#annfic

[juminies]

when it rains

storms and how to dance in them

♡ — jumin han x reader, 1500 words. happy valentines day!

♡ — dividers by @/cafekitsune

“Have you ever experienced a place like this during a thunderstorm?” Jumin had asked you two days ago. It was a passing question if anything, sitting on the tiny dock out back, hidden from the wandering eyes of old walls by an unkempt weeping willow. Your feet barely grazed the water below you—toes shallowly submerged in the cool of the lake accompanied by a shallow jealousy of Jumin’s requirement to roll up his slacks so as to not get the bottoms of them soaked.

“I haven’t. I’ve never experienced anywhere like this at all.” This is something he knew already, you’re sure. “Without you, at least.”

“Then perhaps you’ll witness it. Storms are relatively common around this time of year.”

You had pulled your legs up after that; carefully turned on the rough oak below you to throw wet feet over Jumin’s lap and wiggle your toes in a weak attempt to shake off the water. Jumin laughed and leaned in to kiss your forehead, easily ignoring the damp patches it left on his thighs.

He had simply not elaborated on why he’d ask such a thing in the first place.

The rain starts while you’re eating out. Tucked away in a cosy Michelin star place that Jumin had taught you how to properly pronounce the name of during the walk over, hands interlocked as he tapped the syllables against your thumb. One side of the restaurant half overlooks the lake through floor-to-ceiling windows and the clouds had seemingly come from nowhere, cloaking the sun as they did. As it turns out, however, the drizzle adds a pleasant atmosphere that makes your lunch feel more intimate even amongst the other diners’ soft chatter.

“I believe a Pinot Noir is an appropriate choice in both warmth and rain, no?” Jumin says as you scan the menu.

“Sure,” you hum. “You know I’ll always trust your judgement on wine. It’s sort of a shame about the weather, though.”

Jumin smiles, a sparkle in his eyes captured by the accent lighting. “It could snow for the rest of our trip and still I would rather be here with you than anywhere else.”

Both food and conversation are delightful as expected; so much so that the rain is resigned to nought but ambient noise or a light accompaniment to the live piano. You drink maybe one too many glasses of wine, maybe eat a little more than you had planned. Jumin even lets you pick his dessert for him when you can’t decide between two but insist it would be a waste to buy both just for yourself. You end up ordering a tiramisu alongside something with raspberry and chocolate—significantly sweeter—and you don’t quite manage to polish off both even between the pair of you.

There’s a shift in the atmosphere when you have to leave. You stare at the way dark clouds seem to roll ever closer as Jumin quickly converses with a staff member to inquire about getting his hands on an umbrella.

Your husband’s left hand is in yours and his right holding the newly acquired (very graciously borrowed) umbrella over the both of you as you start the walk back to the villa. His wedding ring is cool between your fingers as you lightly swing your connected hands with each step.

“Do you think the rain will slow anytime soon?” you ask. Jumin shifts the umbrella further over you, fully exposing his own shoulder to the elements. A few drops of rain stick strands of hair ruffled by the breeze to his skin.

“It’s difficult to say. It looks as though it should continue for a few hours at least,” he says.

It only picks up as you walk, and though the air stays warm you both decide after a little while longer that calling a taxi is more reasonable than walking the remaining thirty minutes.

“We’re going to have to run,” you tell Jumin as the car approaches the house.

Jumin chuckles in return—a deep, rich noise—and says, “I do have an umbrella.”

“We’re going to have to run,” you reiterate, and pluck the umbrella from his lap.

“I see. So we took a good man’s umbrella for nothing?” he says, a hint of playfulness in his tone.

“Of course not. We can leave it here for the next poor soul who gets caught in the rain.”

Jumin is enamoured by every word you speak. He smiles and it reaches his eyes in this pleasing little way that is reserved for when he looks at you. “Then it looks like we will have to run.”

And when you do it’s an intimate moment in its own way: the coveted Jumin Han and his wife hand in hand as they traverse a little winding path in the pouring rain. You both squeeze into the alcove the entrance is set into as he unlocks the door, water not quite sinking into your hair or clothes just yet but threatening, threatening.

No sooner than the front door is shut behind you Jumin finds himself being pulled through the hall to the glass doors that open out onto the back garden. Lightning flashes distantly.

“Dance with me,” you say, hand on the door.

“My love,” Jumin says. It’s just barely a warning.

A low rumble outside startles you and then keeps going, loud and disconcerting, and as you grip just that bit harder onto his arm Jumin grins. “The mountains function almost like a bowl surrounding us. The sound echoes.”

There’s a minute or so where you remain behind the glass, one hand on Jumin and the other on the door. You wait for another flash, and when it comes it’s just visible across the vast expansion of the lake. When the thunder booms again you look over to Jumin and find his eyes already fixed on you, as though he’s waiting for something.

“Dance with me,” you echo; words affectionate in a way the thunderstorm does not know how to reach nor infiltrate.

Jumin looks up at the clouds. The sun filters delicately through gaps in them and creates a stark contrast to the way the rain falls. “It would be irresponsible,” he says, but rests his hand over yours on the door handle.

“We’re already wet.” You lift his arm to illustrate your point and a well timed droplet falls from his sleeve.

“So this was part of your plan?” Jumin asks, an eyebrow raised in amusement.

You laugh and Jumin shakes his head. He drags the door open despite himself and water immediately finds you both, pattering against the tile in the entryway.

You dance in the rain the way you dance together in your front room late at night. Jumin had taught you basic ballroom steps properly years ago, but this– it’s this casual thing that’s reserved for each other’s company as opposed to a ball. Still methodical but less calculated and formal. It’s a step that’s exclusive to the two of you, one that falls naturally, one with more spins than are really necessary and little to no space between you where possible. The feel of Jumin’s fingers against the small of your back is all the more obvious through the wet fabric melded to your shape.

When you slow a ray of sun pours through the raindrops as clouds shift above you, and it rests so perfectly over Jumin’s face that you could almost believe it was a purposeful choice on the sky’s part.

If any artist, I am partial to sculptors, Jumin had once told you. You had been in a small, ornate gallery in France with V where Jumin, quietly admiring a marble statue, had seemed to fit in almost perfectly. That’s what he reminds you of now, too. His features could have been carefully crafted with a chisel—they’re bright and purposeful against a backdrop of messy grey. Beautiful. Untouchable.

Except you can touch him, and you do, swiping a strand of soaked hair away from his eye before draping your arms over his shoulders. A droplet of rain glistens as it runs down his nose and you laugh when it falls from the end.

“Whose idea was this?” Jumin asks.

“Mine.” You beam. Lightning flashes again somewhere over the mountains as Jumin runs his hands to the back of your thighs and lifts you to wrap your legs around his waist in one swift motion. The soaked fabric of your dress bunches strangely around your hips and yet you can’t find it in yourself to pay it much mind.

Jumin ducks his head and kisses your clavicle. “I am somewhat concerned,” he murmurs, then presses another kiss to your shoulder. “What if you catch a cold?”

“If that happens, it was your idea,” you say. He laughs against your neck, his breath hot on your skin.

Thunder rumbles again and the echo follows suit. When Jumin leans in to kiss your lips in the midst of it he still tastes like tiramisu and Pinot Noir. The latter does most definitely work well in both warmth and rain, you decide.

You sigh into his mouth and he grips your flesh a little tighter, wringing water out of your dress in tandem as if to prove a point.

“In that case I feel it’s only my duty to get you out of these wet clothes, is it not?”

[annlarimer]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Hot Fuzz (2007), Doctor Who (2005) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Nicholas Angel/Danny Butterman Characters: Nicholas Angel, The Doctor (Doctor Who), Danny Butterman, Andy Cartwright, Andy Wainwright Additional Tags: Rolf Harris, Longleat, Clearwater FL, Tim Horton's, Dalmatians, TARDIS - Freeform, Sandford, Milk, Quetzalcoatl - Freeform, Lingerie, Millwall, Dinosaurs, Indricotherium, romans, space dogs in frocks Summary: "I have a sword, and I'm really quite angry."

OMG GUYZ IT THAT DAY

[juminies]

in order to get to the heart

marriage of convenience, on occasion, is not so convenient.

♡ — jumin x original female character. small amounts of canon compliant jumin x reader, but mostly canon divergent (jumin is unhappily married prior to the start of the game). 1600 words. title from heartlines by florence + the machine.

They just say anything to each other these days.

“This façade drains me beyond comprehension,” Jumin confesses the minute he walks through the door. His fingers loop into the knot of his tie and pull it looser around his neck.

“So you say,” murmured half into a cushion tucked up to a woman’s chest as she types on her phone. “It’s not for our benefit though, is it?”

On some level, this is always how it was going to be for Jumin, he thinks. In a marriage stripped to its fragile bones. A sacrificial lamb for the sake of the corporation, for mutual social and financial gain.

He leans down to untie his shoes.

It would be untrue to say there weren’t veiled attempts, in the beginning, to love. When that didn’t work there were attempts to like. None successful, of course. Lately it’s becoming more difficult to believe this arrangement is better than any alternative. Between the two of them there is a lot of nothing.

The woman remains quiet—focused—but nods easily against the woven fabric she’s leaning into when Jumin asks, “Do you not get tired of coming home from work to find me occupying your space?”

He knows that in public they look good together. He knows that their careers slot together effortlessly. Despite what the media may suggest, however, they are human. Jumin included. The way he feels nothing for her does not match the way she feels nothing for him. The way she yells that he is robotic does not match the way he stoically calls her irresponsible.

They do not sleep together, or eat together, or do any of the romantic things Jumin wishes he hadn’t let himself privately indulge in the idea of. And it’s not that she’s not nice—she’s intelligent and beautiful and kind, when it suits her. Perfect on paper until she wasn’t. When she laughs with her chest Jumin can almost imagine a world where she smiles at him like she does others and it makes his heart weak. Part of him wishes, truly, that that was the case. In reality it feels like nothing.

It could be worse, he tells himself—repeats it like a mantra.

Concealed beneath it is fear. You could be like him. You could repeat his mistakes.

She throws her phone haphazardly onto the sofa beside her and looks up to where Jumin is standing in the doorway. He’s mostly backlit from the light in the hall, the lamp beside his wife barely grazing his features but lighting up hers in all the wrong ways. The orange glow casts unpleasant shadows over places she’s usually pretty. He should have the bulb changed to something less harsh.

“Not much we can do if you don’t want the press to kick up a huge fuss, sweetie,” she says.

The pet names are a jest he has learned to tune out.

“Will they not make a fuss over our divorce in three years’ time nonetheless?” Jumin asks. It’s hypothetical, of course. They will.

“Maybe we’ll have grown on each other by then.” Her tone is disinterested; feels almost mocking. Her phone chimes to let her know her driver is outside. “I’m going out. Shall I take my card or yours?”

“It makes little difference to me.” Jumin looks at his watch. It’s almost 10pm but he doesn’t ask where she’s going. A bar, perhaps.

“Could you adjust my necklace?”

She holds her hair up messily, and he does.

“Let me know if you need anything,” he tells her, then briefly wonders if she’ll meet someone tonight and sleep with them. He pictures her naked beneath a stranger. It feels like nothing.

She takes her own card and squeezes his bicep softly as she walks by him on the way out. She shuts the door more forcefully than is ever really necessary.

At some point Jumin suggests she move out of their—his—apartment and into the one directly below; just recently made vacant. He probably would have suggested it earlier had the apartment been available earlier, but their district of Seoul tends to be under high demand.

“I thought we agreed it was a bad idea to live separately,” she says. It’s a statement, not a question. They had done exactly that.

Jumin hums, tired. Tired from his trip and tired from trying and at some point, it seems, he has lost an indistinguishable part of himself to her for good.

“We did. Although I would say that that was long enough ago now for us both to have become quite aware that we do not do particularly well sharing the same space for considerable periods of time.”

“You’re gone a lot anyway. The place is big enough for us to avoid each other if needed, and I like it here.”

She exhales sharply; amused.

Jumin has no idea why until she adds, “More so when you’re not around, to be fair.” And that explains it, just about.

“Stay here when I am travelling if you must,” he tells her. Somewhere along the way his suggestion has morphed into more of an instruction.

“Fine. Don’t tell your father, though. Or mine.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

They buy it outright in her name, the cost split fifty-fifty. Jumin tells her to keep it all when she sells it later. She tells him she won’t.

They argue tonight, as usual, about who will be chauffeuring them to a company gala. They had agreed that Jumin’s driver would take them only for her to assert for the hundredth time at the last minute that she doesn’t trust him, though she has not legitimately spoken to him more than once and he has been working for Jumin’s family longer than she has been alive.

It’ll cause a stir if the two of them show up separately so they end up in her car, as usual. Jumin apologises to Driver Kim via text for requesting him when he wasn’t needed on the way there, and they arrive late.

The venue reminds Jumin of the last RFA party. His wife had not attended despite her invitation, so it is not proper grounds for conversation. However, when they are out like this they are a happy couple like the legal drabble says, so he says it anyway—if just to appear interested in her.

“I’m sure this is nicer than your friends’ charity get togethers,” she replies lightheartedly, and they are called over by her father before Jumin can retaliate.

The façade stays firm for the remainder of the event. Jumin can easily distinguish her fake laugh from her real one, and he can tell when she forgets who he is for a moment and touches him a little more tenderly than either of them really mean.

They are silent on the drive home. They are silent in the elevator, until it stops one floor below Jumin’s penthouse. “Goodnight,” he says. “Sleep well.”

“You don’t have to say that, you know,” she counters, and smiles softly as the doors slide shut between them. “Not when it’s just me.”

Elizabeth the 3rd is snoring softly when he unlocks his door, and it is the only sound he can hear. He basks in the bliss of having nobody around when he is already so mentally exhausted, and takes out his phone to see it’s just after midnight and Yoosung has opened a chat room.

He enters it, multitasking as he changes his clothes and brushes his teeth. His cat patters into the room and jumps up beside him when he perches on the edge of his bed. She smells frustratingly like perfume and something oddly like guilt threatens Jumin with a dull blade.

Wait!! says Luciel. Think someone entered the chat room.

Jumin checks. There is a name on his screen he doesn’t recognise.

Odd.

Who are you? Identify yourself.

“Jumin. It’s me,” your voice is soft and bubbly; maybe a little nervous but still pleasant on his ears. An intriguing introduction. He almost finds himself chuckling.

Jumin moves the phone from his ear and glances down at your name again, just to be certain he’s not imagining things, then focuses in on the plainness of the wall in front of him.

“I hope you realise blurting out ‘It’s me’ is not a proper way to identify yourself to the person on the other end of the line.”

He had hesitated briefly before telling you he is married. Now he has known you for five days and whatever he’s feeling is somehow, ridiculously, already far greater than any emotion he has ever felt towards his wife.

He invites her out for dinner at their usual restaurant the following evening, and she tells him if he has something to discuss with her she would rather keep it simple. As an alternative he invites her to the penthouse and opens a bottle of wine he knows she likes. When she arrives her hair is tied up experimentally and she is wearing a new shade of lipstick. She surprises him when she actually accepts his offer to pour her a glass.

“I am going to talk with my father,” Jumin says, and she knows what he means. It’s only later that he will find out she had already brought it up with hers. “For what it’s worth, however, I apologise that it ended up like this.”

“Me too,” she agrees. Jumin notices the light catch a glassiness in her eyes as she continues, “If I could have loved you, I would have.”

She stays for a few hours and it is the most sincere time they have spent together in three years.

That night, Zen has a dream.

[juminies]

null hypothesis

jumin week day 6, physical touch

@juminweek2019

jumin x reader, 1250 words

♡

Jumin would have not have so much as considered before meeting you that he could even potentially be touch deprived. The idea of craving touch simply didn’t make sense, anyway — too much of the touch he had experienced before was uncomfortable and unwanted. A grip like a vice around his wrist to drag him to a basement. Women trying to make advances on him since he was too young to even grasp it properly. Drunk business partners’ arms haphazardly thrown over his shoulders at corporate parties, as if they’re friends.

It practically goes without saying that when a man of almost thirty has never even been hugged properly he tends to miss the mark on physical touch altogether. And it didn’t bother Jumin, not being touched. He didn’t want to touch others just as much as he’d rather they didn’t touch him; he felt no need to instigate it outside of situations where good manners called for it. Frankly, he couldn’t even begin to enlighten someone on how to initiate human contact in a way that doesn’t feel awkward or misplaced, nor did he care to find out.

But like with every other aspect of his meticulously planned daily life, you completely threw a spanner in the works. Before he knew it you were holding his heart in your clutches — simultaneously so ruthless and so gentle. Like a glass so full that the surface tension is at risk of breaking, one tiny movement held the ability to send him spiralling (in the best way, he’d tell you).

Even still, in the very beginning he didn’t touch you much outside of what he had predetermined to be expected for a relationship. Him wanting to kiss you had been a given from the day you met in person; a craving to taste you, to leave you breathless. Yet, lingering hands and cradling arms were not something that came naturally to him. Efficiency and independence had always stood at the forefront of his life, and his logical side subconsciously assumed the stance that touching for the sake of touching merely added time and introduced complicating variables.

You had opted to stay mostly on equal footing when it came to physical contact. He was walking on unknown territory and it was only expected that it’d take time for him to find his way; if he wasn’t touchy you wouldn’t push the boundary of touch. Still, sometimes you’d fall into resting your head against his shoulder or holding onto him just to hold onto him.

Your contact was never unwelcome, he found.

In fact, with passing time it almost became too infrequent. And with the lack of your warmth (just to be warm) came an urge—a longing—that took Jumin some time to be able to place. To be touched. To relive the memories of you, or your hands, or your lips, pressed against him.

So it started with subtleties. A test. He’d purposely brush your fingers together when you passed him something. Reach for something you were reaching for just for the chance to feel your skin against his when it wasn’t necessary. Nonchalantly slide his palm into yours when you sat close to him or he, himself, sat too close to you.

One day, his left hand in yours and a cup of still-too-hot tea in the other, Jumin tells you, “I have a proposal.”

“Another? So soon? I already said yes,” you tease.

He chuckles. “Indeed. This is not a second request for your hand in marriage, though I guarantee that I would be overjoyed to marry you ten times over. Rather, I was curious if you’d be so kind as to assist me in something.”

“Anything,” you tell him. “Though it’s nothing nefarious, I hope?”

His brows furrow slightly and he looks to where your hands are locked together. “You do not take me for a criminal, do you? In that case, it’s rather irresponsible that you should stay so contentedly in my company, let alone accept my request regardless.”

A smile breaks your feigned seriousness. “I know you’re a good man, Jumin.” The concern fades away from his eyes as he looks back to you and fondly shakes his head. “But hypothetically, I never said I wouldn’t help you commit crimes,” you add.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says through an amused exhale.

“Good. Then tell me, what’s my assistance needed for?”

“An experiment.”

“I’m intrigued.”

“Then allow me to explain,” Jumin says. “I have deduced over the last several weeks of us spending time together that I find my desire to touch you, to be touched by you, increasing substantially.”

“In what sense?”

He raises an eyebrow and a smile threatens the corners of his lips. “I am simply speaking in general terms. Though I would not be opposed to more sex, too.”

He doesn’t miss the twinkle in your eyes (and he does smile, then).

“Ergo,” he continues with a giddiness uncharacteristically present on his tongue, “I hypothesise that an increase in physical contact between us, in any and all forms, would lead to an increase in my quality of life. Only if that would be something you may also enjoy, of course.”

“You know, I never had you down as much of the type to put the fate of something as precious as your quality of life in someone else’s hands.” You lean in and kiss him in the way that always leaves him half-dizzy and wanting more; chaste but playful; almost saccharine. “But I’ll take good care of it.”

Truth be told, Jumin is not the type to give away his vulnerability easily. Not at all. But if he feels the need to explain himself further (and he does), it never comes. His need for you is not something he can effectively vocalise. Just because — that’s at the crux of it. Just because.

So subtleties shift to blatancies. When you drag yourself out of his bed in the mornings that you stay at the penthouse to greet him brewing tea or coffee for you both in the kitchen, you wrap your arms around his waist and sink into his back with no hesitancy or resistance. He lets you take the first cup and holds onto it longer than he needs to just to feel the way the heat passes between his hands and the ceramic and between your hands and his. He tucks your hair away from your face as you take the first sip, and revels in the way you gently rest your head against him with your eyes closed while trying to properly wake yourself up. The way you make a point of straightening his tie and smoothing out his jacket before he leaves for work, how you linger with your hands pressed to his chest, is something he savours. It means he kisses you with just a little more fervour than had previously been typical in the morning, and he won’t complain when you keep his mouth to yours for just a few moments too long. When he has the honour of coming home to you after an exhausting day he will happily lay on you as you run your fingers into his hair and listen to him talk. He will let himself be pampered and held and kissed silly. And he will reject that pesky null hypothesis: There is no significant relationship between physical contact and my quality of life.

Because it’s you.

[juminies]

reliance

day 7, jumin’s perspective

jumin x reader, 1170 words

♥︎

If you asked almost anyone, those who know him personally or otherwise, they’d most likely tell you that Jumin doesn’t feel.

It’s not that straightforward, of course. There’s layers to it.

It would be more realistic to say he’s mastered the techniques of repression. He always only had himself to lean on. How could a lonely child cope with the consequences of gritty rejection at the hands of his own mother other than compartmentalise? How else could he handle the relentless harassment from the shameless women that his father willingly, repeatedly let into his life? It was easy as far as he was concerned—he let the threads tangle until they could barely be deciphered from one another and pushed them aside.

In the recent past, Jumin might have even considered telling you it’s a skill. Developed at a young age, perfected into adulthood. A skill that allows him to avoid inconveniences to his duties; fend off any sort of long term resentment or frustration. Dwelling on something like What extent of lacking consideration might make a good father a bad one? should not matter. Time will pass with or without him. So he simplifies it: objectively bad things happen, are tangled away soon thereafter, and life goes on. This way memories he needs are easily accessed and ones he doesn’t are easier avoided.

Before, on the occasion things did start to get overwhelming, distracting himself had been relatively easy. He had conjured up this idea of his cat being the catch-all to combat his discomfort. If ever emotions started to creep into uncomfortable territory it was simple to sidestep them. Elizabeth the 3rd had been… sympathetic enough to make him feel sufficiently comfortable again. Then if necessary he could pick up extended office hours here, a cat project there, an extra glass of wine to ease the transition from overthinking to composure.

The last week, though, has flipped everything he thought he knew on its head.

You’re at the forefront of it, really. You’re special to him in a way no one else is; he’s told you that much already. Even so, he will preface his thoughts with a point that he’d surely be jumping the gun to say he’s in love. He met you barely a week ago. In the moments where he tries his hardest to stop the unemotional part of him from slipping through his fingers, he almost believes (or maybe tries to convince himself) that it must just be that there’s so much happening right now. Sarah, her name bitter on his tongue, seems to have forcefully slithered her way into his life, though he’d rather have never paid her a second glance. There is no reasoning with his father surrounding the absurdity of the arranged marriage and the trust at the foundation of their relationship feels suddenly fragile; unpredictable. Not to mention the impact yet another divorce and planned subsequent remarriage quickly took on business (with Jumin, of course, being left to pick up the slack).

Then, as if things weren’t dire enough, his dear Elizabeth the 3rd is seemingly under threat. He is riddled with both the need to protect and a simultaneous abundance of confusion from the dawning realisation that she could never understand him like he needed. It plays heavy on his heart.

Amongst it all though, here you are—a pillar of light in the chaos. Someone who cares about him with a deep sincerity and understanding he thought he could have never pulled from the depths of another human. Someone who might just care about him in a way that not even Rika had. He’s considered informing you that it makes him feel terribly vulnerable. As though you’re cradling his heart in uncertain hands.

Still, Jumin keeps assuring himself that things will fall back into place. They always do. Things will fall into their rightful place, and life will return to what he is accustomed to.

…Then again.

What if he doesn't want it to go back to how it was before? What if this is a rare occasion where he welcomes a sudden change with open arms? An open heart? (It’s okay if hands shake as you hold it, he thinks. Be it his hands or yours.)

Because it just doesn’t feel right to tuck you away with everything else in his brain the way he’s used to. You’re too different. It comes too easy to ignore everything else for you. Thoughts of you are spread all around in an uneven jumble; disorganised, distracting. From his stares alone it’s impossible for you to begin to visualise the scramble. He feels like he’s been ripped from safety and comfort and thrown as far from familiarity as possible. He has never been so out of his depth. He has never, even as a child, felt so out of control.

Part of him, strangely, welcomes it.

It makes him think unusually, however. Perhaps even unfairly. And so along with the scattered joy of you, you, you, develops an internal battle to gain control again. He wants your eyes on only him as much as he wants no one else to look at you. Something pleads with him to keep you here, keep you here, while something else begs him on its knees to never hold you back.

He’s watching you, sitting with your legs tucked up beneath you on his sofa. You’ve been quietly focused on some drama he’s never heard of and sipping a vintage wine he’d been saving for a special occasion. It makes him dizzy. Perhaps against his better judgement, he has wanted to kiss you since you walked through the door. A special occasion indeed.

The pleading continues, desperate screams of No matter what it takes! No matter what it takes!

But you have been so kind. He wouldn’t dare take advantage of it. On the contrary, he’d probably do anything you asked of him in a heartbeat as long as he could guarantee you’d be safe in the end.

Then he says your name. He’s not sure he intended to say it aloud. When you turn to him he scans your face for something, anything, that suggests maybe you’re losing your mind as much as he is. Instead he’s distracted by lips gently parted and vaguely stained red from the wine, and comes to no conclusion.

“Yeah?” you say.

You’re sitting in the spot where he’d usually sit, he realises. He’d been so shaken by your arrival that he somehow hadn’t even noticed. Not that he’d have made you sit elsewhere anyway.

He takes a sip of his own wine and wonders if his lips are the same colour as yours.

“Jumin? Everything okay?”

You seem too far away somehow.

“Yes.”

You tilt your head to the side slightly as you ask, “You sure?”

“Yes. Apologies, what I was going to say somehow slipped my mind,” he says.

“Alright.” Your eyes sparkle as you smile (always sweet, never pushy) and he has to turn away to stop himself from acting on foolish impulse.

He downs the rest of his wine in lieu of it.

[juminies]

gentle intimacy

brief details of showers in your marriage

jumin x reader, 1355 words, domestic fluff

read on AO3

♡

The first time you shower together, it’s out of convenience. You wake up and blink through the harsh morning light. Jumin is still sleeping soundly next to you; a quiet, gentle snore just barely hitting your ears. Peace in contrast to the war of the sunlight in your tired eyes. He’s facing away, but even still you’ve seen his sleeping expression probably hundreds of times by now. It's almost permanently ingrained into your brain.

You smile as you turn over to look at the clock to see how much longer you can sleep, and–

Oh no.

You’re practically jolted awake, instead. You lean over to shake your husband.

“Jumin?”

He groans groggily in response, his tired brain still not quite registering the sound of your voice.

“Honey,” you say with a little more urgency. “It’s almost 7.” This wakes him up, too.

“What?” he asks, eyes widening as you hurry to get out of bed, it dawning on the both of you simultaneously that you need to leave for the airport in less than fifteen minutes. He picks up his phone and a quick glance over at his screen gives you evidence that driver Kim is already waiting outside for you, and all you can think is thank God our luggage is already packed.

“I need to shower,” you tell Jumin, heading for the bathroom. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“Wait, I’ll come with you,” is his response, muffled slightly by him practically throwing the bed covers halfway across the room.

And, well, this scenario is not in any way romantic, really. You’re both just trying to wash up as quickly as possible, and in all honesty, upon stepping into the hot stream of water you can’t help but feel it would have just been more convenient for one of you to brush your teeth and use the toilet while the other showered, then switch over. It ends up a kerfuffle of limbs getting in the way of other limbs and elbows to the ribs all wound up by a string of apologies and quiet laughter, and even more laughter when after an accidental hit with a bottle of shower gel you remember the penthouse has two showers.

You manage to beat the scramble to leave on time by only about a minute. Driver Kim asks Jumin why he seems so flustered as he puts your suitcases into the trunk of the car, and Jumin chuckles as he tells him, “it’s really not what you might think.”

You can’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it just a little bit, in the end.

The time after that you wake up sick, your head pounding.

“Perhaps we should call Doctor Jung?” Jumin suggests, pacing back and forth in the lounge. A look of concern is plastered across his face. He had left before you woke up this morning, and you wouldn’t bother him while he was working over an issue so trivial.

Neither of these things are an uncommon sight when he’s stressed, however.

“I’m fine,” you insist. “It’s just a cold.”

He stops pacing and turns to look at you, his expression softening as your eyes meet. Then you sneeze, as if on cue, causing Elizabeth 3rd to stir on your lap. She nuzzles her nose between her front paws. Jumin shakes his head.

“Still, I’d rather we were safe and have you looked over,” he sighs, walking over to where you're sitting. He puts his hands on your cheeks, then gently moves one to your forehead. “You have a temperature,” he adds, and the way you look up at him prompts him to kiss the top of your head. “Please?”

“I don’t feel as bad as I did this morning. We don’t need Doctor Jung to come all the way here just to diagnose me with the common cold,” you tell him. He goes to protest and you can’t help but giggle, preemptively cutting him off. “How about we compromise, and if I’m not better in a couple of days then I give you permission to call the doctor?”

“As long as you let me compromise, my angel, by staying home from work to care for you tomorrow. And running you a bath now.”

“You don’t need to do either of those things, darling. I promise, I’m okay. Though I do think hot water could do me some good. I’ll just shower.”

“Then let me join you?” he playfully proposes. You huff with a smile, defeated by how flat out charming he is.

“If you must.”

He quietly undresses you (another part of his compromise, apparently), leaving little affectionate kisses and kind words on your warm skin as he goes.

You feel a sense of relief immediately when the water hits you, it evens out your chills and aids your stuffy nose. Jumin steps in behind you not long after, wrapping his arms around your waist and bending down to place another kiss on your shoulder.

“Now let me take care of you,” he whispers. “My love.”

And he does just that. He shampoos your hair as though you’re the most delicate thing he’s ever touched; holds you in the warmth like he would never dream of letting go; gives you kisses even through your proclamations that you really really don’t want him to get sick.

(Of course he does get sick, a couple of days later, like you said he would. You joke that he did it on purpose to spend more time with you, but repay his gesture with no second thoughts.)

Then the most recent time, where Jumin has been away in Europe for work. For the last couple of years he has been taking you with him on business trips when he can – he’s a good negotiator, and realistically nobody can (or would) say no to him bringing you along. He tried this time too, but it was arranged at such short notice that there was no way you could have joined him. You hadn’t initially been too phased, aside from the fact you tend to struggle to sleep without him these days.

Tonight is one of those nights. No, this week has been one of those weeks.

Sleep deprivation has been consuming you at a swift pace. You're led to believe your lack of sleep has even begun to bother Elizabeth 3rd by now. You feel sorry for tossing and turning in bed so much that she can’t get any more comfortable than you can. But you’ve tried everything. Everything that usually helps you to sleep has been rendered utterly useless. Your last resort would be to call Jumin, but you know he couldn’t answer now even if he wanted to.

And it isn’t helping, you’re sure, that you expected him to be home to sleep with again tonight.

So you continue to toss and turn.

You get out of bed at about 2:15, head to the kitchen for water. Go back to bed. Get up. Go back to bed. Get up. Go back to bed. And you’re actually half asleep when you hear soft voices outside. The door being unlocked, and locked again. A heavy sigh. In the silence that follows, a wave of comfort so powerful washes over you that you’re almost certain you’re dreaming, finally.

Then the shower turns on, and no, you’re awake.

You get up again, make your way to the bathroom. You tap on the door gently, and push it open just enough to poke your head into the room.

“Jumin?”

The water gets quieter.

“Can I join you?”

You can hear the blissful relief in his voice when he responds, “do you even have to ask?”

He pulls you in tight as you step into the water with him. “Did I wake you?” he mutters into your hair.

“I’ve barely slept all week,” you chuckle.

“Nor have I.”

In a strange way you’re reminded of the first time. You think of the hundreds between. And soon you will fall asleep in his arms again, head against his chest, his heartbeat more comforting than the drone of the shower ever could be.

[juminies]

to rise with you

mornings and compliments (jumin gets called pretty for the first time)

jumin x MC, 1600 words, fluff

read on AO3

☆

Something about the spring mornings is always pleasant. The sun, as it rises in the east, hits the penthouse in such a way that it feels as though the windows were intricately positioned to allow just enough light to make it perfectly glowy; just enough warmth to make it comfortingly cozy. Given how expensive the place is (she had almost died when Jumin had given her a figure), she could only hope the sun would cooperate at its best. And it does.

Jumin tends to wake up before her. From the first night she stayed with him she had discovered him to be an early riser. It’s not that he enjoys it as such (though he brands it ‘efficient’, and she can’t deny that), rather it’d been a necessity that his body clock grow accustomed to it given his schedule. For someone who so persistently nags about the importance of getting enough sleep she’s come to find that he rarely does so himself; the hour he goes to bed is the only part of his schedule that doesn’t tend to be set in stone. Business hours as C&R’s director are often incredibly demanding and incredibly random, with a few occasions having her practically begging that he stop staying at the office ridiculously late when they both know he’d have to leave early again the following morning. While he had claimed it to be enough, barely three hours of sleep a night for days on end does not result in anything ultimately beneficial. It had pained her to watch the way his energy slowly dwindled, and it was only upon him seeing how worry over his wellbeing was consuming her that Jumin decided perhaps his overworking was, in fact, doing more harm than good.

Consequently, on mornings where he doesn't have work it’s still rare for him to wake after 6:30, let alone 7am. It’s different, though. A relaxed, homely air replaces the busy fuss of a work morning. He’ll trudge slowly through the clouds of sleep overcast in his brain, blink through the sunlight as it pours hastily through the sheer curtains. He’ll stay in bed for a little while longer than he’d typically like to (or probably should), because he can’t help it when he has the time, not now that she’s there with him. Though she would rarely do so on purpose, he is fully aware of (and surprisingly content about) the fact that her presence alone can shatter his schedule with little resistance. The dip from her weight across from him on the mattress, her chest gently rising and falling as she breathes — they have him in a hold. And he tries not to wake her, he really does, but his persistence in a need to be close to the woman for whom he holds so much affection will often push her to the same early morning fate he holds. Seldom will she complain, however, as the pleasure of waking up in her husband’s arms is not something she’d give up so easily. He indulges her in his touch as much as he indulges himself in hers. Besides, it’s not as though being held doesn’t often lull her back to sleep anyway.

Jumin tends to wake up before her. But he doesn’t always. Occasions like today, where she gets to see him sleeping soundly beside her, are almost blissful. Fighting to open her eyes only to see his still closed, his lips gently parted in his dreaming state, breath ghosting against her skin. The sunlight collects in pools around him when it shines like this; rests over his form so beautifully. There’s a peaceful vulnerability that blooms from watching someone sleep, and perhaps she’d feel strange about it if she didn’t know it was a gesture reciprocated.

His eyelashes flutter as he brings a barely awake hand up to shade his eyes from the sunlight. He’s always been a light sleeper, too, perhaps contributing to how he can so easily wake without an alarm. For all she knows her gaze alone could have woken him, but he’d never mind. Enamoured eyes stay quietly fixed on him until he grasps his position in reality.

“Good morning, my love,” he murmurs after a minute or so. His morning voice makes her giddy, even after months of marriage. It makes her feel like she’s waking up with him for the first time again, over and over. “Morning,” she whispers.

A ray of sunlight shines over his face, the positioning of his hand slightly displacing it. Her eyes follow it down — across his cheek, just grazing his nose, perfectly framing his lips. She leans in and lazily kisses him; feels him smile into it; follows his lips for a few seconds longer when he tries to pull away. She only backs off once he’s smiling too much for it to even be a kiss any more, really.

Then without thinking, she tells him, “You’re pretty.”

“Pretty?” His smile becomes a teasing grin as he speaks, his voice still deep and groggy.

She hums in confirmation as she shifts a hand to his cheek, promptly finding herself drawing small circles with her finger around a tiny mole that she knows lives there. She feels his dark eyes continue to focus on her as hers drift to the movement of her own hand. “Maybe you don’t see it,” she says. And she’s right as usual, he doesn’t. “But I do.”

He laughs warmly and their eyes meet again.

His history meant it took a while for Jumin to accept her compliments with any form of genuineness. He can confidently vouch for some (he knows he’s handsome, good with words, etc.) but for too long hearing praise merely felt like a form of manipulation, a cheap tactic to get through to him, business. And she understood. Of course she did — she was always so understanding. Yet she kept complimenting him, never asking for anything in return, until he believed her wholeheartedly.

Occasionally his mind will still tell him in a haze of self doubt that she can’t possibly see him in the way she describes. Pretty is a descriptor he finds internally categorised along with others she uses: gentle and safe. Words he feels like he does not deserve, through fear of old feelings resurfacing, fear of losing control. They are too delicate to describe the possessiveness he knows stirs deep within him. But he reminds himself that the desire to own her is secure, under lock and key; he doesn’t need to own her for her to stay. She has no ulterior motive. Her compliments are not built to exploit him — she wants nothing but him in his authentic self, every part of it.

So ultimately, he believes her. He always does. He trusts her more than he ever thought he could trust. So in a moment like this, he won’t let his fears intrude. The way she looks up at him with the utmost love in her doe eyes won’t allow it.

“Can one be handsome and pretty?” he asks.

“Well”—she pauses to consider—“you are. Anyone can see that you’re handsome. Gorgeously so. When I look at your features though, when I really take in the details, they’re very pretty.”

“I’m not so sure,” he responds. She huffs quietly, though there’s a hint of a laugh hidden within it. “Sometimes I really wish you could see yourself through my eyes, Jumin Han.”

She drags her fingers up over his hand, still against his brow to block out the sun. She accidentally repositions a couple of his fingers as she does so, causing him to squint somewhat against the light until his eyes adjust to the brightness. “For example, you have pretty hands. They’re big, but gentle and soft. And… the way they hold me, the way they touch me—” she hears his breath hitch slightly at the way she emphasises it, causing her to interrupt her sentence with a giggle.

“The slope of your nose is pretty. The way your eyes sparkle in the sun is pretty.” Her hand finds its way back to his cheek, then, and gently guides him to tilt his head a little so that she can see the blemish she’d been circling minutes earlier. She taps it lightly. “And this is pretty, too.”

“I was never fond of it.”

“I’m fond of all of you.”

She lays her hand flush against the side of his face and he turns his head to press a kiss against her palm. “Shall I keep going?” she asks.

“I must be the luckiest man alive.”

“You must be,” she agrees, a playful tone in her voice. She shuffles in closer again and hooks a leg over his body so they can lie skin to skin but she can still look at him. “Hmm,” she muses. “You know, Juju? Maybe beautiful suits you better.”

Jumin laughs again, though he knows she means every word. He lets his hand roam beneath the covers to hold the curve of her waist as he tells her, “That one is reserved for you.”

She scrunches her nose at him. “I’ll just have to think it in secret then.”

He instinctively pulls her impossibly closer; kisses her softly as she had done him earlier. A thank you where words feel too much. He’s surprised when she runs her hand into his hair, kindly manouvres herself to allow him more comfortable access to her mouth. When she happily laughs against his lips, he doesn’t think any word nor gesture could thank her enough.

And as it happens, he not-so-reluctantly decides that they can stay in bed a while longer today.

[juminies]

before I met you,

jumin finds that writing vows is somewhat more complicated than anticipated

jumin x reader, 1038 words, fluff

♡

He draws a single line through a sentence he’s written (rewritten) 10 times already. Huffs as he puts his pen down. He had been so confident about this a few hours ago!

Elizabeth 3rd jumps up onto his desk upon hearing his displeasure; knocks the pen to the floor as she does with a disconcerting clatter that makes Jumin wince slightly. She nudges her head against his arm. He retracts it and runs his hand through his hair, pushing stray strands out of his face, then returns it to to scratch under her chin. He rests against his other hand, squishing his face into a slight pout.

“Am I overthinking it?” he asks her. She leans into his pets, purring as he continues, “I feel this would be much easier if I had someone to run it by. V would be the obvious suggestion, but he’s almost impossible to get a hold of these days. I could request Assistant Kang’s advice, but I highly doubt she’d like to be involved with my personal business”—a pause—“and I forgot I gave her a vacation. Tsk.”

The feline leisurely stretches herself out over his notes in response.

His tone becomes more of an indirect musing as he adds, “Luciel already shared that link to the strange wedding forum which turned out to be relatively useless, and I can’t see Yoosung nor my father being particularly helpful in this area for vastly different reasons. Zen could have an idea because of acting… but no. I would rather not bicker over my wedding vows.” He bends down to pick up his pen from the floor. “Maybe I’ll keep him in mind as a last resort.”

Jumin knows how he feels about you. He feels it so, so deeply that there’s absolutely no mistaking it — love resonates from his very being when he’s so much as in your presence. What you’ve done for him, what you continue to do for him, there’s no doubt that you’ve changed him for the better. He only hopes he can continue to be the same for you. But how to express it in words barely comes naturally to him after so long keeping all emotion bottled away. It still feels a bit awkward, sometimes, even confessing his love to you aloud.

“You’re good with words,” you’d told him once. “Do you know that?” He does know, he told you. Being good with words had always been one of his strongest capabilities. It’s something he’s proud of. He’s succinct, confident, persuasive. Usually. For some reason when it comes to you he often finds himself practically tongue-tied. Not to mention he’s never been put in a position that makes him feel so vulnerable.

He looks back to Elizabeth 3rd. “I can acknowledge that you won’t be at all insightful either way, but I could at least use a practice audience.”

He gently shifts her off of the paper he’d been writing on and picks up the most recent draft, clearing his throat as his eyes scan over the first couple of lines.

“Before I met you, I—”

Then he’s interrupted by a soft piano melody drifting from his phone.

“Jumin,” you chime when he picks up. Hearing you call his name immediately washes away the discontentment he’d been feeling just moments prior. “I texted you a little while ago but you didn’t respond, so I thought I'd call in case you didn't see. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be there soon. I know you don’t like sudden interruptions much.”

“Considerate as always. Thank you.”

“You better not have been working on your day off.”

He smiles. “Not a morsel of C&R related activity is going on here, don’t worry.”

“Good. I’ll see you in thirty minutes, okay?”

“Thirty?” he asks.

There’s a long pause before you admit, “...An hour.”

“Alright.” A warm chuckle. “I’ll see you then.”

“I love you!”

“I love you too.”

—

“Forty-seven minutes,” Jumin confirms as you let yourself into the penthouse. “I’ll try to be more precise next time,” you tease as you walk into the kitchen and begin to carefully unpack two slices of cheesecake from the bag you’d been carrying them in. You click your tongue upon noticing one of them is slightly messed up from the journey over.

“How was your morning?” Jumin asks. He leans to rest on the kitchen island beside you.

“I met a nice older woman while I was browsing in the bakery nearby. She stopped me to tell me I look like C&R Jumin Han’s wife.”

“Wife?” he echoes. He likes the way the word feels, he’s come to find. “What did you tell her?”

“Well I was a bit surprised. Nobody has ever told me I look like your partner rather than just asking if I am. Typically I try to avoid answering, because I don’t know who’s asking. Of course I’m proud beyond belief to be marrying you”—you bite back a smile as his face lights up—“but you know how I am with not wanting to draw too much attention to myself. I just wanted my cheesecake.”

“Beyond belief?” Jumin asks.

“Of course,” you reiterate, leaning in quickly to press a kiss to his lips before turning around to grab dessert plates from a cupboard. “But that’s besides the point! I wasn’t in a hurry, and she seemed sweet, so I laughed and told her I actually am his fiancée.”

“What did she say?”

“She didn’t believe me!”

“Oh? How dare she accuse my dearest wife-to-be of being a liar.” There’s a grin on his face when you turn back to him that couldn’t possibly disguise the fact that he finds it just the slightest bit amusing. “We ought to track her down and tell her off.”

“We could invite her to the wedding to prove a point,” you suggest as you move the cake to the plates and slide Jumin the less beat-up piece. Something about the gesture makes the idea of finishing his vows seem a lot less intimidating all of a sudden.

He switches his plate with yours before speaking again. “The more people who get to see you make me your husband the better.”

[juminies]

stay?

feelings of insecurity don't tend to magically disappear. sometimes they just find a different way to manifest.

jumin x reader, 1174 words, angst and comfort

♡

You don’t think he was this restless even when Elizabeth went missing, truly.

He tosses and turns behind you in bed as your thoughts go into overdrive. You can’t help but notice that he’s careful not to touch, and it’s unsettlingly uncharacteristic for him, and he moves ever so slowly as though he’s trying his hardest for you not to notice. And something is going on, surely, but he’d tell you, wouldn’t he?

It seems his restlessness is starting to rub off on you.

He gets out of bed far before he needs to, just like he had the morning before. He turns off the alarm clock so it doesn’t wake you – something he typically wouldn’t do. He’s always liked to say goodbye before he goes to work. And you’re not asleep, because you're worrying, but you pretend anyway. For his sake, if no one else’s. He leaves without a word, and you drag yourself out of bed immediately afterwards.

Jaehee calls you a couple of hours later.

“Is everything alright?” you ask.

“Yes,” is her automatic response; pre-programmed. Today, though, she retracts her statement and produces a counter. “Well, not entirely. I hate to ask, really, but,” she says, almost as if it’s an inquiry.

“Go ahead.”

“Are things okay at home?”

You pause for you’re not sure how long; the words dry up on your tongue.

“Apologies,” Jaehee continues. “I know I shouldn’t be intruding on your personal life. It’s just that Mr. Han seems–”

“I’m not sure,” you murmur before she can finish her thought. Besides, you’re also not sure that you want to hear the rest of it.

Jaehee clears her throat. She quickly utters another apology and says something about a meeting, which you don’t quite catch through your growing confusion. The line goes dead before you think to wish her luck.

Jumin doesn’t pick up when you call him during the usual time for his lunch break. You get a text just before it’s scheduled to end that reads:

Our meeting overran. I’ll see you later.

For some reason you don’t have it in you to reply.

—

He comes home late. Not unusual, really, except for the fact he’d usually let you know. He goes to hang his coat on the rack by the door, Elizabeth strutting over to greet him as he does. She mewls softly and rubs herself against his leg.

“Hello, pretty,” he mutters to her.

You sigh at the words, putting your book down on the arm of the sofa as you do. It prompts him to turn to you. The eye contact is brief and uncomfortable, so he looks down to fiddle with his cufflinks as he speaks.

“Apologies. Some things went astray in a board meeting and I had to stay a while longer to fix them,” he explains.

“It’s okay,” you offer.

He walks over and sits beside you on the couch; leaves a strange lingering space between you that Elizabeth takes advantage of and jumps into. He automatically reaches down to pet her, and her purrs barely cut through the tension bubbling up in the room.

Nobody says anything. You try to continue reading. He scrolls on his phone with his free hand. Ten, fifteen minutes pass as you read the same page over and over. You don’t take in a word of it. There’s no focusing, not like this.

You find yourself inching closer to him as you finally cave, and ask, “Jumin, what’s wrong?”

And, for whatever reason, when you turn to look at him, he seems genuinely surprised that you noticed.

“You’re being weird,” you go on. “You’ve barely talked to me in two days and you’re avoiding getting too close to me. Ever since we met you’ve emphasised trust and communication, but I feel like you’re keeping something to yourself. I don’t want you to do that. Even if you think it’s for my sake.”

He confirms your suspicions immediately, as he clarifies with a despondent chuckle, “I didn’t think I was making it that obvious.”

“You were,” you whisper. “I tried to tell myself it was all in my head, but Jaehee called me this morning, and–” you cut yourself off with a sharp breath in.

Even avoiding looking at you, it’s as though he acts on auto-pilot when he hears your voice waver. He moves over and presses his thigh against yours as Elizabeth jumps down from his lap. The air of hesitancy he holds leaves immediately once he feels your touch, and he relaxes his weight onto you like he belongs there.

Another pause. Then, “I’m sorry,” he says.

“Talk to me,” you tell him. “Please.”

And more silence – until he takes a deep breath. One you’re almost sure shakes on the way out.

“I’m scared,” he mumbles ever so quietly. His voice drops to an even lower volume, impossibly so, as he adds, “of losing you.”

Your hand finds its way to his cheek, soothing. You say nothing when you find it wet. He still doesn’t look at you.

“I didn’t want you to get the impression that I don’t trust you, if I had told you. Because I do. So deeply. The logical part of me tells me you’ll stay. So I figured this should be my problem to fix,” he confesses with a deep sigh. “I know you’re not like them. However, it appears that seeing the people you believe care for you slip away so many times takes its toll. All I desire is what’s best for you. I don’t want you to leave, but if you want to leave I’ll let you. I can’t hold you here against your will, is what I learned the last time I felt this way. And so I, perhaps foolishly, thought that giving you space was the right decision. It seems I’ve only hurt you in the process. Forgive me, love, I’m still learning.”

“I’ll never want to leave. I promise.”

“You could change your mind. You’re permitted to do so, as a human being with feelings. Please don’t make promises when you’re uncertain how the future will play out.”

“I’m not uncertain,” you assure. “And if I do change my mind – and it’s a huge if – you’ll be the first to know. And even if I change my mind, even if I want to leave, I won’t completely abandon you, Jumin. I couldn’t leave someone I love so much behind without a word. If you want me to be, if you need me to be, I’ll be there to support you even then. It’ll just be a little different. Harder, maybe, but you’ll be alright, in the end.”

“I think you may give me more credit for being strong than is due,” he says.

“Well, at least for now–” you lift his hand with your free one and press a kiss to his knuckles “–you don’t need to be.”

He sighs again. Another tear brushes a finger of the hand still gently rubbing his cheek as his eyes close. “Thank you.”

[juminies]

it could have been us

jumin and mc meet again years after personal circumstances pull her away from the rfa. loose ends are more clumsily tied up than she'd have hoped.

jumin x mc, 2826 words, angst

read on AO3

♡

Since they changed the bus route, her morning trip to work consists of a brief walk by C&R’s headquarters. She’ll admit her attempts to avoid it, futile as they may have been; getting lost in the back streets of Seoul and being fifteen minutes late trying to find an alternative route weren’t the worst of her mistakes. She’d seldom admit that she has thought of Jumin Han every time she hurries past, however.

Leaving the RFA had been a difficult decision — even more so when Seven had sternly confessed that leaving would essentially mean cutting contact with the members. He could just about get her out with several strict precautions and some temporary monitoring, but he made it clear that holding her association with them would create too many complications for any of them to comfortably deal with. If worse came to worst it could put her in legitimate danger again, even, but with nobody to protect her this time. And after only knowing the members for a few months, it was the most logical choice for her to put herself first. Her fondness would remain and she’d hold onto them dearly as a gone-too-fast memory, of course she would, but people come and go. She’s never quite been one to dwell on the past, for the most part. It had seemed safe to assume this would be the same.

These days it tends to feel as though her whole time in the organisation had been nothing more than a fever dream.

So, despite her passing daydreams, she’d never quite considered that she should ever actually see him again. Yet here she is, standing frozen in place outside of the little café a couple of doors down, and she can’t help but stare as he steps out of a car (was he always so tall and intimidating?) and thanks the driver just loud enough that she almost thinks she can hear it. It evokes something deep within her; makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It feels oddly nostalgic, practically sickeningly so, and no matter how hard she tries she can’t draw her glare away.

He makes eye contact before she can process the situation enough to duck out of his sight. The way he looks at her aches, because it’s a look she knows. A look he’s given her before. Time and time again she’s regretted not letting herself stick around to see it more often.

What happens afterwards is not the plot her daydreams ever tended to follow.

He turns. And he’s gone.

The next thing she knows she’s standing outside of the revolving door of the C&R building, feeling her contemplation become dangerous as it verges on optimism. She quickly tries to recall the route to his office in her head as she traverses the entrance. When the receptionist does not so much as utter a word as she walks through the foyer and slips through the barrier behind an employee, she tells herself—if not just to mitigate the guilt—that they must still recognise her.

Assuming it hasn’t changed, the route to his office is not a particularly treacherous one, nor is it difficult to remember. She doesn’t believe he would ever voluntarily move, so the risk of ending up in the wrong place is not particularly notable, she decides. She steps into the lift and hits the button for the sixty-eighth floor; adrenaline pumping harder as she realises that not only is she technically trespassing with no safety net, but running into Jaehee means her gig is up. The safest option is to be quick to avoid eye contact with those who come and go, quicker to make her way through the corridor to where she knows he’ll be.

A passing look through the half tilted blinds of the office window as she approaches confirms her suspicions.

Knock knock. She holds her breath.

“Yes.” Muffled, from inside the room.

There’s no chance for her to hesitate before she opens the door and takes a single step beyond the entrance. Jumin looks up at her immediately, and his blank expression changes to something strange; undetectable.

“Who allowed you to come up here?” he asks with an uncharacteristic sense of urgency. All of her senses seem to drown in him as soon as they make eye contact. His voice rests heavy and uneasy on her ears. The smell of the room—of him—intensely grips onto familiarity. His eyes stay locked to hers, but she really can’t place how he feels at all. Hostile? Nervous? Angry?

“Nobody,” she chokes out. “Nobody said anything when I walked in.”

If only for a second, his eyes leave hers as he glances over her shoulder. “Shut the door.”

She can’t quite place how she feels, either. She shuts the door.

“Did anyone seem to notice you?”

She’s silent for a second, considering if any amiss glances were shot her way; if any whispers were shared as she walked by.

“Answer me,” Jumin says as he puts his pen down. The noise startles her. “We’re running on used time.”

“No,” she concludes.

“This can’t take long”—he glances to his watch before his eyes fall to the papers spread out in front of him—“I have a meeting in fourteen minutes. One I should be carrying out last minute preparations for.”

She glances at the clock behind him in response.

“I started work six minutes ago.”

He looks back to her and raises an eyebrow. She feels viscerally uncomfortable, suddenly, an immense wave of self consciousness crashing over her as his gaze burns her skin.

“You’re still just as surprising as when we met last,” he says. It takes her off guard, and it only registers in her mind at that moment that Jumin knows her just as she knows him. Her time in the RFA had been an unsuspected whirlwind for all seven of them, surely. And just like that, she feels frozen again. Just like she had outside of the café. She almost contemplates asking if there’s been some sort of glue trap placed in the entrance to the room to keep unwanted visitors at arm’s length. An unwanted visitor is exactly what she has painted herself to be in her head. Exactly what she feels like standing face to face with someone she had promised to stay away from for their own good.

“I assume you're aware that you’re unlawfully trespassing on C&R property by not signing in?” Jumin breaks the silence.

This is a question she is almost certain doesn’t possess a correct answer. So she says nothing. Jumin sighs, reaching up to massage his temples.

“Is there a reason you’re here? Or did you merely show up with the intention of tormenting me?” he says.

Yes. No. Of course there is. Of course she didn’t. But she doesn’t answer these ones either.

“Would you have let me up here, had I signed in?” she asks instead.

“It depends.”

“On?”

It’s his turn to omit an answer this time, so she opts to ask again. “Fine then. I’ll be more specific. Ten minutes ago, if you had gotten a call that I was here to see you, after no contact for three years… Would you have let me up here?”

“No,” he responds.

“Exactly.” She knows him too well, even still.

“Why are you still standing in the doorway?” he wonders aloud then. “Sit, if you wanted to see me so badly.”

Her mind goes completely blank as she unsticks her feet from the imaginary glue on the floor. What feels like years of silence go by as she walks over to his desk; pulls out the chair; sits down; waits.

“How are you?” she asks finally.

“You came here for small talk?” Jumin says. He exhales sharply through his nose. Amused. “I’m fine. Busy as always.” Then a pause, where he stops to think, before adding, “Everyone else is doing well, too. I hope that you can say the same for yourself.”

“Good. That’s good,” she murmurs. More silence follows and she uses it to fiddle with the strap of her handbag, now placed haphazardly on her lap.

She finds herself cringing thinking about how impossibly soap opera this all seems. He always liked those in secret, though, didn’t he?

His voice cuts through the silence again, then, almost on cue. “This reminds me of a scene in a drama I watched recently,” he says. And he laughs. She worries for a moment that he can read her mind.

“Romance?” she finds herself questioning.

“How did you know?” A rhetorical question, maybe. She doesn’t answer it either way. She feels sick.

“I should go,” she states.

“Already?”

“I shouldn’t have come,” she reiterates.

“Maybe so.” As she stands to leave, through the ringing in her ears, he adds, “But it was two years and five months. Not three.”

She halts.

“You counted?”

“I’ve always had a tendency to remember important dates relating to people I care for.” He leans over his desk slightly to press a button on the keypad of the phone perched there. Raises his finger to his lips as it rings.

“Mr. Han,” Jaehee’s voice.

“Assistant Kang. Is it possible that the meeting can go ahead without my presence? Something unexpected has come up.”

“It’s short notice,” she says. The scratching of a pen seems to just make its way through the receiver. “But that should be fine. I’ll send an email to the expected attendees immediately.”

He reaches to press the button again to end the correspondence, but this time stays leaning over his desk in a way that the woman across from him can’t help but notice seems awfully uncomfortable. A tension hangs between them so thick that she’s certain she’d be hacking at it for hours to so much as scrape the surface. Words float unspoken, time lost builds up a wall between them.

“I assume Luciel isn’t aware that you’re here, either?” he says once he’s sure the phone line is no longer connected. He gestures to the chair she’s now awkwardly standing in front of as he speaks, but she doesn’t sit back down. The cushion’s material scratched the backs of her thighs in an unpleasant manner, one she’d rather not think about. “No. I wasn’t planning on coming. Besides, he made me delete any form of contact I had with any of you. I promised I would stay away.”

“You promised, yet you’re here?”

“You pride yourself on your loyalty, yet I don’t see you telling him I’m here either.”

“If he wanted to know he would find out,” Jumin offers as he stands from his seat. She watches as he picks up the paper scattered over his desk and tucks it into a neat stack, then into a drawer out of her sight. He looks at her again after gently closing it, his expression softening as he does. Then another sigh leaves his lips before he strides past her and begins to pace. Maybe he’s not as predictable as before, she thinks. Maybe he’s a different person. Maybe she doesn’t know him, not now.

He only manages a few steps before she asks, “Are you okay?”

“Confused,” he exhales, stopping in his tracks. “You never told me why you came here.”

“I don’t want to impose my emotions onto you. We barely know each other,” she says.

“We know each other.” He steps towards her, leaving space for time’s wall. Looks down at her hands balled into fists by her sides. She unfurls them when she notices him looking. “I’ve no right to judge your emotions,” he finishes.

“We don’t know each other any more.”

Yes, that seems right, said out loud.

His eyes move back up to meet hers.

“I miss you,” she whispers anyway. She’s not entirely sure who she means, or what she misses. “I’m lonely, you know?” A pitiful laugh.

He takes a deep breath, followed by a similar laugh of his own. “I can’t so much as begin to judge emotions that I feel too.”

Two lonely souls standing in a room.

A pause.

“I should go,” she repeats.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Jumin reiterates. “But you’re here now.”

His eyes scan her face, looking for any sign of hope. She doesn’t provide it; it merely reflects the emptiness the two of them have been holding onto for so long. His eyes drop down to her hands again, still by her sides, tense, as they had been before. Another pointed look shoots back to her eyes, then back to her hands. He hesitates but takes them into his own. The contact is too much, not enough, ought to make her leave, ought to make her stay forever.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs; squeezes his hands where they rest between them.

“Me too,” he says.

She laughs, then, surprised. Tears start to glaze her eyes, and she knows he notices from the way concern falls upon his brow. She continues to laugh, as if Jumin had just said the most hilarious thing she’s ever heard in her life.

“Isn’t this ridiculous? Maybe it’s selfish of me, but this might be my last chance to tell you," she muses through her final giggles. “I’m not sure what’s come over me. I think seeing you outside earlier dug something inside of me up, the corpse of the person you knew, and I’ll have to go out of my way to cover her over again with fresh dirt after this." A deep breath. "I liked you so much. I buried it, because I felt as though it was the right thing to do. And maybe telling you now is even worse, but for a while I really saw something for us.”

“It’s not ridiculous,” Jumin assures, as if he's never been so certain of something. He steps closer again—the gap between them closes itself as though it’s natural. Like there was never supposed to be space between the two of them at all. His eyes skip over her features, then, eyes, hands, chest, eyes, lips. They come to rest. “Would you mind?” he says.

“Mind?” she echoes.

“If I kissed you,” he clarifies. Then his voice drops quieter as he mirrors her words, “This might be my last chance to ask you.”

Her hands release from his and find their way to cup his face, in a way more intimate than she’s experienced in a long time. The rise and fall of his chest becomes just noticeably heavier as she finds herself in control of the situation; brushes her thumb over his lips. Dizzy is what she feels, maybe. What she’s felt this whole time. She’s not sure dizzy is a feeling so much as a symptom.

“It’s unlike you to be so rash, Jumin Han.” She matches his volume.

“You don’t know what you do to me.”

In this moment, she can’t comprehend how she ever let herself leave him behind. When he had been unrelentlessly kind to her, cared for her like he had known her for years. Gave her passing looks—ones she pretended not to notice—that suggested he saw her as nothing short of the sun. The sun obliterates everything in its path though, doesn’t it?

She suddenly wishes it was her second day in the RFA again, that she had no idea what was to come. Maybe things could have been different.

Her hands drop to his shoulders as she nods gently. The first kiss is soft; nothing more than a test. Her brain clouds over as he invades all of her senses again. Their lips move together, a little hesitant, and then he pulls away. She blinks up at him, desperate, regretful, terrified. He opens his mouth to speak, then, something she doesn’t give him a chance to do. Whatever he’s going to say, or ask. She’s not sure she wants to know. “Again,” she breathes against his lips.

If the first kiss had been for him, this one is just as much for her. There is no hesitation left as he pulls their bodies together to meet again; one hand against the small of her back, the other on the back of her head; urgency almost overwhelming. She finds herself unthinkingly biting his bottom lip as though this is the last thing she’ll ever do. He hums surprise into her mouth as he parts his lips for her, giving access—permission—for them to become even deeper intertwined. Every second she has spent without him tastes present on his tongue. She drinks in his loneliness, a subconscious thought that she deserves it far more than he does. She can’t figure out whose heartbeat she hears pounding in her ears, nor how quickly the world around them is turning as their bodies beg for more kissing, more contact, more time. She always needed more time.

[juminies]

pinky promises

a gesture jumin doesn't see the need for

jumin x reader, 779 words, fluff

♡

“I promise I’ll be home on time tonight, my love,” Jumin says. It’s just past 7:30 a.m.; you lazily stand in front of him in your pajamas as he quickly fastens his coat, getting ready to leave for work. Elizabeth 3rd hovers around your feet, occasionally alternating between whose attention she’s attempting to get hold of. “I know I’ve been taking on a lot of overtime recently—things have been particularly busy while we've been attempting to secure a new deal with a large company overseas. However, it’s almost complete now, so,” he stops mid sentence as he’s distracted by you suddenly holding your hand out towards him, pinky finger extended.

“Hm?” he muses, looking down at you through half-lidded eyes. His hands slow down in their actions, coming to linger on his metal coat buttons.

“Pinky promise,” you clarify, not quite a question. "So I know you're serious."

He chuckles warmly. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he says, stepping closer to you and moving his hands to rest gently on your waist. “But did I not already tell you that I promise?”

“Well, you did… but there’s no harm in making sure…” you retaliate, a slight aura of mischief to your tone.

Jumin quizzically raises an eyebrow at you, a small smirk appearing on his face as he catches on. You press your knuckles against the layers covering his chest, pinky still outstretched. His smirk drops to a playful pout as he murmurs, “You mean to say that my darling wife doesn’t trust me?”

You respond with a huff, but won’t be defeated so easily, you decide. “And what if I don’t?” you say. You flatten your hand finally, bringing your other one up to his chest too. He simultaneously moves to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, and afterwards subtly manoeuvres both of his cold hands beneath your pajama top to rest on your lower back.

You shiver under his touch, and his smirk returns.

“If you didn’t… Then I’d be ever so hurt.” He emphasizes his words as he speaks; blinks down at you and sniffles quietly to rein in the (albeit fake) emotion.

“You’ve never lied to me before, but I just never thought that such a loyal man would be so hesitant to commit to a pinky promise,” you continue to tease.

“I heard somewhere that upon its origin in Japan, the idea of the pinky promise was that they cut off your finger if you broke your word. They called it yubikiri, and there was a saying that went alongside it. Something like, whoever lies should swallow a thousand needles. Are you planning on doing that to me?”

“Now that you’ve suggested it, I might take it into consideration. Especially if you’re planning on breaking your word, as it seems you just implied.”

He laughs again at that, properly now, and you feel his chest shake under your hands. You couldn’t explain his laugh if you tried—it’s like honey, a blanket on a rainy day, a fresh bouquet of flowers. And so, even trying to keep a straight face, you can’t help but beam at the sound.

He leans down to softly kiss you as his laughter subsides. “I really have to leave if I want to be back on time,” he whispers against your lips.

“Hm… Let’s see,” you whisper back before kissing him again. You put intention into it now; it’s longer, deeper. And when you pull away,

“Not without pinky promising.”

This time he doesn’t hesitate as he takes a small step back and holds his hand out to you, pinky finger outstretched just as yours had been before. You link yours into it and he smiles softly. He continues to focus on your hands as he speaks.

“I never understood the point of this. As far as I’m concerned, a promise is a promise. I might have turned down every pinky promise ever offered to me, though I could probably count on one hand just how many times that is. Considering it now, would that have made me look like an untrustworthy man? Perhaps. Nonetheless, for you, my angel”—he tightens the grip between your hands and looks up from where your fingers are interlocked, his eyes warm as always—“I promise.”

You press your thumbs together to seal his words, and he smugly insists on also sealing them with another kiss on his way out.

You text him after he leaves, just for clarity’s sake.

For the record, you’re the most trustworthy man I’ve ever met

I love you. Have a nice day ♡

He responds immediately.

I love you too. Pinky promise.

[juminies]

talk to him

post secret ending. jumin doesn't mourn (except he does).

angst, referenced character death, implied alcoholism, secret ending spoilers

AN: I originally had this idea a couple of months ago with the intention of it being a letter from Jumin, accompanied by art in a sort of comic style. I have come to realise it's somewhat unrealistic that I'll ever actually finish that hahaha. I still didn't want the idea to go unseen forever, though, so on a whim I fleshed it out for it to make sense as a fic :-)

☁︎

“You’re not normal,” Zen mumbles, clearly irritated that he isn’t getting through. Jumin has been listening but has little to say – the alcohol has his brain too clouded and he’s too focused on the fact that Zen’s glare feels as though it could kill him if he’s not careful. Jumin hates it; hates that he’s being interrogated in his own home; hates the way he feels trapped; hates the familiarity of being seen as abnormal.

He tries to suppress the brewing unsettling feeling that some sort of Medusa is standing in front of him. The RFA does not need to lose another member in a matter of months, and while Jumin thinks himself more logical than to believe that Zen could possibly petrify him, there’s something in the back of his mind that whispers the chance of danger.

“I still don’t understand why you’re here,” Jumin says, if not just to break up his own thoughts. Zen continues to hover near the doorway of the penthouse. He hasn’t moved since he arrived eight minutes and twenty-four seconds ago, and has essentially repeated himself five times, though it still isn’t making sense.

“I told you. I– Saeyoung and Yoosung are worried about you.”

“Then why aren’t Saeyoung or Yoosung here rather than you?”

Zen huffs and clenches his fists. “Stop being so aggravating and just– Everyone is worried!”

“Then tell them not to be. My emotions are none of your concern, and to be frank I’d much rather remain a pillar for you all in situations like this.” He swirls the amber liquid in the glass he’s holding. “I am used to enduring. I have been enduring for months already and I will continue to endure. Now, if we have nothing else to discuss and you aren’t in need of my assistance, feel free to leave.”

Jumin feels Zen’s eyes leave him, finally, and he uses the opportunity to look up. He takes a victory sip of whiskey when he finds that Zen’s hair has not turned into snakes.

There’s a long, haunting silence. Zen wanders a few steps across the room to a bookcase and picks up a photograph lying face down on a shelf. It had been placed face down on purpose, but the actor takes the opportunity to stand it back up.

A much younger, happier Jihyun stares at Jumin from within the frame. His once loving gaze now feels even sharper than Zen’s.

“Maybe you should try talking to him,” Zen finally suggests. He spares a glance to the almost empty glass of liquor as he notices Jumin put it down on the side table. “Or writing, or something other than sitting around drinking your feelings away like an idiot.”

“To whom, exactly?” Jumin asks, though he knows, and he can already feel Zen's patience withering away.

“V.”

Jumin subconsciously digs his nails into where they rest on his thigh, hard enough that it’s certain to leave little half-moons in his flesh – even through the thick material of his trousers.

“I said what I needed to at his funeral.”

As if he hadn’t tried calling V’s phone tens of times since he passed, hoping for one more chance. He had only gotten to hear his voice through the answerphone message twice before the battery died along with its owner.

“Listen, trustf–” Zen starts, a little too angry. He takes a deep breath. “We all know you’re not coping as well as you’re pretending to. He was your best friend! You’re allowed to be upset. You should be, even!”

“Again, it’s none of your concern.”

Zen lets out a sigh, or a grumble. Jumin can’t tell.

“Whatever. I’ll get going.”

Jumin hums, displeased, and looks at the clock as the younger man turns to exit. Eleven minutes and eight seconds of Jumin’s time, wasted.

Then Zen pauses, turning back to where the director is seated, one leg crossed over the other, nails still pressed harshly into dark grey wool. Jumin doesn’t look away, even for the still lingering fear of being turned to stone. He continues to count the seconds that build up.

“Just think about it.”

—

Jumin has barely slept in days. Sometimes the wine – whiskey on worse nights – puts him to sleep, but tonight he’s angry. Too angry to sleep, though he won’t admit it to anyone but himself. The others might assume things; place wild bets on whether or not he cares, but they don’t know unless he tells them. And he won’t.

It’s almost 4am when he finally moves from his position on the couch. Surely he may as well try to get some sleep. An hour and a half is better than none.

As he stands and turns toward the direction of the master bedroom however, the picture Zen had repositioned on the shelf hours before catches his eye. And he does not go to bed. He places the frame face down again and makes his way to the old desk in his barely-used home office.

He sits with nothing but the word Jihyun written in front of him for twenty minutes, unable to form words on the page, then tries to give up. He leaves the room, the light flicking off behind him bathing him in darkness once again.

He walks back past the bookcase. Backtracks; stands the photo up again. He loiters in front of it for a few seconds, unable to pull himself away until he suddenly feels compelled to apologise (though for what he's not sure).

He goes back into the office. He doesn’t bother switching the light back on, instead opting for a dingy reading lamp he’s had since he moved in. He’s half surprised to find the bulb still works.

His pen scratches as he begins to write, on the verge of running out of ink.

Jihyun.

When we were young, and you asked me, “Which one of us do you think will marry first?” I was certain it would be you. It just made sense, did it not? You were always warmer than I was. You were more approachable. For better or for worse, you were more willing to give up everything for someone you loved. So when you told me that you were to marry Rika, my congratulations were promptly followed by an “I told you so.” I thought it was entertaining that you weren’t sure what I was referring to, but my memory always was better than yours, wasn’t it? You couldn't even recall once I told you the story; explained what you had asked while you were feeling somewhat existential about our futures one evening shortly before I left the country for college.

Of course, when Rika left us I was heartbroken – for you more so than I. Congratulations had quickly become condolences. Did I ever tell you, though, that I always thought you handled her death extraordinarily, despite the distance it put between us? Because I did. At the time, I did. It was only as she stood silently across from me in the churchyard three months ago that I came to understand why you seemed to take it so well.

When we were young and you asked me, “Which one of us do you think will marry first?” I was certain it would be you. But considering it now, you always were so stubborn. Too self-sacrificing.

I can’t help but feel a little regretful for telling you that I will never forgive you for leaving on your own, though it’s true. Don’t you know you had so much ahead of you? So much you could still have ahead of you? Had you just talked to me; had I just been more persistent. I think you’ve left me with more questions than I started with.

I also have one more answer, however. It seems it will be me.

[juminies]

CCTV

day 6, saeyoung's perspective

seven x mc, 752 words

☆

Code. Check the cameras. Code. Check the cameras. Code. Every time he looks back to his work his vision is practically a blur. Her name forms at his fingertips. He backspaces, but the strings of numbers and letters and symbols on the screen may as well just read her name over and over again anyway. He leans back in his chair and groans half-heartedly; almost considers burying his face in his hands but, no. Instead he clicks over to check the cameras.

“Focus, agent,” he whispers to himself, because that’s what he needs to be now. Agent. Though his eyes, Saeyoung’s eyes, stay glued to the CCTV footage. She’s just so distracting.

He can’t even see her. She’s inside the apartment, and the security system is only positioned to show outside. One camera points at the door, another at the hallway. Considering how on edge he is, he’d probably notice if someone were to come into view of either camera even while Vanderwood is on watch. But sometimes, not very often but sometimes, she’ll poke her head out of the door and wave at him. Every 2 seconds (the extra 0.35 had slowly whittled away over the course of the last two days) he has a chance to look over and see her for real, outside of the images of her his mind is toying with while he should be working. Outside of the thought of her laugh when he says something silly, the idea of her gentle touch when he's so starved of it.

He opens up the agency server again, as if it's somehow possible to distract himself from the distraction. He doesn't even manage to type a full line before switching back over to the cameras.

The CCTV doesn’t have sound. Even still, in an even smaller portion of the sometimes-s, with giddiness forcing and clawing its way through his reasoning (though he won’t admit she makes him giddy, he can’t, because people like him don’t get to feel giddy) she’ll mouth something to him. Her voice plays automatically in his head when she does it. Then it lingers; stuck on repeat. Did you eat? she’ll say, or you got this, Seven! Once or twice she had even told him jokes, sweetly waiting in jest for a response she knew she wouldn’t get before dropping the punchline. He didn’t eat, not like she means to ask. He hasn't eaten a real meal in days. And realistically, he thinks, he doesn’t have this at all. He has never felt so clueless when it comes to hacking, and to make it just that bit worse he has absolutely no idea why he can’t just focus. Nonetheless, it gives him a spike of motivation when she appears on the screen. So maybe he’ll add back in the extra .35 seconds, just for a little while, until he gets too distracted by the thought of her again.

It’s hard to place feelings you’ve come to find so foreign as time ticks, ticks, ticks (for him like a bomb, rather than a clock). But he can’t stop thinking about seeing her, and surely, surely, a tiny voice tells him, her gestures mean she can’t stop thinking about him either.

Which is bad.

So why does it make something in him feel… hopeful? Is this what hope feels like? He’s forgotten. It’s been so long.

He had asked everyone not to make guesses about him. He wonders if maybe he was a hypocrite in that sense, because when it comes to her he can’t stop guessing. Even subconsciously. He wants to know everything she could offer. So he guesses. What she’s doing right now, what snacks she buys from the convenience store, if she feels safe, if she trusts him. When why do I want her to care so much? surfaces, however, he pushes it down immediately. He ties cinderblocks to it and throws it into the ocean. He doesn’t let himself dwell on it, because he can’t. Vanderwood reminded him of the fact, too. People like him

aren’t

allowed.

They’re not allowed to care, because caring means forming attachments, and forming attachments means danger, and it means pain, and it means heartbreak when he inevitably has to uproot himself again; take on a completely new person again. Haven’t people he loves suffered enough at his hands already? So he protects from a distance.

And he keeps looking at the cameras. Merely to protect, if not to subdue the dull ache in his chest.

[juminies]

Hey Ann! Do you have a masterlist of your fics? Because the tag search on tumblr is so bad that even when I search for annfic on your blog, your fics don't show up☹️

I've been meaning to make one for months but I never got around to it, I really should do that! I knew the tag search was iffy but not that it was so broken for some people 💔 they are all on AO3 if that's any use for the time being