he finds that the words are addressed to the bracelet his sister made, not his act of kindness, something inside of him gets irritated, but the little devil in his chest leaves just as fast when you meet his eye and take the yarn from his hands, examining the red and pink knots from a closer distance.

“Yeah,” he hums, not really knowing what to say.

“Can you tie it for me?” you ask, offering the bracelet back to the boy and smiling at him, waiting for him to circle it around your wrist and secure it to place with a knot. It’s a bit long, the ends sticking out to different directions, but Sunwoo admits that it does look quite nice against your skin, and that if he forgets about the fact that it was his sister who actually made the bracelet (even though he begged her to teach him for approximately two hours, going as far as bribing her with his snacks), he does feel quite proud of the gesture.

There’s something possessive about the bracelet, he thinks. It's like a sign to everyone that you have someone who cares about you enough to tie it around your wrist. It’s like saying hey, this is my best friend! No one else enjoys their company enough to make a bracelet to prove it, but me. It’s like a silent translation of the heart’s calling: this person is mine. They’re not allowed to take this off until I die.

Sunwoo feels a bit giddy as he watches you admire the yarn around your wrist. You sport the same expression as Eric did when he forced a bracelet out of his sister yesterday– eyes glimmering, the widest grin on your features. While he may be sure what the face meant when it came to his best friend (although he tries to close his eyes from the obvious crush he has on his sister), he’s not quite certain when it comes to you.

In his mind, you smile like this at everyone. You’re just that kind of person.

But oh does he wish you mirror Eric’s feelings on the matter. Oh does he hope you tell everyone he is the one who gave the bracelet to you– he hopes you boost in front of your friends, tell them just how much you like it.

…maybe his sister was right.

Maybe the bracelet had a deeper intention.

August 2007

“So,” Sunwoo hums, taking a salty chip from the bowl settled in the middle of the table, looking over at you with a curious gaze, “how have you been?” he asks, chewing as he waits for you to answer.

It’s an easy question, one would think– and it’s true, it’s not the most difficult thing to answer. But considering the circumstances, the fact that you and Kim Sunwoo haven’t seen each other since you both graduated from high school, despite telling each other you’ll stay in contact and see each other whenever you have the chance to– it gets a little bit more difficult. It’s been 6 years, many things have changed, you had your fair share of good things happening to you as well as the bad.

What do you tell Sunwoo, though– a friend you lost somewhere along the way, much like everyone? Well, you can’t really blame him for growing distant with you– although to this day, you don’t really know the reasoning. He was the first one to leave, and although you always wished him the best, nobody can really blame you for doing your part at flying out of your nest. Everyone has to experience the outside world before they can find their place in it, no?

It’s not your fault that you weren’t as successful as you wanted to be…

“Well, you know,” you shrug, “so and so. Many things happened, but I guess I’m doing fine,” you conclude, nodding to yourself.

The face Sunwoo offers you is one of concern. You recognise that this is not really what he wanted to hear– not really what he expected you to say. The both of you were always ambitious, shooting for the stars, so it would be nice to know that at least one of you finally chased down the dreams you’ve had since you were young.

“What about you?” you ask quickly, shielding yourself from more interrogation. “How did football go?”

That has Sunwoo chuckling, averting his gaze. He takes a sip of the soda placed on his table before he turns to you again and answers the question, shrugging to himself. “Didn’t really go as I planned,” he says, nodding to himself. “Guess I lost many years on it, but oh well. Can’t really take it back now.”

“Don’t say that,” you hum, chewing on the inside of your cheek. The answer he offered you was not surprising to you– not that you didn’t believe in his abilities, not at all. It’s just that by now, if Sunwoo’s dreams came true, you’d be aware. You’d hear about him everywhere. You’d see him on the news, in the paper… It seems like your friend has disappeared out of the spotlight he always wanted even sooner than he could walk straight into the stardom. You wouldn’t say you were keeping tabs on him, no– you just cared enough to try to look for him in every place you could. “It wasn’t lost years. You did what you loved, and you tried your best.”

“I know,” he says, scrunching up his nose in an adorable manner before he sighs, “I’m just moping around. Besides, I quite like the life I’ve had since coming back home,” he admits.

“You do?” you ask, eyes glimmering in the lights. Something in you shifts– moves to a more comfortable place at the information. It’s strange that hearing that he’s doing fine still makes you feel at peace. It’s been years– you really shouldn’t care by now.

“I do,” he nods, “I work at Juyeon’s father’s bakery now. I didn’t really expect to like it, but there’s something charming about it, I’ll have you know,” Sunwoo says, taking another handful of chips into his hand before feeding them to himself, seemingly trying to chase down the tipsiness in his bloodstream.

That drags out a giggle out of you, shaking your head at the news. “I wouldn’t take you for a bakery kind of guy,” you say, “I can’t really imagine you in the kitchen.”

“Well, times change, Y/N-ie,” the nickname slips out between his lips like a punch to your gut, his teasing tone dragging nails to you in a weird sense of nostalgia, “I’m the best baker in town right now. People go crazy over my cinnamon rolls,” he nods, pointing a finger to you as if to prove his point.

“I find that hard to believe,” you squint at him, shaking your head in disbelief.

“You’ll have to come and find out,” he says, the sentence so casual that the contrast of his following statement has your heart drop a little, “well, if you’re… staying around for a bit, of course…”

Humming, watching as his eyes soften at the shift in your composure, you nod in agreement. “I’ll make sure to add that to my plan.”

Sunwoo nods in acknowledgement. Swallowing down the chips that were in his mouth, he dusts off his hands off the excess salt and licks his lips before speaking up again, seemingly collecting his thoughts. “So you’re staying around for a while?” he asks, a little bit cautious.

He doesn’t really know how sensitive this topic is for you– you don’t even know if he’s aware of your previous whereabouts, if he knows where you left off to and why– but Sunwoo stays caring, no matter the amount of time you spent not talking, no matter the big canyon that slowly formed in between the two of you in the years of no contact. It’s something you’ve always appreciated about him. He liked joking around, but he always knew where the boundaries laid, always knew when the joke went too far. He tried hard to avoid poking around too much, but he always made sure to apologize if he realized he hurt someone’s feelings. He’s a spark of violent fire, but he’s also tamed like a fireplace when he wants to be– warm, comfortable. It’s easy to feel like it’s back in the old times when you’re around him. It’s easy to pretend neither of you ever really left.

“I am,” you nod. “Things… didn’t really work out for me either, y’know,” you chuckle, the dry kind that shows just how bitter you are about the matter. “I went to New York with the internship my aunt arranged for me in KBS, but I guess I just… wasn’t really good enough to keep full-time.”

“Don’t say that,” Sunwoo mirrors your previous statement, an honest attempt at comforting you.

“No, it’s okay,” you laugh, “I stayed abroad for a while, tried hard, but sometimes, it’s just not meant to be, y’know? So after I realized my jobs weren’t making me enough money for a decent living in the States, I came back home,” you say, mouth forming a pout as you speak– the kind that shows you’re lost in thought, making up a plan as you go, “I’ll help my parents out for a while and then look for something to do here, I think.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad,” Sunwoo says, offering you a soft smile. “I… I guess I’d say it’s good to have you back,” he admits, averting his gaze as he says the words, “ever since I came home, it felt like something was missing, so… anyways, you’ll figure it out, so don’t worry too much.”

“Thanks, Sunwoo,” you hum, pressing your lips into a tight smile, heart squeezing a little at his sincerity. It’s strange– it’s been years, having lived through countless different situations that were supposed to change the both of you, shift you into two completely different people– but somehow, Sunwoo still feels the same. Almost as if you two never left. Almost as if you two never drifted apart and instead spent your early twenties side-by-side, just like you always planned on doing.

The boy looks at you from the corner of his eye, a content smile spreading on his lips. You feel the atmosphere shifting, the situation tensing up a bit, and with the discomfort the image of him leaving you alone brings you, the words slip out of your lips with a bit too much ease.

“Would you want to… dance with me? I wanna see if you still remember what I taught you,” you grin, watching as the playful expression mirrors on your friend’s face, a nod eliciting from him that makes you quickly put your shoes back on and get ready for the dancefloor.

“Of course,” he hums, standing up swiftly and wiping his hands on the fabric of his pants before outstretching a hand for you, tone of voice sweet like honey, “my lady?”

to. my first dance

November 1999

“Who are you asking to the dance?” you question one afternoon, the two of you behind the closed doors of his room. There aren’t many times where Sunwoo gets to invite you over– mostly because he’s too shy to have someone around when his sister is home, and his sister isn’t known to have that many friends to hang out with– so the times where he finds you settled on top of the sheets of his bed, he treasures deeply.

“I dunno,” he mumbles, looking up at you from the comfort of his rug, shrugging, “I don’t really think I’m going, actually.”

“Oh?” you gasp, pouting at the boy. “Why not?”

“I don’t really have anyone to go with,” he says. What he really means is– you’re going with someone else. Sunwoo doesn’t really see himself dancing with anyone else but you– that’s just that kind of bond you two have in his mind. Your friendship is dear to Sunwoo, and the boy can’t think of anyone else he’d like to spend the evening with.

When his sister argued with him with logical words, telling him that he treasures his friendship with Eric just the same, but wouldn’t invite him to the prom, he just scoffed at her. MB!Y/N doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t treasure Eric in the same way, no matter the fact that they pretty much grew up together. Some things just don’t feel the same way with Eric as they do with you. He feels closer to you, in a way.

“Well, that’s bullshit,” you scoff, shaking your head at your friend, “you’re handsome. And you play football, which is every girl’s dream. I bet anyone would go with you if you just asked,” you propose, pointing a finger at the boy, not really noticing the way he blinks at hearing the words ‘you’re handsome’ coming out of your mouth in regards to him.

Do you find him handsome? Is that your subjective opinion or are you just objectively saying what you’ve heard in the cheerleader changing rooms?

He’d like to know. Just out of curiosity.

Sunwoo scratches the back of his neck in nerves, now fully seated and facing you. It’s hard to meet your eye when he talks, his words coming out muffled. “I can’t dance anyway, so it would be no fun for everyone involved.”

And watching you dance with his classmate Shotaro would be no fun either. See, it would be easy for Sunwoo to be okay with the fact that you were going to the prom with someone older (which is practically impossible, since you’re both seniors, just for the record…). He would understand your point, then. It’s easy to be okay with defeat when your opponent has the upper hand, but when you put two men against each other that are hierarchically equal to each other, much like Sunwoo and Shotaro, the poor boy finds it hard to not feel as insecure in his position.

But with Shotaro being the same age as him and the same amount of popular as him, Sunwoo can’t help but compare himself to his classmate. What does Shotaro have that Sunwoo doesn’t? Is it his smile? Should Sunwoo smile more…?

It doesn’t really help his case that you’re going to the prom with the head of the dance team. Sunwoo can’t dance… Is it the fact that he can’t dance?

Or are you just going to the prom with Shotaro because he was the one to ask you to go? Sunwoo can’t help but wonder– would you have gone with him, had he the balls and asked you first?

“What do you mean, you can’t dance?” you say, eyeing the male.

“Just… never learned to, I guess,” Sunwoo shrugs, “but it doesn’t really matter, since I’m not going, so…”

“But you have to go,” you pout, putting the boy in a difficult position. He doesn’t know if you’re aware of the fact, but your pleading look does wonders to his decision making. He’d commit arson if you asked him to with those glimmers in your eyes. He’d kill for you. Or die for you. Both, depending on the situation. He’d do anything.

“Why?”

“It won’t be fun if you’re not there,” you say, sighing. Your face looks so genuine Sunwoo almost believes it. It makes his heart squeeze and contemplate his decision. “I know Donghyuck is gonna spike the punch, and there are gonna be fireworks,” you hum, chewing on the inside of your cheek, “and this is our senior prom, Sunwoo… you have to come.”

The words resonate in his brain, making him even more hesitant about his decision. This is your senior prom– the last dance of your high school years. The last opportunity for Sunwoo to enjoy this time with you and his friends, the last chance he gets at seeing you in a pretty gown, all dolled up and smiling from the sneaky sips of alcohol you’ll get with everyone outside of the school gym. The last opportunity for Sunwoo to dance with you, his best friend, and possibly the last time he’ll ever enjoy his evening with the rest of his football team before all of them have to study in order for them to take their CSAT.

Maybe you’re right. Maybe he should go.

“I’ll think about it, I guess…” he mumbles, watching as your face morphs.

“You guess?” you scoff, glaring at him. “You’ll go or I’ll personally come to your house and drag you there by your hair, you get me, Kim Sunwoo?” you threaten him, having the boy laugh at your outburst. You’re really adorable when you tease him, Sunwoo thinks.

“Got it, chief,” he says, offering you a playful look as he salutes and lays back down onto the carpet, eyes pressed to the ceiling. “Don’t expect me to dance, though, because I refuse to embarrass myself. I have quite the reputation to uphold, you see.”

Sunwoo hears you chuckle, the noise of his sheets tousling landing into his ears. Before he has a chance to look at you and see what you’re doing, his view of the white wall above is shielded with the sight of your face, hair framing your cheeks as you stare down at him and put out your hands, waiting for him to take them and get up to a seated position.

“What?” he asks, genuinely confused.

“I’m gonna teach you, come on,” you call him with a motion of your hand, arms still outstretched and waiting.

“Huh?” he squints, watching as you roll your eyes in frustration.

“I’ll teach you how to dance, Sunwoo,” you snicker, watching as the boy slowly takes your hands and lets you drag him up from where he’s laying on his electric blue rug, “so you don’t embarrass yourself.”

That has Sunwoo stuttering, his figure freezing even when you manage to somehow make him stand up in the middle of his room. A million different exclamation marks appear all over his brain, warning him from the upcoming events, but he has no way of denying your proposition now, no matter how hard he tries. “No- it’s- you don’t have to, I’ll just-”

“Okay, so,” you say, dismissing all his previous attempts at stopping you from your quest, “first, you put your hand here,” you order.

The skin of your fingertips touches Sunwoo’s hand, making the boy’s heart stummer in his chest. You drag his palm towards your waist, placing it on the curve of your body. He swears he feels electricity flowing through the contact, warmth radiating off your skin even though it’s shielded by the fabric of your favorite shirt. He gulps as you put your hand on his shoulder, his eyes carefully following your movements, examining every slightest shift of your composure.

“And then you hold my hand with your other hand,” you instruct, but move to do it yourself when the boy doesn’t seem to have it in him to reach for your palm himself.

Your fingers interlock with his, making the boy chew on his bottom lip in a sudden flash of nerves. You’re standing so close he can smell your perfume, the scent making his head spin and feel lightheaded. If you made him turn in this moment, he’s sure he’d fall over, weak legs barely holding him up in your close proximity.

“Sunwoo?” you ask, making the boy gulp before he hums in acknowledgement.

“You have to look into my eyes when you slow dance,” you laugh, the sound soft and airy, but enough to have his stomach feel all weird, like he’s about to throw up. Still, he forces himself to look into your eyes, instantly feeling like you’re hypnotizing him. (He’s convinced he’d jump out of his window right in this moment if you asked him to.)

“Okay,” he nods, standing still, maintaining eye contact. His body is stiff, muscles tense as you just stand there for a moment. Sunwoo battles his inner fight and doesn’t look at any other features of your face– he has a weird obsession with staring at your lips whenever you talk to him lately. He feels like a weirdo every time he catches himself doing it, so he tries to get rid of the bad habit as much as he can.

“Now, you just… kind of sway to the beat,” you say. The boy nods, but his body stays unmoving.

“There’s… there’s no music playing,” he gets out, watching as you chuckle, your lips stretching out into an adorable grin.

“Right,” you nod, sighing, “well, I’ll just… let me just…” you mumble before you start humming a tune– one that makes Sunwoo laugh from how ridiculous it sounds, the notes so unfamiliar to him he’s sure you’re making it up as you go. Before he knows it, you start moving, making him mirror your actions.

It’s not as difficult as he thought it was, he thinks. You stare at him, all encouraging, as you sway from one foot to the other, nodding at him when you see that he’s following your lead well. Dancing with you suddenly feels like the easiest thing in the world, it feels like he was born to have you in his arms, in the middle of his room as you hum an unfamiliar song to him. He thinks going to the dance won’t be so bad– not if he gets to dance with you there for at least one more time.

“Doing well,” you smile, making the boy feel all warm on the inside. A feeling of victory flashes over him for a mere second. He beams in your considerate words, feels fuzzy under your warm gaze. He feels like he just won the lottery. It’s kind of silly, if he really thinks about it.

A boyish grin appears on his face, having Sunwoo shaking his head at how both ridiculous and over the moon he feels right now. The stream of hums coming out of your throat cuts off for a second as you talk to him with an instructing tone, a warm gaze pressed into his features. “So you can either do this, or you can…” the hand that was holding his suddenly untangles itself from between his fingertips (and Sunwoo’s momentarily glad, because his palm was getting quite sweaty– although he admits that it does feel empty now that you’re not holding it), before you place his other hand on your waist as well.

Something about the pose makes Sunwoo feel strangely intimate, a little bit bashful under your gaze. It only intensifies when your hands go up and entangle behind his neck, bringing you two even closer than before. The proximity has him blushing, red cheeks bringing heat to his face. He prays you don’t mention it– he really doesn’t know if he would be able to talk himself out of this one.

“Or you can do it like this,” you say before you lead the boy again, bodies swaying to an imaginary rhythm. You’re not even humming this time, having Sunwoo follow your movements in complete silence, his aimless movements mirroring your own. He’s surprised he hasn’t stepped on your foot yet when you decide to quickly teach him how to waltz (while also mumbling something about this dance being performed with the previous hand placement). He follows your orders– step forward, close, then another step backwards– and before he knows it, you’re leading him into a gentle turn, rising and falling in a ¾ count.

He’s getting lost in your voice– the softest “1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3,” helping him to stay in rhythm– before he’s pulled out of his trance as he feels your fingers playing with the hair on his nape, entangling yourself into his black locks. The motion has him look back up to your eyes (that have been previously glued to your feet, making sure he’s not stepping on your socked limbs), surprised when he sees you staring at him with a sweet smile playing with your lips.

Halting your movements for a bit, you let out a giggle and take him by surprise when your hand reaches up towards his bangs, ruffling his hair as he still holds you around your waist, the two of you almost hugging in his room. “See? Not that hard. You’re a born natural.”

His heart feels like it skipped a beat, a weird sense of panic enclosing around his chest. He doesn’t know what it is, not really knowing how to name the feeling, but it has him nervously smiling and urging him to escape you– escape your touch, escape your scent, your voice and the way you smile at him like you may feel the slightest ounce of the things he does for you, but refuses to accept on most days.

Rushed movements make him break apart from your grasp, quick breathing making him feel like he might spiral.

“Hey! We weren’t done yet!” you call after him when he runs towards the door of his room.

Not looking around, the boy gulps and nervously calls back to you, facing the door. “I’ll be back! I just have to pee!”

The door to his bathroom closes behind him with a loud shut. The boy doesn’t aim for the toilet– instead, he walks over to the sink, turning on the tap and splashing his face with ice cold water. When he’s done, feeling a bit less heated up, he looks up and stares at his face in the mirror. He gives himself some time to collect his thoughts, to hopefully let go of his foolishness.

How many more times will he have to remind himself that he only sees you as a friend?

to. my first date

January 2000

The snow crunches under his sneakers and makes Sunwoo slip on the cold surface– no wonder his mother screamed at him for not wearing his winter shoes before he went out with his friends. He bets it would be way less difficult to walk in the whiteness of the ground if he had more grip in the soles of his shoes, but oh well– he’s not really good at making clever decisions half the time. Nobody can really be surprised.

Somewhere along the way between the moment he’s interrogated his sister about the reason for her bad mood and the moment where he purposefully let her with his best friend at the top of the hill with no way out (he had a hunch the two of them had some things to talk about, from both of their uneasy demeanours for the last day), he realizes he lost both his sister and his best friend, and while he’s quite certain Eric can find his way home just fine, Sunwoo shivers at the thought of not bringing his sister home to his mother. He’s not quite sure he’d survive that.

The quest of finding you both begins the moment the friend group reaches the top of the hill. Given his sister’s impulsiveness, she could’ve ran away from home, and that’s not what he wants to deal with on such a pretty winter day.

Sunwoo finds his plan being successful the moment he reaches the hot chocolate stand. The victory he feels after finding his younger sister alive and healthy is quickly overshadowed with the sight of his best friend’s face close to hers, very clearly going in for a kiss. He thinks he has to do something before he is permanently scarred with the image of them two making out right in front of his eyes as he gathers some of the icy texture into his hands and makes a ball, aiming straight at the head of his best friend.

The snow hits the both of them, right in the middle where their faces are supposed to meet. It’s not quite where Sunwoo was aiming, but he figures it’s good enough– it stopped his sister and his friend in the act, and that’s all he really cares about at this moment.

“Eric Sohn, what the fuck do you think you’re doing with my sister?” Sunwoo hollers, watching as his childhood friend takes off and leaves his sister alone on the bench to watch the conflict. The rest of the group follows with laughter as Sunwoo gathers more snow, tailing Eric and making sure the boy is punished for whatever he’s been doing.

It’s not like he disapproves. Not at all, actually. He just thinks it’s fun to mess with him a little.

“I didn’t mean to! Hey!” Eric cries out over his shoulder, trying his best to escape the frostbite. Karma is not on his side as he trips over something and falls to the ground, efficiently helping Sunwoo and the rest of their circle to corner the poor youngest, snow hailed on his limp figure.

One would think the group of them were making a snowman with how they’re rolling the poor boy around in the snow. Juyeon and Donghyuck make sure there’s not a hint of skin unhidden by the ice, making Eric mourn and kick around– he’s left helpless, though, outpowered and outnumbered by his peers. If anyone unknowing was watching the scene, Sunwoo is sure he’d be framed for bullying.

He thinks it’s quite deserved. Why? He’s not really sure why. He just has a hunch.

“Okay! Enough!” Eric mumbles, shaking his head when Donghyuck tries to fit snow into his mouth. “I’m sorry! It won’t happen again!” he says, eyes opening wide as MB!Y/N appears somewhere behind her older brother, a teasing pout settled on her face.

“It won’t?”

“MB!Y/N– I– Just help me..?” the boy pleads, making the rest of the group laugh and finally relax, easing the attack. Juyeon hums something about young love, making the rest of the guys roll their eyes on his unusual cheesiness, before Donghyuck taps his teammate’s shoulder, making sure he’s paying attention to him.

Sunwoo raises his eyebrows at him, waiting for what he has to say. “Look, isn’t that Y/N?”

There are a few ways to catch Sunwoo’s attention. First– you have to mention football. He could spend hours on the topic of who’s the best player– Ko Jongsoo or Ahn Junghwan? If anyone asked him to write an essay on it, he’s quite certain he’d do a great job explaining their techniques and goal statistics for numerous pages. Second– you have to mention food. He’s a big fan of junk food, but ever since his friend Juyeon introduced him to their family bakery, he’s been a big cinnamon roll enthusiast. And third– you have to mention Y/N.

Just the mention of your name is enough for the boy to stand alert, suddenly all too knowing of his surroundings. He turns his head to look for you, catching sight of your figure dressed in your long coat, standing all alone at the bottom of the hill. There’s an almost bored-looking expression on your face, although Sunwoo thinks there’s a bit of disappointment behind your eyes, making a cloud shade your them and make them lose their usual glimmer. That alone has the boy frowning, and before Donghyuck can say anything more or try to gossip about your sudden arrival, Sunwoo takes off– trying his hardest not to slip on the snow in his sneakers as he runs down the hill and tries his hardest to get to you quickly.

“Y/N!” he calls for you, getting your attention. You turn to him with expecting eyes, watching as the boy runs towards you and does, indeed, slip on the snow.

He manages to save it. Doesn’t mean you didn’t see him falter, though. “Careful there,” you grin, making the boy mentally kick himself in the shin at being uncool in front of you.

Sunwoo glosses over the comment, ignoring the previous two seconds of his life. If he acts like he’s not embarrassed, it might as well come true. “What are you doing here? I thought you said you’re hanging out with someone else when I invited you on the phone today,” he says, curious to know why you changed your plans so suddenly.

There’s a hint of bitterness in your composure when you shrug, averting your gaze. “That fell through, and I didn’t wanna… I figured you’d be here, so I came…” you trail off, your half-assed explanation enough to bring the boy into an inner conflict– one part of him feels bad for you, his heart clenching when he takes notice of your stern gaze and the disappointed expression on your face, the other one foolishly happy that he got to see you today, that you went here looking for him.

“Oh,” he nods, not really sure if he should pray more information out of you. He tried to ask you about it when he called you this morning, twirling the landline on his finger nervously when he asked you if you wanted to go sledding with him and his friends. He even mentioned his sister tagging along to make sure you didn’t feel as awkward going– you wouldn’t be the only girl there! You’d get along with her well, he said, not really sure if he was lying or not. Either way, his sister does need her own friends… “Well–” he starts, not really sure where his own sentence is going, before you cut him off with a rushed out sentence, spoken so quickly Sunwoo barely registers it in that confused brain of his.

“Would you wanna go on a date with me?” you ask, eyes big as you stare into his.

The question takes a few seconds to register in Sunwoo’s brain. He can physically feel the auditory waves entering his ears and converting themselves into electrical signals by the auditory system. The signals enter his left hemisphere– maybe he could point towards the area with his finger if you asked him to, the impact of the question so present in his mind– and then it decodes in the Wernicke’s area, slowly, but surely making more and more sense to him. The boy gulps at the invitation. He understands the question theoretically now, he’s registered it in his brain, but the practical implication of your preposition is still unclear– why in the hell would you ask him to go on a date with you?

“I…” he stutters, feeling heat rushing to his cheeks. He feels like a fool– he should’ve said yes a few seconds ago, when you first asked the question– but something inside of him is telling him that maybe his reaction is valid. No one expects their friend to randomly ask them out on the bottom of a snowy hill. Certainly not when he was 99% sure you liked someone else.

“Look, it’s- it’s good if you don’t want to, really, I just… I was supposed to go on a date with Shotaro today, but he never arrived, and I…” you nervously scratch your neck, once again averting your gaze from him, “I guess I was hoping you were in the mood to go out with me, since I got all ready and stuff…” you mumble, your tone of voice breaking something inside of him.

Oh. So you weren’t really asking him out. You just didn’t want to feel like a fool that got stood up. How stupid of Sunwoo to think you wanted to go on a date with him. The two of you were just friends, after all. Best friends.

And best friends are for cheering each other up. So despite feeling absolutely defeated, Sunwoo battles the weird feeling in his chest and puts on his best smile. “Of course! Don’t even mention it. Where… where did you wanna go?” he asks, watching as your face relaxes, shoulders falling back to their natural position.

“Are you in the mood for some ramen?” you ask, eyebrows rising in question.

“I’m always in the mood for some ramen,” he nods. He’s always in the mood for whatever you are.

“Great,” you nod, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

“Great.”

“So… let’s go,” you say, nodding to yourself as you walk away from the hill, having your best friend tailing you, following you towards the ramen place in the center of the town.

There’s a bit of an awkward silence hanging over you as the two of you escape the sledding area. Sunwoo doesn’t even pay his goodbyes to his friends and his sister, but he trusts that Eric can get her home safely when the time comes to head back. The boy mentally curses out Shotaro for standing you up– how does he dare to ask you out and never arrive? He doesn’t care about the possible circumstances of his classmate’s absence. All he cares about is the saddened look on your face and the unusual quietness enveloping your aura.

“Should I go kick his ass?” he asks, trying his hardest to make you feel better.

“It’s okay, Sunwoo,” you shake your head in disapproval, eyes pressed to the ground.

“Are you sure?” he asks again, not satisfied with your answer. “I’m quite good at fighting, contrary to popular belief, but if things go wrong, I know my friends would have my back,” he says, playfully punching the air.

The little play consisting of him kicking and punching an imaginary figure goes on for a while until he’s satisfied– meaning: until you’re left laughing at his overly exaggerated movements and grunts, shaking your head in disbelief at his boyish antics. Taking his hand in yours to make him stop with the play-fighting, you drag your now interlocked fingers towards your coat pocket, hiding his cold hand in the thick fabric.

Sunwoo’s heart beats fast at that, making him believe it’s going to run out of his chest any minute now– or make him go into cardiac arrest, either or– as he grows speechless, looking at you with big, surprised eyes. You don’t seem to put much meaning to your gesture, going as far as gently caressing your thumb over the back of his palm, his frozen skin growing hot at the contact.

He’s never held hands with you before– if he doesn’t count the amount of times you dragged him around when the both of you were late for the shared cheerleading and football practice on Tuesday afternoons– and so the intimacy of the act makes him feel strangely weak in his knees. It’s hard for him to take his eyes off you, almost looking like a deer in the headlights to anyone watching you two right now. Sniffling from the cold, you shrug.

“It’s okay,” you smile, sending him a quick glance, “I didn’t really like him like that anyway. It just… feels a bit disappointing to get stood up, that’s all,” you nod.

Sunwoo nods at that too, something in him shifting. You don’t like Shotaro like that? When was this piece of information when he really needed it? (For like the last month, every time he couldn’t fall asleep because the thought of you marrying his classmate at one point in the future haunted him too much and made him want to poke the dance club leader’s eyes out?)

“I get it,” he says, walking along with you. Every time he feels the eyes of someone on you two, he feels his chest filling up with an unfamiliar sense of pride. Something about being seen with you as you’re all dolled up and holding his hand in your coat pocket makes him all giddy on the inside– no matter if this is a real date or not.

Because screw it, Kim Sunwoo is tired of reminding himself that he’s supposed to only see you as a friend. Because he doesn’t.

“I’ve never been on a date before, though, so you have to teach me all about that too,” he hums, tonguing the inside of his cheek.

That has a giggle escaping your throat, another shake of your head in disbelief at his words. He doesn’t know what’s so funny, but he decides that as long as you’re laughing, he’s fine with feeling the tiniest bit of humiliation. He’d do anything to make you happy, he thinks. It’s a feeling stronger than him and he doesn’t know how to make it go away– he decided to stop battling it a long time ago.

“Just be yourself, Sunwoo,” you say, “that’s already perfect enough.”

Perfect. Sunwoo’s cheeks grow hot at that. He’s happy that it’s cold out– maybe he could blame his blushing on the weather. The boy isn’t so sure you know about the effect your words have on him. He’s always thought of you as perfect– flawless, funny, friendly, smart, kind and… and beautiful– but the adjective doesn’t quite seem fitting when he looks at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t believe you could hold him to such standards. He’s nothing special. God, he knows he’s not good enough for you– still, he keeps wishing he could be.

“You look really pretty, by the way,” he hears himself say, the words escaping his mouth before he has the chance to stop them. The tone of his voice is quite unnatural in his ears, softer than it usually is, and somehow, the comment makes you roll your eyes, which he finds to be an unnatural reaction.

“You don’t have to say that just because you’re on a date with me,” you hum, eyes not meeting his. (Which might be a good thing. Sunwoo would like to keep his feelings hidden for a bit longer, and he’s not so sure you wouldn’t recognise the tender inkling he has towards you in his longing gaze.)

“I’m not saying it because of that,” he mutters, voice quiet, yet honest.

Watching the side of your face, eyes still glued at every feature of your profile, he knows he’s not lying. He finds you oh so pretty even in the faint hue of the winter sun, with your scarf pulled up to the middle of your chin and hair pinned up with a pretty, silky bow. He finds you nothing short of angelic. Perfect. It’s kind of silly, if he really thinks about it.

Still, he can’t help himself. To this day, he counts the afternoon he spent with you, eating ramen at your favorite place, to be the first date he’s ever gone on.

Somewhere in the corner of his soul, he begs you count it as real too.

August 2007

It’s only a couple of days later when you find yourself in front of Juyeon’s father’s bakery, nervously chewing on your bottom lip and gazing at the glass door. The sun is shining strongly down on your skin, making you feel like you’re going to get a sun stroke if you keep standing in the direct light for any longer, and with the pressure of both the weather and your own thoughts, you decide to stop wasting time and push the door open, entering the establishment.

Not really sure if you’re welcome– who knows, Sunwoo might have just been acting nice and civil for the sake of not ruining his sister’s wedding– you prepared a mental shopping list of things you wanted to get at the bakery. You hadn’t seen your parents in a long time, so you thought a few donuts might make them happy. If Sunwoo just treats you like any regular customer when you walk in, you’ll take it as your sign to act like one and let this whole thing go.

Truth be told, you don’t even know why you’re so nervous. It’s not like you’re promising yourself something more from this… right?

It’s not like you suddenly felt younger again when seeing him at the wedding. It’s not like the memories choked you up when you went to sleep that night, it’s not like the feelings you had for the young boy suddenly waved at you in greeting, reminding you of just how close the two of you were all those years ago.

Not at all. Why would anyone even think that?

The ring above the door makes a sound as you walk in, your insides clenching in a weird mix of nerves and anxiety at encountering Kim Sunwoo again. The store is empty when you reach the counter, but you’re soon greeted by the sound of the staff door opening, a tall figure stumbling in with a tray of pastries, yelling out a quick: “I’ll be right there!”

And as you watch Sunwoo with his bangs sticking to his forehead, an apron tied tightly around his thin waist, you feel like he hasn’t aged a single day and you two are still the same teenagers that ran around your school in order to not miss practice. The boy looks up at you from below his eyelashes, a boyish grin taking over his features as he puts the hot tray down on the counter and throws the kitchen towel he’s been using to shield his skin from the heat to the side, greeting you.

“Y/N! It’s nice seeing you again,” he beams, wiping his hands on his apron, gaze gluing to yours and never leaving, capturing you in a sincere eye contact that you don’t have the heart to break.

“Hi, Sunwoo,” you chuckle, pressing your lips into an honest, yet a little bit awkward smile. “How’s it going?” you ask, desperate to keep the conversation going– afraid that if it dies down, you won’t be able to revive it ever again and you’ll just regret it forever. There’s a weird sense of urgency in you, like you have a time limit to figure everything out– like you have to act now, or everything you ever wanted might slip from between your fingertips– yet, the more you watch Sunwoo in the serene atmosphere of the sweet-smelling bakery, you notice yourself relaxing.

“Good! Better now that you’re here, actually, it’s been a slow day,” he muses, nodding to himself. “What about you? Can I get you anything?” he asks, eyebrows raising, round cheeks on full display as he stares at you with an expecting smile.

“I’m doing well,” you nod, humming, “really well… catching up with my parents, settling in and stuff… You know the deal,” you laugh. “I actually came to get some donuts for my parents, sort-of like a thank you gift for letting me stay until I figure out my own place and stuff,” you say, watching as Sunwoo urgently nods with acknowledgement.

“Say less, darling,” the nickname slips out from him a little too easily, a little too casually for the way it captures your heart. It has you nervously shifting from one foot to another, insides warming up with the impact of his fleeting gaze as he moves to get a box from under the counter, moving closer to the glass vitrine filled with the sweet pastry. “Your mum loves these ones,” he points towards the donuts coated with the pink glazing.

It’s kind of weird– how Sunwoo knows exactly what your mother likes, despite him not being around your house every other day like when the two of you were teenagers. It makes you realize that even though you moved away for years, the time here didn’t stop. Everyone moved on with their lives, everyone continued on as if nothing happened. And you can’t hold it against them– you guess you just hate the weird pit in your stomach that opens up with the realization that while Sunwoo knows which pastries your mum likes (most likely because she stops by to buy bread often, taking some treats with her for her and dad while she’s at it), you don’t.

You try hard not to show it on your face, though. Sunwoo continues to pack more donuts into the box, not really attempting to ask you for what you’d like– he just chooses himself, making sure you bring home the best ones of the bunch, the most delicious ones they carry. Letting him do his work, merely watching as he carefully moves the donuts from the vitrine to the box, you hear him continue on with the conversation.

“You came in on the right day,” Sunwoo hums, “Juyeon works tomorrow, so you wouldn’t be able to catch me if you went.”

Ignoring the fact that he sees right through you– sees that your intention was to see him, to have a way to visit him and attempt to rekindle whatever bond you had when you were young– you just chuckle. You can’t blame him for knowing you so well, despite not being around each other for so many years. When you were young and in love, you used to call him your soulmate, after all. You guess there’s always a hint of truth, even in the most lovesick fantasies. “Well, then I’m glad I went in today,” you admit.

Sunwoo smiles at that– the kind of smile you always loved at him, the one where he shows his teeth and his eyes crinkle up into moon crescents. Once he’s done packing your donuts, he puts the box on the counter, showing you his back just as fast when he turns around, seemingly grabbing something else as well. When he’s facing you again, there’s a sweet pastry in his hand, still warm.

“What’s that?” you ask when you notice him offering it to you, eyes peering into his.

“A cinnamon roll,” he says, waiting for you to take it into your hands, “I told you everyone goes crazy over my cinnamon rolls, so I wanna see if their magic works on you too.”

“Is this how you flirt with girls over here?” you chuckle, but take the bun into your hand nonetheless, taking a hesitant bite of the treat. The sweetness melts on your tongue, the warmth of the freshly-baked pastry enchanting you with its taste, something about its essence weirdly reminding you of home.

“Haven’t tried it before,” he shrugs, “so tell me if it’s working,” he jokes, watching as you chew on the roll.

“Well, is it any good?”

Humming in satisfaction, delight on the tip of your tongue as you swallow down the heavenly dough, you nod. “It’s to die for, Sunwoo.”

“Told you,” he shoots you a cheesy finger-gun, reminding you so much of your best friend from high school, before he turns and takes a paper bag from somewhere, talking to you as his back faces you again, “I’ll get you some more to take home with you. I bet they didn’t have those in the Big Apple.”

“If I knew I was missing out on these, I would have come back quicker,” you joke, watching as Sunwoo turns to you with an amused look on his face, seemingly enjoying the praise.

The eye contact unarms you again, your composure falling just the slightest. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you clear your throat and reach for your wallet, ready to pay and leave so you can think about the interaction on your way home (and overthink every slightest detail, just like teenage you would after every fleeting touch young Sunwoo would send your way). “How much do I owe you?” you ask.

“Oh, it’s on the house,” he says, licking his lips, “consider it a… welcome gift, if you will,” he hums, offering you the box full of donuts and the paper bag consisting his infamous cinnamon rolls, your skin touching just the slightest when you take them from him, but still making electricity jolt through the nerve endings of your fingertips.

“No, Sunwoo, I really can’t-” you shake your head, but get caught off by him.

“Take them, please. You can pay me back some… other time?” he cautiously says, seemingly not really knowing if he’s still within your desired boundaries.

“O-okay, then,” you nod, agreeing to the subtle invitation– the subtle promise to meet again, the hopeful question leading into something more. “Thank you, Sunwoo,” you hum, smiling as you turn towards the door and get prepared to walk out, giving both of you some time to think about what happened in the last few minutes.

As you open your mouth to say goodbye to him, hand landing on the doorknob, you hear him call after you once more.

“Oh and Y/N?” he says, a confident look suddenly overtaking his features. “I end here at 5, if you’d like to hang out after.”

Unknowingly, a grin appears on your features, the one that’s so strong you can’t really mask it no matter how hard you try– as you nod at him, the victorious feeling flowing through your veins maybe even a bit dangerous. Still, you don’t have it in you to turn the invitation down– you wouldn’t be able to even in your wildest dreams.

This is what you came here for, after all, isn’t it?

“Okay,” you agree. “So… I’ll see you later?”

“See you later,” he nods, teeth capturing his bottom lip. It’s kind of adorable. He couldn’t battle the smile threatening to pull at the corners of his mouth, no matter how hard he tried.

Maybe coming here– coming back home– was the best thing you could’ve done.

“Wanna come in?” Sunwoo asks. It’s a few hours later– you followed through with his invitation and waited for him in front of the bakery at 5:05 sharp, catching him after his shift. You two took a walk through the whole town, waltzing slowly through his neighborhood until you reached his childhood house. You remember far too many afternoons spent in the comfort of the walls, and although you think it would be nice to revisit those memories, you notice his mother’s car (is it still hers? You have no way of knowing.) in the driveway, and suddenly, you’re too shy to join him as he drops his stuff off in his house.

It’s like you’re a teenager again– except, you never had any problems meeting his mother before. She was a nice woman, although a little busy (you only heard Sunwoo complain about the fact a few times– mainly when he was feeling sentimental or particularly under the weather about something), and she always treated you very nicely. Almost like you were supposed to join the family one day. His sister once asked you if you’re gonna marry him, and you laughed at her back then– you were so young, you didn’t even think of having a wedding with Kim Sunwoo. The funniest thing was the timing: you weren’t even dating him at the time. Or planning to, really. Sure, you always imagined somehow spending the rest of your life with him, in one way or another, but the thought of marriage didn’t often cross your mind. Life is ironic, you think– MB!Y/N was the first one to have a wedding and here you are, retangling your life paths with her brother again.

So no, you were never really scared or shy in front of his mother. Back then, things were different though. Simpler? You’d say they were definitely easier. You were more extroverted and open, more ambitious and less embarrassed of how your life turned out to be.

Also, you didn’t want to give her any ideas. It’s far too soon for that, you think.

“No,” you shake your head, hesitating a little bit, “I’ll wait for you here,” you say, watching as he smiles at you and nods, walking inside of the house to drop off his things and change.

You two didn’t really have any plans for the rest of the evening. You told Sunwoo he could show you around town, tell you what changed and what stayed exactly the same, since he came home earlier than you– you bet it could be two or three years ago. He eagerly nodded, although noted that not much is different in your hometown and your walk could turn out pretty uneventful. No plans were set in stone, though.

Nervously shuffling from one foot to another, you decide to walk around the yard. Sunwoo’s house was always big– although it seemed more giant to you when you were a teenager. It’s a strange observation, since you didn’t really grow any more inches since you hit puberty. Your eyes study the flowers in front of the gate, the mowed grass, the big tree in the backyard. If you focus hard enough, you could almost see the two of you laying under it, letting the leaves shield you from the sun, both much younger and carefree than now. Sunwoo would show you pages of his favorite comic books and you’d play on your Tamagochi, making sure it doesn’t die in two days like his did when he first got it. When you turn to your right, you see the garden house you two– sometimes with his sister, sometimes with Eric, sometimes with both of them at once– spent many afternoons in.

There used to be an old, red sofa inside. There wasn’t much space, since it was filled with gardening supplies, Sunwoo’s and MB!Y/N’s old bikes, flower pots, packs of soil and all other things you could need for gardening, but it was fun to hide away from the sun in there and drink iced tea, talking about whatever came to your minds or solving nanogram puzzles in comfortable silence (or occasional sigh from Eric when he got stuck somewhere in the middle of his crosswords).

Your curiosity gets the best of you when you open the door, deciding to see if it’s still the same inside. Your eyes widen when you notice the garden house a little less packed than before– mainly because Sunwoo’s mother no longer does gardening in her free time and buys her vegetables on the market like your mum does, you presume– but instead, it’s full of all the things the childhood you knew so well.

Sunwoo’s old bike– red and a little rusty, but you bet it could still work. The rug they used to have in their dining room is now in the middle of the little garden house, stained with dirt. Next to the usual red sofa is a leather armchair that they used to have in their living room for a while, the dark brown fabric now worn out, chapped and peeling off. In the corner of the room, you find a box filled with various sports equipment– tennis rackets, a yellow tennis ball, a jumping rope, and lastly, a half-deflated football. The sight of it has you sighing a little, reminding you of Sunwoo’s composure when he told you about how he never got to pursue his childhood dream fully.

Your eyes glaze towards his old skateboard, having you chuckle, the memories of him riding it down the hill in front of his house appearing in your mind. Sometimes, he would be there with his sister and his childhood friend Eric as well (that more often than not let MB!Y/N borrow the board, watching her with lovesick eyes instead of riding it himself), the young boy trying to teach himself tricks he saw on the TV.

“Do you think I still got it?” you suddenly hear Sunwoo ask from behind your shoulder, making you jump in surprise. The male laughs at your shocked face, shaking his head in disbelief at your easily shaken composure.

“You scared me,” you breathe out, clutching your chest for good measure, to show him how much you really mean it– your heart was racing, and contrary to popular belief, the sight of him in casual attire (a gray hoodie, so similar to the one he used to wear in high school, baggy Adidas sweatpants covering his legs) wasn’t the reason for the little heart attack.

“So did you!” he exclaims. “I got outside and didn’t see you there, I thought you ran away for a second,” he hums.

“As if,” you mumble, “I walked all the way here, why would I leave so suddenly?”

“I dunno,” he shrugs, “you could’ve changed your mind, or something,” he says, his composure suddenly as boyish as when he was just a teenager, something in your heart softening. You guess he sometimes still carries some of the same insecurities he tried so hard to mask when he was young. Some things don’t really change, but you really wish at least this would’ve.

Smiling at him, you shake your head. “I don’t think you still got it, though,” you go back to reply to his initial question, pointing towards the skateboard.

“Well, who knows,” he peeps, “maybe I could do an Ollie, or something.”

“I really don’t think you could, Sunwoo,” you laugh softly, watching him regain his statement competitiveness.

“Wanna bet?”

“No,” you shake your head, “I don’t want you to break your bones, so let’s just say I believe you,” you giggle, watching as the boy mirrors your expression, his gaze softening.

A short moment of silence overtakes you two as you sigh and look around the garden house, instinctively taking a seat on the red sofa covered in dust. You bet it’s been years since anyone’s sat on it, and you’re glad to be the one revisiting its comfort. It’s like solidifying your return– like the old piece of forgotten furniture in Sunwoo’s garden house is the spawn point of your childhood. “Doesn’t this make you nostalgic?” you ask, eyeing your companion.

“Well, I live here,” he shrugs, “so not as much as it makes you, I suppose. Having you here again makes it more nostalgic, though, I’ll give you that.”

His words have you overcome with something bittersweet. Seeing the town you love so much makes you almost regret you ever left. The rational side of your brain reminds you that you gained a lot of experience abroad, though, and so you settle with being just a little bit remorseful of your past self for being so overly-ambitious.

“It’s weird,” you allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of him, the essence of him being your best friend– your first love, the first person you ever felt safe with– overtaking you in the moment of weakness, “it’s like everybody moved on, but I stayed here.”

“Well, not everybody moved on,” Sunwoo hums, referring to himself. “Juyeon stayed, too. Eric and MB!Y/N are moving only a few hours away… Haknyeon lives down the street now,” he points out, a poor attempt at making you feel better.

“Yeah… it’s just… I hoped I would do big things. I hoped we would both do big things,” you say, tone of voice quiet, your eyes avoiding him. It’s hard to keep eye contact with him when you share your struggles– at least that’s the way it always was when you were young. The look he offered you always made you feel so tender, so cared for that you wanted to burst out crying. In your age and state, you can’t afford to tear up in front of your ex-boyfriend anymore.

“Sometimes, things don’t work out the way we want them to,” Sunwoo says, tone of voice considerate. “And that’s fine. I wanted to be a star, and I’m not, but that’s okay, because hey… I’m happy anyway. I’m content. And I know that one day, you’ll be too. It just takes a bit of time.”

Snickering, you play with your fingers in your lap, legs plopping up and crossed, striking an almost defensive pose. “Were you… were you embarrassed when you came back?” you ask.

Sunwoo laughs, the sound so heartfelt it makes your insides squeeze. “Terribly. I mean, look at me in my mid-twenties, still living with my mother. Even back then, I felt like a failure. I felt like a disappointment, but… then I realized not everyone had the opportunities I had. Not everyone almost made it professional, you know, and that’s still something to be proud of.”

“I’m still living with my mother, but hey– she’s getting older and the house is big. MB!Y/N moved out, and I wouldn’t want my mum to get lonely… so I think I’m doing pretty well, given the circumstances,” he says. Pausing for a heartbeat, as if collecting his thoughts, he continues. “I think you should find the positives in your situation too. Not everyone got to live in New York... Work for the national TV… That’s still a huge achievement, and I think you should be proud of yourself for that.”

Rolling your eyes– although grateful to hear the words– you snicker. “It’s hard to do that right now…”

“I know,” he nods, smiling when you finally look at him. “It takes time. And until then, well, for what it’s worth, I’m really proud of you. And maybe… maybe you coming back home is how life’s supposed to go anyways.”

Biting down on your lower lip to stop yourself from tearing up– see, you knew you shouldn’t have looked the boy in the eyes during his little pep talk– there’s suddenly a weight leaving your shoulders, heart softening and growing more tender. Your wounds seem to sting a little less. It’s strange– even after so many years, he still knows just the words you need to hear.

“Yeah,” you nod, voice barely louder than a whisper, a soft smile playing with your lips, “maybe.”

to. my first kiss

March 2000

His eyes stay glued to the TV in your living room, the boy almost looking hypnotized as he focuses on the program running, furrowed brows and all, showing his utmost concentration. A sigh lands into his ears, but goes unnoticed when you enter the room, a scowl sitting on your face. “Sunwoo! I told you to watch the oven! What if the cookies burn?”

“Yeah…” he mumbles, not a single word coming out of your mouth truly registering in his brain.

“Sunwoo!” you grunt, but when you get no reply, you just choose to roll your eyes and walk into your kitchen yourself, opening the oven and making sure the cookies you two have been baking haven’t burned down into coal yet. Not long after, you plop on the sofa next to your best friend, tone of voice still showing a bit of frustration at his carelessness.

“You shit on Eric for watching those, but you’re just as bad,” you hum as you notice the kdrama going on in the TV. It’s one of the ones that hardly make any sense and each scene is overly-exaggerated and repeated at least twice to create impact, but Sunwoo finds himself living for the drama. Each argument has him examining the scene, mentally rooting for his favorite characters– and although he is busy with football practice nowadays, he doesn’t skip a single episode of Happy Together.

It’s not as entertaining as the manga comics he borrows from Hyunjae’s father’s comic shop, but he figures that it’s good enough to pass some time… and indulge over.

“I think they’re gonna kiss,” he notes, pointing towards the screen.

“Oh, good point, Sherlock Holmes,” you sigh, shaking your head in disbelief. If there was something you’d expect out of your friend, it seemingly wasn’t his enjoyance of cheesy dramas that air in the afternoon hours of the week.

And Sunwoo admits, he was never the one to enjoy romance. Hell, it was something he always made fun of when it came to his friend Eric– he was not the one to watch romantic comedies, he wasn’t the one to tell girls cheesy lines or bring them flowers on Valentine’s day. He does seem to be enjoying the laughable scenes rolling on the TV a little too much lately, though.

Maybe he should start hanging out with Eric less.

The scene slowly transforms into close-ups of the two main characters, showing them instinctively closing their eyes and leaning towards each other, eyes trained on each other’s lips. It doesn’t take much to predict the next actions, but Sunwoo still finds himself restless in his seat when they finally kiss, legs kicking up and a gasp escaping his mouth. One would think he won the lottery or was just greeted with the greatest surprise ever, with how he’s reacting. None of the two are true, though.

“Oh, wow,” you hum next to him, seemingly not really interested in the drama as much as your best friend is.

“You’re ruining it,” Sunwoo sighs, looking at you as you roll your eyes and settle deeper into the couch cushions.

“Oh, sorry,” you note, but your composure stays a bit annoyed.

Sunwoo watches the TV for some more– the scene of the two characters kissing stays on the screen, slowed-down and repeated, in the true 90s TV show fashion– before his eyes trail off the device and move towards you, glazing your side profile. He takes notice of your casual attire– you changed out of your school uniform in the time he was supposed to watch the cookies baking in the oven, and something in his stomach churns, making him blurt out the random question that so suddenly appears on the tip of his tongue.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” he asks, genuinely curious. He doesn’t even know why the response matters to him so much– he also doesn’t really know what reply he’d like to hear better, if he’s being honest– but now it’s out in the open and he can’t take it back.

“Hm?” you hum, snapping your head towards him. “Oh. Yeah, I guess…”

“You guess..?” Sunwoo repeats, furrowing his brows. How can one not be sure?

“Well– yeah. It only happened once, though,” you shrug. It takes everything in Sunwoo to not ask who you kissed and when, or under what circumstances, and decide to despise that person until the day he dies. It’s not his business and he shouldn’t even care in the first place… He can’t say he’s disappointed in your answer– it’s your life and your decisions– but something inside of him screams that now, he can’t be your first no matter how hard he’d try. (It’s not like you’d want to kiss Sunwoo anyway, so he really doesn’t know why he’s making such a big deal about it.)

“What about you?” you ask, the question catching the poor boy off guard. He didn’t necessarily expect you to ask him back– so much to his title of Sherlock Holmes– and the reality that he can’t lie to you takes him out in full force as he bashfully stares out of the window.

“No,” he peeps, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

There’s something embarrassing about admitting to the girl you like that even at the ripe age of 19, you’ve never kissed anyone before. Shame creeps up his neck and adorns his cheeks after the simple word slips out of his mouth, eyes refusing to meet yours.

“Really?” you ask, and you sound genuinely surprised– there’s a hint of Sunwoo’s ego recovering, but he thinks the hit was too hard for him to ever recover.

“Yup,” he says, a popping sound heard as his lips voice out the last consonant, the view of him playing with his own fingers suddenly more interesting than anything else happening in your living room right at this moment.

“I thought– nevermind,” you hum, scratching the back of your neck, “why are you asking?”

“Just… just curious, I guess…?” he stummers, shrugging.

A moment of silence overtakes you two– enough to make the boy instantly hate everything he’s ever said on the matter. If there could open up a hole in the ground right now to swallow him, he’d jump in with much enthusiasm. Why did he have to ask?

“Do you wanna try?” you suddenly propose, making the boy’s heart feel like it burst and threw him into a cardiac arrest. His hands start sweating, his cheeks tint red and it feels like all oxygen was suddenly sucked out of the living room, his lungs collapsing on themselves.

You seem to try to save the situation, noticing the utter shock on his face. “I mean– you don’t have to, but I… I wouldn’t mind, and it’s– I don’t know… if you wanted to practice with me, or something, I’d be down to…” you stutter, chewing on your bottom lip as you finish the little tangent, terror evident in your eyes.

Sunwoo feels like a little boy that just found his favorite gift under the Christmas tree. Like he found the most pricey toy there, the one he always wanted, and now that it’s there, he’s scared to actually play with it, because he doesn’t want to break it. Much like your friendship, he thinks. There’s too much to lose if he crosses this line, and he’s very much aware.

But the offer seems tempting. Almost too tempting. God, he doesn’t think he could say no.

He may not be your first kiss, but you’re asking to be his. This sounds like a dream, if he really thinks about it.

“You know what? Just forget–”

“I’d– I’d like that…” he mumbles, trying really hard not to avert his gaze from you.

Your gaze softens, nodding your head. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“Okay,” you nod again, moving a little closer to him. Your knees knock into the side of his thigh, your whole figure now facing him on the sofa as his legs still point forward to the TV. He keeps staring at you, a little nervous, but expectant. “Are you sure? You don’t have to do it just because–”

“I’m sure,” he cuts you off, watching as your face relaxes, a smile appearing on your lips at the next addition. “I want to.”

“Okay.”

You move impossibly closer, your crossed legs in contact with his clothed skin. He curses the thin fabric of the pants of his school uniform for making him feel every slightest flex of your muscles when you move, making his skin flare up and burn. He keeps staring at you, watching you as you lean closer to him, your faces now inches away from each other. Sunwoo finds himself focusing on every feature of your face, counting the eyelashes framing your eyes, glazing over the sparkles in your orbs. You stay close for a minute, unmoving.

Eyes locking, Sunwoo finds himself gasping a little, breathing shuddering when he notices your gaze falling to his lips. Your breathing mixes, air meeting his face when you breathe out a minty breeze. His heart is already racing and you’re not even doing anything.

When he finds you finally moving towards him and notices your eyes shutting close, he mirrors your actions, but stays unmoving. After what feels like eternity, he feels something soft pressing to his lips, warmth spreading from that part of his face to the rest of his body. The contact of your lips with his is gentle, like you’re testing the waters, and although the feeling is unfamiliar, Sunwoo decides he doesn’t hate it.

The weird firework show in his stomach actually suggests that he’s quite enjoying it. Your lips break away from his for a bit, rewarding him with only a peck, and before the boy has the chance to think this is it and it’s over, you dive in for more and kiss him again, this time longer, more firmer.

Your hands come up to cradle his cheeks, holding him close. He feels himself burning up, his composure completely crumbling when he feels you smile against his lips.

“You know you can kiss back, right?”

“Mhm,” he hums, opening his eyes to see you staring at him with a tender look.

“Try it,” you say, hands gently coming up to brush his bangs away from his face. If anyone was looking at the two of you now, Sunwoo thinks they’d conclude that you two were in love.

And maybe Sunwoo was, by the way he was looking up at you like you hung the stars on the sky. By the way he was staring at you with such a vulnerable look he feared you might see right through him, see right to his core and call him out on every unconfessed word hiding in his heart. He looks a little scared, a little tense, still, but his eyes don’t lie. They never do. There’s no one else that could make him feel the way you do.

“Okay,” he nods, moving in his position so he’s facing you, ready for more.

He mirrors your previous motions, leaning towards your face. He wets his lips and closes his eyes when he’s sure he’s close enough to not miss your mouth, and after another deep breath in to calm his nerves, he presses against you. He feels you freezing under him, a momentary panic spreading all over his chest as he thinks he’s done something wrong, before he feels you kissing him back.

A whole other sensation takes over him when he feels your lips moving against his, his fingertips buzzing when he drags his hand up and moves your hair behind your shoulder, large hand resting on your jaw. He’s not sure if he’s doing this correctly– hell, he’s never done this before– but after you move a bit and entangle your hands behind his neck, pressing against him a bit more firmly, yet still tender and gentle like the first time, he recognises that somehow, it feels right, and he thinks that’s all evaluation he needs for now.

The need for oxygen makes him break away from you, breathing heavily as he opens his eyes and finds you resting your forehead against his, smiling. “Like that?” he asks, shamelessly staring at your wet lips, already yearning for more.

“Something like that,” you nod, giggling. “You still need more practice, though,” you suggest, making the boy frown.

“Was it that ba–”

Rolling your eyes at him, frustrated at the way he always needs everything spelled out for him, refusing to take a hint, you press your lips against his again, teeth clashing a little when Sunwoo picks up the pace and kisses you back. The TV is a mere white noise in the background now, everything around you two disappearing, all of Sunwoo’s senses focused on you and only you. He could get lost in the way you taste– like strawberry bubblegum you bought at the store on the corner of the street– and the way you feel against him– soft, tender, warm.

He feels like he could burst. He knows his hands are a bit sweaty, but he’s only half aware of the fact when his palms move to hold your cheeks, much like you did to him before, and your hands entangle in his hair, playing with the strands.

He could stay like this forever, blissfully unaware of the consequences of this act. He could kiss you over and over and over again, even if it meant he was still bad at it and needed more practice– he could get lost in your scent, in the tender way you hold him to you, in the way you keep smiling against his lips whenever he does something to surprise you: like get a little bolder and angle your head by your chin with his thumb, getting more comfortable.

He’s glad he’s sitting down, because he’s quite sure his knees are too weak to carry him right now. When you break away from him again, lips swollen and eyes blown-out, he thinks you might just be an angel. He’d love to engrave this image into his memories forever.

Although, he’s doubtful that he could ever forget about this. Or anything about you, really.

And even as you suddenly gasp, finally aware of the world around you, running to the kitchen and screaming: “Sunwoo! We forgot about the cookies!”,

he wonders just what more you could teach him about life. He’d follow you to the end of the world if you asked him to, holding your hand in his and not thinking twice. He’d bring you down a star, if you only so expressed you would like one. He’d do anything.

You taught him what friendship is. You taught him what it means to care for someone. What it means to have someone special. You taught him how to drink (although by scolding him when he was hungover. He felt cared for even with your stern gaze). You taught him how to slow dance– even though you spent the prom with someone else. Just now, you taught him how to kiss.

And although you’re unaware, he’s quite certain that when he’s 19 years old, spending each of his days with you, although unaware, you taught him how to love someone too.

August 2007

You feel kind of silly, standing in front of the bakery as the sun sets over the horizon, the clock striking near 5 in the afternoon as you gnaw on your fingernails and hesitate a little before coming in. Pushing the door open and slipping inside, the male currently sweeping the floor looks over at you, a look of pleasant surprise sitting at his face and a sunny smile sent your way upon your arrival.

You don’t really know why you keep running back to him. The whole town reeks of familiarity to you, every corner and inch of each street filled with the essence of your childhood and your whole growing up. It’s not like you don’t have anything else to ground yourself back to, but somehow, your inner voice always keeps calling for Sunwoo. It’s weird– it’s been ages and you shouldn’t feel like this around someone who you haven’t even properly dated for that long, if you don’t count the few months before he left– but it’s something you can’t control, an essence you can’t hold back.

“Y/N,” he calls for you, “what are you doing here?” he asks as he continues his routinal cleaning, putting the broom away behind the counter.

It’s a stupid question. You bet he realizes it too, but you’re somehow glad he is taking initiative. This way, you don’t have to be the first one to spark the conversation. This way, you know you’re welcome.

“Oh, well,” you shrug, “I’m… looking for you…?” you say, tone of voice suggesting that you’re hesitant, almost a little shy to admit it to yourself.

Maybe you’re foolish for feeling this way. Because you know what all those things mean– you know what the lightness in your stomach is, what the giddy feeling resonating through you whenever the male smiles at you is. You know that thinking about someone constantly, more so before you sleep, isn’t an usual occurrence with someone you pay no attention to, with someone you don’t care about. You’ve been in love before– with the same man that’s standing right in front of you as well, funnily enough. You know what this all means.

But with how he’s inviting you in, letting you into his little bubble, you think it’s not as bad of a thing. He’s not pushing you away. He’s not building bridges. He’s the same way he was all those years ago, and you’d hate to find out that all of this wasn’t something more and was just him being nice.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” he chuckles, wiping his hands on the apron still tied around his waist. “I’m off in a few, though, so if you want anything from the bakery–”

“I’m not here for the food,” you laugh, dismissing him with a wave of your hand. The boldness is unusual for the present you– there’s a hint of your past shining through whenever you are with the boy, though. Maybe you like this sense of familiarity. Maybe you like to feel real again– maybe you like to feel like yourself. It’s hard to admit it, but you did lose your sense of identity after moving abroad. It’s hard to stay true to yourself with so many new people around and with so many expectations and responsibilities. The pressure changes you, and you now rely on Kim Sunwoo to bring you back to default– to where you’re supposed to be.

“Okay, then,” he nods, thankfully not making a big deal out of your desperate visit, “what would you like to do?” he asks, eyes sparkling under the lights when he looks at you. It’s like an open invitation– he gives you the chance to tell him how you’d like to spend your time with him. He did this a lot when you two were younger as well. It felt good to have someone that would make the effort to enjoy your hobbies with you– no matter how disinterested he could be in the matter.

“Hang out… I guess…?” you hum, shrugging. You didn’t really have anything planned. All you knew was that you wanted to be with him. It’s like the heart’s calling– you don’t know when your inner monologue got so cliche.

“Anything specific?” he asks.

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you shake your head in disapproval. You fear that you disappointed him, let him down in some way– you came all the way here, after all. You could’ve made something up on the way, couldn’t you? But still– just like the Sunwoo you once knew, so lively and full of ideas– he just purses his lips for a second before speaking the suggestion into existence.

“Well… do you want to bake with me? Like the old times?” he says, sending you a look full of warm honey.

You wouldn’t say no to that invitation. You’d be crazy to do so.

The Kim Sunwoo you used to bake cookies with in the comfort of your kitchen back home wasn’t so skilled in making the dough like he is now. He wasn’t so good at knowing the recipe from memory, nor was he gifted with the kitchen appliances he has now, all professional and shiny, reserved just for the use of the bakery. You don’t really know if he even had the love for baking in him back then– you just know you two enjoyed your time together, and when you are young, that’s all you really cared about anyway. It didn’t matter that he let the cookies burn sometimes. It didn’t really matter that they didn’t turn out well on some days– all morphing into one big block, making you cut the dough into pieces so you could eat it when you accidentally added too much butter.

He still looks the same, though. A few years older, but with the same boyish aura to him when he wipes dirty hands on his apron. All grown up now, but still with the same glint in his eye whenever he looks up at you in between your conversations. When you’re with him, you no longer feel the distance between who you are and who you used to be, the distance between you and him. It’s like the old days, but a little better.

Maybe you have more time now.

The two of you work on the cookie dough, enveloped in a comfortable conversation. “You have to add more sugar,” Sunwoo hums from next to you, watching as you work on the mixture.

“Isn’t it funny how I was the one always giving you directions when we baked together and now you’re the one ordering me around?” you laugh, taking the sugar from the counter and sprinkling more in, listening to the opinion of a professional.

“Well, my cookies don’t turn into one big blob of dough anymore,” he jokes, laughing. “Besides, it’s my job now, so you’d kind of expect me to be good at it.”

“You can’t be so sure of that…” you hum, shaking your head.

“Why? Do you have any experience with being bad at your job?”

“Oh you bet I do,” you laugh, nodding. “I was an intern before, Sunwoo. A colleague of mine once tried to console me by saying being an intern means being bad at the job, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I still cried myself to sleep multiple nights,” you conclude, thinking back to your New York endeavors.

“That bad?” Sunwoo asks empathetically.

“Yeah. Mixed up everyone’s coffee order on my first day. When I was confronted about it, I tried to play it off by saying I don’t have a good memory…” you muse.

“Well, it’s hard to remember a lot of stuff at once, to be fair–”

“I was getting coffee for three people, Sunwoo. Objectively speaking, it shouldn’t be as hard…” you say, now thinking back to the events of your internship with more humor than embarrassment.

Sunwoo laughs at your story, shaking his head in disbelief. “Not worse than my teammate back in Boston. The first match of the season, he scored a goal against our own team. His reasoning? He used to play against the goalie back in high school, so he got confused.”

The boy takes over at making the dough once it’s the turn to add in the chocolate chips, glancing at you momentarily when you laugh at his anecdote. Watching him from the side, you heave out through your laughs. “That’s actually hilarious,” you get out, washing your hands in the sink. “What about some funny stories about yourself, though?”

“Don’t have any. I’m too perfect to humiliate myself like that,” he notes, pressing his lips together and raising his eyebrows at you in an ironic expression, nodding.

“Oh, as if–”

“How is it?” he asks you suddenly in the middle of the sentence, seemingly done with kneading the mixture. Sunwoo puts the cookie dough in front of your lips, waiting for you to taste it. You’d do it all the time when you were both teenagers, but back then, the gesture didn’t feel half as intimate as the mere image of it does now.

Locking eyes with the male, you hesitantly open your mouth and let him put the dough into it, tasting the sweetness on your tongue. Sunwoo’s eyes darken, as if he’s just realized what he’s done, the weight of the situation falling down on him as your tongue comes in contact with the skin of his fingertips. Gulping, he watches as you suck the tip of his digit into your mouth, getting all last remains of the sweetness off of it, something in the air shifting towards a direction you didn’t expect from tonight.

“Good,” you nod, licking your lips, “delicious.”

Seconds turn to what feels like eternities as you stop all motion and look into each other’s eyes, finding any hint of disapproval with the so obvious turn of events. His chocolate orbs peer into yours, making you ignite with something close to an urge you can’t control, his eyes anchoring themselves to the curve of your lips when you decide to let go of all anxiety and insecurities and just go for it. The cookie dough was sweet, but you’ve never tasted anything sweeter than Sunwoo’s lips. You might just have to refresh your mind, you think.

Leaning closer to him, your breathing mixing in the few centimeters left between your mouths, you relish in the déja vu this action brings you. It feels like yesterday, yet also centuries ago since you last kissed the male, and although you’re sure you enjoyed it back then, you wish you could’ve told the younger you to kiss him more often, more firmly, with more passion, maybe even sooner. For longer.

Pressing your lips against his first, almost like always– since Kim Sunwoo was a bit shy with his kisses when you were both just high school seniors– your eyes shut close and everything around you disappears. You guess there’s something about baking that makes the two of you want to feed off each other’s lips– except this time, it’s not practice anymore. It’s not innocent, it’s not clueless. This time, it’s real, alive and passionate. You can’t say you hate the sentiment, the weird parallel your relationship has come to. It’s like you’re reliving your life again, but this time, you know how the story ends– you know how to fix the ending. How to keep him here.

Sunwoo’s more experienced than he was when you kissed him for the first time. He’s less shy and more bold, lips firmer against yours, but still careful and gentle. His hand comes up to cradle your jaw and position you so he has the best access to your mouth as he slips his tongue in, as if chasing down the taste of cookie dough he fed you just a few seconds ago, and although you liked to battle him when you were young, you let him win this time– you let him take you home, bring your mind to where it’s supposed to be.

Hands gripping the front of his shirt, but immediately going to circle around his neck when a particular movement of his makes you moan slightly into his mouth, you play with the hair on his nape and feel him shuddering under your movements, an automatic response that makes fondness spread over your chest. Everything about him is familiar to you– he still reacts the same way to your tender ministrations, he still smiles against your lips when you tangle your fingers through his hair and want to ground yourself in the touch.

You know him like the palm of your hand. It’s easy to get lost in something you are so familiar with, in someone that was once your everything. It’s easy to indulge too much in something that was forcefully taken from you, to get right back where you left with him, because time and circumstances were never on your side.

A touch of his hand on the side of your neck, lips trailing down your mouth towards your jaw. The boldness, the urgency of his movements is enough to have you turn your back against the counter, his body pressed tightly against yours. His palms under the backside of your knees have you sitting up on the cold marble, his lips never breaking away from your skin.

You’re enjoying the shift in the dynamic. You’re enchanted with the way he handles you, like he’s been starved of you for years, wanting to chase down all the time you spent away from each other. Breathing heavily, feeling his plush lips sucking down on the sweet spot under your ear, then trailing down the side until he reaches the juncture of your neck, an involuntary “God…” slips past your mouth.

“I missed you,” he says, words muffling against your skin, “I missed you so much, I felt like I was going crazy.”

The confession makes you dizzy, your whole body growing weak. It’s like he knows exactly what words you wanted to hear. It’s like he knows what haunted you all those years, what you kept asking the universe on sleepless nights over and over, praying for an answer. It’s like he knows exactly how to get you close to him, to have you completely let go of the past.

“I missed your jokes,” he says, planting a kiss on your neck. “I missed your smile,” he presses another one a little more up, “I missed your laugh,” another kiss, now on your jaw. “I missed holding your hand,” a peck planted to the corner of your lips, “and I missed kissing you…” he trails off, pointing his attention back on your mouth, locking the two of you together again, as if kissing you was his new addiction and you were the drug.

Sunwoo’s hot hand creeps up your waist, fingers slipping under the thin fabric of your tank top. The contact makes you shiver in response, your bodies still as responsive to each other as back when you were 19, and when you tug at his bottom lip with your teeth and slip your tongue back into his mouth, you feel the boy tug at the right strap of your top, sliding it down your shoulder. You’re barely registering the bowl of dough to your right, the fact that you’re in the kitchen of Juyeon’s parent’s bakery, or the fact that you only just met the boy two weeks ago for the first time in years. All you focus on is him– his touch, his taste, the way he makes you feel. All you know is longing. The desire.

Before you have the chance to take anything further, the sound of the door opening makes you jump away from each other– your head almost hitting the top cabinets, had Sunwoo not instinctively put his hand there to shield you from the impact. Before you get a chance to register what’s happening, a familiar voice calls for you, their tone a little guilty and bashful.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt, or anything–” Juyeon peeps, clearing his throat.

Glancing at Sunwoo, you see his cheeks redden at being caught by his older friend, yet his eyes still roll in annoyance at the interruption. You can’t help but try to hide your face into his shoulder– it’s not like you’re embarrassed of being with Sunwoo, you’re just embarrassed that it had to happen here, of all places.

“Well, you just did,” Sunwoo grunts, frustration coating his words.

“I’m just here to grab something,” Juyeon hums, almost racing through the room to get to the fridge on the other side of the kitchen, taking out a carton of milk from the inside and showing it to the two of you. “This is gonna go bad soon, so I’m taking it home to use it. Uhm.. anyways, well, don’t let me stop you in anything… bye!”

Neither of you greet the male back, instead sharing a meaningful, knowing look between each other. The view of your first boyfriend with his lips puffy, cheeks flushed and hair a little disheveled makes your senses go crazy, and although you’d like to continue what you started, you don’t think now is the right time or place.

Hopping off the counter, you smile. “So… where were we with the cookies?”

to. my first girlfriend

May 2000

Eyes trained on the ball, feet restless as he runs across the field to retrieve it and pass it to one of the shooters– either Donghyuck or Jinyoung, the more capable ones of the team– Sunwoo finds himself completely focused on the game. It’s one of the last matches of the season, and since he doesn’t know if he’s ever going to play his favorite sport again– he hasn’t received a verdict on the university applications he sent yet– the boy figures he should enjoy each game like it’s the last. Because who knows– one day, it may as well be, and if he’s not prepared for it, if he has any regrets, he knows he’ll take it harder than he’s supposed to.

Kim Sunwoo’s position in football is midfielder. While Eric once told him that it’s a loser position, since he’s not the shooter and he doesn’t score many goals (which is a lie– the boy had him know he scored his fair share despite his defensive position on the field), Sunwoo’s grown to love it. He’s the one that’s supposed to counter all attacks on his teammates. He’s the one that runs after the ball and passes it to the shooters, so technically, he’s the reason why any of them even have the opportunity to score. His position is as important as any other player's, and he takes pride in the compliments he gets from his coach whenever he does particularly well at a game.

Sunwoo loves football. He’d say his first love is football, but something inside of him keeps telling him that that’s a lie (don’t ask him why. It’s a secret.). It’s the first game he’s ever been exceptionally good at, the first thing he could do for periods longer than a few weeks. He’s been playing with the ball since he was young, and although he never had a father to kick the football around with in his backyard, his sister was always happy to be included in anything he was into at the time– when she got older, she even got better at being his designated goalie, although less interested in the play itself. Sunwoo feels like he lets go of all worries when he plays. It’s good to have an escape, something to keep his mind occupied. He doesn’t have many things to worry about, but he finds that kicking the ball around, making strategies in his brain on how to get it to his teammates the fastest, is enough for him to get out both his frustration and get something nice out of it. He enjoys the thrill. He enjoys the excitement, the shared joy of the team whenever someone scores a goal. He is addicted to the ecstasy in his veins whenever his team wins.

It was easy to determine that if Sunwoo wanted to do anything for the rest of his life, it would be football. It’s what he enjoys, what he loves. It’s what he’s good at.

It’s strange to imagine a time when he wouldn’t play football. He doesn’t even want to imagine it in the first place– it makes a chill run down his spine and an unsettling feeling churn in his stomach. In a perfect world, he’s always a football player.

Everyone keeps telling him he could easily make it professional, if he tried.

Football is how he met most of his friends. It’s how he met Juyeon– he was the captain of the high school team when Sunwoo was a sophomore, and he found that hanging out with the older boy was easy and fun. It’s how he met Donghyuck and Jihoon (before the latter dropped out of the team after a few months). It’s how he met you.

His coach always warned the players about dating the cheerleaders. For his coach, it wasn’t right to do so– it would throw off the dynamic of the game. “Nobody wants their ex to stare at them during their game!” the coach had said– not even thinking of the possibility of any of those teenage romances to last. Sunwoo only laughed back then. It wasn’t something he should be afraid of– he never liked anyone on the cheer team.

Until… until he did. Sunwoo met you on one sunny day, at your joint cheer-slash-football practice. You pointed out that the number on his jersey– 03– was your favorite, and the boy felt himself smile. Ever since then, he never wore any other number. He considered it to be his lucky charm. What started as friendship blossomed into something much more for the boy, and somehow, he can’t even remember when the feelings he had for you morphed into adoration. He doesn’t know when they shifted Into absolute enchantment, or Into a silly crush– he doesn’t know when he started seeing you in a light that was more romantic.

Wearing your favorite number on his back, Sunwoo runs towards the opposing player. There’s something akin to an angry face playing with the man’s features, and Sunwoo imagines it’s because of the very clear lead his team has on them. Sunwoo makes sure he doesn’t slip as he tackles the opposing player– he swears he heard someone call the shooter Jaechan– and as soon as he secures the ball, Sunwoo aims to forward it to his teammate.

The screams resonating all around him– although he tries hard to filter them out to focus on the game completely– suggest that it’s only a few moments before the game is over. It wouldn’t matter even if they didn’t score the goal, but something inside of Sunwoo’s heart leaps at the thought of winning with such a lead. The boyish excitement only grows when he watches Donghyuck retrieve the goal and run towards the goalpost, neon-orange sneakers shining through the green grass.

“Come on!” Sunwoo cheers, a hopeful spark lighting within him as the boy prepares to shoot, eyes quickly scanning the field.

And Lee Donghyuck almost never lets him down. Maybe that’s why he liked the boy so much in the first place– Sunwoo didn’t like players that dismissed the chance he won for them. He liked the skillful ones. The ones that knew what they were doing. (He also liked Donghyuck’s humor. He found himself grateful to have a friend so funny. He made even losing feel like it wasn’t such a big deal.)

Choosing the golden shooter proved to be a good idea once again– Donghyuck, number 35, shoots for the goal and the ball gets in. Seconds after, the sound of a whistle is heard across the place, the game over with Sunwoo’s team winning 4:1.

Everyone cheers– yells from the audience are heard, excitement reeking through the air. The whole football team gathers around, sweaty bodies sticking together as they perform some sort of a cliche group hug, arms patting each other’s backs and complimenting each other’s play.

The commotion dissolves shortly after. Sunwoo finds himself trying to catch his breath, eyes looking across the space for someone in particular. His heart leaps even harder when he finds you standing at the edge of the field in your cheer uniform, a big smile plastered on your face. Your eyes are glimmering as they meet with his. Your hair is a little tousled from the routine you just finished doing and there are smears and smudges on your cheeks from the face paint you used to symbolize the team’s colors– blue and gold. Over-all, you look ecstatic.

Sunwoo finds himself running over to you before he even registers that he’s going to do it. He’s like a fast, unguided missile, the goal of getting to you as fast as possible being the only thing resonating through his excited mind.

“Good jo-” you grunt as the boy finally gets to you, words cutting off when he (maybe a little harshly) puts his arms around your middle and picks you up, twirling you around. You screech a little into his ear and he finds himself laughing at your reaction. It’s like a runner's high– he feels like right now, he is capable of everything.

“Okay! Okay! Put me down!” you laugh when you start to get a little dizzy. The boy complies, since he’s running out of strength to carry you anyways, and puts you back to your feet. His arms stay tightly wrapped around your body, though, locking you into a secure hug.

“We won!” he cheers, the brightest grin settling to his lips as he announces the obvious.

You beam at him, eyes soft and crinckled into little moon crescents, a dumbfounded smile playing with your features. “I know, Sherlock,” you dismiss him again with the teasing nickname, shaking your head in disbelief, “I was here. Cheering for you,” you say.

And sure, Sunwoo knows that by you, you don’t necessarily mean him in particular– more like cheering for the whole team, the whole 11 players on the field– but something about the sentiment makes his stomach feel all light and a slight blush spread over his glowing cheeks. You were here– cheering for him (and his team) – and although you’re here out of your own will, out of your own devotion to your hobby, he somehow feels grateful for your presence. You never miss a game. You went even when you caught the flu and felt too sick to do your cheer routine– you just sat on the bench and rooted for your best friend. (The team lost that match. Sunwoo felt a little bad for tugging you out of your bed for it.)

The boy studies your face for a while. You look perfectly content in his hold. You fit perfectly into his arms, he thinks– almost like you’re supposed to be there all the time. He should hug you more often, he decides. Sunwoo foolishly finds himself focusing onto your lips– he blames the shiny lipgloss you put on today– the words coming out of your mouth not quite registering in his brain. “As I was saying, good job! The whole team, but you especially. Don’t tell anyone, but I think you really shined in this game. I’m really prou–”

A single peck is pressed to your glossy, sticky lips, cutting you off in the middle of the sentence yet again. Sunwoo surprises himself with the gesture– he was always too shy to initiate something with you, too hesitant to even touch you sometimes– but the euphoria is still playing with his senses, clouding his brain. He doesn’t think of consequences.

He can’t control himself anymore. It’s been weeks since you two kissed for the first time– exactly 4 and a half weeks since you taught him how to do so– and since that afternoon, he found himself thinking about it every single day, every single minute, all. The. Time. You two haven’t spoken about it since, making the poor boy a little disappointed, but he respected your decision. He knew that you didn’t particularly reciprocate his feelings, but he still expected your dynamic to shift. At least a little bit.

And although he should’ve been glad nothing changed and your friendship didn’t crumble because of a simple kiss, he found himself desiring to kiss you every time he saw your face.

You peer at him with eyes wide open, mouth a little agape. Sunwoo doesn’t really know how to read your reaction– you didn’t look particularly happy, but you also didn’t push him away– and so in the moment of panic, he begins to backtrack, his arms untangling from your sides.

“I- I’m sorry if I overstepped any boundary, or if I–”

You’re not fans of letting each other finish their sentences today, it seems. Before Sunwoo gets a chance to put a bigger distance between the two of you, he watches as you get on your tippy-toes and press a tender kiss on his lips– more firmer than the one he dared to give you, a little bit longer, yet still sweetly short. There’s something soft and gentle in your gaze when you pull away and press another peck onto his face– the tip of his nose this time– and Sunwoo almost physically feels his knees turning into jello, his own celebratory firework show erupting in the pits of his stomach.

“So, as I was saying,” you hum, hugging the boy around his neck, “you did well. You looked good out there,” you peep, the sparks in your eyes making Sunwoo’s skin burn with their contact.

That day, you teach him that to be loved is to have someone sharing your achievements with. To be loved is to be adored, to be loved is to have someone watching you and cheering you on, to have someone to run to with good news.

Kim Sunwoo’s football team won the match, but the boy thinks that perhaps, that day, he won something even greater.

to. my first lover

August 2000

The admission papers arrive at his house the morning he’s supposed to sleep over at your house. Your parents decided to take a trip to your aunt’s place for two days, so you invite the boy into the comfort of your home for the weekend– as far as Sunwoo’s mother is concerned, he’s sleeping over at Juyeon’s. He doesn’t have the boy covering him, but he’s also sure his mother won’t try to check if he’s telling her the truth. He’s not banned from having a girlfriend– he just doesn’t want his mum to get any wrong ideas.

He finds the envelope in the mailbox when he comes home from school, and something in his stomach drops when he sees the american stamp on the top right corner of the white paper. He debates on opening it, but every time he hypes himself up enough to tear the top of the envelope off, a little anxious voice on his inside tells him to wait.

Although reluctant to admit it to himself, Sunwoo is a little scared to see the result of his university application. Before he leaves for your house, he puts the envelope into the front pocket of his backpack and tries to forget about it. It works a bit better when he sees your face, hears your laugh– when he spends time with you and you two play the new board game you got from your cousin. Still, the weight of the envelope keeps bugging him in his mind no matter how hard he tries forgetting about it, and you finally notice (or finally bring it up after hours of ignoring his weird mood) when the two of you lay together in your bed in the evening, both facing the ceiling.

“Is everything alright?” you ask.

“Hm?” Sunwoo hums, lost in thought. “Oh, yeah,” he nods, “don’t worry.”

You don’t seem convinced. Shuffling a little in your sheets, you turn towards him and move your body closer to his, your arm suddenly draping over his middle. A tender kiss is placed on his temple, almost making him crumble under the gentle care, and your voice earns a concerned kind of timbre when you speak to him. “You can tell me,” you hum, “boyfriends and girlfriends are supposed to tell each other things.”

Boyfriends and girlfriends. Sunwoo feels himself soften under the possessive title. It has been close to 4 months of you dating– starting with the winning match in April, progressing slowly through the summer break– but the fact that you’re his partner is still a little unbelievable to him. Sometimes, when he hears you call him your boyfriend, he still gets a little bashful. He still feels like he’s been told the greatest news of his life.

Maybe it’s the nature of this sentiment that has him slowly unraveling to you. And maybe, it’s because he’d tell you anyways– you’d be the first to know. He was just waiting for the right time to bring it up.

“The reply to my university application came in the mail this morning…” he trails off, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

You plop up on your elbow, watching the boy from above. Eyes big, you peer into his face. “And?” you ask, an expecting gaze glazing his features.

“I… I don’t know,” he shrugs, “I was too scared to open it alone.”

“O-Oh,” you nod, furrowing your brows at him, “well, it’s okay to be scared. I believe in you, but even if it doesn’t go the way you wanted it to, I’m still proud of you for trying,” you say, a gentle tone of voice cooing at him, like the nature of the way you play with his hair, wanting to make the boy relax from his anxieties.

“I have the letter here with me,” he says, swallowing, “in my bag.”

“Do you want to open it together?” you ask, watching as the boy nods.

He’s getting off the bed in no time, wearing just sweatpants and a baggy shirt to sleep in, grabbing his bag from the corner of your room and unzipping the small compartment at the front. His fingers take the envelope out, legs walking him over back to your bed, your figure now sitting against the headboard. Sunwoo finds himself mirroring your position as his fingers turn the little white thing in his hold with much stumbling, preparing himself for whatever answer awaits him inside.

Glancing at you, seeing you looking at him with an encouraging expression on your face, Sunwoo takes a big breath in and out to calm his nerves before he tears the top open and takes out the expensive-feeling paper. Not stopping his actions anymore, knowing that if he takes another moment to himself, he won’t be able to read the letter, he unravels the note and lets his eyes skim over the words.

Before he even has a chance to register the sentences written down in the letter, before he can even let his mind accept the result he’s given– ‘we are pleased to announce that you were admitted to the athlete scholarship program…’– he feels a pair of arms wrapping around his shoulders, jolting him awake from his thoughts.

“You made it! Oh my god, you made it!” you cheer, excitement taking over your whole body as you shake the boy in your hold from side to side. The reality still isn’t quite settling in for him, so he just lets you do whatever you please– which includes all of the following: screaming incoherent words into his ear when you hug him closer to your chest, planting a kiss to his cheek and throwing your hands up into the air in a winning gesture.

“You made it, Sunwoo,” you repeat, this time a little more collected.

Sunwoo finally allows himself to put the letter away and look into your eyes. “I made it,” he sighs, a soft smile playing with his features.

“You did!” you nod, grinning back.

It’s strange. The first step towards Sunwoo’s dream is now complete. He got admitted to the university of his dreams– the one that’s good for athletes, the one that is supposed to shoot him towards stardom. He has the opportunity to take classes there and train with some of the best aspiring players in the whole world. He has the opportunity to move out of the country, live at dorms in Boston, and most importantly, he has everyone’s support.

There’s nothing more a boy his age could want more. He has everything. His whole life ahead of him, only the brightest future waiting for him at the end– only if he keeps trying hard and improving. He’s happy. Don’t get him wrong– he really is. Somehow, though, it all feels a bit scary.

“What’s wrong? Aren’t you excited?” you ask, a pout taking over your once excited features. The amount of worries you have over Sunwoo gets bigger and bigger the older the two of you are. There are only so many things that can go wrong when you are a teenager, but now that you’re adulting, the list keeps getting longer.

“I am,” he nods, forcing a smile onto his lips.

“You don’t seem excited,” you argue.

“I am! I really am,” he says, trying to battle with himself.

“What is it?”

“What is what?”

“Come on, Sunwoo,” you sigh, “I can tell when something’s wrong. You don’t have to hide it from me, because I’ll know anyway. What is it?” you insist, staring the boy down with an examining look.

The boy sighs, shrugging to himself. “Well,” he starts, “the school is in America.”

“And?” you start, furrowing your eyebrows. “We knew that when you applied. Why is it such a problem now?” you ask, genuinely not grasping the whole situation.

Sunwoo chews on his cheek for a little while, plays with his fingers in his lap. A part of him is telling him that he both looks and seems foolish– because you’re right. It was his dream, he is excited, and this is good news. But still, there’s something he didn’t really think of when applying. Well, he did. He just thinks that the fact that him being accepted wasn’t really a realistic idea, no matter how hard he wished and prayed for it, so he didn’t have the need to think about it so seriously back then. Now it’s here, all real, and it’s a struggle he didn’t really grasp that he was going to have to go through.

“Well,” he starts again, still avoiding your eyes, “that means I have to move. And we won’t see each other for a while.”

There’s a heartbeat of silence following his confession– one in which he contemplates all possible reactions you might give him, some with truly catastrophic endings– but after what seems like eternities, he hears your soft, gentle voice. “Is that what’s making you so worried?” you ask.

“Kind of,” he nods, feeling his cheeks redden. You handle him with so much care– sometimes, he doesn’t know how to react.

“Awh,” you coo, taking his hand into yours, preventing him from picking at the skin of his cuticles until they bleed– an action he always does and you keep scolding him for. “Sunwoo, we knew about this when you applied. I am okay with you going away. Sure, it will suck, but it’s only for a little time, and I can come visit you there and you’ll show me around and stuff…”

Sunwoo presses a tight-lipped, hesitant smile to his lips. He feels reassured.

“And we’ll call, and it’s going to be fine, because this is good. This is good news, Sunwoo, and you’re gonna do great, and you’re gonna be a star, and I’ll be so, so proud of you,” you hum, voice tender and caring, doing your best at consoling the boy.

“I’m already so proud of you now, y’know?” you hum, squeezing his hand. “Everything will be alright, so don’t you worry.”

Sunwoo’s arms reach out to envelop you into a hug. He once again recognises how easily you fit into his arms, how perfectly you shape into his skin, and when he burrows his nose into your neck, breathing in your scent, he feels your lips reach into his hair, planting a soft kiss into it. Your words did more to the boy than only consult him– they gave him hope, they gave him joy, they made him feel like perhaps, this is not such a terrifying occurrence. And it really isn’t– it’s quite possibly the best thing that he’s ever achieved, and the circumstances of him leaving don’t seem as horrifying to him now.

As long as he knows that you have his back, he thinks he can do anything. And what’s 3 years abroad against the 4 years he’s known you?

When you pull away, you press your lips against his, the contact making his muscles finally relax and his mind let go of all the worries. There’s suddenly nothing in the world that could make him falter, nothing that could make him worry or stress or fret or change his mind, because he has your support, and you’re here with him, promising him that you’ll always be right by his side, wherever he is.

Your mouth molds against his, the familiar motion of your lips against his still surprising him sometimes, still making him curious even after those months. He’s been dating you for some while, but he still likes to explore what makes you crumble under him, what makes you hum into the kiss, what makes you tug him closer to you– it’s a fun game to him, trying to figure you out completely.

He still has some time, but it’s like he is trying to engrave those moments into his memory before he no longer can experience them first-hand as easily.

He goes out to explore again– his tongue gently inviting itself into your mouth with a swipe of your lower lip, relishing in the way your composure falters a little bit, letting him be in charge. You were always the more experienced one out of you two, so Sunwoo often shied away from being the one dominating intimate situations– afraid he’s not good enough, too inexperienced, too immature for you– but in the rare moments he does take the lead, your reactions give him a new source of confidence.

His hand comes up to cradle your jaw, nose pressing against your cheek as he angles you so he has more access to your lips. Something about his ministrations makes you forget to breathe, breaking away from him in a search for much needed oxygen, but Sunwoo acts like he’s been starved of you, latching his lips to the trail from your mouth towards your neck, planting open-mouthed kisses to your soft skin. He faintly remembers the time you gave him a lovebite that one time you came over to his house to work on homework together, sucking and biting at his neck (and although he enjoyed seeing the possessive bruise on his skin whenever he saw himself in the mirror, he wore the strings of his hoodies tightly tied to his neck, shielding him from being teased by everyone– but mostly Eric). He tries to mirror your motions, recreating the action to the best of his abilities.

He hears you grunt, making him fear that he’s doing it wrong– a momentarily panic settling in his chest screaming at him that he hurt you– but the worries are quickly dismissed as you move impossibly closer to the boy, straddling his lap and threading your fingers through his hair, keeping him close.

Humming under his touch, Sunwoo gets a kick from hearing the sounds coming out of your mouth. It’s like a reward– it’s like the praise he goes after his whole life, like validation of his actions being satisfactory for you. The pressure of your body against his lap makes him feel hot all over, sweaty hands holding you by your sides. Every slightest shift of your figure against his makes him shudder, composure faltering when you move in a way that has his breathing particularly quicken, a bundle of nerves forming in his stomach from the newly found hypersensitivity. There’s only so much fabric shielding the two of you from each other, and just the thought of it is slowly driving the boy crazy.

Pulling away from your neck, admiring the artwork he managed to portray on your skin, he feels you pulling him up to meet your lips again, heated, firm kisses shared in the silence of the room. He feels your hands resting on his abdomen, feeling him up for a moment before you sneak them under the hem of his shirt, dragging your nails against his skin.

Sunwoo hears a sound escape his throat at the contact, making him instantly feel foolish– until he feels you smile against his lips, following your ministrations by mirroring his previous actions and kissing down his neck, finding all the spots that make him the most reactive– like the place under his ear, the juncture of his shoulder. You revisit all the places you’ve tested before and perfected your aim to make him efficiently crumble under you. Sunwoo finds himself losing the initial control he had over the situation, instead letting you take over and lead him, much like you’ve done in most areas of his life. He likes to be your follower. He likes to see where you want him, where you need him, he likes to comply. It’s more comfortable for him this way. It makes him swell with pride when he makes you happy.

Another shift of your hips against him has Sunwoo digging his fingers to your side, whole body feeling like it’s electrified under your touch. Placing a soft peck to the spot you’ve had your attention on, you mumble into his skin. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Sunwoo swallows, noticing you leaning your forehead against his tenderly, eyes meeting.

“Are you sure?”

He nods. He’s never been more sure about anything in his life– he enjoys your company, he loves your touch, the way you make his every sense heighten, his heart beat quicker. Still, he feels a bit nervous at the prospected events. “I just– I’ve never done this before,” Sunwoo whispers the obvious, watching as you carefully observe him.

“Sweetheart,” you tenderly call, placing a soft peck to his lips. “That’s okay. Me neither, but we could… we could try and see where this leads us, if you’d like?”

The sweet pet name alone makes the boy let go of all his worries, of the stress and nerves he’s been holding on to for the past few weeks. You hold him like he’s going to break, and Sunwoo’s never felt so loved before. You reassure him that it’s going to be okay. You are there to remind him that life isn’t so hard, as long as you’re by his side.

“Okay,” he nods, smiling at you.

“Okay,” you repeat, holding his face in your hands as you kiss him again– it may as well be for the thousandth time. Truth is, while he tried to keep up at first, Sunwoo lost count a long time ago.

Everything there is to know about love, Kim Sunwoo learned from you. You showed him the childlike playfulness during your dates. You taught him how to kiss, only to take advantage of his newly found skills and keep them all for yourself. You showed him what it is to share joys, dreams, but also worries together. You were his first crush, date, relationship– and now, his first lover.

In the comfort of your childhood bedroom, holding you closer than ever, Sunwoo dreams of eternity with you. He doesn’t realize what a foolish thought it might be. Somehow, he’s got a feeling that no matter what it is, you two will figure it out. You always do.

to. my first love

September 2000

Muscles sore and whole body heaving in pain, Sunwoo trails inside the small bungalow the university gave him as student accommodation, dropping his duffel bag to the floor. His face is pulled into a small frown as he enters the house and his roommate can’t help but notice. “Everything alright?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Sunwoo hums, nodding at the question. He has 3 assigned roommates– all male, all around his age. Sunwoo’s english isn’t bad, but it also isn’t that great either. He knew that this was going to be one of the main concerns of him moving out abroad, but he figured that the more you encounter the language, the more comfortable you get with it. Due to this, though, the two American boys he rooms with– their names are Josh and Sam– aren’t as close with him. Sunwoo doesn’t really blame them. It’s not like he tried to get close with them anyway. He talks much more with Mark, the one year older boy that’s also Korean, but has been living in the States for years now. The language barrier is nearly nonexistent there, and so he feels much more comfortable.

Not comfortable enough to vent to him about his problems, though. It’s good to share a laugh with Mark when they eat breakfast together in the kitchen, but he won’t go on and talk his ear off about his homesickness, for example. Sunwoo wouldn’t talk to him about the weird, unsettling feeling in his gut whenever he takes the bus or walks down the street, not recognising every face he encounters like he did back home, in his small town. He won’t tell Mark Lee about how much he misses Korea– he’s sure the boy has his own things to worry about. Besides, it’s not like Mark talks about personal stuff with him either. After four days of living here, he can’t say their relationship got to the level of going deep with their personal lives.

And so, Sunwoo walks up the stairs in silence, not giving Mark more information about his mood. Each step up hurts, since the training is twice as demanding as it used to be at home, making his muscles sore and his back hurt terribly from the stone hard mattress in the bed of his new home. He is willing to endure it, but he also has the terrific need to complain about it to anyone that would be willing to listen.

He should start writing a diary, he thinks as he stares up on the ceiling, chewing on the inside of his cheek. It sounds good enough to channel his feelings out into while also not being a bother to anyone else. Besides, he doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s having a hard time here in Boston. This was all his decision, his dream, and sometimes, things are going to get difficult. And that’s okay. Sunwoo just… feels like he lacks the support system he once had back home in Korea. Like someone took it from between his fingertips, forcefully kept it away from him, locked somewhere miles away. Maybe the person who did that to him was himself all along…

Which is why he doesn’t deserve to whine about the fact that he feels terribly lonely. He did this to himself. All him.

If he had a diary, he’d write about the terrible mattress first, he thinks. Then, the weird weather around here– it’s always hot, but not humid. It doesn’t rain as much. He kind of misses the rain.

If he had a diary, he’d write about how he misses his old coach. The high school coach that always made sure the game was fun, yet productive. He misses his teammates as well. Their team never did big things, but he felt like they were some sort of a family. They knew each other well on the field. They had chemistry. They had fun.

He’d write about how he misses his annoying little sister. How he wishes she would appear in the doorway of his room and talked to him about the stickers she still collects, or dragged him to make another friendship bracelet together. How he feels bad for leaving her all alone back home, even though he was never the one to share his brotherly love for her so outwardly growing up. He feels a sort of appreciation for her that he didn’t quite understand when they were little. They are right when they say your sibling is your first best friend after all.

He’d write about the second best friend he’s ever made, Eric. He’d write about how he longs for his presence, his encouraging words. His funny remarks, the pranks he’d pull on him. How he always appreciated him being just across the street, how he enjoyed growing up with him by his side.

He’d write about how much he misses you– perhaps the most out of everyone. There aren’t many words he could use to describe how much he wishes for your presence, and so he thinks the pages filled with sentences directed to you would be rather sparse, and it makes him kind of sad to think about. In his mind, you deserve novels written about you. You deserve love letters and poems and essays filled with every little detail of your existence. Maybe if Sunwoo loved you less, he would be able to talk about it more.

When his eyes go out of focus staring at the ceiling, Sunwoo decides to call you. It’s been 4 days since he arrived and he hasn’t spoken to you since you waved him off to the airport. His mother drove him and you couldn’t go to send him off at the gate, but Sunwoo almost thinks he prefers the fact that you only said goodbye to him in front of his house. It would be that much harder if he saw your face the last thing before boarding the plane.

For the last four days, he’s been slowly settling in, taking in the new country and the new environment. He’d say he was just too busy to call, but that would be a lie.

He was just scared to hear your voice. Terribly.

What if you changed your mind? What if you no longer want to stay with him? What if it’s too hard to handle? And Sunwoo knows it’s hard– hell, it’s the most difficult thing he’s ever done– but all he wishes is for you to keep handling it well. To keep his heart in your hands gently, like you always have, sending him your energy.

He figures that if there’s one thing that can help his growing homesickness, it is to hear your voice.

Sitting up from his bed and walking over to the bag he carried with him through the airport and kept with him on the plane, he scrambles through the item to find the piece of paper you forced into his hand on the driveway of his house.

“We changed our landline yesterday, so call me on this number when you get there,” you said, pressing a kiss towards his cheek before you let him get into his mother’s car. Sunwoo promised to call back then– he hopes you don’t mind the delay. Maybe he could blame the timezones…

Hand thrusting into the front pocket of the bag, Sunwoo feels around and tries to fish out the little piece of paper. He’s 100% certain he put it there after he got into the car with his mum, making sure it’s safe and sound. He would hate to lose it– it was some sort of safety net for him. Something to fall back to, something to keep him above the water.

Panic settles in his chest when he doesn’t feel the soft piece of paper anywhere. The boy unzips all other compartments of the bag, turning it around, shaking out everything that’s inside. The phone number to your new landline has to be there somewhere in there. It needs to be.

When he doesn’t find it in his bag, he opens his closet. He throws everything out to the ground– his clothing, his shoes, the notebooks he bought for university– all in the search of the stupid, little, yet so important piece of paper. He searches through all his other bags. All pockets of his jeans, every centimeter of his folded clothing. All drawers of his desk, the whole floor, hell, he even crouches to check under his bed, blowing the dust bunnies out of reach, desperately hoping he could wish the paper into existence. He searches his bed. All possible parts where the landline number could be– some more unreasonable than others. Sunwoo feels like he is losing his mind.

The paper is nowhere in his room. It’s like it vanished. Was it really there at all? Did he dream that moment up?

Running down the stairs towards the landline, he takes the phone off the wall and punches in the numbers to your old landline, the pattern so familiar in his fingertips he couldn’t tell you the number if you asked, but he could recreate it with punching in the buttons in on any other phone in the world. He clenches his fist together, breathing more heavily as he listens in, praying for the universe to stop playing tricks on him and make you magically answer on the other side.

When the phone makes a dismissive sound, signaling that the number he called no longer exists, Sunwoo shuts the phone against the wall and takes it again, putting in your old number once more, like a summoning ritual. Maybe he put the numbers in wrong the first time… Maybe he made a mistake somewhere along the way…

When he gets the same response, he tries again. And again. And again.

He can’t believe it. Tension settles into his shoulders, making him twirl the cord of the landline in between his fingers as a way to calm himself down, listening in to the dull noise on the other side telling him there’s nothing that can be done, nothing more that he can do. He doesn’t have the number, and somehow, although it sounds foolish, it feels like he lost you alongside it too.

“Everything alright, man? You look–” Mark enters the room, peering at the boy with curious, worried eyes. It’s only now that Sunwoo realizes he is breathing heavily, fingers clammy on the cord, heart begging to run out of his chest to get all across the ocean to you. It’s only now that he realizes his cheeks are wet with tears, the solidification of his inner turmoil taking a physical form and appearing on his face, making him feel pathetic in front of the older boy.

Sunwoo once again puts the phone back to its original place, but this time, he doesn’t take it back and tries the useless old phone number again. Simply turning away from his roommate, he accepts his fate as he quickly puts on his shoes and slams the door shut after him, going out for a run.

Is this his punishment for waiting too long? Did the paper vanish out of his possession because he was deemed unworthy of hearing your voice? Should he have tried to look for the number earlier? Would this have prevented it?

It’s hard to run when your nose is stuffed and your breathing hitches with silenced sobs, he learns. Sunwoo doesn’t get as far as he would have liked, crumbling on a bench somewhere next to a playground, picking at the dry skin of his lips until they bleed and the irony taste on his tongue snaps him back into reality.

What was once his dream is starting to feel more like a nightmare. When he calls Eric two days after to ask him to get him your new landline number, he gets the news that you abruptly moved out to New York.

September 2007

“If you really think about it, Y/N,” Sunwoo hums, making you shift your attention towards his serious-looking face, “we never really broke up in the first place.”

The boy is holding a bottle of cider in his hand, one of the four you got on your way to your tonight’s destination. Sunwoo rang the bell to your house a few minutes before 10 PM, and although you weren’t expecting to see him that day and you weren’t even looking as presentable as you’d like, you agreed to take a walk with him. Somehow, the two of you found yourselves climbing over the fence of your old high school, sneaking into the football field, figures settling on one of the benches of the tribune.

“Oh yeah,” you hum, lightness evident in your tone, “you just never called. What’s up with that, by the way?” you ask, snickering when you watch the male avert his gaze in a bashful manner, as if he was embarrassed to tell you his reasoning.

You take a sip of the apple cider, enjoying the sweet, fruity taste on your tongue, watching as the male contemplates his next response for a bit, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “I lost your new landline number,” he peeps, voice barely louder than a whisper.

His answer doesn’t register immediately in your brain. The words take a moment to string themselves together into a sentence, taking another few seconds before you understand the meaning of his confession. A soft laugh drags out of your throat, disbelief coating your very essence. “What?”

“Yeah,” he nods, scratching the back of his neck before looking back at you, eyes full of guilt and shame, “I… I lost the number you gave me, and when I called Eric to try to make him get me your new number, he told me you moved to New York, and I guess… I guess I took it as a sign…?” he says, shrugging.

“A sign of what?” you ask, genuinely surprised to hear his answer.

All this time, you thought he didn’t call because he didn’t want to. You thought he didn’t call because he was too busy, too tired to deal with anything else other than his career at the moment. He was trying his hardest and training every day, so you understood that he wouldn’t have time for you every day. When he didn’t call for so long, even after you moved to the States as well– you hoped he’d somehow try searching for your number even then, because in your mind, everything was possible– one day, you just… stopped waiting for him to call. You stopped hoping you would hear his voice on the other side of the line.

And you accepted it. He realized long distance relationships were too difficult to maintain, especially in that time and age, and he had too many of his own worries to take care of before focusing his attention somewhere else. You didn’t resent him, no. You longed for him, you missed him, but you never once hated him for the decision he made. You wished him well, all this time.

“A sign that… that maybe we weren’t meant to be,” he hums, shrugging. “It sounds stupid, really, but…” he trails off, cutting himself off in the middle of the sentence.

Something about his confession makes you feel a bit lighter. Your shoulders feel like there’s no longer anything weighing them down. It’s not like you waited for an explanation all those years and when you finally got one, something in you shifted into a more comfortable position.

“For me, back then, you were the right person, wrong time. And I didn’t want to let you go, I really didn’t, it’s just… everything was already so hard and the world seemed to put so many obstacles in my way of contacting you, that I thought it was the universe telling me to drop it and let you go. So you could… so you could find someone else, I guess…” he finishes explaining. He averts his gaze from you, pointing it towards the empty field, as if scared to see your reaction to his blabbering. He takes another few sips of his cider, snickering. “It wasn’t fair of me to want you to wait for me either.”

So you could find someone else… You think back to all the times you went on dates after you concluded that your relationship with Sunwoo was over. You try to remember their faces, their mannerisms in such detail that you could only make up one of your previous lovers– the one sitting next to you right now– and you chuckle at your foolishness. Remembering how you kept comparing every new person in your life to the one that stole your heart first, remembering how you thought about him late at night, wondering where he is right now and how he’s doing. You used to look through the sports parts of newspapers, looking for his name somewhere, looking for his team name, but never seeing a glance of how he was doing. You wore the stupid friendship bracelet he gave you in your junior year around in New York, having people point it out and ask about it, all until it broke off by itself one day and you reluctantly said goodbye to the sentiment.

You dated around after losing contact with Sunwoo. You don’t really think you found someone else, though.

“I wanted to wait for you, though,” you say, shuffling closer to the male on the bench, voice sincere. “It was my decision.”

“Well,” he chuckles, “life had other plans for us two.”

His sentence makes you think. A few days ago, it would make you sad. Embarrassed, even. Life had other plans for you two and they didn’t align with what you two have calculated during the summer break after your senior year. Sunwoo didn’t become a star. His football career never took off. He finished his degree and came back home, bitter and heartbroken.

Your plans ended just as fast as you came up with them. Not going to university after high school, you were left with nothing to do. When the opportunity to take an internship for a news company in New York came to you so suddenly, you took it without thinking, trying to find your place in the big world ahead of you. You had no plan, but you think that maybe, some part of you wanted to get away from your hometown all along. You wanted to do big things, make everyone proud. Being a news anchor wasn’t even something you dreamed of when you were little, so you guess you weren't supposed to really feel that let down, but the defeat still stings.

Or, at least, it used to. You find that the failure doesn’t hurt as much anymore.

Looking at the male next to you, you think you know the reason why. “It’s okay,” you say, shrugging, “we figured it out anyways, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” Sunwoo sighs, looking at you with a soft smile playing with his lips. “I guess we did.”

The sound of cicadas hits your ears when you two fall into a comfortable silence. Healing old wounds was surely one of the items on your check list when you came back home, but you didn’t expect to get over things so quickly. You don’t think you would have been able to get over everything alone, though– and this makes you twice as grateful to still have Sunwoo by your side. A sense of nostalgia takes over you at the fact, but this time, it hits you with more fondness than longing for the old times.

“Remember how young we were? It’s like I still see you chasing the ball around the field when I focus hard enough,” you say, pointing ahead of you.

Sunwoo laughs, shaking his head at your antics. “Yeah. I almost see you leading the cheer practice in the back there,” he points, “in your cute cheer uniform, with the ridiculous pom poms in your hands–”

“Hey, don’t call them ridiculous,” you gasp, “they were my favorite part of the whole routine!”

“Oh, I could tell,” he laughs, poking fun at you.

“Well, you must have liked the pom poms enough to stare at me during practice all the time,” you shrug, teasing the male back. The fact that Sunwoo had a crush on you long before you reciprocated the feelings wasn’t something you two explicitly talked about before, but you always deemed as clear as day. Or, at least, it was to everyone back then.

“I did not–” he gasps, making you gently shove him with your elbow.

“Come on, everybody used to say you had a crush on me back then,” you hum, “you were pretty obvious with it too.”

“You knew?” he looks at you, eyes big and surprised. Gears clearly running in his head, he tries to piece the information together, running through the memories now so distant, but still so clear.

“Girls always know,” you point out, shrugging. You take another sip of your cider, licking your lips after and speaking up again, tone of voice almost confidential. “I just acted like I didn’t. But then I realized I liked you back, so I was trying everything in my power to make you confess to me first. Which… took you long enough, young man,” you giggle, seeing the male shake his head at you in disapproval.

“You could’ve confessed first, if you were so confident,” he mutters, obviously a little gutted by the revelation.

“That would be below my level,” you nod, pressing your lips together into a straight line, “besides, it was fun watching you act all cute and clueless.”

“Don’t call me cute and clueless–”

“That’s what you were, though! Like the time when you got super drunk on your birthday and begged me not to leave–”

“I didn’t even like you back then!”

“Sure you didn’t.”

“I was in denial,” he furrows his brows theatrically, putting the empty glass bottle to the grass, “but I see that you had a lot of fun watching me suffer.”

“Fine, pretty boy,” you say, catching a glimpse of the boy momentarily shying away, presumably at the endearing nickname, his cheeks tinting pink even in the faint moonlight. “Would it make you feel better if I confessed first this time?”

“Huh?” the boy asks, lips parted, eyes a big, honest pool of honey.

Cute and clueless, you think.

The story comes full circle when you realize that this football field is perhaps what started it all. This is where you ran up to the new addition to the team, saying that your favorite number was on the back of his jersey. As the leader of the cheerleading team, you took it as your job to make every newbie feel welcomed– no matter if they were a fellow cheerleader or a football player. You didn’t expect for the boy to never stop wearing the number– although it was your favorite, it didn’t seem to be so important back then. (One day, you learned that Sunwoo kept the number on his jersey even after moving abroad. You read it in one of the sports magazines you foolishly flipped through in every kiosk you encountered and almost teared up in the busy store after.)

This field is where you watched him play football every week. It’s where you both practiced, sending each other funny faces after the coach was mean to either of you for not being focused on your training.

This is where Sunwoo found his passion– where he found his dream. This is the place that shifted the next couple of years of your life towards all sorts of directions. This is where he kissed you after winning a match, a gleeful confession slipping past his lips. This is where your relationship started, and metaphorically, also ended. The field that kept you apart is now a thousand miles away, but the one that brought you together is now right in front of you.

You guess it’s only right to use it for new beginnings.

“I think… I think I’m still in love with you, Sunwoo,” you start slowly, playing with your fingers in your lap, “well, I don’t know if my feelings for you ever ended… they could’ve, I mean, we were apart for so long… I just… all I know is that I don’t want us to be apart anymore, and I–”

Your words die on your tongue when the boy cuts you off with a kiss, the taste of apple cider mixing on your lips. The way he kisses you didn’t really change even after so many years, still swaying you with the familiarity of his loving. Still, even though you know the way he angles your jaw, the way he presses against you, the way he takes his sweet time, truly showing you how much he enjoys the act, you never grow tired of it. Something in you reacts the same way as when you were young. There’s still excitement, there’s still tender softness in your heart every time you kiss him.

His lips break apart from yours, a playful tint in his words when he speaks to you again. “Don’t try to take credit for it now,” he says, “because the last time I checked, we never really broke up in the first place, so you could say we were dating all along, all because I confessed back in–”

“God, you’re unbelievable,” you grunt.

“But you love me,” the boy says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it is.

“Always have,” you say, pressing a quick peck to his plush lips, “always will.”

The starlight glazes your cheekbones when you rest your forehead against his, as if to send him a telepathic message that is worth more than a thousand words. It’s hard to find the words to explain the mixture of your emotions right now, but when your memory washes up the encouraging monologue Sunwoo offered to you when you first arrived, you finally agree with his sentiment. Perhaps, one word could summarize it all– you feel truly content.

They say you never forget about your first love. At 25 and still counting, you guess you could say that’s true.

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