I just saw that you’re writing Carcar fic, a snippet pls 🙏
I love your stories so much so I’m really excited ❤️
This is the first thing that I read when I wake up, thank you so much anon because this means a lot to me, so I'll do it.
(I edited this post, 'cause I had a bit of trouble publishing it)
Soo, a not-so-little snippet for you!
“Mate, I honestly think you’re just exaggerating. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal to me, really.” Logan stretches his legs out, knocking his feet right against Oscar’s knee.
Oscar grumbles in lieu of an answer, lowering his head until he can hide his gaze in the bottom of his pint.
“Don’t know why you hate the guy so much; he seems alright to me.”
The thing is, Oscar Piastri does not hate Carlos Sainz.
Hate is too strong of a word for an individual with whom Oscar tends to have zero to no interaction whatsoever, except for forced polite greetings in the elevator and those rare times when Carlos decides that going out with Lando is worth his time.
Oscar sincerely thinks that only pretentious people claim to be as busy as Carlos does, so much so that he never seems able to find an evening to spend an ounce of time with his best friend.
So, no, Oscar does not hate him. He just can’t stand him, which is a big difference and Logan should note that.
Is the prospect of working alongside him on his most important project of his entire career going to deepen that grudge? Probably, surely.
But Oscar is, in fact, a professional, no matter what Carlos thinks of him, and he knows how to work with people he would rather keep a safe distance from. Nail guy and Germophobic guy should be more than enough proof.
“You don’t know him.” Oscar protests, sighing in frustration. Lando raises an unimpressed eyebrow next to him, tapping his chin. “Alright, sorry Lando. You do not know him in a working context.”
“I mean, how different can that be?” Logan says doubtfully. “Lando said you don’t even work in the same department.”
“Lando is just biased because Carlos got to him before us.”
Lando snorts, shaking his head with an amused smile. “Wow, thanks Oscar, you make it sound like I can make my own decisions.”
Oscar shrugs. “You’re welcome.”
“Has he started complaining about being paired up with Carlos, yet?” Yuki asks just as he settles down two other pints on their booth’s table.
Alex trails behind him, carefully balancing two portions of fries on each arm before sliding in the empty seat next to Logan.
“Mate, you have no idea.” Logan groans, placing a sloppy kiss on Alex’s cheek as he steals a fry from his portion.
Alex rolls his eyes, but still lets him with a fond smile. Oscar sincerely thinks he could puke.
“I really don’t understand why you despise him so much. He seems alright to me.” Alex says, failing at hiding the curiosity behind his voice.
“Babe! I said the same exact thing!”
“And he’s a great golf player, honestly.”
Oscar sighs, knowing that he’s left with his shoulders against the wall.
It’s not like his friends would understand, anyway, since they do not have to walk in his shoes.
Logan and Alex do not count, because they like everyone, and Yuki is one of the most unfazed people Oscar has ever met, Lando is just obsessed with Carlos for reasons Oscar will probably never fully comprehend.
He’s left alone, on this matter, even when they all go out together and Charles and Carlos tag along, Carlos is the only one who seems to not have any joke or a single word to address to Oscar.
Lando says that he’s probably the one actually ignoring him. Oscar thinks that Carlos is just plain out rude to him, and only him.
But that’s a bit childish, so he’ll keep that thought to himself.
Everyone starts focusing on their own food, and Oscar stupidly hopes that the topic must’ve finally been brought out of his last Saturday night as a free man before three months of utter nightmare.
And then Yuki quips in and reduces his hopes to shreds. “On his first day, Carlos told Andrea that he thought Oscar was too young for that position, and that he would be inexperienced. Oscar heard him, and he’s totally convinced that Carlos knows that he heard him but he still never apologised and Oscar took that personally because he’s peevish.”
“I am not peevish!” Oscar groans bumping his forehead against the table.
“Yeah, Oscar, you are a bit peevish. Just a tiny bit, though.” He feels Lando’s hand coming up to pat him on the back, sympathetic. “Come on mate, I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah, I mean, we say similar stuff about each other all the time at my workplace.” Alex offers, in an awful attempt at cheering him up.
It doesn’t do any magic at all, because Alex works as a teacher and Oscar has gone to school for enough years to know that teachers are only capable of hating each other for stretching out their hours longer than they should and preferring different students.
Well, unless they’re shagging like Alex and Logan, but they work in two different schools so that should not apply.
“It’s not just that.” Oscar tries to defend himself. Because holding a grudge for something that happened three years ago does sound a bit childish, and he’s not.
The rest of the table looks at him inquisitively, impatiently waiting for an answer, just the sound of the background music filling the silence that Oscar would so much prefer over having to talk about Carlos, of all people.
The worst topic they could choose for a Saturday night out at the pub, really.
“He’s just-“ he makes a vague gesture, hoping that they might understand it easily. Of course, everyone just blinks at him. “I mean, who goes around with only shirts that have his initials stitched on it? Who goes around acting like they know everything and they’re the best at it? And he says that Lando is his best mate, but I don’t see him hanging out with him that often, no? That’s just top dickhead behaviour, if you ask me.”
“Aw, Osc!” Lando exclaims, and in a matter of second, Oscar finds himself with his head caged under Lando’s elbow, the Brit’s hand mussing his hair. “You’re so cute, defending my honour.”
“You never did that for me.” Logan protests, and then more quietly to Alex. “Babe, he never did that for me.”
Alex smiles, patting his back lightly. “Do not worry, Lo, I’ll do it for you.”
“I’m not defending anybody’s honour.” Oscar splutters out, his cheeks growing hot, heart thumping in his chest, wild – a dangerous zone. He slaps Lando’s hands away from his hair, trying to ruffle them to some kind of order, but it’s no use, they’ll never make sense.
Carlos’ hair is always perfectly styled and composed. What a dickhead, indeed.
“I’m just stating the obvious.”
“Still, I can guarantee you that you do not need to worry about that.” Lando assures him, trying to reach back for his head, but Oscar is quicker this time, leaving him to poke Yuki’s cheek with a finger, instead. “He’s got other things to do on Saturday, usually.”
Oscar takes a sip of his beer to cover his snort.
He doesn’t trust Lando’s words, he’s probably just too biased by having been Carlos’ friend for such a long time.
Someone who’s not even married and who earns as much as Carlos does surely should not have that many things to do instead of hanging out with his friends.
But anyway, it’s none of his business. Rather, he should be glad he can at least escape him on Saturday.
“Sure.”
—
On Monday morning, Oscar clocks into work on time, his jacket is completely dry, his hair kind of makes sense and there’s a spring in his step, and he just feels good overall.
He has spent most of his Sunday sitting on the couch binge watching the entire final season of Brooklyn 99 and he’s convinced himself that whatever mind games Carlos might want to play with him, Oscar is stronger and smarter, and he won’t let himself get squashed.
Logan kind of fuelled his confidence, as well, with his usual monologues about the importance of believing in himself and remembering all the sweat and tears he put in to reach the place he’s in now, though Oscar is pretty sure he only comes up with them to exercise for his drama kids.
But the point is that he knows that it’s his job, that it’s his career, and even if he would probably get the promotion either way, he still wants to earn it. If not for Andrea, then for himself.
The fact that it’s his biggest project ever, just motivates him more.
He plops down on his office chair with a smile that must be breaking his face if the way Yuki glances at him curiously from the other side is anything to go by. But he just shrugs it off, playing dumb.
He’s just in a good mood, is that illegal?
“It is if you’re called Oscar Piastri.” Yuki tells him, no hair on his tongue. “You always look like-“ he makes a serious face, his lips closed into straight line, one eyebrow raised, sceptical. Oscar does not look like that, he thinks (he hopes). “Like those statues from Christmas Island.”
“I do not look like that at all.” Oscar glares at him, turning his computer on. “And it’s Easter Island.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
He spends the morning going through Andrea’s instructions over and over again until he can exactly tell the position of every single letter, and then he spends the rest of it making a first draft for a spreadsheet with all the products they will probably need to change a million times.
Carlos does not write him, nor does he come around to ask for him, either, but Oscar doesn’t question it that much. God knows he has his own side-projects, although minor, to care about but he guesses that spending some time to start brainstorming over this new one it’s not entirely a bad idea.
He’ll just email the file Excel to Carlos once it’s done, and then maybe they’ll shortly discuss about it, Oscar will even accept some suggestions because, against all odds, he is ready to work as a team. Besides, his creativity is pretty close to a zero percentage, but he has heard that Carlos knows how to do a mean presentation, and that’s how teams work, right?
Combine your best skills and all that stuff about sharing each other’s strengths. Oscar wouldn’t know about that, really, since he’s always preferred the solitary work, but he doesn’t have that much of a choice right now.
Yuki asks for poke at lunch, and Oscar is a man of his word, so as soon as the clock strikes half past twelve, they’re already out the door chattering about the latest apex legends’ update.
The guy behind the cash register smiles at him sweetly when he pays, and Oscar swears he winks at him as he slides the receipt over the counter, and sure enough when he looks at it there is a phone number scribbled on the paper.
Oscar isn’t exactly interested in dating as of now, but the guy was cute, and it did boost his ego a bit, and it might not be a bad idea to go out with someone that is not his roommate, his roommate’s boyfriend, his coworker and a weird friend from university. Maybe he could even get laid, which doesn’t seem like a bad prospect at all.
It’s just the combination of all these tiny little things that makes him feel better, more confident, almost ready to let himself believe that he could change his mind about Carlos, like Lando has been trying to make him for years, now.
Maybe he could actually reconsider him, even if just by stopping viewing him as a pretentious dickhead.
But Carlos just makes it incredibly difficult, it seems.
Oscar has just started settling back behind his desk when his attention gets caught by the new email in his inbox, that definitely was not there before.
To: oscar.piastri@g...
From: carlos.sainz.vasq...
Sub: team project
Hi Piastri,
attached you will find your part of the project.
Please, do not contact me on my lunch breaks, Friday nights and weekends. I will not respond.
I sincerely hope you do not need any clarification, but if you do, you can write to the email above.
Good work.
[See more]
“You have to be fucking kidding me.” He almost slams his laptop shut, feeling the rage bubbling up inside of him. Logan likes to say that he’s an emotionless human being, Yuki just compared him to a freaking statue, and yet Carlos Sainz is enough to make him doubt himself and his capability to have a decent control of his own emotions.
He inhales deeply, nostrils flaring as he tries to calm himself down. Breath in, and breath out, it’s just the first day of three months.
Which means that it can go even worse, fuck.
“What is it?” Yuki asks, curiously peering over his screen to take a glance.
Oscar had almost completely forgotten about his presence, and he just groans and turns the laptop around, not finding it in himself to explain without cursing one Spanish lineage or two.
“Mh, okay, yes.” Yuki mumbles, nodding understandingly with his chin propped up on his palm.
Oscar can see his eyes moving from one side to the other of the list, a list, of things that Oscar should do, that Carlos decided Oscar should do, just to prove himself once more as the biggest prick Oscar might’ve ever met in his life.
“Well, I don’t see the problem here.”
“You don’t- what?” Oscar splutters out, blinking once, twice. Yuki’s expression doesn’t change, it stays confused, amused even. “Isn’t it obvious? He gave me a list, Yuki, a list.”
“Yes and?” Yuki asks, unsure. “I mean, I would kill to have a teammate who tells me what I have to do. Splitting parts is the worst step for a team project, in my opinion. You should be glad.”
“I should be glad?” Oscar says, he almost feels crazy about it. “Yuki, can’t you see it? He’s doing it in purpose! He probably just decided what parts he didn’t want and gave them to me so I can, like, do his dirty laundry. I am almost 100% sure he’s going to take all the credit after and he just- ugh!”
Yuki looks at him, unimpressed, standing in front of Oscar’s desk like he’s seconds away from giving him a slap on his head. When they’re like this and the height difference is completely reversed, Oscar remembers that Yuki can be incredibly frightening, too.
“Oscar, listen to me.” Yuki says, gentle. Well, not really gentle, because Oscar is pretty sure that Yuki lacks that definition, but something akin to gentleness, surely. “I think you’re a bit stressed out right now, I get it, it’s an important project-“
“My most important project.” Oscar interrupts him. He feels compelled to remind that detail, which he doesn’t find small at all.
It will dictate the rest of his career, his future, his curriculum, his self esteem. He might be exaggerating, but he’s used to take things seriously only when he manages to convince himself that they are, in fact, serious.
But now that he thinks about it, he may just need a change of perspective: maybe having to work alongside Carlos is just a challenge for himself, one last obstacle to overtake before he can finally make all his years of studying and working his back off worth it.
He just needs to impose himself and he needs to show himself and to Carlos that he knows what he’s doing, and that it can easily be a 50/50 kind of work.
Perfectly balanced, yeah.
“- and I mean, anyway, if you’re not happy with whatever he decides, you can just go and talk to the guy.”
“You know what, Yuki?” Oscar says, standing up as he shuts his laptop close, feeling thrilled about the prospect of taking reins between his hands, for once. It must feel amazing, to finally have control over something, and it only makes him want that promotion more. “I think I’m going to give him a little speech about respect.”
“That’s not what I meant, but you do you.” Yuki shrugs before finally going back to his desk, sitting hunched over his screen and probably causing himself twenty different problems to his back.
It’s a spur of the moment, Oscar is not used to get them often, he prefers to be more levelheaded, in a way, more rational, logical.
But Carlos has always managed to get under his skin in a way that he never was able to point out, like he could just crawl inside and gnaw at it and smirk that too full grin of his that some would define as charming, Oscar just finds unappealing.
If he were to admit it, he would probably find the reasons of their mutual grudge behind deeply buried thoughts that Oscar has long since tried to forget about.
Like that time he had been scratching his own wrist with his nails, too long, too uneven, waiting for Lando to give him an ounce of his attention, just for Carlos to get it all with a bat of his eyelashes and a show of his straight teeth.
And Oscar has thought that, well, he did not know how to style his hair and he had always had bunny teeth and he did not post shirtless selfies on his socials, and he did not like to hop from one club to another to spend the time on a Saturday night, so hoping that Lando could turn around and look at him and say ‘Oscar’ all British accented and tongue in the little gap was just- ridiculous.
Rationally, that should not be considered as Carlos’ fault, but Oscar just knows that he knows. He swears he had seen him, winking at Oscar jokingly before taking Lando away by the hand, tilting his head to the side, curious, wicked, and then acting like Oscar wasn’t there, not even trying go engage him into conversations.
At work, it’s quieter, at least.
The only reason why Oscar still hasn’t spilled a hot coffee all over the front of his shirt is because Carlos kind of is his superior, after all, and people would surely almost immediately suspect of him if they were to find a distressed Carlos Sainz in sight.
But they still work in different sections, and they never have to cross paths unless they happen to be in the same elevator at the same time, or by the same coffee machine at the same time. They never make small talks, sometimes Carlos just glances at him and nods his head and makes a half assed comment about his commitments for the week like he’s someone too important to be around Oscar.
And Oscar wants to strangle him or scoff at him and give him a piece of his mind, but he does not, because he’s rational and levelheaded.
On top of that, the inexperienced comment and the lack of apology thereof does still sting, though he’ll never admit it.
The upper floor is a little bit nicer than the one his and Yuki’s office is, with longer corridors and opaque glass doors and plants that are actually alive.
Well, he and Yuki had tried to keep one between their desks, but the attempt had failed after they had realised they had forgotten watering it for four weeks straight. But at least they had tried.
Oscar doesn’t really think about what he’s going to say when he pushes the door open, nor does he when he strides into the office, basically uninvited.
And then when he finally thinks about it, it’s just to remain utterly speechless at the sight of Charles half slumped down on the little couch in the corner, scrolling away on his phone.
“Hi Oscar.” Charles says, enthusiastic as all the other times he and Oscar have interacted in the past. Oscar likes him, even though he can’t help but feel slightly intimidated by his attractiveness, but Charles has always been nice to him and when he goes out with them at the pub, he’s always asking Oscar about his day and appearing actually interested about it.
Which doesn’t explain why he would be friends with such a douchebag like Carlos, but it’s not like it’s any of his business.
“Hi Charles.” Oscar replies, unsurely taking a step forward. It doesn’t change the aspect of the situation, of course, what is supposed to be Carlos’ office chair is still as empty as the first time he laid eyes on it. “Am I in the wrong place?”
“Were you looking for Carlos?” Charles asks with a strange lilt to his voice, one that is not just from his accent, Oscar can tell.
“Uh, yes?”
“Then yes you are in the right place.” Charles concludes. “But at the wrong time, he’s out for his lunch break.”
Oscar checks his watch, then he checks it another time just to be sure. “But lunch break ended fift- twenty minutes ago.”
“Yeah, but he has to do other things, so he asked for a later lunch break.”
A later lunch break.
What kind of immense prick asks for a different lunch break than all the other employees? Who does Carlos think he is?
Oscar sincerely thinks he has never met someone as full of himself as Carlos in his life, not even that one guy at his high school that went around claiming to be able to get every single girl in his bed.
Which Oscar knew for sure was a big load of bullshit because he had watched Lauren Smith reject him at their final year’s party, and Oscar had given him a drunken blowjob in a bathroom on the same night.
And still, Carlos managed to top that off.
“Alright.” Oscar says calmly. “Then I guess I can come back later.” He finishes, already turning around to get out of this office as soon as possible and go back to lament on Yuki.
But Charles doesn’t seem to be of the same opinion, clearing his throat to get his attention back on him. “Uh, we will be in a meeting later.” He says sheepishly, and then adding, “I’m sorry I didn’t know you needed him so soon.”
It’s not Charles’ fault that Carlos is a douchebag, really, and Oscar is not that immature to act like one. “Do not worry, I will come back tomorrow, then.” One deep breath, in and out. “Thanks Charles, I’ll see you around.”
“Bye Oscar!” Charles waves at him, back to his enthusiastic self.
Oscar can’t share even an ounce of that same giddiness, right now, so he just closes the door behind himself and curses the name tag on it, flipping the golden plate off.
And then once again before getting inside the elevatore.
It’s cathartic enough.
__
To: carlos.sainz.vasq...
From: oscar.piastri@g...
Re: team project
Sub: adjustments
Hi Sainz,
I was not able to find you and I would like to discuss the attachment of your last email.
As it is a team project, I think that we should work, in fact, as team, unless you might’ve missed Andrea’s directives, though I am pretty sure you were sitting next to me. I sincerely hope you do not need any clarification on that.
Good rest of the day.
To: oscar.piastri@g...
From: carlos.sainz.vasq...
Re: adjustments
Sub: appointment
Hi Piastri,
I guess I can concede you a talk face to face over the matter. You can meet me in my office tomorrow at half past ten.
Do not be late.
To: carlos.sainz.vasq...
From: oscar.piastri@g...
Re: appointment
I won’t.
__
51 notes
·
View notes
𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅𝐅 𝐃𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐔𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓
genre: hurt/comfort, angst, fluff
word count: 4.3k
warnings: cursing, crying, neglect, tiny mention of bleeding
a/n: i think i win the contest of overusing commas with this one 🤍 tbh this fic is just yapping so pls deal with me... it's good to write some proper angst again tho, i missed it :(( hope you guys like it and don't find them too repetetive!!
masterlist
LEE HEESEUNG
It's been two weeks since you got the opportunity to take a proper look at Heeseung. And now as you do, you find it hard to recognize your fiancé who looks like he's about to collapse from exhaustion, to say the least.
“I never asked you to mother me or worry about me so much. Stop getting into my business so much. I’m not a child, YN.”
It’s like he was blind to how hurt his words and actions were making you feel. It’s so unusual for him, so out of character and unfamiliar to you, that you can’t help but think that maybe it really is your fault for riling him up this much.
“I worry about you because I’m your fiancé and I love you, you jerk!” You scoff at his careless words and take a step back, the aching in your heart only increasing. “I only want to look after you because you clearly don't know how to do it yourself. I mean, look at yourself! You look as if you haven’t slept in a week and I know you haven’t been eating either. How can I not worry about you when all you do is neglect yourself?”
“Dunno, maybe find yourself something to keep you busy enough. You stay at home all day, do as much as nothing, no wonder you’re so damn nosy. I would be too with this much time on my hands.”
He’s so indifferent to everything you say, you try to recall where it all started going so wrong. All you did was ask whether he’s eaten at work or not, and now the two of you are snapping at each other as if you weren’t lovers, and trying not to hurt each other was a long forgotten thought by now.
“If you’re so unhappy with our relationship – with me, maybe it’s best we take a break,” you say as you feel your throat tighten painfully.
“Agreed. I never even wanted this marriage in the first place,” he scowls, silencing you, words rolling out of his mouth way quicker than his brain is able to process it.
He bites his words back quickly when he watches your face dropping along with your shoulders, and fuck, you look as if you’ve given up on him right then and there.
You walk away then, tears streaming down your face, muttering something about how ungrateful he was being, and all Heeseung could do was stand still as if plastered to the floor, in utter disbelief of his own, untrue, words.
After his cruel statement echoes through his head for the fourth time, he finally snaps out of the self pity and rushes after you to the kitchen where you’re leaned over the counter, head buried in your hands as you cry.
“Baby, I’m sorry,” he apologizes quickly. He walks up from behind you and wraps his arms around your waist, resting his forehead on your shoulder blade. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry for everything I said, sweetheart.”
He turns you around gently and feels his chest tighten at how fucking sad you look. He never wants to see you like this. He never wants to be the cause of this ever again.
And when he looks to the side, his throat closes and dries completely at the sight of your engagement ring laying on the counter right behind you.
“Are you sure you didn’t mean it?” You ask, wiping the tears away with your hand pointlessly as another stream follows right after. “Things like that don’t come out of nowhere.”
“I didn’t, love, I swear I didn’t. I’m so fucking sorry,” he breathes out, pulling you closer to him by your neck again.
Never again. Never fucking again. He keeps telling himself in his head as he lifts your hand to his lips and presses a kiss to your knuckles, just where your ring was supposed to be sitting snugly. Then he lowers it and places your palm against his chest, right above his heart, and covers your smaller hand with his.
That was too close to losing you, and himself, for that matter. Because he would never recover if you were gone from his life and all because of him.
“Then why did you even say it?” You sob pitifully as you feel the warm tears dripping down the tip of your nose.
“I don’t know,” he shushes you gently, trying his best to not break you any further.
You pull away once you feel calm enough, hands clutching his t-shirt. “It's not too late to call off the wedding, Seung,” you manage out breathily, raising your palm to cup his cheek. “I'd rather not take the step further than have you unhappy.”
“Darling, no.” Heeseung bends down to minimize the distance between the two of you and peppers your face with loving, warm kisses. He just wants to erase those atrocious thoughts out of your mind as quickly as possible. “Please, there's nothing I'd ever want more than to make you my wife. That was stupid of me to say. I'll never be happy if I'm not with you, my love.”
“I just don’t want to force this marriage on you. You need to want it as much as I do, otherwise it’s pointless.”
Heeseung almost chokes on air when he rushes out his answer even before you can properly finish your sentence. “I do want it. Please, you have to believe me.”
“Really?”
Heeseung smiles at you softly as he wipes your wet cheeks with his thumbs. “Really. Scout’s honour.”
You breathe out, feeling relief, and look up at him with squinted, puffy eyes. “Sometimes I just wanna strangle you to death, Lee Heeseung.”
He chuckles lightly before pressing one last kiss to your cheek. “Aren't you just so adorable? You should add this to your wedding vows.”
“Maybe I’ll add this to your eulogy instead if you pull shit like that again.”
Heeseung clicks his tongue with a grin pulling on his lips. “Touché.”
PARK JAY
The atmosphere in the living room is so heavy that your chest starts to hurt. You’re standing barely two steps away from the man you love the most, yet you’ve never felt more far away from him than in this moment.
His eyes – cold but still undoubtedly full of love, drill holes in the side of your head as you turn your face away from him to try and gather your thoughts.
Arguments with Jay were rare. You always tried to work things out immediately, keeping your heads cool. But something has broken over the last month and you can’t see each other eye to eye anymore. At the very beginning of your relationship you made a promise to never go to bed angry. To never leave things unresolved. Yet now Jay’s been sleeping on the couch for the past week, and you fail to understand what the fuck has happened to the two of you.
And you can’t help but think that, maybe, sometimes love is just not enough.
“You’re not even trying to find the middle ground anymore. All you do is snap at me the second I come home. I’m fucking tired of it! Would it hurt to give it a rest for a day?”
The tension is almost palpable. You hate how you can’t seem to back away from any argument but only keep hurting him instead.
“Put effort into our relationship first, then we’ll talk,” you spit out instead, against your better judgment.
“It’s funny coming from you who’s done nothing but put a fucking distance between us!”
“This doesn’t make any sense anymore, Jay. We need some time apart,” you finally speak into the dull silence, eyes casted downwards at the floor as your hand keeps twitching, only to finally grab for your ring finger and slip the silver band off of it. You didn’t think much of your action, hell, you didn’t even process it properly.
Well, not until you hear the shaky exhale leave Jay’s lips.
Silently, he presses his lips together and nods his head before turning on his heel and leaving the room. You listen intently to the shuffling, then ringing of the keys and eventually the door being shut.
A moment of silence turns into minutes of you staring at the ring on your palm with tears burning your eyes mercilessly.
With your heart falling low to your stomach, you drop down on the couch and tug on your hair slightly, cursing yourself for acting so mindlessly.
You wallow in self pity in the dead quiet room. The shiny ring feels so heavy and burning in your clenched fist. You take in a deep breath, then quickly slide the band back onto your finger, feeling instantly shielded with it being on its righteous place again.
And just like that, you spend the next three hours on the verge of losing your sanity. With no word from Jay. He’s left your messages unread. He’s left your calls unanswered.
You don’t know whether he’s okay or hurt or simply gone. All that combined is enough to leave you panicked and terrified, unable to have a second of peace.
You never meant to take it this far. This – your words and rapid actions, that will forever remain as one of your biggest regrets. You don’t like the idea that you made your other half feel like you’ve taken him for granted. Or for what’s worse, like a person that you can use for unloading your frustration.
There’s this throbbing pain in your chest as you realize that maybe he’s not coming back because why would he if you can’t even love him properly?
Your fingers are bleeding from how hard you’ve been picking on your cuticles.
And then you hear the jingle of keys and soon the front door opens quietly. You know that even after all of this he’s still being careful to not wake you up. It’s killing you how he thinks you’d ever be able to get a wink of sleep without knowing he’s safe.
You’re quick to drop your phone on the couch and shoot up on your legs, rushing over to the door and throwing yourself on Jay’s neck.
“I was so worried about you!” You gasp out, clinging onto your fiancé desperately as tears unknowingly make their way down your cheeks. “Please, don’t ever do that again!”
“Sorry, my phone died,” he replies after a second or two, bringing his arm up to wrap around your waist and keep you close to him.
He’s still upset but he understands where you’re coming from, knowing well that if it was you instead of him he’d probably go insane from worry.
He can feel your heart hammering against his chest, so he lifts his hand and strokes your hair to help you calm down. But then you start crying, feeling his gentle touch even after everything you said, that was enough to push you over the edge. You clench your trembling hands on his sweater as you burst out with choked sobs, slouching against his warm and comforting body.
“I’m sorry, ‘m sorry, ‘m sorry,” you weep into his chest like a mantra and Jay can quite literally feel his heart cracking at your miserable state.
“It’s okay,” he whispers, hot air hitting your ear before he presses a soft kiss to its tip. “Don’t cry anymore, honey. We’re okay.”
“I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve you,” you whimper quietly. “Please, don’t leave me.”
“Don’t say that,” he scolds you with a frown. Your whimpers twist his guts even more than your harsh words from before. “It’s not the first nor the last time we’ll have an argument. It’s not worth losing your pretty head over it, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” you repeat one last time. “I promise I'll never take it off again. I’ll never lash out on you like that ever again too.”
Jay grabs your hand and runs his thumb over the thin silver band, the same one he was picking so carefully for weeks, and a small smile tugs on the corners of his mouth. He hates how shameful you sound.
He’ll never tell you how the sight of you pulling your ring off your finger made him physically sick to his stomach. He can't have you feeling even worse than you already do. So instead he brings you close to him and rests his forehead on yours.
“I’m so stupid,” you whisper quietly as you close your eyes, your heavy eyelashes letting go of another few drops of crystal tears which Jay’s lips soak up instantly. “I don’t know what I’d do if you actually left.”
“You know me better than to think I’d let us break it off over such a petty fight.” And, yes, you do. But your lip wobbles with silent agony at the sole thought of that. “Hey,” he tries again as he presses a loving kiss to your red nose. “I’m not leaving, okay? How could I ever?”
“I love you.”
With his thumb caressing your burning cheek so tenderly, you feel at peace again.
“I love you too,” he replies without skipping a beat. “No one can handle you as well as I do. And no one sees me for me like you do. We complete each other. We belong together.”
He kisses you silly then, until there’s no more tears left in your body and you’re barely able to breathe anymore. He kisses you until your legs give in and he swoops you up to carry you into your shared bed for the first time in what seems like forever.
He kisses you until it engraves in your mind that there’s no other person for him in this world but you.
SIM JAKE
“Baby, I already apologized.” A groan lingers at the back of his throat but for his own sake he stifles it inside. “I don’t know what else you want me to do.”
You sit on the verge of your shared bed and clench your fingers on the silky duvet. “How about you start showing up to things we both agreed on attending?”
He runs his hand down his face. “I know. It just slipped my mind, that’s all. You know how busy I’ve been this week.”
“This shouldn’t be my business only, though. I mean, for christ’s sake, it’s our wedding! I would really appreciate it if you participated in something for once!”
Flowers and cake. That’s literally all you’ve asked of him to go and pick with you for the wedding reception. Knowing his tight schedule, you picked the date carefully so that it wouldn’t meddle with his work and you could even go grab some dinner afterwards. But your plans all went out the window when he didn’t even bother showing up or giving you a heads up text, standing you up yet another time when it comes to your wedding preparations.
You’re honestly getting tired of it.
“I’ll be there next time,” he assures you quickly as he nervously taps his fingers on the doorway of your bedroom.
“You said you wouldn’t do that,” your voice wavers as your shoulders drop with resignation. With the back of your hand, you wipe off the tears that made their way down your cheeks. “You promised to help, Jake. But you left me alone with everything, as usual.”
“It’s not even that big of a deal. This can be rescheduled any time. Baby, stop stressin’ so much.”
“But it is a big deal to me!” You cry out, palm reaching up to pinch the bridge of your nose. You breathe out heavily. “I don’t want to do everything by myself! We’re supposed to be in this together! If getting married means that I’m gonna be alone with all the responsibilities that you don’t consider important enough, I’m not even sure if I still want it.”
To back up your words, your hand moves half-consciously to your ring finger and you twist the cool piece of jewelry in between your fingers.
“No, no, no, no.” Jake moves quickly, nearly tripping over himself as he rushes towards you to desperately clasp your hand in his two and stop you from whatever the hell you were about to do. He drops to his knees in front of the bed, right at your feet. “Baby, you promised you’d never take it off.”
You’re at a loss of words as you look into his wide eyes, the seriousness of your actions only catching up to you now. You gasp quietly, eyes watering just like his, quickly relaxing your tensed hand in his and letting him slide the ring back down your finger, just where it belongs.
Silence envelopes the two of you, besides the sound of your sniffles.
You feel awful.
Jake feels even worse.
Leaning forward, you press your face to his shoulder and melt instantly when he brings a hand to caress your hair.
“I'm sorry,” you whisper, clenching your hand to feel the cool ring against your skin. “I don't know why I did that. I didn't mean to.”
“I know,” he soothes you just as softly. He stands up from the floor and carefully maneuvers the two of you so that you’re placed on his lap as he sits with his back against the headboard. “It's my fault. I'm sorry. I never meant to disregard your feelings like that.”
At the end of the day, both of you would rather set themselves ablaze than watch the other one hurting.
You nod silently, heart pounding in your chest before you bring your arms up and throw them over his neck.
“I’m sorry I was so impulsive.”
“No. You did nothing wrong.” His soothing voice carries over the room, enveloping you with warmth. “I promise I'll be here whenever you want me to from now on. I don’t want you to feel neglected by me, especially now when you’re this stressed over the wedding. I won’t let you down, again.”
“I just need a little help, that’s all,” you mumble tiredly into his skin.
“I know.” His warm lips press to your forehead lovingly. “I’m sorry for being an insensitive douche. It won’t happen again. I’ll take some days off next week, hm?”
The tears on your face dry slowly as your hold on him tightens. “I’d like that a lot.”
“Then it’s done. I'll be all yours and you’ll be all mine then,” he hums and noses at your cheek, finally bringing out a small giggle out of you. After all these years, he still melts at the sound. “I won’t let things get this out of hand again, YN. I promise.”
“Okay,” you whisper. Tilting your head up and bringing his down towards you, you join your lips in a kiss that you’ve been longing for for days. His movements are slow and careful as he tries to soak up as much of the moment as possible.
His kisses slowly put your broken pieces back together. He never knew how much seeing you cry like this would hurt him. And he’ll make damn sure he won’t ever have to experience again that for as long as you're with him.
“If I have a life to spend, it'll only be with you, sweetheart,” he lowers his voice to match yours, cradling your cheek in the palm of his hand. “You're it for me. I'll never give you a chance to doubt that ever again.”
PARK SUNGHOON
“You’re never home! There’s always a hundred things more important to you than spending an hour of your time with me. Your fucking fiance! Are we really about to get married when you’re clearly so tired of me already?”
Your heart pounds in your chest as you finally voice out everything that’s been sitting on your chest for the past month. Things have not been working out well with the two of you, much to your despair. He’s been neglectful, always too busy to help you with anything – even the wedding related things that you should’ve gotten done weeks ago.
And you know that he’s swamped with work and it's not his fault. You understand everything. But to ask him to spare you an hour or two of his day shouldn’t be too much. It shouldn’t make him snap at you unlike what he just did the second he came back home. You slowly begin to lose your hope.
“God, have you always been this needy? Why can’t you accept that I can’t always put you first? No matter how much I’d want to, sometimes I just can’t! Deal with this!”
“Fucking- Fine.”
Your hand moves quicker than your brain, and the next thing you know, your shiny ring is being pulled off your finger and resting in the palm of your other hand.
You can see the disbelief flashing through his face briefly before it completely morphs into a scowl.
“You really think that this will solve the problem?” He asks, eyebrows narrowed as he glowers at you from across the room. “Really? Does that ring mean so little to you that you go and throw it away with any minor inconvenience?”
You try to blink away the frustrated tears, hand raking up to brush your hair away from your face. “No, fuck, I just- I don’t know what to do anymore, Sunghoon. I feel like I’m the only one in this relationship. I need you to give me something more because whatever you’re doing now is not enough for me.”
“Well, I’m putting out everything I have, YN! I love you! If that’s still not good enough for you, then maybe it’s not meant to be.”
The silence that falls in the room doesn’t last long as your sudden sob pierces Sunghoon’s ears quickly, making his stomach drop to the soles of his feet. His heart wrenches and twists as the anger simmers down and evaporates from his body within a second, and he’s quickly coming back to his senses at the sight of you breaking down right in front of him.
“Can’t you just try?” You cry into your hands, shielding your face away from your fiance. “That’s all I’m asking of you. Is it really so hard to try?”
No, it’s not. Sunghoon knows it without a second of thinking. It’s not too hard to try, never if it’s for you. And his throat dries so quickly when he basks in the weight of his words that finally made you break as well.
“You don’t know how much it hurts to feel like you’re too much for your partner,” you wail with a small voice, shoulders trembling and hands quickly getting damp with tears. “You’ll never know how it is to feel unwanted, because you’ll never have to when you're with me. Because I love you, asshole, but now I’m doubting if you’re saying it back just for the sake of it.”
With air getting stuck in his throat, Sunghoon looks at you wide-eyed before quickly crossing the living room and enveloping you in his arms. His warmth wraps around you in what you've always considered to be safety, but now it just makes you cry more.
He finds it hard to breathe. The hesitation in your eyes feels like a stab to his chest.
“Of course I still love you,” he says, voice muffled by your hair.
He hates how he made you feel the opposite. He hates how you’re right and he never had to worry about any reassurement of such kind from your side because you’re just that good to him. And his heart breaks with the realization of how much of a lousy partner he’s been to you when all you ever were was nothing less than perfect.
So he places his hand on the back of your head and presses you even closer to his shoulder as you cry, his own eyes burning with tears at the sound of your sobs and sniffles.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, my darling,” he apologizes with a heavy heart, fearful of what’s about to come next. “I didn’t mean to neglect you this much. I could say that I’m tired and the work has been a lot lately, but I know these excuses are not enough to make up for my actions.”
You’re mad and hurt, but you love him and would never want to give up on him, so you wrap your arms around his middle and hold him almost as tight as he holds you, burying your wet face in his chest.
“I love you more than anything, YN.” He pulls away from you only to cup your face and make you look at him. His long fingers wipe away the tears with gentle touch, soothing your stinging skin instantly. “You could never be too much for me. I want all of you. I promise I’ll do better. I’ll love you better.”
And when you’re looking up at him with these shiny eyes of yours, he closes the distance and presses a loving kiss to your swollen lips, hoping to take at least some of the pain away. He doesn’t think he can hold you any tighter. He can’t love you any stronger than right now, and it messes with his head how easily he could’ve had it all ruined only minutes ago.
He’ll never take your love for granted ever again. Because if he did, he’d never be able to pick up the parts of whatever was left of him, and put himself back together ever again.
You can feel his warm hand opening your closed palm before he takes the ring you've been clutching so tightly and holds it in between his fingers.
“Can I put it back on, baby? Please.”
You nod wordlessly while you try to tame your tears. You hold your slightly trembling hand up to him. He takes it, gently, and watches as your bottom lip wobbles while he slides the ring on your finger just like he did months ago.
“I'll never screw up like that again. You have my word for it.”
You sniffle quietly when he kisses you right on the cool band adorning your skin. “You better not, Park Sunghoon.”
His long fingers caress your cheek, wiping the remains of the tears away. “Can you forgive me, darling?”
You don't need to think long of an answer. “You know I can never stay mad at you. Even if you're a idiot, I'll never stop loving you. You have my whole heart, Hoon. Please, don't ever make me regret trusting you with it.”
permanent taglist + taglist: @bambisgirl @arizejkt19 @luvmura @milisabunny @cathy-1997 @satoruskitchenrag @ramenoil @jenjnk @jaylaxies @yoongspi @nichoswag @s00buwu @dazzlingligth @goreconsumer @i4kt @heehoonsnemo @seongslutt @seongclb @iamnotalicia
© heeliopheelia 2024 // ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DO NOT copy, translate or repost any of my works on any other social platforms.
4K notes
·
View notes
always only you (c.sc)
summary: the date was terrible, awful even, but you just can't call your brother to pick you up. you have to call his best friend instead.
note: hi um....... i'm back and a seventeen stan now????? don't worry, i'm still working on ateez fic, but s.coups has taken hold of my brain and i needed to get this one out there so..... pls enjoy
warnings: non idol!seungcheol, fem!reader, older brother mingyu, seungcheol is mingyus bff, reader is called a sl*t in a mean way by her shitty date, v protective cheol, reckless driving, unprotected sex (wrap it up dont be like them), reader is curvy and descriptors like full, thick, etc. are used throughout, makeouts, grinding, cheol is obsessed with pussy, i mean fr he's a bonafide wap enjoyer, an oral aficionado of the wettest kind, anyways there's oral sex f receiving, hand stuff, rough fingering, rough but passionate sex, use of baby and princess, creampies b/c lbr he's gotta, anyways they're obsessed with each other
pairings: s.coups x reader
genre: smut and more smut, childhood friends to lovers
word count: 14.2K
It was a bad date.
Not the worst date you’ve ever had, granted, but still pretty up there in terms of terrible. He left an hour ago, the minute you interrupted his monologue to tell him that you were pretty sure things weren’t going to work out. You’ve never had someone leave in the middle of a date before, but then again, you’ve never actually told someone the date was bad in the middle either.
Not being able to find the right guy is starting to feel embarrassing. It’s been years since your last relationship and months since you even had a second date. Naively, you had had such a good feeling about tonight and having to be proven wrong at breakneck speed before you even got your entrees feels like some kind of poetic karma for something you must have done. You just wish for once you had kept your mouth shut, but your good feeling had been infectious and your excitement about the date bubbled up out of you to your friends and your coworkers.
You just wish you never told Mingyu.
I have a really good feeling about him. That’s what you told your brother on the phone a few hours ago. We’ve been talking for a few weeks, I think you’ll really like him.
Stupid.
You should have known he was on the rebound from the suspiciously large gap in photos on his Instagram. You should have known he was just trying to sleep with you from the minute he commented on your dress, from the way he touched your shoulder for too long for the first hug. You should have known on top of all of that that he would be boring from his joking non-answer when you asked about his most recent read. Sometimes it takes all of those things wrapped up tightly together and shoved directly in your face from across a dining room table to know for sure.
You just wish you never said a word to Mingyu. You don’t want to see that look in his eyes when you tell him he wasn’t the right guy. His eyes always go soft, mouth downturned, and it kills you every time because he means it when he says - You’ll find the right guy soon, anyone would be crazy to not love you.
Tonight you really don’t want pity, you don’t think you can handle it.
“Are you ready for the check?” The server’s voice snaps you right out of your thoughts and you look up at his sympathetic smile.
“Sorry,” You manage, “yes,”
“No rush,” He lies, immediately producing the leather billfold and sliding it across the tablecloth.
The floor doesn’t start to drop out from beneath you until you open it, despite having to sit here and eat your pasta alone. This place is expensive, more expensive than you thought.
Your eyes run through the bill. Four cocktails, two appetizers, two entrees, one slice of cherry cheesecake. The bills your date left on the table just barely covers three cocktails. You can’t afford this. The prices here were probably nothing for your date given how much he talked about his extremely smart investing strategies, but not for you.
You do fast math, panic math.
After paying the bill you’ll have 9,600 won in your debit account. You get paid tomorrow so it’s not the scariest number you’ve ever seen in your account, but it’s definitely not enough for a taxi home.
Your stomach churns.
You pay the bill quickly, quietly, the server’s hovering presence by your shoulder enough to tell you there is in fact a considerable rush. Your card is returned to you in moments, and he places a brown paper bag in front of you, “There’s an extra slice of cheesecake in there for you,” he says, “I’m sorry about your date.”
He’s gone before you can say thank you.
You suppose you can’t really sit inside anymore if you’ve paid the bill and you’re holding a to-go bag, so you step out into the chilly night air. It’s been raining lately, but barely. It’s been cloudy more than anything, and yet here you are walking outside into the cold night air and a late autumn storm of icy rain.
Your date was a special kind of bastard for leaving you stranded a half hour from your apartment in a storm like this.
The comments he made about you, about your dress and the way it fits flick through your mind and your jaw draws tightly shut. If you had had the wherewithal in that moment to slap him or toss a glass of water in his face you would have, but instead you sat frozen with your stomach in knots.
It takes you one flash of rage to scroll through your phone and delete the three dating apps installed, and then you open up your contacts and scroll for your brother’s name. He doesn’t live too far from here, and you know he’s probably out with some of his friends, but if you’re lucky maybe he’s close by. Your finger hovers over Mingyu’s contact, but you can't quite make the call.
You’re twenty-six, you should be grown up enough to get home by yourself after a bad date and not have to call him to rescue you. Embarrassment floods you, the idea of admitting you can’t afford the taxi tonight just sinks into your bones. You love your brother so much, but the idea of seeing him look at you the way he sometimes does and then slip money into your purse for you to find at home makes you want to cry. You’d call him and you’d tell him you’re returning it and he’d play dumb - What money, y/n? I didn’t put that there, maybe it’s like when you find 50,000 won in your old jeans?
No, you can’t call him. You can’t go over to his lovely little apartment with his absolutely lovely fiance and cry about the sorry state of your romantic life. Nothing about that will make you feel better in this moment, absolutely nothing.
You scroll away from his contact and you think about anyone else you could call, but there’s only one person who keeps coming to mind. There’s no way he’ll pick up, not when he sees your number on his phone, not after the way you’ve treated him for the past year, but his apartment really isn’t that far from here and if he doesn’t hate your guts you know he’ll at least give you a ride.
The rain picks up, pelting you hard enough that you have to duck back under the measly lip of the restaurants roof for what cover it provides, and you don’t realize you’re well and truly crying until your cheeks feel warm and wet and you can’t get a full breath, but here you are. Stranded alone, broke, and loveless in an apparently ill fitting dress, and there’s only one person’s voice you want to hear even if it’s just his stupid voicemail box.
Tears hiccup out of you as you dial, cold fingers shaking as you try to press the numbers you’ve had memorized by heart since you were thirteen and got your first cell phone.
The phone rings twice before he answers, “Hey, you,”
The easy sound of his voice makes your tears come faster. Your breath hitches in your chest, “Cheol?”
“y/n?” His voice shifts, “Are you crying?”
“I’m,” You hiccup again, “I’m sorry,”
“Hey,” He tries again, “y/n, is that you?”
“I messed up,” Your head is starting to throb and you press your eyes closed, leaning back against the cold wall of the restaurant and hiding as much of your body under the overhang of the roof as possible, “I’m sorry to call,”
“That’s okay,” Seungcheol says, his voice sounding strained, “what happened, princess?”
He hasn’t called you that in years, not since you were fifteen and carrying a torch for him. Not since you made Mingyu tell him to stop.
“C-can you come get me?” You wish you could just stop crying.
“Tell me where you are,” He answers immediately, and despite the rain you hear the sound of his car keys.
You give him the name of the restaurant, the closest cross streets, all blubbered out between fat tears and rain drops.
“That’s…” He sounds distant suddenly and then his voice reconnects, “twenty minutes, okay? I’ll be there in twenty minutes, princess, just take a deep breath,”
You drag in a shaky breath, “Cheol,” you scrub the tears from under your eyes, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to call,”
“Me,” He says, his car starting up in the background, “you always call me if you need me,”
You haven’t seen him in almost a year, barely talked to him outside of sending reactions to each other's Instagram stories, but he’s coming.
The way you fell away from him was gradual at first, and then an intentional self preservationist wall. Mingyu had introduced his best friend to a girl, and despite your high school crush being supposedly dead and buried, you weren’t prepared for what Choi Seungcheol in love would look like. You started being busier and busier until his calls went unanswered and then eventually his calls just stopped altogether. Mingyu told you later that the relationship didn’t last, but the damage was done and in the end it was just easier not to reach out first.
You can’t believe he picked up the phone and you can’t believe the first thing he heard from you in a year was hysterical crying. Taking a set of deep, steadying breaths you wipe away the wetness from your cheeks. Your date had hurt your feelings, but you only let it last for a minute. You wouldn’t let a man with such a fragile ego get into your head, and besides, you’ve always liked this dress.
Seungcheol makes it to you in fifteen minutes flat. He’s broken at least six traffic laws to get to you, including running a solidly red, redlight, but he really doesn’t care.
He’s seen you cry before, plenty of times. When you skinned your knee at seven or that time he and Mingyu played a prank when you were eleven, tricking you into thinking you were home alone on Halloween night. He’s seen you cry at movies and at videos of puppies and the sound of moving music, and he remembers your eyes full of glassy tears watching Mingyu graduate college. He remembers the sound of it when your grandmother died when you were nineteen, the way your shoulders shook and your breath wheezed as you hid your face tightly in your brother's chest while he looked on feeling so, so helpless.
Seungcheol remembers all of it, but he’s never heard you sound like you did tonight.
Mingyu had said you had a date. Earlier in Seungcheol’s night at a bar not far from his apartment, his best friend mentioned it off hand. Mingyu said it like an afterthought as he answered one of your texts. Seungcheol tried not to notice the way his hand tightened on his beer can, enough to make the aluminum crack inwards on itself where his thumb dug into the cool metal. He tried not to think too much about what that meant, just like he’s been trying not to think too much about you at all lately.
Now his mind is racing, threading the pieces together as the wet road whips by. The threadiness of your voice turns synonymous with panic in his mind and now all he can think about is how he’ll find you when he gets there. He goes over the facts he knows while he stops behind a small block of traffic, his knuckles white as he grips the wheel.
A date, a bad date, a date you needed a ride away from. The kind of date you couldn’t tell your brother about, when he knows that Mingyu is always your first call. As the traffic disperses he presses the gas pedal and weaves around the slower cars, images flickering in his mind’s eye. A faceless man looking at you, making you uncomfortable, pressing into your space. His mind loops on the image of an unwanted kiss, of pushy hands finding their way under your blouse.
By the time he’s skidding into the parking lot of the restaurant his hands are shaking and he’s ready to kill.
When he sees you, wet and shivering on the sidewalk, he nearly falls out of the car trying to get to you. He leaves the key in the ignition, the door flung wide open with warmth pouring out into the chilly night air.
He looks flustered, rumpled like he was having a quiet night in. Heavy gray sweatpants that hang just right on his hips and an oversized white shirt. He’s wearing socks and slides and the second you see him it dawns on you that when you called him you must have sounded hysterical because he didn’t even try to dress for the icy weather.
“You look terrible,” You clap a hand over your lips to stop yourself from laughing, and you can’t believe that’s the first thing you manage to say to him after a year. You hate yourself for having no filter, no off switch, no ability to just be normal and say thank you for coming all this way.
His expression runs from panic to confusion in a split second, “What?”
“Fuck,” You laugh, shaking your head, “no, sorry, you look good, but it’s raining like hell, get in the car,”
He blinks, “y/n,”
“Come on,” You duck out from beneath the measly roof overhang and dart towards the passenger side door, “it’s freezing, I’ll explain in the car,”
Your dress is wet, but not soaked through, so you hope you won’t do any damage to his seats as you slide into the warmth of his car and shut the door. It takes him at least thirty seconds to follow you, but through his confusion at your reaction you bet he finally registers the cold wetness of his socks and it snaps him back to reality.
He leaves the car in park and turns his body to you.
You owe him an explanation, especially given the way you cried on the phone to him twenty minutes ago, but all you can think right now is that it’s really, really nice to see his face again. His hair has gotten longer, shaggier and curled a little at the neck and it might just be the fit of his shirt, but he looks broader. It’s only been a year, but he looks so much more like a man now. All you can manage is, “Hey, Cheol,”
“Hey,” He answers, shifting himself further in the seat so that he’s almost twisted up sideways, one leg tucked up to accommodate the position.
The front of his shirt is damp with rain and clinging a bit to his chest and you look down. You really do not need to be having these kinds of thoughts about him again, it’s only been a minute, ninety seconds at the most.
“y/n,” He says, his voice slow and soft, “what happened?”
Shame floods you, heating your cheeks red.
He stretches a hand across the center console, but he stops halfway, his fingers closing into a loose fist, “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
“I know,”
“I won’t tell Gyu,” He offers quietly, “just tell me what happened, and I promise, I’ll take care of it.”
Oh.
Your head snaps up at his serious tone, “Nothing happened, I’m fine,”
He looks more confused than before if that’s even possible, and you can practically see him working out his next words.
“Cheol,” You shake your head, “I’m serious, I’m completely fine, I just needed a ride,”
“You were crying,” He says, not a question but a fact.
“I know,” You sigh.
“You were crying like something happened,” He draws his arm back and runs a hand through his damp hair, “and you called me?”
“I know,” You repeat, “it was a bad date, but that’s all it was. He ditched me without a ride though and I just,”
Seungcheol’s lips close at your words as he waits for you to finish.
“The thought of calling Mingyu and telling him about this just,” You clear your throat to push back a little bubble of emotion, “yeah, I couldn’t do that,”
“Oh,” His voice drops, and Seungcheol shifts in his seat, throwing the car into drive, “got it.”
“No, Cheol,” You shake your head, “that’s not what I meant,”
“It’s fine,” He peels out of the parking lot, “I’ll drive you home.”
He’s angry, pissed at you in that way he gets pissed. Tightened jaw, heavy sighs, his knee bouncing in irritation. If you give it five minutes he’ll tell you what’s bothering him, he’ll say it in a fast rush like he’s more disappointed than mad. You have to let him come to you when he’s like this, no amount of trying to explain will fix it, so you wait.
The drive is silent, and you fight the urge to jump in with directions when he approaches each light and turn. He knows where your apartment is, he helped you move in four years ago when you graduated college. Mingyu and his friends lifting box after box and telling you to just relax and let the professionals handle it. You smile at the memory.
He stays quiet until he turns off the major road and down the side streets that will take you to your apartment, but finally he says, “You can’t just call me like that and expect me to drop everything when you have a bad date,”
“Were you busy?” You didn’t think so judging by the state of his clothes, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility. He could have had friends over, maybe a girl. You wonder idly if he’s seeing someone.
“That’s not the point,” He glances at you, “and you know it.”
“I’m sorry,” You tell him, and you mean it, “I really didn’t know who to call, and I just,”
“What, y/n?” He pushes a little.
“I just don’t want to tell Mingyu about the date,” You confess, “and I didn’t mean to call you and be such a mess, the date really was bad and I was feeling sorry for myself, and I didn’t have enough money to get home,”
“What?” He swivels his head to the side for a moment and then refocuses on the road.
“I would have called a taxi,” You explain, “but my fucking date left and didn’t pay after we ordered all this food and it was more than I was planning for,”
“He didn’t pay?” He sounds disgusted and you smile.
“No,” You tell him, “but in fairness, I did tell him in the middle of the date it wasn’t going to work out,”
He laughs sharply, and you know he’s still irritated but at least he’s listening, “That bad?”
“Yeah,” You sigh, “but it is what it is,”
He glances over to you again, “So he walked out?”
“Basically,” You nod, “he said what he needed to say, dropped twenty-thousand won on the table like that was going to cover anything and walked out. At least now I know he was an asshole, I’m not missing out on anything,”
“What did he say to you?” His voice pops up an octave.
You’d really rather not tell him, you’d be fine burying the comment he made deep down inside never to be unpacked again. You shake your head, “It’s fine,”
“It doesn’t seem fine,” He starts, but you smoothly cut back in.
“I just didn’t want Gyu to feel bad for me I guess, he knew I was looking forward to the date, and having to call for a ride like this, I don’t know. I was embarrassed,” You explain.
“I still don’t understand why you called me, though,” He admits, and you can still feel the tension in him even though the conversation has been ebbing and flowing, “I’m not your brother.”
Irritation sparks in you at the comment, “I know you’re not,” you turn to him, “but we’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Friends call each other,” He says simply, “don’t they?”
You let his comment sit in the air between you for a moment, and then you sigh, “Yeah, they do. I’m sorry I disappeared on you like that,”
“I tried calling,” He says softly, “but you were always busy,”
“I know,” You breathe.
He drives further, slower now and safer that you’re in the car, and you can see him thinking through your words. Finally he slides his hand across the center console with his palm turned up, offering you his hand, “y/n,” he says, “are you doing okay? With money, I mean, after what you said?”
“I’m good,” You tell him, “it was just shitty timing,”
“If you need anything,” He squeezes your hand as you slide your palm across his, “I’m here, we don’t have to say anything to,”
“I’m okay,” You assure him, “but thank you, seriously,”
He nods, accepting your words, but then he asks something harder, “What did that guy say to you, y/n? I know you, you weren’t crying like that over not being able to get a taxi,”
You sigh, leaning back in the passenger seat, “Can I ask you to let it go?”
“You can ask,” He shrugs, “but so can I.”
You sit quietly, looking at your entwined hands resting on your knee. His thumb strokes over your knuckles slowly.
“Fine,” You murmur, “he said he didn’t want to date me anyways, he just came to sleep with me,”
His hand tightens on yours.
“And if I wasn’t going to fuck him,” You do your best to clean up some of the language he used when he got up from the table, “I shouldn’t have dressed like a slut,”
You leave out the part that really cut deep, the part that made the more form fitting dress you chose go from sexy to something sour.
“Give me this asshole’s name,” Seungcheol skids to a stop a little too harshly at the next traffic light and turns to you.
“No,” You shake your head, “I’m fine now, it just stung,”
His lips close in a tight line and then he sighs, “I’m so sorry someone said that to you,”
“Don’t apologize, Cheol,” You squeeze his hand, “you didn’t say it.”
“I know, but still,” He holds your gaze, “it was mean, and you deserve much better from a guy you’re seeing, and you don’t look like, or I mean, you aren’t a,”
You smile as he stumbles over his words and someone behind him gently honks the horn enough to let him know the light has gone green.
He jolts and refocuses on the road, clearing his throat, “What I’m trying to say is that you look nice, pretty. The dress is good, and you, um, you don’t look,”
“Thank you,” You cut him off, trying to save him from swallowing his own tongue out of embarrassment, and you ignore the way your stomach flipped over on itself hearing Seungcheol call you pretty.
“Yeah,” He swallows, slowing down to make the final turn onto your little block, “you know what I mean,”
“Mhm,” You laugh, breaking down any lingering tension, “Cheol, are you a little disappointed you didn’t get to punch my date? Is that it?”
“Shut up,” He sighs.
“Aw,” You smile as he pulls into a space by your apartment, “You were worried about me?”
He rolls his eyes as he kills the ignition, “You were hysterical,” he says, “what was I supposed to think?”
“Don’t worry,” You smile as he throws open the driver’s side door, “I think it’s kind of sweet that you went all knight and shining armor on me,”
His lip twitches, “Don’t make fun,” he says, “I thought something bad happened to you,”
“Nothing bad happened to me,” You find yourself assuring him again even though he already knows this, and you twist the moment back to a joke as quickly as you can, “unless you count listening to a guy talk about his ex for twenty minutes,”
He grimaces, “Ugh,”
“Exactly,”
“Actually, you know what,” He grins, “you’re right, that is a terrible date and you were right to call me,”
He’s out of the car and crossing to your door and relief floods your chest. Just like that, you’re back to normal.
Seungcheol pulls open your door to let you out and says, “Do you have a towel or something?”
“You want to come up?”
“If you don’t mind,”
“You just swooped in and saved my night, Coups, of course I don’t mind.” He smiles at the nickname, the one mostly used by his friend group and coined by Seungcheol himself during their short lived Soundcloud music career freshman year of college. The nickname stuck, but you and Mingyu knew him before and you’ve both always, always called him Seungcheol.
He ducks his head, smiles, and follows you up the stairs and into your apartment just like old times.
It’s a little strange seeing him like this after so much time has passed, but no matter what has happened in your life, even when your childhood little crush on him was making your nights sleepless, he’s always been there. He’s been a constant in your life since you could form memories, and when you really think about it, you’ve never not known Seungcheol. Suddenly seeing him in your living room feels right, and it makes you wonder why you couldn’t pick up the phone and say something real to him this past year.
“It looks good in here,” He offers, toeing off his slides in the entryway and stepping into your little living room, “it looks like you,”
“Thanks,” You’re pretty sure the floor of your bedroom is still covered in clothes from earlier, but he’s not going to see that and you’re just glad you didn’t let that chaos spillover out here.
“So,” He clears his throat lightly.
“Towel,” You jump, “right, hold on,”
You disappear down the hall and Seungcheol’s chest goes fluttering fast. He doesn’t need a towel, he doesn’t need anything except a pair of dry socks and his own bed, and he can’t figure out for the life of him why he gave into the little voice that told him to come upstairs. You’ve made it pretty clear over the past year or so that you’ve grown up, you’ve made your own group of friends outside of him and your brother and the guys. He doesn’t need to be here, you don’t need him anymore, you just needed a ride.
But he’s missed you a little. A lot if he’s being honest with himself. Sometimes he finds himself asking Mingyu about you, hoping you might drop by while he’s at his best friend’s place. Your name on his phone screen earlier in the night had stopped his heart cold. He couldn’t imagine why you were calling and not just texting, and he picked up the phone so fast he thought he might have fucked it up and accidentally pressed end. He tried to sound casual, normal, but his heart was pounding.
Standing in your living room he feels out of place, like a forgotten childhood relic unboxed in the middle of a new home. He doesn’t know which seat to sit in, he doesn’t have his spot on your couch here like he did at your old place. He doesn’t know where you keep your glasses or which remote would switch on the television. He doesn’t know which book you’ve been reading from the little stack on the table or the name of the place you’ve been working, and there’s a man’s jacket hanging on the wall in the hallway that he doesn’t recognize. He hopes it’s Mingyu’s.
He doesn’t know why he’s here. He should leave. He should go.
“Okay,” Your voice comes back, and he tears his eyes away from the little details of your life he doesn’t recognize to look back at you, “I’ve got a towel, socks, and I bet I have a sweatshirt of Gyu’s around here if you’re cold,”
“I’m good,” He recovers, taking the dry items from your hands.
Your fingers brush along his as you pass everything off and your stomach jumps.
“Come in,” You wave him in, “I’ll make some coffee or something and then I need to change,”
“You should get a warm shower,” He says abruptly, “you’ll catch a cold,”
“I’m fine,” You shake your head, “I wasn’t out there for too long,”
“I’ll make the coffee then, you need to get out of that wet dress,” He shoos you away and points to your kitchen, “I assume you have a normal coffee machine and not some fancy Italian thing?”
“I think you’ll be fine,” You smile, “I’ll just be a second,”
He nods, and you dart back down the hallway to your bedroom.
It takes you three minutes to change into something comfortable and clean and then kick all of your scattered clothes into the closet and shut the door. You run a brush through your tangled hair from the rain, and you almost forget that your childhood crush is walking freely around your apartment, but then you hear his laugh and you melt into the wall behind you. You missed the sound of it so much, and if you don’t get a handle on this right now you’re going to go out there and make a fool of yourself.
But then he laughs again.
You smile as you come back out into the living room, leaving your good sense behind in the bathroom, “What’s so funny?”
“I haven’t seen these in years,” He grins, and as you come around the corner you realize he’s looking at the photos you have framed and sitting in various spots on your bookshelf.
“Oh,” You smile, seeing the one he’s holding and studying, “yeah,”
“This one,” He tips the frame so you can see the picture, but you already know which one, Mingyu and Seungcheol in their first year of college stand in the center of the frame, Wonwoo, Jeonghan, Dokyeom, and Hoshi with their arms thrown around each other on either side. You are crouching in the center with Jeonghan’s little sister, both of you holding out a peace sign.
“Isn’t this the night we went to that haunted theme park?” Seungcheol asks with a smile.
“Yeah,” You take the photo back from him and look it over for a moment, “in Daegu,”
He nods, “I remember,”
“Yeah,” You place the photo back in it’s assigned spot and turn towards the kitchen, “I just remember you and DK scaring the living shit out of me,”
“God,” He runs a hand through his hair, “we did, I felt so bad about that after,”
“Mm,” You laugh.
“Gyu reamed us out for it later,” He follows you into the kitchen and watches as you pour two cups of freshly brewed coffee.
“He never told me that,” Your eyes perk up in surprise.
“He said,” Seungcheol straightens himself up to his full height and lets his face go passive for his impression, “‘If you ever make my sister cry like that again, you’ll be sorry,’”
“Sorry?” You laugh, “Mingyu wouldn’t know how to make someone sorry if his life depended on it,”
“I don’t know,” He shrugs, relaxing his shoulders and reaching for his cup, “it seemed pretty clear he wasn’t fucking around, we took him seriously,”
“Wow,” You lean against the counter, “that’s actually kind of sweet,”
“He’s always been protective of you,” Seungcheol points out, “even now, he’ll talk about you and I can see it,”
“I’m not a kid anymore, though,” You bristle a little.
“He knows that,” Seungcheol shakes his head, “he just worries, you know, it’s his nature,”
“Yeah,” You nod, taking a long sip of your coffee, “I know,”
Seungcheol hovers, not finding a place to lean or to sit in the unfamiliar place, and finally he just asks the question that’s been on his mind for the past twenty minutes, “Is that why you didn’t call him? He worries too much?”
“I guess a little,” You move past him and back into the living room, “come sit down, you’re making me nervous,”
He blushes and every little emotion you’ve ever had for him comes thundering back in your chest. There are at least three places for him to sit that aren’t directly next to you on the couch, but he ignores every one of them and sits next to you, barely a foot away, and turns towards you so he can put all his focus on you.
“So,” He prompts you, “come on, it’s just me,”
Talking to him was always easy, always. Even in the throes of your infatuation you were able to hold a conversation with him, sometimes a long one out on the balcony of your parent’s house. It’s almost irritating how quickly that familiarity and comfort comes back.
“I just feel like I’ve been really fucking this whole dating thing up,” You confess, “and Mingyu’s been… well you know him, he’s like the number one hype man for me making all my dreams come true, and being ten out of ten happy,”
“Yeah,” He nods, but lets you continue.
“But I just haven’t been able to make it work with anyone in a while,” You bite down the reason why in the back of your brain, “and every time I tell him about a bad date he just looks sadder and sadder for me,”
“Mm,” He nods, sympathetic, “I know exactly what you mean.”
“I’m so glad you picked up, honestly,” You glance down at the edge of your cup, “you’ve never treated me like that, and I just… I guess I needed a friend and not my brother tonight,”
He hesitates, but then his hand comes to rest on your knee and he gives you a squeeze, “I get it,” he says, “but, honestly it seems like you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself,”
“I know, but,” You sigh, your words dying out as you focus on his lingering hand on your knee.
“What’s so important about getting a guy right now?” He asks, and you almost laugh at the absurdity of this man asking you that question.
“Cheol,” You shift on the couch to reposition, pulling back your knee from his touch so you can face him and admit this without being dizzier than you are about his presence, “I don’t know, exactly, but… don’t you feel like living alone is kind of fucking lonely sometimes?”
His eyes flick over you and then he nods.
The words keep coming as much as you don’t want them to now that you’ve started telling someone, telling him the truth of it and you grimace as you admit it, “The sick part is that I think it’s me. Tonight was the exception, he was a dick, but most of these guys are nice. They’re nice, they’re respectful, they seem to be interested in me, but none of them are what I want, none of them are,”
You have to stop. You have to get off this topic and off this train before you say something really and truly stupid and burn this newly restored friendship down to ash.
“Having high standards isn’t a bad thing,” He offers, “and Gyu sets the bar high for how you should treat a woman, I mean,”
“You think I’m talking about Mingyu?” You laugh sharply.
“He’s the best guy I know,” He starts to say and then the wheels start turning.
It happens fast, your absolute lightning quick strike to the match, but your poor decision making usually goes something like this. It makes you mad at first, his constant reference to your perfect brother, but then it all makes sense. Seungcheol really has no idea how you feel about him, as a person or otherwise. It doesn’t enter his brain that the guy who set your standards for men so high might be him, even after he drove illegally fast on wet roads just to come get you because he heard you cry. Up until the last year of your life where you tried to install some distance, he was always there. He was always your first call, always your last call too, and you could never really see anyone else while he was towering right in front of you. He’s never let you down and he doesn’t even know it.
“I can’t believe you,” The words slip out, and then you’re kissing him.
He takes a sharp inhale of breath at the way you collapse onto him, holding yourself up with one hand on his chest and the other on his neck, and his mouth is so warm. You press the first kiss tentatively, and then the second a little more insistently, and then you realize he hasn’t moved an inch and isn’t kissing you back in the least.
You fly backwards, your hand over your mouth, “Oh, god, I’m so sorry,”
He clears his throat and shifts, shaking his head, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,”
“I can’t believe I just did that,” You blush scarlet, “I’m a mess, I’m so, so sorry, Cheol,”
“Really,” He avoids your eyes, “it’s fine, it was an emotional night, and you just said it yourself, living alone is lonely. We’re good,”
“I didn’t kiss you because I was sad,” You run a hand through your hair and slump back on the couch, “I kissed you because you were being a dumb ass,”
“I feel like you’re insulting me a lot tonight considering I just drove across town for you,” He’s not angry, not really, but he doesn’t let you off so easily, he never has.
“I kissed you because you’re the best guy I know,” You counter his words back, “and I’m sick of you always putting yourself down when-”
He yanks you forwards by your wrist, and this kiss is what you’ll count forever as the first one. He drags your body forwards as he leans back against the couch and kisses you hard, his tongue dipping past your lips this time, his breath mingling with yours.
You shift for better purchase, your chest and his flush together, and you moan softly against his lips when his hand slips lower on your waist.
He breaks the kiss, his forehead leaning against yours, “What the fuck are we doing?”
“I think they call it making out,” You manage, your heart beating fast like a bird.
“Jesus,” He shakes his head, “what are we doing?”
“Cheol,” You start, but he kisses you again, hungrier and hotter as he pulls you in.
You pant against his mouth, your brain exploding into little fireworks as his hands start to wander, and then he groans, “You feel so good,”
This is going somewhere fast, and with your hands twisted in the fabric of his t-shirt you swing your leg over his hips and let him wrap his arms around you.
“We should slow down,” You find yourself mumbling against his mouth, “but I don’t want to, I want you,”
He nods against you, his hands squeezing your thighs where they rest on either side of him, “I want you too,”
“We should talk more,” You manage as his kisses travel over your jaw.
“Later?” He asks, his hands dragging you closer, “God, that dress,”
“Yeah?” You’re breathless already.
“If I knew you were going to kiss me I would have peeled it off you,” He pants.
A moan gets caught in your throat, your hips jerking, nipples hardening against his chest as you throw yourself into another kiss.
“God,” He shivers.
“Cheol stay,” You can talk later, he’s absolutely right, and you beg him not to go between kisses, “please stay,”
Logic starts to pump through him at the implications of that, so much more than kissing comes with staying for the night and he starts to shake his head, but at the way you’re touching him he can’t quite tear his hands away.
“I should go home,” He murmurs against your mouth, fingers slipping underneath the hem of your t-shirt, “you’ve been drinking,”
“I had two drinks,” You connect your lips with his again, tongue dipping into his mouth, “like three hours ago,”
“Still,” He kisses you again despite his words, his hand now flat against the small of your back.
“I’m not drunk,” You pull yourself closer using his shoulders, “if you don’t want to kiss me, don’t kiss me, but don’t use that as an excuse,”
“I should go home,” He repeats, like saying it out loud might make his body follow his brain, but it doesn’t. All he does is tug you closer, your legs now fully splayed around his hips as he leans back against the couch and groans against your mouth.
“I should,” He starts again, whispered thoughts against your lips, but you push back from his chest and break your mouths apart.
“If you want to go so bad, go,” You pull your arms away from him, crossing them under your chest to hold yourself steady. Your nails press pinpricks into your palms.
“This isn’t about what I want,” His eyes soften in that tender way you love, and his hand cups your waist, thumb brushing a line over the deep curve of your hip.
“Why wouldn’t this be about what you want?” You press him, “Or about what I want?”
“Mingyu is my best friend,” He says, his mouth drawn into a sullen line, “and I never want to do anything that betrays his trust or hurts him in any way,”
“I’m not asking you to,” Your voice is small.
“Just,” He sighs, his head tipping backwards against the cushions and his hands slipping to rest over your thighs, “tell me something, okay? Be honest,”
“Okay,”
“Do you want me because you’re lonely and I’m here,” He asks, his eyes locked to the ceiling, “or do you want me because you want me?”
Your arms fall slack and you open your mouth to respond but he presses forwards.
“Because if this is a one time thing to make us both feel better,” He shakes his head, “I can’t do that, I have to go home.”
“Cheol,” You murmur, but he doesn’t lift his head. You reach for him, brushing a hand along his cheek and drawing his gaze back down from the ceiling to your face, “Seungcheol, look at me,”
“Yeah,” He finally follows your gaze.
“I love my brother, but this isn’t about him,” You tell him clearly, and you watch his lips part so he can cut in but you shake your head, “it isn’t. This is about us, and I’ve had a crush on you since I was fucking thirteen,”
He blinks, a grin breaking across his face, “You have?”
“Yeah,” You shuffle closer on his lap, “why do you think I disappeared? You started dating that girl and I just… it wasn’t my place to say anything, it’s not like you were mine, but,”
He brushes the hair back from your cheek as he nods, “It hurts to see the person you want with someone else,”
“Yeah,”
“And you wanted me?”
You nod, stroking his neck where your hand rests, “I just needed some space after that, I thought I could move on,”
“I know the feeling,” He smiles, his thumb tender against your jaw, “believe me,”
“I do,” You nod, “so believe me when I tell you I’ve wanted you for a long time and I don’t just want the one night,”
He sits frozen, his eyes studying your expression, and then he’s moving. Seungcheol pulls you down to meet his mouth again, hands roughly threading into your hair and gripping your hip as he tugs your bodies flush together. He kisses like you hope he fucks, passionate and a little messy, like his need to be inside you and consumed by you is more important than any vanity.
“God,” He groans against your mouth, “he’s going to kill me,”
“Probably,” You huff a laugh against his lips, rolling your hips forwards to slot your bodies together tightly, and at the feeling of his hardening cock pressed against your sex you can’t help the breathy moan that slips out.
He drops his hands to your hips, coaxing you into rolling them again as he presses upwards and you follow his guidance with ease. He curses softly and you roll your hips again, “Oh, fuck my fucking life,” he groans, kissing his way down your throat, “he’ll kill me, but you’re worth it,”
“I better be,” You tease him, tugging gently on his hair as he licks a stripe along your throat.
“Oh, you are,” He shifts back up to kiss your lips again, his mouth pillowy soft and hot against yours, “and I love Gyu, but,”
“Seungcheol,” You push on his shoulders.
His rarely used full name gets his attention and he leans back just enough to see your face, “What’s wrong?”
“Can you please stop talking about my brother while you’re trying to fuck me?” You can hear the whine in your own voice, “I need you right now, we’ll deal with him later,”
“Sorry, sorry,” He smiles, “of course, come here,”
You melt into him as he gathers you closer, his warm, rough hands finding new expanses of skin to touch and it’s strange but delicious to know that there are still brand new things you can learn about a person even after knowing them all your life. He gets soft beneath you like butter when you touch his ears, audibly groans when you grind against him, and gets breathier every time you kiss his neck. He’s not afraid to make little noises in your ear, to curse when you do something right or softly beg you to do something again.
With his mouth on yours and his hands exploring you, you’re just a shaky wet mess in his arms and he doesn’t even fully realize it yet, still so focused on studying your body with his lips, his tongue.
“Ch-Cheol,” You whine as his teeth nip at your pulsepoint, “baby,”
His hands tighten, sliding to cup your backside through the thin fabric of your lounge pants, “Say that again,”
“Baby?”
He exhales hot air across your neck and chest, “God, I like that,”
“You hate pet names,” You sigh, remembering how his nose always crinkled in an uncomfortable scrunch when he heard people getting too coupley.
“No, I don’t,” His hand slides up, tucks under the waistband of your pants, and slides back down to feel your skin, “I hate cringey shit. You calling me ‘baby’ while you’re grinding on my dick isn’t cringey, it’s fucking hot,”
“Ah,” You tug his hair just a little, rolling your hips again, “yeah? Like this?”
His hips jolt up, pressing his cock against your clothed mound and he groans, “Say it,” he nips at your neck again and then pushes you backwards so that you’re sitting up straddling his lap, “and let me see you,”
For a brief flickering second you feel shy, another stark moment of awareness that the man between your thighs is Mingyu’s best friend, but it flashes away the minute you see his smile. He’s looking up at you like you invented the sun and you think it just might make you dizzy enough to say yes to anything he could ever ask of you.
“God,” His eyes rake over you, “you’re so fucking pretty,”
Blush creeps up your chest, “Yeah, baby?”
He swallows hard, his hands coasting up your arms and his eyes coming to rest on the heavy swell of your chest, “The prettiest.” His fingers tuck underneath the straps of your tank top and your bralette and he glances up to your face, “Can I see?”
“Please,” You whisper.
He moves slowly, peeling down the straps from each of your shoulders first, letting the thin fabric of your tank top droop down your arms until he’s left with just the stretchy elastic of your black bralette. His fingers trace your curves, the pad of his thumb ghosting over one of your hardening nipples until it pushes into a firm peak under the fabric.
“Cheol, please,” If he doesn’t touch you soon you’re going to be a squirming mess.
“Relax,” He toys with the strap, “we’ve got all night,”
You gasp as he dips forwards, peeling the front of your top down entirely until your breasts spill out of the elastic fabric. His lips connect with your skin, tongue exploring intimate parts of you in ways you’ve never experienced quite like this with anyone else.
“These,” He cups your full breasts in his hands, kissing along each swell, “are perfect, princess,”
You shiver at that, whining in his grip as he traces his tongue down and ghosts it close to your nipple, but you smile and manage, “I really took you for an ass man,”
“I’m an everything man where you’re concerned,” He flicks his tongue experimentally across the hardened bud and hums softly when you jolt in his arms, “so excuse me if I have to slow down and show my appreciation,”
This crush is going to kill you, that’s the thought that gets instantly banished from your brain the second Seungcheol wraps his lips around one nipple while his fingers pinch the other, setting a steady pace of sucking and teasing that is sure to leave pleasured little bruises.
“Oh,” You grip his shoulders, “oh, Jesus, Cheol,”
“Feel good, baby?” He switches sides smoothly and sucks again.
A jolt of pleasure rocks from your chest to your untouched clit and you rock down, trying desperately to press your aching center against anything for a little friction.
“Yeah?” He prompts you gently.
“So, so good,” You nod, rolling again, “but I need more, please,”
He nods against your chest, pressing one more kiss to your breastbone before he says, “y/n, I don’t want to move too fast or anything, we’ll do whatever you want, but,”
“But what?” You’re about a second from pushing his hand into your underwear yourself.
“Can I eat you out?”
Your stomach flips, “Oh, fuck yes,”
You’re on your back practically the second you give him permission. He holds you tight to his chest as he pushes himself up off the couch and flips you around, dropping you back onto the cushions and tugging at your clothes. Normally you’d be a little self conscious, especially in the brighter light of your living room and not the dim strategic lightning of your bedroom, but Seungcheol keeps looking at every inch of your body like he’s starving for it, groaning in pleasure at every inch of you that gets revealed, and you’re starting to think he really does like everything about you.
You help push off your pants with shaky hands, but let him loop his thumbs under the thin straps of your underwear and tug those free, a slick wet patch in the middle where you’ve been soaking through the cotton for the past half hour. You help him with your top, until finally you’re completely bare and he’s pushing you to lie back onto the extended length of the chaise while he falls to his knees before you.
“Wow,” He breathes, his hands running along your thighs, “just… wow,”
“Stop,” You can’t stop the blush now, and you fight the urge to reach for a blanket or cross your arms over yourself at his exacting gaze.
“Nope,” He dips his hands to your inner thighs and pushes your legs apart little by little, “I’m going to enjoy every bit of this,”
“Now you’re just trying to embarrass me,” You smile.
His tongue darts out to wet hips lips and he shakes his head, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,”
Your stomach churns, flipping nervously as he looks at you so earnestly.
“I’m serious,” He kisses your knee as he opens one of your legs wider, “I’ve thought about this a thousand times, but you’re so much better than my imagination,”
“Cheol,” You whisper tightly.
“Mm,” He sighs as he tips your hips back, maneuvering your legs wide and open now and shifting your hips to the very edge of the couch so he can tuck smoothly between your open legs, “I wonder if you taste as sweet as I imagined too,”
Your fingers grip down on the cushions, your heart hammering in your chest.
“Look at you,” He sighs pleasantly, his fingers ghosting along the edge of your lower lips, “is all this for me, baby?”
“Uh-huh,” Your breath hitches as his finger just barely touches your seam.
“You got this wet just from grinding on my lap?” He smiles, his teeth catching his thick bottom lip.
“Cheol,” It’s all you can manage, you really didn’t know he was like this.
His eyes soften up though at the sound of his name on your lips, and he kisses your thigh tenderly before looking back up to you, “Doing good? Okay?”
“Mhm,” You’re fine, you are, except you think you might come the second he touches you and you’re a little terrified at just how intense he is from minute one.
“y/n,” He squeezes you a little.
“I’m good,” You breathe, “I promise,”
“Okay,” He kisses your skin again and nods, “just relax, okay?”
“I’m relaxed,” You answer too quickly and one of his eyebrows goes high.
“Mhm,” He eases up on his knees a little to see your face better and smooths his hand from your leg to your hip to your stomach, “what’s going on?”
“This is just a little surreal,” You admit, “isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” He releases your legs and shifts up so he can lean over your body, catching your mouth again in a soft kiss, “it is, but do you trust me?”
“Of course,” You kiss him back.
“Then you should know,” He nuzzles your nose with his, “that all I want to do right now is make you come on my face until you can’t think, and after that if you still want to take this further we can, but baby, I really don’t care what we do tonight. I just want to be with you,”
Your mouth runs dry, and you can feel your core throbbing hard between your legs, your heart fluttering fast.
“So, please, can I make you come?” He smiles, pressing another quick kiss to your lips, “I think you want me to,”
“Yes,” The nervous knots in your stomach release, “please, Coups,”
His nose scrunches as he laughs, kissing his way down your chest, “It’s Coups now?”
“Cheol,” You whine, “you’re stalling,”
“It’s called foreplay,” He licks a firm line between your breasts and moves lower, “have you not been getting fucked right, princess?”
“F-fuck,” Your back arches as his lips travel down over your belly, eyes slipping closed, “Seungcheol,”
He shakes his head, his hair brushing against your skin, “No more baby?” He makes a sulky noise with his tongue against the back of his teeth, “Come on princess, call me baby,”
Your mind is spinning, and you gasp sharply as his fingers finally slide through your wet slit and land at the apex, pressing deliciously down over your throbbing clit, “Ch-Cheol, fuck, oh fuck, baby,”
“There she is,” He groans, and as his fingers fall away and his lips take their place. He licks a deep stripe through your folds and groans, spreading your legs open wide with his hands anchored on the backs of your thighs, “You’re perfect,”
You moan as he sucks the tender bud of your clit into his mouth.
“I’m going to do this everyday,” He pants, licking another stripe, exploring every inch of your cunt with his tongue, “you’ll be my dessert every night,”
“Ah,” Your head rocks back as pleasure lights up your spine, “baby,”
“Mm,” He groans into your core, burying his face against you and alternating perfectly between sharp sucks and flicks of his tongue.
You are moving fast, from nothing to desperate something in the span of a couple of hours, but honestly you’ve never felt safer and better and more held than this. His hands roam your body, seeking every soft place he can grab and squeeze and hold onto, and you just know the bruises on your hips will be worth it when he finally fucks you.
“Come on,” He tips your hips back to get better access, wrapping his arms around your thick thighs, “don’t be shy,”
“Oh, shit,” Your hand flies down to grip his hair and anchor your position as he manhandles you, your other hand gripping the cushions, “just like that,”
He sucks harder and flicks the tip of his tongue against your bud again, quickening his pace and listening carefully for your sounds to know what you need. Looking down between your legs you can barely believe the sight, but there he is, Choi Seungcheol with his face glistening. His lips are puffy and red, his eyes hooded, and he grins when he sees you watching before nodding just a little and redoubling his efforts.
Your legs are trembling now, the start of your orgasm building up through the base of your spine and flooding warmth into your belly, and if he wasn’t holding you so tightly you’re sure you’d snap.
“Baby,” You whine, your voice sounding not quite your own as heat floods in your chest, “oh, God, please don’t stop,”
He sucks hard, shifting to kiss your core and push the tender muscle of his tongue inside you, “I’ve got you,” he pants as he works his tongue faster, “I’ve got you,”
He’s a mess, wet with slick across cheeks and sweat on his brow, and you think for a split second you might actually be in love with this man already, no one has ever, ever treated your body quite like this. As he shifts to tease your clit again, building the pleasure up and up higher, you grip down on his hair harder.
“I’m,” You stammer out, your back arching and your mouth falling slack, “I’m gonna,”
He nods into you but doesn’t stop the pace of his tongue one bit.
“I’m,” You gasp again, “coming, fuck, I’m coming,”
It hits you all at once, punctuated with his sharp suck to your clit and your legs snap shut around his head, your body wrenching sideways as the wave takes you from conscious to that hazy middle space of pleasure. You can barely breathe, you can't even think, all you can do is feel pulse after pulse of pleasure.
“Fuck,” He curses, and your brain connects enough to realize your legs are still snapped tightly shut around his ears but you can’t get your body to respond, “yeah, fuck, there you go,”
Everything you are is trembling in his hands.
“I could fucking die happy,” He says, shifting to nip your plush thigh with his teeth, his hands gripping down on your curves, “right here between your legs,”
You make a sound, you think, and he chuckles against your skin.
“Mm-mm,” He sighs pleasantly, his hands running from your thighs to your hips and down to cup your backside, “you’re fucking gorgeous, y/n, I love every fucking inch of you,”
“Y-yeah?” Your eyes flutter open.
“Mhm,” He flicks his tongue over your clit once more, eliciting a deep shudder from your hips before he says, “I can’t wait to fuck you,”
Your legs start to relax, and you look down, “Then fuck me,”
“I want another first,” He shakes his head, “please, let me make you come again, sweetheart,”
“Oh,” You shiver as he kisses your slit again, letting his tongue linger, “fuck,”
He sighs, “This pussy,”
“Cheol,” You blush hard.
“I would do anything,” He smiles, flicking your clit again with his tongue, “for this perfect fucking pussy,”
“Anything?”
He goes still between your legs and then he nods, wetting his lips with his tongue, pressing a kiss to your quivering cunt, and looking up over your body to meet your eyes, “Anything.”
“Will you come up here?” You reach for him, “Will you hold me?”
He eases your legs down off his shoulders and shifts up, “Yeah, of course,”
“Will you,” You nearly come again just at the sight of a sizeable wet spot on his sweats, and you tug at his shirt to try and silently communicate your need, “I want to touch you too,”
“Mhm,” He stands up, shucking off his clothes as quickly as he can, and when he pushes down his boxer briefs your muscles clench.
When you were younger, a teenager inexperienced with sex and boys, you imagined his cock. You saw the faint outline of it once through a pair of athletic shorts and you wondered what he might look like naked. You wondered if you would like his body. You wondered if he would like yours too. You can’t really remember what you imagined Seungcheol’s cock to look like, but you know this is better. It’s long, but not too long, like the guys who can’t fit it in all the way without smashing painfully into your cervix, but it’s thick. His cock is heavy, deserving of the word, and perfectly straight until the very end where it curls up towards his abdomen.
You want him inside you so badly you could cry.
“You okay?” He says as he slides up the couch next to you, your naked hip against his.
“A little nervous,” You admit quietly, turning towards him on the cushions and drawing him closer with your hand on his shoulder.
“Me too,” He says softly, maneuvering until one arm is wrapped around your back and your head is pillowed on his other, your chests flush against each other, his cock trapped between your stomachs.
“God,” You shift closer to him, tangling your legs together, “you’re so hard,”
He nods, sighing at the way your skin drags against his, “You’re making me insane,”
“Good,” You smile, finding his lips with yours, tasting yourself on him and dipping your tongue into his mouth as you deepen the kiss.
He groans against you, and you snake a hand between your bodies to wrap around his aching cock. “Oh, fuck,” he curses as you pump your hand up and down his shaft, “easy, it’s been a while,”
“Yeah?” You soften your grip a little, rolling your hand at the tip and feeling precum bead up and smear on your belly, “Saving yourself for me, baby?”
He moans softly, his eyes rolling shut, “You’d like that wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe,” You kiss the corner of his mouth and pump his cock a little harder.
“L-let me touch you,” He pants, his hand pushing your hips back just enough so that he can fit a hand in between your thighs, “can I touch you?”
It’s dizzying how much he begs to pleasure you, and you’re starting to think maybe this is part of what he needs, but you’re still new to each other’s bodies and learning and you suppose you’ll have time to figure all of this out. It’s not just a one night thing.
“Touch me,” You open your legs for him and he immediately slides his fingers down your slit to your aching entrance.
“Don’t stop,” He urges you and you realize at the feeling of his fingers you stopped pumping your hand.
You smile, kissing him again and finding a new pace with a stroke of your hand and a roll of your wrist, “You feel so good, baby,”
“So do you,” He pants, and then he pushes two fingers inside your slick walls.
You choke out a wine, pushing your hips forwards into his hand so he can go deeper.
“God,” He holds you firm with his other hand, “you’re too tight,”
“Too tight?” You huff, still working your hand over his cock, “never gotten that complaint before,”
“Not a complaint, princess,” He teases, drawing his fingers out of your channel before thrusting back inside, “but I need to prep you a little, I don’t want to hurt you,”
Your muscles clench down around his fingers.
He laughs softly, “Oh, yeah, babygirl? You want me inside?”
You nod, a whine trapped on your lips, “Cheol, please,”
“Shh, shh,” He shifts, effectively sliding down the couch a little more while you slide up, and he rests his head on your shoulder and adjusts the angle of his arm so he can pump his fingers in and out of your channel at a steadier pace. He watches the way his fingers disappear inside you with rapt attention, cursing when he feels you grip down on him, “You want to come again?”
“P-please,” You’re doing your best to keep working your hand, but at the way his fingers are curled inside you and pressing rhythmically against your sweet spot you think you’re about to see stars again.
“Fuck, baby,” He sighs, “you’re so sexy,”
All you can do is moan, grip down on his shoulder and let him have you.
When he pushes in a third finger to stretch you, you gasp tightly at the sensation, the pleasure rocketing up your back and making your brain buzz.
“Are you close?” He pumps his hand harder, finding your nearby nipple with his tongue and your body arches again.
“Close,” You pant, your legs widening as you try to brace yourself, your hand falling away from his cock and gripping down on his thigh as the rolling wave of your orgasm starts to wash up over you.
“Come for me,” He’s gripping you hard, like you belong to him and he wants only to please you, and his words combined with the way his hands lay on you leaves you coming apart at the seams.
The sound of it is obscene, wet and filthy and pornagraphic and you’ve never in your life had sex with someone for the first time and had it be anything close to perfect. Your bodies want each other with such need. It's entirely outside your conscious brain, and you think if he can love your body like this then maybe he can love all the other parts of you, and you never want to let him go.
Your orgasm hits you harder than the first, locking your body up in spasmodic elation, and he curls around you when you twist to make sure he works you through the crest of it, his hand only slowing down when the pulses of pleasure start to ease.
When you come back to earth, you’re pressed face down onto the couch instead of up, your cheek against the cool fabric below you. Seungcheol is wrapped around your body like he’s glued to your back, and you feel his soft breath against your cheek and shoulder, his easy kisses on whatever part of you he can reach. His hand is still tucked underneath you and between your legs, cupping your cunt warmly and just holding you as you come down.
“Cheol?” You murmur, your brain almost a little foggy at the heady feeling of two full body orgasms.
“Hey, there you are,” He kisses you again, “feeling okay?”
“Mm,” You nod, “so, so good,”
He smiles, “Yeah? Did I get you?”
You laugh against the cushions, shaking your head, “Babe, I just came so hard I blacked out,” your body stretches, pressing your core into the cup of his hand, “you definitely got me,”
“Mm,” He rocks his hand and you sigh a little overstimulated sound, “should we stop here?”
He doesn’t know, you realize it suddenly, he has no idea how badly you want him. He’s been so focused on your body, your pleasure, your wants, but you can see it now in the hesitation in voice that he still doesn’t know for sure if you want to be here with him or if you just wanted someone.
He’s been touching you like it might be the only time, his only chance to have you and hold you in his arms. Didn’t he believe you when you said it wasn’t one night?
“Seungcheol,” You wriggle in his arms, “baby,”
“What’s wrong?” He gives you the space to roll and you twist against him.
You see his eyes when you turn, like he’s waiting for something and you curse yourself inside for not telling him like he was telling you. You smile, pushing his shoulder until he’s flat on his back, “What’s wrong is that you’re not inside me,”
“O-oh,” He gasps as you hook a leg over his hips and straddle him, your body hovering over his prone cock.
“Mhm,” You drop your body over him, your slick slit nestling directly over his cock, “but I’ve been so selfish,”
He shakes his head to protest but you lay your fingers over his lips to stop him.
“I want you, Cheol,” You drag your hips and find the head of his cock so you can dip and press it against your entrance, “so fucking much,”
He’s breathing heavy against your hand, your eyes locked on eachother.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” You stay steady above him.
He nods, just a little.
“I’ve never wanted anybody like I want you,” You tell him, “never,”
His lip quirks a little, a small smile as he presses a kiss to your fingers, “I’m all yours,” he whispers.
You sink your hips back in one smooth flush motion, taking him inside you to the hilt without warning, and his head falls back as he moans. He’s stretching you out wide and full, his thick cock pushing into every spot inside you that you didn’t know could feel like this.
“Oh my fuck,” Your body moves on it’s own, rocking your hips in a circle to take him deeper and roll your clit across his pubic bone, “Cheol, Cheol,”
He blinks hard, finding your eyes at the sound of his voice, “Yeah?”
You feel strangely like you might cry at the rush of endorphins, and you roll your hips again, whining out a need, “Hold me, please? Please, touch me,”
Seungcheol softens, his hands unclench on the cushions below him and he coasts his warm hands over your thighs, your hips, up and down your sides, “I’m right here,” he murmurs.
You relish in the feeling of it, and you direct them from their wandering comfort to a landing place on your hips, the perfect soft place for him to grip in with his fingers and keep you steady while you work him. He follows your lead, watching you above him with no hesitation, and his mouth falls slack when he watches you get your position right on your knees and lift up to draw his cock out of your warm, wet channel.
“y/n,” He pants tightly.
You sink back down hard and he groans, cursing and no doubt leaving a pretty bouquet of bruises where his fingers press down.
“Your cock,” You moan as you bounce again, finding a steady rhythm, “you feel so perfect,”
“Yeah?” He bounces you, teeth clenched as he tries not to come too early.
“Made for me,” You grind down and jolt against the pleasure, “never felt something this good,”
He groans, a hot pant of breath and then he stutters his hips upwards, “D-don’t, I’ll come,”
“Good,” You sink down and back up, feeling him stretch you open again and again.
“Come here,” He reaches up for you, tugging you down by your neck to get you close and you can feel him suddenly reposition and change the angle, take back control as he pins you to his chest and pumps his hips.
The way his cock punches into you, curved and pressing directly into your g-spot, makes you choke out a moan and dig your nails into his chest.
“Say you love my cock,” He pants suddenly in your ear, “if it feels so good, say it, tell me,”
You moan sharply, “I fucking love your cock,”
“Fuck yes,” His hand claps down on your ass and grips you tight as his hips piston upwards.
“Ah, ah,” Your legs are trembling again, “I can’t,”
“Yes, you can,” He pants, “I want to feel you come on my cock, babygirl, squeeze me,”
Your eyes slam shut.
“So fucking tight,” He breathes, “so wet,”
“For you,” You choke out and hips stutter.
“Oh, f-fuck,” He pushes up hard, but instead of thrusting he locks his hips there with your bodies pressed flush together and at the sound of his sudden moan, the way his hands lock tight on your body, the way warmth floods your belly, you know he’s coming.
Your brain somersaults and you rock your hips, trying to keep catching the friction against your clit to help push you over the edge, “Ah,” you whine, “no, please,”
He doesn’t go anywhere though, he just presses his hips up to keep giving you the pressure you need and holds your hips down with his broad hands, and you hear him hiss at the overstimulation but he groans and manages, “Come baby, you’re so close, there you go, there you go,”
You’re saying something, but you can’t really hear it. All you can feel is the bubble about to burst inside you as you drag yourself fast and frantic against his body. You’re needy and seconds away, falling into trembles again.
“So beautiful,” He mumbles, dragging your mouth up to his and locking you in a heady kiss.
“Cheol!” You squeak against him, body cracking apart into shakes as you come, probably louder than you wanted to as you fall into the sweet space between his neck and shoulder.
“I’ve got you,” His softening cock slides out as you come, but he slides a hand between your thighs and rubs fast circles on your swollen clit, “fuck, look at you, god, you’re such a mess,”
Your brain is dizzy as he talks you through the edges of your orgasm.
“So wet,” He bites down softly on your shoulder, “soaked for me and full of my cum, fuck,”
As you collapse on his chest, your orgasm receding, his hand slows, but his fingers stay slipped between your folds in the messy mixture of your slick wetness and his release. You are a mess, but he seems to like it and if you’re benign honest so do you.
“I’m so,” You breathe out, shaky and exhausted, “god, I don’t know,”
“Mhm,” He sighs, and finally he slides his fingers out of you to rest on your hip, his other hand stroking a line up and down your back while you recover together.
You need to get up, run to the bathroom and get the shower started, but you’re boneless and floating and he’s just the perfect temperature, so for a little while you don’t move.
When he shifts his hips under yours to readjust your eyes pop open and you start to move, “Am I hurting you?”
“Shh,” He wraps his arms around you and gathers you tight to his chest, “don’t you dare go anywhere,”
“Yeah?”
“You’re perfect,” He repeats and you smile against his skin, “next time I want you sitting on my face,”
You laugh against him, “Next time?”
He’s quiet, his fingers still dragging up and down your spine, “If you want,”
You shift up in his arms, settling on his chest so that you can see his face, “So much,”
He cups your cheek, brushing his thumb along your face, as he smiles, “I missed you, you know,”
Tears prick at the back of your eyes and your throat goes thick, and you don’t trust your voice but you nod and press your lips to his, “I missed you too, all the time,”
He gives you a moment, just staying calm and kind with his hands, and then he leans up to capture your lips once more, this kiss so much softer and more familiar from the frantic emotion a few minutes ago. His kisses travel from your lips to your forehead and then he smooths back the tangled mess of your hair, “We should get cleaned up,” he murmurs, “how are you feeling?”
“Like I might not ever walk again,” You joke wryly.
“I didn't hurt you, did I?” He leans to look you over, “I got a little carried away,”
You shake your head, “No, I’m perfect, I promise,”
“We didn’t talk much beforehand,” He notes, brushing his palm over the swell of your hip, dipping at your hip crease, and tracing up over again at the curve of your thigh, “I just want to be sure you’re feeling okay with everything,”
“I’d tell you if I wasn’t,” You press, “you know I would,”
“Good,” He sighs.
You stretch on top of him, your knees aching from your curled position and you smile, “You want to get a shower? We can share the hot water,”
“You’re insatiable,” He quirks an eyebrow at you.
“Not for sex,” You slap his chest lightly as you climb off him, wincing at the sudden stretch of your knees, “I can barely move,”
“I like a challenge,” He sighs, rolling off the chaise and stretching long and you catch yourself watching the strong flex of his back, the cut of his shoulders, the curve of his ass and his muscular thighs.
Maybe you could rally.
Seungcheol turns and his eyes flick over your body too, “Yeah,” he nods, “I think I can get one more out of you,”
“My shower is shockingly small, so,” You reach for him, guiding him down the hall with you, “we’ll see,”
“I said I like a challenge,” He shrugs, and all of a sudden you can’t stop laughing.
Your shower is small, but in the end it doesn’t matter. Seungcheol ends up crouched on his knees anyways, with one of your legs hitched over his shoulder while he takes his sweet time with his tongue bringing you up to your softest, easiest orgasm of the night. You trade lazy kisses in the warmth after, the suds long gone and your fingers pruned by the time you fall into bed.
You don’t have to ask him to stay, he just does. You talk for as long as you can keep your eyes open, stories of years ago when you saw him almost every single day. You whisper late into the night, until finally he falls asleep first, his head lolled to the side, but his hand still wrapped tightly around yours.
You tumble into sleep right alongside him, his skin smelling of sweet peach and nectarine.
In the morning, you wake up to something cold suddenly pressed to your cheek and you start to stitch together the world around you in quick threads.
“Kkuma,” Seungcheol’s voice reaches you first, a hushed whisper as he tries to get his dog’s attention, “come here girl, let her sleep,”
You groan a little, and you realize the something cold was Kkuma’s very wet nose against your cheek. Instead of listening to Seungcheol, she presses her nose to you again and follows it up with a lick, her panting excitement pushing you from laying on your side to your back as she collapses over your chest.
“Kkuma!” He exclaims quietly, “down girl!”
Your eyes start to pop open, and this time you see his dog’s fluffy white face inches from your own, delighted that you’re awake.
“Kkuma,” He tries to drop his voice to a lower tone to get her attention.
“It’s okay,” You yawn, reaching up to scratch Kkuma behind the ears, “I’m awake now,”
“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol moves into your bedroom, and you can see he’s fully dressed and has been for some time, “I didn’t think she would just jump on you like that,”
Your brain is still a little sluggish and you rub your hand over your face, “Did you go home?”
He grins and nods at your sleepy question, the answer obvious from the dog on your chest, “Yeah, I needed to run home and take her for a walk, I hope you don’t mind I let myself back in,”
“Not at all,” You smile up at him, “I’m just sad you’re not in the cuddle pile,”
“We can fix that,” He tosses his beanie on your nightstand and then holds up a little carrier containing two coffees and a few little pastry bags, “and I bring gifts,”
“From that place by your apartment?” You brighten, recognizing the stamped logos on the cups.
“Mhm,” He passes over your cup, “sugar, no cream,”
“You remembered,” You push yourself up in bed, Kkuma adjusting herself to snuggle into your side, and accept the cup, “thank you,”
He lays his heavy denim jacket on the chair by your dresser and slips back into bed with you, dragging the covers back over both your legs, “Of course, I did, not that much could have changed in a year, right?”
“Mm-mm,” Your legs slide together as you tuck under his arm and settle back into his chest.
His fingers play with the ends of your hair while he sips his coffee, and then he sighs, “y/n,”
Your stomach freezes and you wonder if you’re about to get let down easy. If waking up in the morning cleared his head, if a text from Mingyu changed his mind, if on the trip back to his place he worked out the right way to break your heart, if he practiced it out loud in his car with the dog.
“What’s up?” You say, hoping you sound far more casual than you feel.
“About Gyu,” He exhales heavy, his coffee leaning against his thigh as he gathers his words, “listen,”
“Don’t,” You murmur, pressing your eyes closed, “please don’t go,”
“Go?” He asks.
“I’ll tell him, and I know he’ll be fine after the shock wears off,” You twist in the bed to look up at him, “please just stay, last night was… Cheol, please just think about this,”
His brows knit together tight in confusion and he sets his coffee on your bedside table to free up his hand and brush it along your cheek, “I was going to say, about Gyu, I’m meeting him for lunch at two. I’d like to tell him about us today,”
“You what,” You blink.
“I’d like to tell him that I picked you up after your date,” He says, “and that we got to talking, and that we kissed,”
You can almost see Mingyu’s wide puppy eyes as he realizes where the story is going to go.
“And that I asked you out on a date,” Seungcheol finishes, “and he’s going to ask me a lot of other questions which I definitely am not going to answer, except one thing,”
You swallow nervously, your coffee almost tipping to the side forgotten in your hands until he plucks it up and sets it to the side.
“He’s going to ask me if I’m serious about you,” He says calmly, like you’ve discussed this before, “and I’m going to say yes, but that’s the kind of thing you should know before your brother does.”
“You’re serious about me,” You say it back, your heart picking up as the words come off your tongue.
“Yes,” He nods, unequivocal, “and I hope you feel the same way because before I drive across town and tell my best friend I’m in love with his sister, I just need to know if you feel even a tenth of that,”
Your heart should be pounding, your stomach fluttering, your body flooding with emotion at the casual confession, but all you feel is calm. Mingyu told you once that life would fall into place, you just never thought you’d have that realization while it was happening around you.
You try to keep a straight face when you say, “There’s only one problem,”
“Okay,” He says, but you watch his hand fidget in his lap.
“You never actually asked me out on a date,” You point out with a smile, “and I don’t want to lie to Mingyu about anything,”
He grins, his tongue dragging against one side of his teeth as he shakes his head in disbelief, “You’re right,” he says, “that’s my mistake, will you go out with me?”
“I’d love to,” You lean into him so you can press a quick kiss to his lips and take his hand in yours, lacing his anxiously twitching fingers with yours to hold him steady, “and if Gyu gives you any lip about this,” you kiss him again, “tell him I’m in love with his best friend,”
“You are?” His fingers tighten on your hand.
“Mhm,” You suddenly can’t keep your lips away from his, “and you tell him that if he does anything to ruin this, that I’ll make him sorry,”
“Now that,” He laughs, “that I believe,”
You pull him down to you and your body without another word, and with a hushed apology he pushes Kkuma off the bed so he can splay you out in the middle of the mattress. He takes you fast, hurried and full of need now that you have so much time ahead of you for slow. For now, you have a lot of catching up to do.
When you finally make it out of bed the coffee is cold and Seungcheol is late for lunch.
7K notes
·
View notes