#bae jinyoung scenarios

[restlessmaknae]

never forever [jinyoung]

Just as much as you would have liked to delude yourself into thinking that you could have anything together with prince Jinyoung, it would be simply impossible as long as you were a servant and he was a prince. Which meant that you could never do so.

➳ Characters: prince!Jinyoung x female court lady!reader/you

➳ Genre: romance, angst, fantasy, magical realism, kingdom au

➳ Words: 11.8k

➳ Warning: mentions of minor character deaths, poison, political tension, attacks

➳ A/N: This story had the most votes in my poll, so I hope it lives up to your expectations. 🥰 It can be read on its own or with Seunghun's story that took place before this one. ❤️

➳ CIX taglist: @wccycc, @dat-town

When you had been younger, your favourite word had been ‘forever’. Warmth had always invaded your heart when you thought of this particular word, and how your parents had promised each other that they would love each other forever. Your mother had told you multiple times too that her love was not only infinite towards your father but you as well. Forever was like a precious friend to you, a little gem that you would try to keep safe as much as you could, holding it close to your heart, holding it dear.

Then, forever had turned to never when your mother had died. When you had realised that you would never see her again, your world had shattered, the little gem slipping through your fingers, falling to the ground and breaking into tiny pieces. Even though your father had reassured you that your mother would love you even from the spirit realm, you hadn’t been convinced because forever had seemed so far away. You had decided that it was stupid to have a word that didn’t make sense. After all, forever didn’t exist.

You had been 6 at that time. Your mother had been a lady-in-waiting to the Queen at the royal palace, so you hadn’t seen her during the week, only on the weekend. You had spent your days at home reading books and practising writing while your father had been teaching his pupils in a different room. He had been a great scholar, teaching those at your home who could not afford the institutions he had taught at most of the time. For some time, you had resented the royal family for keeping your mother away from you when you had known all too well that your mother had been deeply grateful for the royal court for providing her with a high status job and a very decent pay that allowed her to shower you in gifts.

On the other hand, when your mother had died, and the court had organised your mother a funeral, more glorious (thus more heart-wrenching) than you could have ever imagined, your feelings had completely changed. When the Queen had come up to you afterwards and lowered herself down to be at eye-level with you (disregarding the gasps from the court ladies around her, warning her of her dress potentially becoming smudged because of the muddy ground), your tears had fallen even more fervently. You had wanted nothing more than to hide during the ceremony, so to be seen and acknowledged by the Queen herself brought on a handful of different emotions.

“When I was around your age, I also lost my mother. I thought of it as a great shame on top of being a great loss. A young girl growing up without a mother? I thought people wouldn’t take me seriously, they wouldn’t look at me for who I am, they would always see the girl without a mother,” she had shared, and you had watched her with tears streaming down your face, your mouth slightly agape. You hadn’t heard of the Queen losing her mother at such a young age, but you had been young, and your parents hadn’t told you stories about the royal family back then.

“And they did?” You had asked between little sobs that reverberated through your body.

The Queen had given you a gentle smile, and you had wondered if all mothers smiled the same - so lovingly, so forgivingly, so reassuringly. Her smile hadn’t been exactly like your mother’s, but you could feel the genuine affectionate behind the delicate curve of her lips, something that mirrored your own mother’s. The kind of smile that parents gave you when you admitted that you did something wrong, but all that mattered to them was that you were safe and sound.

“No,” she had shaken her head. “I proved them wrong, and I showed them what I can do regardless of what happened. You can do, too,” she had added so confidently that your little heart had welcomed the undeniable hope that her words had brought along, newfound warmth spreading through your veins until you had realised that…

“But… I am not a royal.”

“Where you come from doesn’t matter, whether you have a positive impact on just one person or a whole nation doesn’t matter either. You are valuable as you are,” the Queen had pointed out, her words like a wise scholar’s. You had just blinked at her, wide-eyed and amazed, and you hadn’t even realised that you had stopped crying in the meantime, you had been so focused on what she had been saying.

You had been so awestruck that you couldn’t have spoken up, and you didn’t remember whether it had been what had prompted the Queen to bid her goodbye or she had been told by her court ladies to presume her duties for the day, but you remembered one thing very clearly.

That day, you had decided that you would have a positive impact on the Queen’s life, and you would try to be there for her just as much as she had been there for you at that time. So when a year later, the royal court had announced that they would hold their annual recruitment day for new servants, you had applied.

You had read every book on royal etiquette, you had learned embroidery, sewing and all sorts of activities that might be tested during the recruitment process in that year, determined on making the cut. You hadn’t even been the youngest candidate, there had been girls as young as 5 trying to secure a future for themselves (or more like pressured by their families), but you had been dedicated for a different reason: to serve the royal family and to repay them for all they had done for your family including sending your mother on her last journey so graciously.

Even though you hadn’t succeeded on the first try, you had done so a year later. Since then, you had been trying to live up to your mother’s memory, hoping that she would be proud of how you were serving the royal family, living to make their lives as comfortable as possible, living for them.

Little did you know, one day, that would be the exact same reason you would feel so torn to fall in love.

The first few years at the palace, you spent learning. Then, you applied what you learned. Then, you practised everything over and over again until you wouldn’t make a mistake. Finally, as years went by, your service to the palace became a valuable treasure, an important part of the operations. Your loyalty and diligence meant that you were keen on doing the best you could, and your perseverance didn’t waver even in hard times.

However, no matter the many lessons and learnings during those years, the greatest teacher and the dearest compliment you could get for your hard work was when you could upgrade your rank. After 15 years of service and being over the age of 20 meant that you could rightfully start serving one of the royal family members directly or one of those who stayed at the palace. For instance, a few girls who were at the congratulatory ceremony beside you would assist the royalty that were visiting the palace from time to time, and two of those now stayed beside a princess who came from a kingdom further up north, who was currently spending her time in exile at your court. Due to the trade agreements and favourable business partnerships, it wasn’t uncommon to provide a shelter or a hiding place for those who came from different kingdoms, but couldn’t stay in their own residence for whatever reason.

You, on the other hand, were assigned to the Queen herself, and even though you would never brag about your conversation with the Queen at your mother’s funeral ceremony, you knew that the smile she gave you when she handed you your new gown and your matching hairpin - engraved with a lotus symbol for prosperity and a dragon mimicking the ones that guarded the palace for safety - was telling tales about her positive feelings towards your future services.

After an elderly lady-in-waiting had passed away, two female servants took her place including you. You knew that you were still fairly young compared to the other court ladies, but you had been serving at the palace for so long already, and you excelled at every task they had given you. You knew though that the major reason that you had been assigned to the Queen was because you could read and write well, something that would be needed to discreetly handle the letters the Queen received and sent.

However, following the Queen almost everywhere meant that you had more interactions with the other royal family members and those who were close to them - soldiers in higher up ranks, master magicians and magical creature tamers. In passing by, you caught glimpses of the royal family members while serving them in the past years, but that couldn’t be compared to the experience of being in the same room with them, to see them from up-close.

When you first accompanied the Queen to the practise field where prince Jinyoung was receiving his training, you realised that he still lived in your memories as someone around your height with a cheeky smile when he was running around the court, making his nannies run after him, and you were taken aback by his height and his built now. He was tall and slender, but when he reached his sword out to attack, his muscles clearly showed through the thin fabric he wore. Drops of sweat rolled down his cheeks while he was concentrating, and his features were solemn and hard.

His practice partner was Seunghun - a soldier you saw around the court frequently. Rumour had it that he was courting one of the medics, but you didn’t know whether to believe that because all sorts of gossip were flying around. Besides, others’ love life was none of your business, but since you and Seunghun had joined the court around the same time, you knew him and his way of talking to the ladies - all smooth and flirtatious. He had that cheekiness to him even when he was younger, no wonder he was on good terms with the prince.

The Queen halted by the side of the field, and you did, too, a few steps away from her. The prince and the soldier were so engrossed in their practice battle that they didn’t even take notice of her presence until they finished with their round of sword fight, Seunghun coming out as the winner.

“What is the purpose of today’s practice?” The Queen raised her voice, confident and unwavering, while looking at the boys. Seunghun didn’t fail to bow upon seeing her, but his grin was still a bit cocky when he helped the prince to his feet.

“Just some… friendly duel, Your Majesty,” he answered joyfully, and he patted the prince’s shoulder when prince Jinyoung straightened up. “Even if he were to be seriously hurt, one of our great medics would tend to his wounds,” he added in a friendly manner, but you could hear the Queen’s voice hardening when she spoke up.

“Not so much if he can help it himself.”

“Of course,” the soldier’s smile faded immediately, and he bowed his head apologetically. Prince Jinyoung tensed a bit beside his friend, but his eyes were trained on his mother, not on his friend. You didn’t spend enough time around him to tell what his eyes could show, but you had a feeling that he wasn’t that delighted about the Queen’s words. If your assumption about his power was right, you knew why.

“Well then, keep going,” the Queen made a waving gesture with her hands, indicating that they could move on, and turned on her heels to head back to the palace. You bowed to the prince and soldier alongside the other servants, signalling your departure.

Afterwards, you waited for the older ladies to follow suit as they were the first to follow behind, you were supposed to be the last as you were the youngest one. Even though your rank was the same as theirs, age order was still important.

You took a few steps forward when you felt your hair loosen, and you instinctively reached for the back of your neck, gasping when you couldn’t feel your hairpin. You were about to turn around just at the same time as a figure slid into your vision, and put your lotus and dragon carved hairpin into your hands. It was for the briefest of a second, so was his rough touch, but you felt like you could feel the ghost of it on your skin even after he yanked it away.

Your eyes frantically went to the figure’s face, and you were about to open your mouth to thank him, but he put his index finger on his lips. Why couldn’t you thank prince Jinyoung for helping you out? Why wouldn’t you?

You were so baffled by his indication that words died on the tip of your tongue, and he was out of your reach as quickly as he ran up to you, so there was no way you could go after him. You were already behind the other servants, so you needed to catch up to them.

However, as you were hurrying after them, you looked back at the field, the prince and the soldier already in another round of a fight, no remains of the recent incident, only the ghost of his touch on your hand and the mystery in his pitch-black eyes when he handed you your hairpin.

In a magical kingdom like yours, you were grateful that you could be of help to the royal family even though you didn’t possess magic. The magic in your kingdom lied in healing, hence there were two types of medicine in your kingdom: magical and non-magical medicine. Magical medicine was mostly used on the members of the royal court including the royal family and the royal army, plus magical creatures that lived in the woods or in the mountains - such as fairies, unicorns and such - or serving the kingdom - such as dragons guarding the palace.

Non-magical medicine, on the other hand, was used on humans to treat their wounds, and that was what most medics practised outside of the palace, though it was applicable at the court as well in non-emergency cases and subtle illnesses. Magical medicine was also extremely rare since only magical practitioners could deal with it because they were the ones born with the ability to tame magic, but even they needed thorough practice and extensive training to be able to make use of their abilities to their full potential. Magical medics were also almost exclusively serving at the palace. The royal family was also said to be possessing magic in their veins, though they didn’t have to use it on themselves because the most powerful magicians were already in their court, serving them.

Neither of your ancestors had magic, so it was unlikely that you would, but having a scholar as a father and a royal servant as a mother meant that you knew that you could use other skills and strengths to your advantage, so you never felt any less than those who were born with magic. You were merely in awe at what some people could do, and when you could see for yourself how magical medics worked at the palace, you were mesmerised. Even if the Queen had a headache, not a physical injury, all the medic needed to do was place their hands above her core - the centre of her energy - and she was healed, though advised rest for the night.

For that reason, you could leave the Queen’s chamber earlier than usual after helping her to bed, and while the rest of the ladies were heading to their own rooms in the courtyard, you were staying back to stroll around the garden that separated the palace from the court. A part of the garden was reserved for the royal family only, but the other was accessible by everyone, and you liked walking around the pond dotted with a palette of colours, a different type of fish hiding behind each distinctly shaped creature, water lilies breaking the smooth surface of the water and lanterns lighting up the sideways like little stars on the sky.

When you walked these parts of the palace, you wondered if your mother had been the same. She hadn’t really talked about her time at the palace - what she was doing when she wasn’t on duty, how the place looked like and what was her favourite part of the court -, if she did, she only talked about the Queen and her admiration towards the woman. Ever since being part of the court though, you couldn’t help but imagine your mother walking down the same path, looking at the little bridge connecting the path to a pavilion as you did now, walking the same corridors and feeling the same sense of belonging as you did now.

“I hope you’re proud of me, mother,” you mumbled to the dark sky above you that seemed like a blanket covering the palace grounds, your words carried away by the gentle breeze of this fine spring night. You hoped that she was at peace in the spirit realm, and looked over you fondly. No matter how many years had passed by, there was still a part of you that missed her.

With a resigned sigh, you looked down at the pond in front of you, and decided to leave. However, as you were about to walk back, you crossed paths with prince Jinyoung who seemed to be walking around as well. You were surprised that he was alone, no soldiers guarding him, but maybe he had time to himself at these late hours just like the Queen did after you left her in her chambers.

“Your Highness,” you greeted him immediately, bowing out of respect. When you straightened your back, you looked up at the prince, and he was already looking at you, his deep, dark eyes boring into yours. It seemed that he was about to say something, but he changed his mind, and pressed his lips into a thin line. You blinked up at him, uncertain what to do or what to say for it was scarce that you were alone with a royal family member. In fact, it was the first time that it was just the two of you, and the thought sent a shiver down your spine.

“Are you done for the day?” Prince Jinyoung broke the silence after clearing his throat, and your heart was both heavy and light upon his question. You didn’t know what you had expected him to say or if you had expected anything, but his inquiry still caught you off-guard. In a positive way.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

He bobbed his head, acknowledging your words, and you had a feeling that he wanted to say something but couldn’t this time either. Or maybe it was because he seemed so out of reach usually; the mighty, ethereal prince Jinyoung who was said to be cool-headed and reasonable, a great fighter and a hard-worker in whatever he did. He was said to excel in everything, making him the perfect heir to the throne. From a young age, he had the watching eyes of the people, the weight of the kingdom’s future on his shoulders, and a responsibility that could crush anyone, let alone a boy so young. In passing, he had always seemed so composed, knowing exactly what to do and what to say, and you had heard only good things about him.

On the other hand, he seemed so humane now. A human being searching for the right words to say with secrets in his heart and mysteries in his eyes. Libraries of tales were about him, but when he was standing there in front of you in his white royal attire, he seemed nothing more than a boy around your age. The thought soothed your nerves and scared you at the same time.

You shouldn’t look at him that way, you work for the royal family after all.

“Well then…” You broke the silence that fell upon the two of you, bringing him out of whatever stupor he was under. “Good night, Your Highness!” You bowed yet again, ready to continue your walk to the court.

Nonetheless, before you were out of hearing range, the prince spoke up, though his eyes weren’t trained on you, but on the pond in front of him.

“Your mother would be proud.”

The words made you halt and turn to the prince who was examining the water as if he was pondering how to describe the sight properly. The lanterns lit up the way of the footpath, and amongst them, one was shining directly onto him, and now with you in the shadows of a nearby tree, and him in the light, you wondered how the two of you from two different worlds could be having this conversation now.

“How… How do you know about my mother?” You blinked in confusion. You didn’t believe that he could have heard you before, but maybe he could.

“You are not the only one who likes to go to the pond late at night,” he replied without any shame or any cheekiness in his voice as he turned towards you, and even though you were further away than before, you could see the end of his lips curling upwards. Before you could grasp onto this moment though, the prince turned on his heel and walked towards the pavilion, walking away from you and from the light that was shining onto him.

Afterwards, it happened a few more times that you and prince Jinyoung met in the garden, around the pond. Truthfully, when you hadn’t been serving the Queen, and you had been working in the courtyard instead of the palace, you had come to the pond, but not so late at night. However, it felt good to take a bit of a walk somewhere aside from the walls within the palace, and the garden was truly mesmerising under the moonlight. So you could believe that you hadn’t crossed paths with the prince before because you had been walking around at different times.

On the other hand, despite knowing that you might meet him in the garden these days, you didn’t back away. After all, you weren’t doing anything shameful, and no one else was around, so rumours couldn’t fly around regarding you two. At least, you tried to tell yourself such reasonable words, but you were conflicted just how far this could go. A court lady and a prince talking late at night around the pond? No matter how many times you told yourself that this wasn’t wrong, you felt oddly at unease whenever you heard something crackling or murmurs rippling the night air - even from far away.

Yet, when you were in the act of talking to the prince, you couldn’t feel more at ease. Talking to him felt natural and he didn’t seem so distant while sharing stories with you even though you two came from very different backgrounds. Beside you, he seemed like a boy turning into a young man, knowing the responsibilities of his actions yet letting the childish side in him come to the surface when his duties didn’t call for something else.

Not to mention that it was, in a way, fluttering to be able to talk to him in the first place, let alone get to know him. You realised that he was both very different and not so different from you. He didn’t care about your rank, or that you might tell others about what he was telling you because he trusted you enough, and you trusted him the same. Maybe this was why he was open to talk about the disruptions in the kingdom, and how much the royal family would try to protect peace within its borders.

And maybe this was why he wanted to let you know about the secret you had suspected some time ago.

“The truth is, I don’t have magic,” he blurted out one time after silence had taken over the two of you.

You had been looking at the ripples across the pond, watching the many colours dance under its surface, hiding fish in all shapes and sizes, but your eyes found their way to the prince’s delicate features when he spoke up. He looked ahead of himself, his lips pressed into a thin line, and it wasn’t a different image from his usual self. However, instead of his hands resting in his lap, his hands were balled into fists, clutching a part of his snow-white robe.

“Why… why are you telling me this?”

You tried to keep your voice as gentle as possible because you had a feeling that this was a confession that must have been living in his heart for so long, trying to break out, but it was a caged creature - forced within the bars by his family more than himself. Even though not all of the members of a family had magic if one person possessed it since it wasn’t hereditary, it seemed that the royal family wanted it to be true since the King had magic in his veins, and princess Jinhee was said to possess it, too. However, you had a feeling that prince Jinyoung didn’t do so because you had never heard him use it whereas princess Jinhee was frequently praised for her skills.

What was more heartbreaking than this was the fact that the Queen tried so hard to hide his lack of magic - as you had experienced it on the training field when she had claimed that prince Jinyoung would take care of his wounds if he got hurt -, and maybe it was because she came from a different kingdom and thus didn’t have magic, but you had a feeling that she didn’t know the weight of her actions. She didn’t realise how much she was denying something that the prince didn’t wish to talk about to begin with.

You didn’t act like a fool, that’s why you didn’t ask him if it was true for you had a feeling for some time, and he seemed to notice that, too.

“Because I know you’ve figured it out yourself, and it feels good to tell someone else about it apart from my friends,” he explained as he averted his eyes from the scenery to you, and you gulped when you saw the hurt in his pitch-black orbs. Maybe it was that you mistook his pain for secrecy before, but now instead of a stern, out of reach, almighty prince, all you could see was a boy grieving something that had never been his, feeling guilty for something he had no control over and being vulnerable to someone who shouldn’t have mattered to him.

Yet, since he was willing to share his secret with you, you didn’t want to think about whether it was right or wrong. Instead, you wanted to be there for him, comforting him with words.

“You aren’t any less because you don’t have magic, Your Highness,” you whispered to him, afraid that your words might open up his wound instead of tending to it, but he didn’t seem to take it to heart.

“And you aren’t any less because you’ve grown up without a mother,” he added similarly quietly, and you felt your heart drop. You were about to say something, but then, you closed your mouth, pondering how to word this feeling. “See. It’s difficult to believe it no matter how many times others tell you.”

It was difficult, he was right, but you assumed that no one really knew how much the absence of your mother still impacted you, and the way you thought of yourself. He did, it seemed. He might have been reserved and didn’t like to pry in other’s business, but he was perceptive, even more than you would have thought so.

“How do you… Why does it feel like you know me so well, Your Highness?” You furrowed your eyebrows, not accusing, merely curious. Prince Jinyoung, as if he was waiting for you to confirm, let his lips curl a bit upwards before leaning a bit closer to you, as if he was telling a secret.

“I’ve told you. I’ve heard you talk to yourself at this pond. I just never wanted to interrupt you,” he explained matter-of-factly, but that was not enough for you. You didn’t know what took hold of you, but you were persistent, so you asked:

“So why tell me now?”

Prince Jinyoung looked back at the pond, then shrugged his shoulders. After some silence, you decided to drop the topic, and excused yourself to head to your room instead. Your heart was in mayhem already, you didn’t want to continue this dance that had started between you two because you were afraid that all it took was a few more turns to fall into his arms, to fall into him. 

Thankfully, he didn’t hold you back, nor did he come with you, so you could walk to the courtyard, your heart still hammering in your chest. That's how you missed him saying to himself after you had left:

“Because you aren’t that unreachable now.”

The fact that you served the Queen directly meant that you knew more about the kingdom’s business affairs than before as the royal family including the King, the Queen, prince Jinyoung and princess Jinhee often attended business meetings with and without the royal council. It was said that it was, so that they knew exactly what was going on in the kingdom, and it was a merit for the children of the royal couple as well. Trading, business affairs and politics were fields that prince Jinyoung would be involved in as the future heir, and princess Jinhee would be considered a knowledgeable young lady if she knew of such topics, making her an even better wife candidate. When the council had a meeting, you were supposed to wait outside along with the other servants, but when it was just the royal family members, you could stay inside and possibly help the Queen to write letters and contracts for her or to read them for her.

The main issue these days was the unjustifiable attacks on a royal carriage sometime ago and a recent revolt near the borders - both lead to the assumption that rebels from the nearby kingdom were behind the attacks. It wasn’t very concerning for now, but the royal family wanted to be prepared for every scenario, and they tried to put out the fire before it could burn down their reputation. That’s how you found yourself accompanying the Queen and princess Jinhee to visit Naturalia that offered favourable trade in exchange for the princess marrying into the family.

You, a few other servants, soldiers from the royal army and two magic medics - including Byounggon whom you frequently saw around prince Jinyoung - accompanied you, so you ended up going in three different carriages, and the plan was to stay for two days and one night. You tried not to look around too much, but you hadn’t travelled outside of the kingdom before because you had started working at the palace from such a young age, and this particular kingdom boosted the magic of nature, so all kinds of surfaces were covered in colourful plants, vivid trees and rainbow-like herbs. You had read that there were people who regularly went to collect such magical plants, but the trading of their magic was limited to their kingdom only. Unless princess Jinhee would marry prince Jaehyeong.

However, your awe was cut short when upon the introductory tour around the palace, you were invited for some tea, and the servant - Hyeri - who tried the so-called immunity boosting drink to test it before the royal family would do so started gasping for air.

“What is it? What is the problem?” The Queen immediately rose to her feet, but you and another court lady were already there to hold onto the woman whose face turned purple. She looked like she was struggling to breathe, constantly hitting her chest with her balled fists and struggling to keep upright.

Bewildered, you found yourself hyperventilating for a moment, but then, you tried to remember what your father had always said. Do something about a problem first, and panic only if the consequences are not in your favour.

“I’ll call for the medics,” you suggested hastily, almost falling over your feet as you picked up the hem of your robe and ran out of the dining room to call for the two medics who were stationed outside in the hall. You quickly explained the situation, but they didn’t waste time either, they immediately came rushing with you. By that time, the woman was already on the floor, lying seemingly unconscious.

You felt your heart beating wildly against your ribcage, like a wild horse that didn’t know where to go in the unfamiliar woods. You couldn’t help but think of the worst case scenario, and you felt blood rushing to your head, making you dizzy. What if it was a trap? What if this was the plan of Naturalia’s royal family all along? What if your Queen was in danger? What if all of you were in danger?

Despite being wary and conscious of the many reasons behind this incident, prince Jaehyeong’s mother was seemingly shocked as well, trying to come up with different scenarios as to why it could happen - maybe the court lady was allergic to the ingredients in the tea -, but the Queen was suspicious, and didn’t let it slide even when the joined effort of the two medics and princess Jinhee’s magic helped Hyeri to regain consciousness.

“It was too strong of an effect for it to be accidental. If three of us needed to use magic to help my court lady, it was intended to kill one of us. Even if the incident was out of your control, it is not safe for us to stay here,” the Queen concluded rather indignantly, and at least the other royal family members didn’t protest, and reassured her that they would do everything in their power to get to the bottom of this case.

The ride back to the palace was a tense one because it meant that even if the Naturalia royal family didn’t want to kill the Queen or the princess, someone in their royal court would want to do so, someone who had the power to get inside their walls and put some kind of poison in the tea. They should have known that such royalty didn’t just drink or eat before testing it out with their servants, so maybe it was a kind of warning. First the carriage incident, then the rebels, now this… Was it all because the two kingdoms were to be united by the prospectus wedding? Did a group of citizens from the other kingdom have anything against your Queen?

You kept thinking about the what ifs, signs you should have seen, but you still couldn’t rack your head around what had just happened. Upon your arrival back at the palace, the Queen asked you to accompany the startled Hyeri to her room instead of walking her back to her chambers since she had other servants who could help her now. You obeyed her, but your voice was shaky as you responded to her, and your hand trembled when you reached out to hold onto the court lady. It could have been you as well, you could have died that day…

“It’s all okay. You’re safe now,” you mumbled to Hyeri nevertheless, trying to soothe her nerves, but you could still see how frazzled she was. Even when you left her after she had thanked you for your assistance and denied that she needed anything else, you could clearly see how terrified she was. You told her that she shouldn’t hesitate to call for you if she changed her mind and needed anything. Afterwards, you left her behind and started aimlessly walking around the court until your legs didn’t feel wobbly anymore. You needed time and some fresh air to clear your mind.

You were just about to head to the court ladies’ house when you walked into prince Jinyoung who looked just as shaken up as you deemed that you had been some time ago. His usually delicate locks sat on top of his head messily as if he had been running his hand through his hair more often than it was necessary, his jet-black eyes were painted with agony, his facial expression alarmed and his voice shaky when he spoke up.

“Are you… alright?” His words came out raspy, as if he was still trying to catch his breath. Did he come to the court ladies’ area after hearing the news? Why did he seem so uncharacteristically concerned? The usually stern and reserved prince didn’t usually meddle with the servants’ business as you had seen. He was on good terms with his soldier friend, Seunghun, and one of the magical medics, Byounggon, but he usually didn’t worry about the court ladies’ safety. Some said that it was because he didn’t want to be swept up in rumours while you deemed that it was only natural since he was royalty, and of the obedient type.

You bobbed your head, though you were at a loss for words seeing him in this state.

“Are you sure you don’t need more medical assistance?” The prince continued, taking a step closer to you as if to examine if you had visible injuries. However, the way he worded himself sent waves of warmth through your body.

“Oh, it was not me who drank the tea. It was court lady Kim,” you justified to the prince whose lips formed a surprised ‘O’ in return. Other than that, he didn’t seem taken aback, more like a bit coy, but his features softened as if he had been relieved by your answer.

“Oh… is she alright, too?”

“Yes, I helped to accompany her back to her room,” you explained, trying to keep the shaking out of your voice. You had never thought before that being in the court could mean that you were in direct danger because you weren’t a soldier or a bodyguard, but it seemed that there were multiple ways one could weaken a King on the throne.

You heard a door opening and carefree chatter coming out of a house nearby, so instinctively, you grabbed the prince’s robe and pulled him to the wall of the nearest house, into the shadows. You couldn’t really tell what took hold of you, but it felt oddly wrong to be so out in the open with just the prince. It was different in the garden when there were just the two of you. It was like your little hideout, an island of solace, a place of security, however now, you felt like you were stripped bare.

Prince Jinyoung’s eyes widened in surprise at first, but he must have guessed your reason for bringing him with you out of the public eye because he didn’t protest, nor did he ask why you had acted this way. Instead, he peeked out from behind the wall, then back at you.

“And you? Are you alright?” He asked as if he had just continued from where he had left off. “This must have shaken you up.”

The way his words were so gentle, so caring made you feel things that you shouldn’t have. If the prince was the moon that lit the way for the people of the kingdom, the light in the darkness, the hope in the unfamiliar, you would be the sun that shone only during daytime, shining bright until night came, and the moon took its place. You two weren’t supposed to encounter each other, let alone seek out time to see each other.

He shouldn’t have cared about you, and you shouldn’t have let him, but still… You couldn’t lie straight to his face.

“I am… I just…” You wanted to say so much, yet the words died on the tip of your tongue. Your heart was way heavy, the flashbacks of the scene in the dining room even heavier, and you felt a drop of tear sliding down your cheeks as you were trying to pull yourself together. You had to stay strong, you couldn’t show him vulnerability. He couldn’t care about your vulnerability. “I am sorry, Your Highness. I do not want to bother you anymore. Please, go on your way,” you said instead, keeping your eyes down as you bowed.

You wanted him to go away, to stop caring, to stop looking at you, but he didn’t budge, and it was a rule that you could straighten up only when a royalty took the first step. However, he didn’t do so, instead, he tapped your shoulder, and helped you straighten up.

“You don’t bother me at all,” he mumbled like a secret, a feeble attempt at diminishing the gap between you two that should have always mattered, but he crossed it as if he didn’t see it at all.

And you, you weren’t strong enough to push him away. Not that day, not in the comforting shadows under the faint moonlight, not out of the public eye when he looked at you as if he was ready to give you the world. The hand that had rested on your shoulder before now slid to your back as he embraced you, holding you strong, holding you steady

The walls crumbled down, the shield of your heart taken away, your rational thoughts tossed aside. Now, there was only his comforting touch that put out even the tiniest flicker of resistance within you, and for a moment, you believed that this could be your reality, your present and future, and your forever.

After the incident, the palace was in uproar. They couldn’t let it slide as promised, and so the investigation started to get to the bottom of this. The royal family of Naturalia was helpful though, and soon enough, they found a group of rebels who didn’t want your kingdom to be in alliance, let alone in union with their kingdom because of the special magical plants they possessed. They deemed that it was their gift and their gift only. It made sense why the attack on the carriage had happened when a letter had been delivered to Naturalia, then around the borders when news had gotten around that a marriage deal had been proposed to princess Jinhee, then when the Queen and the princess had actually gone to visit the other kingdom.

They didn’t find all of the rebels though, and there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t attack again no matter the fact that peace was in both parties’ favour. So for now, the marriage proposal was put on hold, and instead, your kingdom tried to strengthen its ties with other alliances. After the passing of the King in Elementalia - the land of elemental magic where people could possess the ability to control fire, earth, water and air -, his rather young heir took place, but it meant that marrying one of their princesses off to another kingdom would secure their power with a boy king on the throne.

That’s how you found yourself in the room with the Queen, prince Jinyoung and other servants, listening to their conversation about prince Jinyoung marrying the princess in question.

“They are in a tight spot, and we are in need of securing our safety. Who knows when those rebels would attack us again? It is best if we do not push your sister’s marriage with prince Jaehyeong now, but rather, we reassure them that we will not make moves towards their kingdom. The best way to do that is to shift their attention to our other affairs… such as your possible marriage with the princess from Elementalia,” the Queen concluded confidently, but you could hear the indignation in her voice. Seeing one of her court ladies almost getting poisoned took a toll on her as it did on all of you. One of her court ladies had even resigned, feeling like her safety was threatened.

Needless to say, prince Jinyoung was also aware of the tension in the kingdom, and while you had only met him once since that embrace, he had seemed rather troubled then and now as well.

“And princess Yunkyeong is said to be a very intelligent, obedient young lady. You might not be interested in her now, but at least, give her a chance. Let us arrange a meeting with her, and see how you feel about her being your wife. I will not force you to make any rash decisions, but we-”

“We need this marriage deal now to reassure our people that our kingdom isn’t threatened. I know, Mother,” the prince cut her off, his voice void of any emotions. His face was also void of any emotions, save for the slight wrinkles forming on his forehead.

You wished you could do anything to help this situation, but in cases like this, your hard work didn’t mean anything. These affairs were bigger than you, bigger than anyone in the royal court. Plus, the Queen was right. Despite not talking explicitly about what had happened in both the carriage and the tea incident, word had gotten out, especially with the rebels making a ruckus around the border. The people were confused and scared, questioning what the royal family’s next move might be. It was best to reassure them with such prosperous news rather than talk about any uncertainty.

“I will come back when you feel ready to give me your answer,” the Queen suggested as she rose from her seat, and so the servants lined up behind her. As you got in line, you made the mistake of looking at the prince, and he looked back at you, though you couldn’t exactly say you knew exactly what he was feeling. However, a shadow of sorrow passed through his features, but you didn’t know what it was for. Or rather, you didn’t want to know.

So you kept your eyes on the ground even after straightening your back from bowing at the prince, and didn’t look back.

You purposefully didn’t go to the garden afterwards. You could have said that you didn’t have time or you were too troubled by the recent events, but the truth is, you merely wanted to avoid meeting the prince. If you hadn’t had conscience before, now you would have felt like you had betrayed the Queen and all that she had worked so hard for if you had kept up your encounters with prince Jinyoung, and the people had gotten to know about it. Such news might even prompt princess Yunkyeong and her family to step back from their marriage proposal. After all, a prince and a court lady should never meet under private circumstances, let alone embrace in the shadows.

Now more than ever, you regretted letting prince Jinyoung console you in your state, you should have known that it would lead to nothing good. You should have stayed strong, you should have never shed tears in front of the prince. On the other hand, you knew, you knew very well with prince Jinyoung’s personality that he wouldn’t have felt compelled to embrace you even if you had been crying. He had done it because he had wanted to, but this thought only weighed down on you even more. What were you two doing anyway? Even if you had moments when you could have believed that your feelings would be reciprocated, the question wasn’t whether they would be reciprocated, but just how wrong it would be if they were reciprocated? You couldn’t fall in love with a prince.

Nonetheless, it was too late. You felt that bittersweet tug whenever you walked to your room straight after finishing your duties for the day without wandering around in the garden, you felt a wave of childish thrill go through your body whenever you caught sight of similarly pitch-black locks as the prince had - though you knew that it couldn’t be the prince for the royal family always wore white and the court members always wore burgundy-black -, and you felt your heart yearning for him, like a person coming up for air after being underwater for too long.

No matter how many times you tried to tell yourself that you could only make things worse if you felt everything so deeply, so grandly, your heart was at war with your brain, and it seemed that your brain was at defeat. Despite everything, you longed for what you had, for what you could have and for what you would never have with prince Jinyoung.

It didn’t make things any easier that you were there when the prince gave his answer to the Queen - that he would meet the princess in person -, you were there when they were arranging for the arrival of princess Yunkyeong and the Queen of Elementalia, and you were there when they arrived. You even needed to be the one to notify the prince that they arrived, and you felt a lump forming in your throat as you walked closer and closer to the prince’s chamber. You felt like your legs were made of steel, your limbs numb and your heartbeat as erratic as it could be.

Even though you had never been to the prince’s chamber, you knew where it was for it was the room closest to the Queen’s own chamber. Knocking on its door made you think of scenarios where you could do the same, but you quickly got rid of all of these silly fantasies. After all, they were nothing more than fantasies, irrational wishes and ultimately bullets through your already fragile heart.

When the prince answered, you opened the door to his chamber, and you made your way inside, bowing immediately before letting him know about why you were there. You could see that prince Jinyoung was both surprised and reassured by your presence, but he pursed his lips into a thin line when you explained the reason behind your visit.

“What do you think about this marriage?” The prince asked abruptly, and for a moment, you felt like icy thorns were invading your throat, making it impossible to speak, gulp or even breathe. Why did he have to make this even more difficult?

Deep inside, your rational side managed to break free from all the fantasies, and reminded you that you would only make things worse if you acted as if you were affected by the possibility of prince Jinyoung marrying a princess. As he should have after all. So you pulled yourself together, and tried to word yourself very diplomatically.

“I believe it is a very beneficial one, and princess Yunkyeong is said to be a lovely young lady as well, Your Highness,” you reasoned, keeping your voice steady. You even managed to keep eye-contact with him, and you saw confusion flash across his features. He seemed weary, someone who hadn’t been sleeping well because of his tormenting thoughts, and you wished to soothe the wrinkles on his forehead, to feel the warmth of his touch again, and to hold his hand to reassure him that everything would be alright, but you knew it was all just wishful thinking. It was all just a lie.

The prince took a few steps closer to you and you took a few back because you didn’t know what he was about to do without saying a word. Your back almost touched the door, and in a fraction of fragile seconds, he closed the said door, and turned back to you. This way, no one in the corridor could see you or listen to you two.

“Is that what you honestly think?”

His gaze was piercing, almost burning, and it felt like he could see right through you. His usually warm orbs reflected sadness, sorrow and bitterness - something that you saw reflected in your own ones recently. Seeing him in this state made you feel even worse for lying to him, but you had to. Words were your only defence now.

“Yes, Your Highness. I wish nothing but the best for you.”

“Do you believe it would be the best for me if you kept this up, and I would lose you in the meantime?” He kept going on strong, almost demanding, but you could detect the thorn in his words, you could detect his fear. Even though he wasn’t as close to you as he had been when he had embraced you in the shadows, you still felt like he was about to break down your walls. You couldn’t let that happen. Not this time.

“I do not believe that my presence should matter that much, and besides, we should hurry to-” You tried to direct the conversation back to the way it had started, but the prince cut you off, and the sincerity, the pain and the same longing you felt laced his words, and you were rendered speechless.

“It does matter that much even if you might not think so. So just once, can’t you be honest with me? Can’t you tell me what you really feel?”

Amongst many, there was one thing about prince Jinyoung that made him a likely successful heir to the throne: no matter what he said, he could make others believe it, no room for doubts. His voice was always confident, no cracks or wavers, but now, his voice shook. It shook like a man’s during prayers, during struggle and during darkness. As if he was desperate.

You physically ached to give him the answer he wanted, but you were already hurting so much, so you made a promise to yourself that no matter how and when you would meet him again, you wouldn’t let it continue the same way as it had done before. The sooner you could put an end to it, the less it would hurt.

Or so you assumed.

“I do not understand what you intend to say with it, Your Highness, but my duties lie with the Queen, and I always, always put her commands first,” you emphasised sternly, masking your tone in a coldness that you had never found within you before. “So if you could follow me now, that would make my job easier,” you added, strictly drawing the line between you two, and before waiting for his answer like you should have according to the etiquette, you walked around him, opened the door and walked out.

You expected him to follow you, and he did, but you were thankful that he didn’t walk beside you because you had to bite your cheek to keep your tears from flowing. It hurt for you to be so rigid to him, but that was the only way you could put a distance between you two.

So why did it hurt so much? Why did it pain you more to lie to him than if you had just been honest with him? If this was love, why did it hurt so bloody much?

It turned out that princess Yunkyeong was indeed a lovely young lady, and seeing her interact with the prince made you feel undeniably bitter because she was so bright, so considerate and so patient, you wished you could have turned back time to never make him feel anything because you knew why he was so distant. Even though he was trying not to appear stern, you could see the way his facial expressions changed in a fraction of a second when he turned away from her. You knew that the reason was you.

Nonetheless, you hoped that he wouldn’t cling onto the foolish hope of you two ever having your own happy ending because just as much as you would have liked to delude yourself into thinking that you could have anything together, it would be simply impossible as long as you were a servant and he was a prince. Which meant that you could never do so.

So when you heard after the princess’ visit that the prince had given in to the marriage, you should have felt relieved, yet you would be lying if you said that you were. After all, it would mean that you would see the princess around all the time because she would move into the palace after the wedding, and though the pain might numb after a while, her presence would always remind you of what you could have had if it had been for different circumstances.

You tried not to think about it, you really tried, but there was a pang in your chest whenever you and prince Jinyoung were in the same room when he met up with the Queen, and despite not catching each other’s eyes, your heart couldn’t sit still. The same went when you walked by him in the corridor, just one look at him and the fact that you could never be close again almost felt like the consequences of getting burnt. You were too close to the fire, but you were tempted, so you touched the flames, and now you were hurt, yet still yearning to do it again. Now you understood the expression that you would walk through fire for someone, you really did.

You were almost glad that the Festival of Day and Light happened a few days before the wedding because you could get time off to visit back home, to visit the festival because the Queen was preoccupied with the wedding arrangements, and hence, she would stay inside her chamber for most of the day.

It was the usual yearly festival for the fall equinox, and when you had been younger, you had been ecstatic to spend this day with your mother, to commemorate the gift of light, and to light a candle for all your loved ones, wishing them a bright year. There were all kinds of games for kids, stalls of delicacies lining up on the main market square, people lighting candles and placing them on the riverside that crossed the capital of the kingdom, and white or yellow decorations in the shape of stars, the Sun and the Moon.

Despite the usual joyous atmosphere of the celebration, ever since your mother had died, you hadn’t gone out to celebrate it as your father wasn’t the kind to believe in such things. So this year as well, you went home for the day, had a meal together with your father, helped him around the house, talked about everything that came to mind, then headed back to the palace later at night. Yet, there was no way you would be able to go around the celebrations on the main market square, so you mindlessly walked through it.

To be precise, you wanted to, but an elderly woman with an impossibly wide smile shoved a candle into your hand, and looking down at it, you didn’t have the heart to not light it up. So you walked to the edge of the river, a less crowded part of it, and crouched down to touch your candle to the wick of another one, watching as the flame moved from one candle to the other.

Then, you placed yours on the ground, closed your eyes and wished for your father’s health, your mother’s comfort in the spirit realm, the court ladies’ perseverance, the Queen’s well-being and even for prince Jinyoung’s happiness. You really wished nothing but the best for him even if you weren’t a part of it.

When you opened your eyes to the world around you and straightened up, you didn’t expect to find a familiar pair of jet-black eyes staring back at you. Your heart and mind didn’t even have time to protest, the words already rolled off your tongue.

“Your Highness,” you greeted him with your mouth slightly agape, then pulled yourself together for a proper bow. He placed his index finger on his lips - just like the time he had picked up the hairpin for you -, and the déjavu of the whole situation sent a chill down your spine.

He indeed looked like he didn’t want to be seen as he didn’t wear his trademark white robe, but a burgundy-black one with a hood that now covered most of his face, but you could never mistake his orbs for anyone else’s. You had stared into them, you had gazed at them and you had daydreamed about them enough times to be able to recognise them anywhere.

“What are you doing here?” You inquired quietly. It wasn’t unheard of that the royal family members went out for such celebrations, but then they walked into the sea of people in their usual clothes with bodyguards around them. This time, the prince seemed to be alone, and you expected him the least out of anyone since his wedding was just around the corner.

“I’ve never had the opportunity to light a candle. I’ve gotten Seunghun’s clothes, so that I could come here in peace, and then I saw you here…” He trailed off by the end as if he wasn’t sure that he should have said so much, but you could understand him. Especially after how you had lied to him last time.

“Should you be here so close to your wedding?”

Your question might have been assumed to be laced with malice, but you didn’t ask about it out of spite. You were concerned about him, that’s all. You knew how fussy the Queen was about the whole wedding, and it took a toll on prince Jinyoung (or was it that he still didn’t let go of you?). The last thing you had expected from him these days was to see him at the festival.

“Probably not,” he replied, and despite the tense question, the corner of his lips curled upwards, a bit childish and a bit bashful. Not the expression you had expected to see on him given his general state nowadays.

However, the prince didn’t seem guilty now, but there was definitely melancholy in his features. His lips couldn’t bloom into a full smile, his eyes weren’t twinkling, and his limbs were all tensed up as if he was ready to bolt anytime. Maybe he really was, seeing how he covered himself up.

Your heart ached for him, for all the possibilities that were crushed by the sole difference between your ranks, and for all those endless fantasies he had been a part of, ones that popped into your mind whenever you let your mind wander off, whenever you caught sight of him at the palace, and whenever you walked by the pond in the garden. Even though the latter had become a place of solitude, a safe haven for you, now it was just another thing that reminded you of your pain. The wound was there, and it was still open, it was still bleeding, no wonder it was difficult to wait out the time it would start to heal.

And in a way, something in your gut told you that he was the same. His following words proved it, too.

“But I’ve wanted to wish for someone’s bright future even if I won’t be a part of it,” prince Jinyoung suddenly broke the silence, his voice coming out raspy. He crouched down to light his own candle as he continued, but you were glad that he couldn’t see your face because his words struck you to your very core. “I felt like I wasn’t supposed to tell her after what we’ve been through and that she wouldn’t let me tell her how I wish the best for her, so I came here instead. I was hoping that my wish would somehow be carried forward.”

The more he talked, the more certain you were that he was talking about you, and instinctively, tears began to spill. You tried to hold them back, but they found their way to the surface, and all you could do was to sob silently, hoping that prince Jinyoung would look at his candle for a long enough time, long enough for your heart to prepare itself for a response, for your heart to prepare itself for a possible goodbye.

You reached to wipe the tears off your face, but as the prince straightened his back, that’s exactly what he caught you doing, so there was no turning back. You let your sobs reverberate through your body, your words following the rhythm of your tears like raindrops on a windowsill.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled through tears, not being able to look him in the eye. So you just stared at your shoes instead while your tears dropped to the ground one after another. Drip… drop… drip… drop… “I thought that being harsh would be the only way I could make it hurt less, but it still hurts so much.”

“I know. I don’t blame you,” came the answer almost immediately, and when you looked at prince Jinyoung through the waterfall of your tears, you saw the same kind of longing that you dressed your features in these days. If anything, that just made you feel worse. Why couldn’t you be as heartless as last time?

You sobbed quietly, hoping not to attract unnecessary attention, but this part of the riverside was pretty quiet, and the stillness of it all magnified the loudness of your beating heart. You felt like it would break through your ribcage to find the prince’s own heart because it was what it sought after. Too bad that you couldn’t listen to your heart now…

“I’m sorry, too,” prince Jinyoung added, his voice cracking by the end.

You knew what was to come even before it happened, but as opposed to last time, you didn’t feel warmth, you didn’t feel comfort. When the prince embraced you, there was pain; because when you share the same kind of pain with someone, your pain is amplified by the other’s pain. It was a gawking, raw, soul crashing kind of ache, one that you felt in your bones, in your veins and in your heart. You couldn’t even do anything about it, your arms just hung idly by the prince’s body, your tears spilling endlessly, words abandoning you and sobs scratching your throat instead.

You couldn’t tell how much time had passed by when the prince let go of you, but you had a feeling that it was for good. When he squeezed your hand gently, you could feel the hesitation only for a short moment, and then, he slowly slipped through your fingers, all of your remaining hope leaving with him.

The walls that he had broken down now laid at your feet, lifeless and in multiple, messy pieces.

You somehow pushed through the wedding, but afterwards, you kept coming down with something, and even Byounggon’s healing and the medics’ tips couldn’t help because it just kept coming back, so the Queen granted you indefinite leave to go back home and to recharge yourself.

The truth is, once you were off the palace grounds, you got better, and you had a feeling why. On top of that, your father was also feeling poorly, so you were glad that you could be at home during this time. The truth is, ever since you had left for the palace 16 years ago, you hadn’t spent more than a week straight at home, so now that you were there, you realised just how much time had passed by, just how lonely your father must have been, how worn out your old shoes had been, and how loaded all your bookshelves were.

You made yourself busy in and around the house, cleaning up, buying new pillows for yourself and new clothes for your father (it seemed that he didn’t like spending money on himself, rather on books), picking up some herbs for your father from the nearby medics - from two young men, Hyunsuk and Yonghee, who were said to be good friends -, cooking, sewing clothes that were torn, reading the books you had not yet read from the shelves, and daydreaming about how you would take prince Jinyoung to your home, how you would lead him around the house and how you would introduce him to your father… if the circumstances had been different, and he hadn’t been a prince married to a princess.

The news of the royal family reached your neighbourhood as well, so you knew that the prince was on a trip to Elementalia with his wife, and maybe that’s what prompted you to go back to the palace then to formally hand in your written resignation.

The Queen didn’t seem taken aback by your decision, in fact, she rose from her usual sitting position, put her hand on your trembling ones, and gave you an almost motherly smile.

“Thank you so much for your service in the past 16 years. Your mother would be exceptionally proud of you. I wish nothing but the best for you and your father,” she said as she sent you on your way, and when you walked out of her chamber and passed by prince Jinyoung’s own chamber, you knew that it was for the best. Maybe some would say that you ran away from him, but you knew that you couldn’t have run away from the pain even if you had tried. So you had tried to give yourself space and time to decide what would be the best for you, and both your body and your heart thanked you for this decision.

You couldn’t help a teardrop roll down your cheeks though as you stepped through the gates - probably for the very last time -, flashbacks washed into a wheel of events; so much laughter, so much learning, so much love and so much pain. Like the different colours of a rainbow, all of these were needed to make you who you were today, and even though you didn’t believe in forever anymore, you would always, truly, deeply wish for nothing but the best for prince Jinyoung. He had given you so much care and affection, and this was the only way you could repay him.

A/N: I managed to finish writing and proofreading this story in time for the comeback, but I didn't think that it would top all the pain that the comeback might cause. Sorry for that, but I hope that you enjoyed the angst of it!

How do you like the comeback, the MV and the album? Do you have a favourite song? I love suffering, and I love emotional MVs, but the MV and the whole album were on another level in the best way possible. I think the boys outdid themselves again, and I'm super proud of them!

All in all, I hope you enjoyed the story! Thank you so much for reading it! ❤️

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for CIX or for other bands, consider signing up for my taglist here.

On top of that, keep your eyes out for the other boys' stories set in this universe! 😉

[oraclekleo]

Bae Jin Young (CIX) Kinky Reading*

Hello and welcome!

I’m Kleo and I’m here to present some k-pop related tarot readings to you.

Disclaimer:

I would like to state that all these readings have a purely entertainment nature and their purpose is to bring some fun into my and hopefully yours lives. I have never ever met any of the idols / actors / celebrities in my readings, I don’t know them personally. Tarot reading isn’t an exact science and I can never guarantee any of it. Most of it is my intuition mixed with fantasy. Don’t take these readings seriously and don’t base any important decisions on tarot readings only, use your common sense.

If you wish to request a tarot reading, please read the pinned post on my profile first to see the instructions on how to request. I only do readings for idols / actors / celebrities of 18 years of age or older. Requests for readings including younger people will be automatically dismissed. If you feel uncomfortable with these tarot readings, do not engage in reading my posts. Thank you for understanding.

Reading Info:

Rating: 18+

Reading Type: Single - Couple

Requested: Yes - No

Deck: E. A. Poe

Spread: Kinky*

Questions:

Position

Libido

Turn On

Kink

Dirtiest Secret*

Full Name: Bae Jin Young

Stage Name: Bae Jinyoung

Group: CIX

Bae Jin Young

Bae Jinyoung (CIX)

Deck: E. A. Poe

Spread: Kinky*

Position - Queen of Swords

Jinyoung is a cunning and highly methodical dom in a relationship. That man can spot any weakness in a second and will use it against his lover in order to make them look foolish and depend on Jinyoung because he’s so intelligent after all. He’s likely to nag and correct his lover all the time. Jinyoung doesn’t have to seek for sharp words and his honesty is merciless and brutal. Not everyone can handle such a man by their side for sure.

Libido - XVIII The Moon

In order to keep his total dominance, he’s extremely secretive about his sexual urges and preferences. He’s likely to precisely dose his affection and touch just to keep his lover in suspense and drooling for ages. His own libido is mysterious and deeply rooted within his conscience. Jinyoung himself might be still oblivious about the darkest corners and he’s likely going to enjoy thorough exploring of the terrain. His curiosity about the most unorthodox methods and techniques is bottomless.

Turn On - 4 of Swords

Being an absolute dom, Jinyoung is looking for a soft, tender and obedient lover. They should be willing to follow his order and maintain calm no matter how shocking his demands might become. At the same time, he’s not looking for a dummy puppet. His lover should be capable of catching up with his own intellect. Now comes the hard part - What intelligent person would agree to submit to him completely? Lol!

Kink - XII The Hanged Man

Jinyoung is likely into inciting fear in his lover. Don’t get me wrong, he would never severely injure them but he would inflict some pain and keep them thrilled and in suspense. His favourite tools are likely ropes (might have studied the japanese art of erotic bondage) and blindfolds. He’s likely to whisper threats to his lover, though he’s not gonna follow through with them… well… most of them.

Dirtiest Secret* - King of Swords

Honestly… What’s wrong with men named Jinyoung? Bae Jinyoung’s darkest secret is to become the only king and ruler for his lover. He wants to control them completely, their every step and every breath they take would be calculated by Jinyoung in order to create a perfect reality for him. He wants to script and schedule everyday life so nothing happens outside the lines of his imagination. Good luck to anyone who dates this freak. Lol! Would you believe he's my bias?

Thank you for reading!

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[hyunbaes]

[12:12 am]

—

if home is a person, then you started praying to every god that he would never leave your side. baejin, your best friend who you have romantic feelings for, is everything you could’ve ever hoped to find in someone. he is sweet, calm, level-headed and goofy, just as you are. he always looks at you with cute eyes that always speak for him. right now they are saying ‘you are home, and i will protect you with everything i have’. while he may not be aware of the feelings you harbor, or even if he is, he never pushes you to tell him. and he never will… because he’d wait for you for an eternity.

[restlesswritings]

CIX REACTIONS

Reaction to you wearing their clothes

A/N: Requests open; Genre: Fluff Warnings: Suggestive, Cursing Masterlists: JPOP & KPOP

BX

You let out a groan, not being able to reach your favorite mug from the top shelf in the cabinet, "Ugh why did he put it up here!" You mumble to yourself, before standing up on your tiptoes, stretching your body as far as you can. "Ugh, almost got i-" Your words trail off when you hear the sound of someone clearing their throat behind you, you twist back to look at them. "Ehm, hey.." You say sheepishly as you're met with your boyfriend, Byounggon, feeling your face heat up because you know he can definitely see your underwear peeking out from his shirt you have on. "Well damn you look good in my shirt.. need help?" He asks, letting out a laugh, making his way over to you, grabbing the cup and placing it in your hands. "Baby! Next time don't put my mug so high up!" You playfully scold, causing him to smirk as he wraps his arms around your waist. "Oh I'm definitely putting everything up high from now on!" He says, shooting you a toothy grin.

Seunghun

"Hey jagi, can you bring me my charger??" Seunghun yells to you from your shared bedroom, causing you to playfully roll your eyes as you grab his charger. "Hun, just pause the gam-" You begin as you walk into the bedroom, stopping when you see the way your boyfriend is looking at you, eyes completely abandoning the game. "What..?" You ask, standing awkwardly in the doorway, he continues staring at you before a smile creeps onto his face. "You're wearing my hoodie?" He asks, a slight smirk evident on his face. "Y-yeah.. you said I could?" You say slightly confused, earning a laugh from him. "I did but I didn't expect you to actually do it.. I like it a lot.." He says, a blush creeping up his face causing you to smile. "Oh? You do?" You ask, making your way to him. "I didn't think you'd like it this much." You say, a smirk making its way on your lips as you plant a quick kiss on his lips before sprinting out of the room, Seunghun trailing behind you.

Yonghee

"Y/N! You look so cute !" Your boyfriend says excitedly when he walks in the door after seeing you wearing one of his hoodies. "Awh haha thanks baby. How was rehearsal?" You ask, cheeks flushed from his previous compliment, Yonghee lets out a laugh at your shyness as he sits next to you. "Jagi, I can't focus right now, you look too cute in my hoodie!" He says, pulling you into his arms. "You're so dramatic!" You say through laughter when his fingers start tickling your sides. "S-stop." You beg, laughter continuing to fill the air as he joins you. "Only if you promise to never wear another hoodie again, only mine." He says in a serious voice, earning an exaggerated nod from you. "Okay yes whatever you want!" You yell out causing his fingers to stop as he pulls you into his arms. "Good, I could get used to this." He says, running his fingers through your hair. "I love you" You say with a smile, giving him a gentle kiss, causing him to smile. "I love you too."

Jinyoung

"What is it babe?" You ask with a laugh, not expecting your boyfriend to look at you like that when you arrived with groceries. "I'm shocked! You look so good you look in my clothes! I didn't think I'd like it this much is all jagi." He says, turning towards you with a loaf of bread in his hands and a nonchalant look. "Why are you surprised? You saw me put it on this morning.. as a matter of fact you were the one who lost my shirt!" You tell him with a loud laugh, glaring your eyes at him as you remember your lost shirt. "Wh-me? I don't remember that, I don't know what you're talking about." Jinyoung defends, holding in his laughter as he looks away from you. "Okay.." You say sarcastically, teasing him as you wrap your arms around him. "Do you really like it when I wear your clothes?" You ask, he nods, returning your embrace before he looks down at you with a smirk. "Although, thinking about this morning.. I like you better without them." He says, earning a playful smack to the chest followed by laughter from both of you.

Hyunsuk

"Hey Y/N, what was that song called aga-" Hyunsuk's words trail off when he sees you laying on the couch in his over-sized t-shirt, causing your head to fly up, you give him a confused look when you notice him looking at you. "What's wrong?" You ask as he continues his stare, causing you to sit up in an upright position. "Is that my shirt?" He asks, taking a seat next to you, a smile forming on your lips. "Yes! Did you really think I wouldn't take you up on it when you offered to share your clothes??" You ask with a big smile, bumping his much larger shoulder with yours, causing him to let out a small giggle. "I'm really glad you did.. you look so cute in my clothes jagi." Hyunsuk says sweetly, pulling you into his arms. "I don't think you'll ever get this shirt back though.. it's so comfy!" You tell him as you wrap your arms around him and look up at him. "You can keep it, it looks better on you anyways." He says, giving you a gentle kiss on your forehead, causing a giggle to escape your lips.

A/N: They're so CUTE

[wontune]

poderia fazer Locks do Bae Jinyoung pfvrr (cix) 💗

✰ ゙ bae jinyoung [ cix ] lockscreens ‹‹

[mykoreanlove]

Things that made him run to you

[part 1]

[part 2]

“Jinyoung, for fuck’s sake, can you concentrate please?”

No, he couldn’t. Ever since he saw you a couple nights ago, you were living in his head rent-free. He didn’t tell the others – didn’t want to – as he wanted to keep you private for now. Only his to enjoy.

He bumped into you at a local bar, after downing a couple of beers with his acquaintances. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw you. You were still as beautiful as ever but something about you was different. Something about you changed and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

You casually chatted for a while, hitting it off as if nothing had ever happened between the two of you. As you updated him on the recent events in your life he mustered you with hawk-eyes. You were radiant, almost beaming. Your pretty eyes sparkled like diamonds. You smiled whole-heartedly, the smile even reaching your eyes. You spoke your mind confidently, not caring about the opinions of others. He finally figured it out – your whole demeanor had changed. You were on another vibe, another energy that he was drawn to like a moth to the flame.

He stopped listening altogether and only thought about getting you back. He had to have you; he was desperate for you. Seeing you like that – confident, bossy, savage – was beyond attractive.

And you knew. You noticed his pupils dilating, him taking sharper breaths, his dark eyes being glued to your lips – you noticed and loved every second of it.

This man right here broke your heart when he abandoned you back then.

Or so you thought. It took you some time to see the truth of it all, but eventually you did and from that moment on you had nothing but appreciation for him. Because of Jinyoung you were able to be real with yourself. You took his words to heart and worked on yourself. You started loving yourself like you deserve to be loved. Did you imagine it was him in the beginning? Most definitely. But after a while you understood that you were good on your own. You made it into a project, you started loving yourself as a means to get him back but surprisingly you fell in love with yourself for real.

Now you looked into the mirror and loved what you saw. Now you felt happy and content, even if no man was around. Now, you felt like the baddest bitch on this planet. And other people? They thought so, too. They saw the changes in you, sensed the new energy you were embodying and acted accordingly.

Jinyoung wasn’t the only lover you bumped into. Old flames, new flames, they were all lining up the street to be with you. Oh, how your life had changed. Now, they all wanted to be with you. Courting you, spoiling you, making you their #1 priority. And for the first time in your life, you understood why.

“You seem different, y/n.” You looked up into his eyes, almost smitten by his enticing looks. You smiled at him, warmly, before taking his hands into yours.

“I feel different, Jinyoung. And you are the one I have to thank!” He couldn’t follow; his questioning eyes giving him away. “You wanna thank me? If anything, I thought you’d wanna punch me for breaking up with you.”

You laughed out loud, realizing how much you had missed him. “Well, I wanted to… in the beginning. But I realized that you were right. I was a total wreck back then. I relied on you to make me happy and loved and important and stuff but being your emotional slave was no way to live. So, I took your words to heart, and I started to work on myself.” You squeezed his hands, relieved to finally say that out loud. “Thank you, Jinyoung. Thank you for opening my eyes. That heartbreak changed me for the better and I can now say that I love myself. All of me – the good, the bad, the ugly. I made peace with myself, and I feel like I’m ready for love. True love!”

Jinyoung replayed that scene over and over. Back then he wished for this outcome, but he never would have anticipated it coming true. You had changed and he could tell. It irked him that every other man could also tell – they were eyeing you like prey.

He couldn’t blame them though. You were the sexiest woman in this bar, capturing every man’s attention without even trying. Why would you try though? You were so full of love and admiration for yourself, every other pair of eyes was simply a luxury. A preference, not a necessity. Now it was Jinyoung squeezing your hands: “Ready for love, huh? Should we give it another try then?”

“Everybody, let’s take a break. And Jinyoung, you better get your act together!” His manager was pissed, but he couldn’t care less.

He grabbed his phone hastily and sighed in dismay as he noticed that you hadn’t text him back. “Why won’t she answer?”, he mumbled silently. And then you did. He almost dropped his phone from excitement as he saw your name pop up. Heart beating faster he beamed with joy as you agreed to see him.

“I’m gonna make you mine again y/n, just wait and see.”

[yv17]

a/n: cix comeback was announced and i CANNOT WAIT. it's gonna be another bop (as always because they never miss) ^-^ and idk if this work makes any sense but yeah, i was falling asleep while writing this so it probably has a lot of mistakes, sorry :((

[00:59] "uh, jinyoung? i think you accidentally messed up my order."

jinyoung's head snapped in your direction, looking at you as you took the food out of the bag. you were hanging at cix's dorms as usual, you and the boys deciding that a movie night might be a nice way to spend your time. and since jinyoung lost the game of rock paper scissors - which was definitely not the only way the boys would decide on different things - this time he was the one to order food for all of you.

and he just had to accidentally take yonghee's order two times.

all of the boys turned their attention towards the two of you, knowing you'll probably be upset by jinyoung's mistake, since you were a picky eater. the boy gave you no time for any comments of disappointment, though, as he quickly ran to your side and took the box from the bottom of the bag, the one he saved for himself.

"here, you can have mine" he said, handing the box over to you, a small smile on his face. you couldn't see it, due to the lighting in the room, but the way your eyes lit up at his offer made the tips of his ears turn red. "you always steal it from me anyways, and since it's my mistake, i'll eat the wrong order."

you smiled brightly, giving your best friend a quick but warm hug and mumbling a small 'thank you' under your breath, only to grab his hand and drag him to the couch, where the other boys were currently seated.

the movie started and all six of you sat down to enjoy your food, trying to not make too much noise so you could clearly hear everything happening in the movie. jinyoung sat at the very corner, slowly munching on the food, when he heard yonghee shifting in his seat next to him.

"dude, you literally hate all the food i order" he whispered looking at the other boy with his head tilted to the side "and it's one of y/n's favorite meals. you simp for her this hard, yet you didn't knew it?"

you couldn't help but hear yonghee's comment amongst all the chaos happening on the tv screen, and the realization hit you. bae jinyoung, the boy every single girl would've killed to have, your best friend, liked you.

you tried to ignore that for the rest of the night. when it came time to wash the dishes, you were the first one to stand up, already heading to the kitchen with half of the plates in your hands. and, much to your satisfaction, jinyoung followed right after, offering to lend a helping hand.

the two of you did the chore in silence, but you could feel the occasional stares he would send in your direction.

"you know, for someone who's always trying to keep his cool guy persona, you're very obvious about staring at me" you said, not even looking up from the plate you were cleaning, and jinyoung froze in his actions.

"you don't seem to be complaining, though" he said, trying to hide the fact that he was in fact incredibly nervous; which you could see clearly, because as much as his face said nothing, the tips of his ears were still red.

and this time you caught that.

taglist: @honey-choi @moonarix @triuusi <3

>> main masterlist

>> cix masterlist

[astroyongie]

Cix red flags, pls! 🙇‍♀️ Thank you!

CIX Red Flags

Note: please remember this is simply based on their astrological charts !

BX

Unstable emotional

Has mood swings

During an argument he has the tendency to play victim

To blame himself

And it’s impossible to make him see reality of things

He would also act selfish about certain things

Sometimes good emotions are so intense he might be aggressive

Or overall uncontrolled

In love his red flags are being emotionally distant

Has a hard time showing his feelings

Might cheat

Seunghun

On arguments he is exactly like BX

Meaning he always blames himself and plays victim

And gets so far up his lies and mind that he can’t accept things

Even if he knows he isn’t right.

He would act pouty and distant

Hold grudges

A little bit to mistrustful and jealous too

In love he often forgets about his partner

Selfish side

Demands a lot as well

Emotionally sensitive

A little bit manipulative as well

Yonghee

He puts his work before his relationship

And his projects and goals will always come first

Hard time showing love

Emotionally he is get sensitive as well

And he can get self destructive

Manipulative tendencies

During arguments he stays silent

He nods and don’t communicate

Usually brushes it off

But he also has anger issues

So that’s why he prefers not to say anything

And just walk away from things

Bae

You never know about him

Sometimes he acts like you are the best thing on his life

Other times he ignores you

The No in between is hard

Emotionally he can be very egocentric

He thinks a lot about his own emotions and not enough about yours

Despite his good heart, it’s him first

Dramatic. Like a lot

During arguments he is so stubborn

It’s impossible to make him change his opinion

He just doesn’t care

Extremely possessive on his relationships

And he likes to be taken care of but lacks initiatives to take care of his partner

Hyunsuk

Emotionally speaking he is complicated

Loves you but doesn’t shows it

And he only believes on his own emotions

It’s hard to get inside his head

During arguments he always changes versions

You might think he lies

Or that he is simply trying to please you

Plus he acts recklessly

As if he didn’t care at all

Takes too many risks with your relationships without asking you first

As a lover he often thinks about himself more than about his partner

Puts his needs first

Very demanding

[iwillgiveyoumyhappiness]

What do you think makes cix horny?? Like what do you think makes them want to pin you against a wall 😳

Cause ngl I feel like even the quiet ones would have their moments

Byounggon: When you dress up, specially for him. Whether that's lingerie or an off-the-shoulder dress for a dinner party, he feels touched (and turned on) by the effort you put in for him. He always thinks you're gorgeous, but it's really a whole other level when you pamper yourself and really feel beautiful. He loves the idea of tainting the perfect look you've got going on. Messing up your hair, smudging your lipstick, sucking bruises onto your flawless skin. Though he'd like to make his intentions known right away, he usually makes himself wait, because the longer he thinks about it, the more eager he is when the timing actually comes about—and that leads to a fun night. All of his usual inhibitions are thrown out the window, 'cause as the outfit would entail... It's a special night.

Seunghun: Honestly, this dude's always good to go—any time, any place—so he just kinda follows your lead. If you're horny, so is he. Overall, it's gotta be your eyes that do it for him. If you give him The Look™ from across a crowded room or while standing in the doorway watching him strip out of his sweaty practice clothes, he can't help but smirk to himself like, "Yeahhhhh, she's into me," as if you aren't already dating. His mood can change in two seconds flat. He can be the sweetest, cuddliest teddy bear of a boyfriend, but the moment you send him signals, softness is the farthest thing from his mind.

Yonghee: I have a long-standing theory that Yonghee has sensitive ears, so pretty much anything you whisper to him sends shivers down his spine and sets his skin on fire—especially if it's a compliment. If you lean over during a dinner with the guys and say, "you look really good", even if it's completely innocent, he'll still feel his entire body tense up. It's a combination of things. Your fly-aways tickling his cheek and neck, the proximity, your warm breath against the sensitive shell of his ear, the fact that you always manage to smell so damn good. He really can't get enough of you, and that's on a normal day. He can usually calm himself and hold himself back pretty well, but imagine how crazy things get when you're specifically trying to turn him on.

Jinyoung: When you swear. He can't really pinpoint what it is, but when you swear during a rant, because you splashed some hot oil on your arm, or at him, blood goes rushing straight between his legs. He feels kinda bad about it sometimes, because swearing the way he likes means you're either annoyed, hurt, angry, or upset—but you always seem to feel much better after he helps your relieve your stress, so he can't feel too bad about it. But seriously though, if you're telling him to 'put his fucking socks in the laundry basket, 'cause he's a grown man and it's not that hard', he's pinning you to the wall and shoving his tongue down your throat real fast. He always slips into kicked puppy mode afterwards and apologizes though, 'cause he doesn't want you to feel like he's invalidating your feelings—you're just really sexy to him, in everything you do.

Hyunsuk: He's a simple man. Legs. Wear shorts or a skirt and he's already so far gone, it's almost embarrassing. You're not even trying to be sexy, you're just going about your day, yet he can't even control himself. Once he's comfortable with you and your relationship, he's not afraid to tell you when he's feelin' spicy, but he's also totally cool if you're not in the mood. If you let him cuddle with you and rub your legs, he'll be equally as satisfied (though he will playfully pout and say he's been cockblocked by his own girlfriend). Another thing that gets him going is when he sees you having fun without him. The independence and—in a way—your lack of reliance on him just really turns him on. He wants to make you need him.

[kyufessions]

Losers

context: best friend! hyunsuk has had a developing crush on best friend! g.n. reader for quite some time, but terrified of confessing to them (featuring close friends! cix)

word count: 2.0k

warnings: fluff, just both clueless, making out at one point, some arguing but not too descriptive so i guess a tad bit of angst ?

a/n: clueless love struck hyunsuk </3 so cute ! i am in no way saying this is how any of them would act in the situation with reader x jinyoung (especially jinyoung), this is all fiction and in no way real.

—————-

everyone at the dorms absolutely adored you- they thought of you as their secret sixth member who laid low and kept them company most days. they’d even refer to you as a sibling of theirs (mainly byounggon and yonghee). but out of everyone, you were closest to hyunsuk. both of you were inseparable to be honest- always cuddling during movie nights and on facetime when not together. the other four would always tease about you two getting together eventually, but it’s been a good two years and nothing even remotely close has happened between you two to that extent.

something of that extent would have happened if hyunsuk wasn’t so terrified of making a move. everytime you even look at him it causes his heart to race; don’t even get him started when you fall asleep with your head on his shoulder because he could go on for hours. he liked everything about you, both inside and out. and everyone knew it too, except you of course. when it came to you, you were oblivious.

you liked hyunsuk at first, but as months turned into two years right before your eyes you decided to let your feelings subside. you figured he didn’t feel the same so you decided to attempt to move on. you would go on occasional dates, nothing too serious, but none of them started working out once you realized you had feelings for someone else besides hyunsuk as well. they only started around two months ago, but they were growing at a rapid pace. you had no clue how it happened, but here you were in the dorms. alone. with said person.

hyunsuk had been out running errands, making sure to be back in time before you had gotten there. he even picked up some of your favorites from the convenience store down the street, loving the excitement in your face when you were surprised by little things such as buying your favorite things out of the blue. but his excitement exited his body as he entered the living room of the dorm to find you sitting in the lap of his other member, lips moving together hungrily as your hands tangled themselves in his hair and his hands held your waist.

he felt his heart shatter. all the members knew of his feelings for you, especially jinyoung. but here he was, shoving his tongue down the throat of the person he felt himself gradually falling in love with. he made his way out of the room quietly, neither of you hearing him enter. he dragged his feet towards his shared room with yonghee, opening the door to see his roommate sitting up on his iPad. when he noticed you enter in a sulking manner, his attention shifted from his current math problem he was attempting to solve to the sad maknae.

“hey, what’s wrong?” yonghee asked, setting his iPad down on the nightstand beside him. he shifted his body to have his legs hanging off the side of the bed, resting his elbows on his thighs as he leaned forward to listen better.

hyunsuk put the bag of your goodies on his bed, sitting beside it and playing with the plastic bag. “i didn’t know y/n and jinyoung were a thing.”

yonghee’s eyes widened, tilting his head to the side. “what do you mean they’re a ‘thing’?”

hyunsuk pointed towards the door before ripping open the bag and taking out a drink he bought for you, debating if he should drink it or not touch it and just give it to you later. “they’re out there making out on the couch.”

and with that, the older member stormed out of the room and down the hall to talk to jinyoung. hyunsuk didn’t bother to listen in when the voices got bigger, even when his name was mentioned. he just stared down in the bag of the goodies, eventually picking it up and stuffing it into an empty nightstand drawer. for now, he just wanted to lay in his bed and forget everything. he would put it all away later.

when yonghee interrupted your heated make out session with jinyoung, you were confused as to why he was pissed off. that was until he said something you never thought you’d hear.

“you know hyunsuk likes them, why would you do that to him?” was all yonghee said to have your mind scrambling.

you had no clue how hyunsuk felt whatsoever. again, as previously stated, you were oblivious to that fact. you sat there, listening for a few more moments before deciding to get up and storm off to hyunsuk and yonghee’s room. when yonghee said your best friend walked in on you both, you knew he would be in his room. after all, where else would he be?

you didn’t even knock, just entered and watched as he sat up from his bed with his sad eyes meeting yours. you just sighed, walking over to his bed and sitting at the far end corner. he just watched you in silence, not sure of what to say. he didn’t really have a reason to be mad at you, really. he was more upset at his group mate and himself if anything.

“why didn’t you tell me how you felt, hyunsuk?” you questioned, not breaking eye contact with him for a second. you weren’t sure how to feel at this point- you had a million thoughts in your head.

“i was scared you wouldn’t feel the same.”

“for two years?” he nodded, causing a sigh to escape your lips once more. “i liked you too, you should’ve said something sooner.”

“past tense?”

you nodded, looking down at your hands and fiddling with your fingers. “i figured if you liked me you would’ve said something. so i tried to move on. then i got closer with jinyoung and- yeah.”

he shrugged, still looking at you. “i get it. i mean, it’s jinyoung.”

you chuckled, shaking your head. “no, hyunsuk. don’t. you don’t get it. don’t think lowly of yourself because of this- because of me.”

you stood up, not wanting to look at him as you started walking towards the door to exit his room. ”i, i still really like you but after this i don’t know how to feel. i wish i would’ve known sooner. i’m sorry.”

and with that, you walked out of his room and the dorm as yonghee and jinyoung both argued back and forth in the living room with byounggon trying to calm everything down. no one paid attention to you as you left, too immersed in everything that was happening.

days, weeks, and months passed by without a word from you. you hadn’t reached out to anyone, too embarrassed of the situation. you made out with jinyoung while his best friend had a massive crush on you, and you were too blind to even notice it.

for a few days, everything was bitter between the two. after a week, everyone else forced them to sit down and talk it out like adults. and they did. apologies were spilled and hugs were exchanged. they both agreed to not allow anyone to come between them, especially over romantic interests. after that, everyone messaged in the group chat you were in with them hoping you’d respond. but as weeks went on and you hadn’t responded, they became more concerned than anything. they all missed you, especially hyunsuk. but there wasn’t much for them to do if you weren’t responding since they didn’t want to push it. all they could do was text you occasionally and hope for some type of response.

months passed, and nothing. that was until one brisk october night when hyunsuk went for a nightly walk by himself. you had been on his mind all day, even more than normal. so he figured he take a small stroll through the park you both met at- coincidentally three years ago today. it was almost eleven at night, the sounds of crickets filling the night air.

the pale moonlight kept you company as you swung weakly back and forth on the swing, your head leaning against the chains. you were missing hyunsuk and the rest of the boys a lot more than normal, but you were too scared to text them. what if they hated you? or wanted nothing to do with you? you knew that wasn’t the case, but your thoughts held you back.

when hyunsuk saw you from a distance, he felt his legs dragging him towards you. he had no idea what he was going to say, if he was going to say anything at all. but he just had to see you up close in a better atmosphere than the previous one. even if it was potentially going to be for the last time.

you looked up as you heard someone approaching, the last person you expected to see be yoon hyunsuk. your breath caught in your throat, unsure of what to say to him. you both stared at each other as he sat in the empty swing next to you. for a while, you both just swung back and forth in silence. up until he spoke up.

“i missed you.” hyunsuk confessed, kicking his feet back and forth in the dirt.

you nodded, scared to talk. so for a few moments you just sat there not saying anything, until the guilt took over you and you decided to speak up. “i missed you too. i just feel, embarrassed about everything. almost like it’s my fault.”

hyunsuk took this opportunity to look at you and reach over to place his hand on top of yours in your lap, careful to not push any boundaries he made sure to hover his hand above yours. when you reached up to grab his hand, that’s when he knew it was okay to do so. he started rubbing circles into the back of your hand before speaking again. “nothing is your fault at all. you didn’t know of my feelings for you, i should’ve said something before. i just thought you didn’t feel the same and i was terrified of losing what we had if you didn’t.”

you let out a dry laugh, looking up to meet his eyes. they held hope yet sadness at the same time, and all you wanted to do was hold him in your arms. “suk, i’ve had feelings for you for the last two or so years. i just didn’t think you felt the same way either so i tried going on dates to forget you and even convinced myself of having a crush on jinyoung to forget my feelings for you. but it didn’t work and, as fuck up as this sounds, i was imagining you the whole time.”

hyunsuk couldn’t hold back his laughter, causing you to let out a hearty laugh as well. as he threw his head back, you just stared at him with admiration. you’ve missed this, all of this. his laughter, his smile, everything under the sun. this time, you were going to make sure not to let him go.

“no one is mad at you; in fact we all miss you. me more though, of course.” he stood up, interlacing his fingers with yours and tugging on your arm ever so gently. “come on, let’s go on our first date.”

you stood up as well, following behind him in confusion. “what if i don’t want to?” you joked, a playful smile tugging at your lips.

he looked back at you and rolled his eyes, letting out a soft chuckle afterwards. “we’re both losers who are hopelessly falling for each other, i don’t think you’d say no.” he pulled you up to his side, bringing your hand to his lips and planting a soft kiss on the back of it. “unless you don’t want to, of course. i won’t force you.”

you shook your head, a smile never leaving your face as your cheeks heated up. “this loser would love to go on this long awaited date with you.”

[still-astray]

Hello Chapter: Hello, CIX

Nala joins the lineup for CIX.

Genre: fluff

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: none

Everything that day had gone wrong so far. Starting from the second she woke up to someone drizzling cold water on her.

Then came the dance practice after school. Nala was not known for her dance skills, and whenever she messed up in the least it seemed like she’d never get it right.

Then finally it was not being able to eat dinner that night due to a diet. It wasn’t her fault she’d stayed at the same weight for months no matter what she’d done to try and lose a few pounds.

And that night, Nala was hungry.

So when she got the phone call from her brother Alex, the last thing she wanted to do was answer. But knowing Alex, he would scold her for not answering the next time he saw her. And Nala hated when her brother got onto her for anything.

It’s not like she needed a third parent. Right?

Sighing, she hit accept and turned the phone to speaker DK she wouldn’t have to hold it. “Alex, you had better have a good reason for calling at this hour-“

“I do,” Alex cut her off, sounding more excited than he had since getting placed into the lineup for the new boy group. “And you’re going to be thrilled, sis.”

“Spill.” Nala shifted on her mattress, still skeptical.

She heard Alex take a deep breath through the phone. “You’re in the lineup.”

It didn’t quite register. “What?”

“You’re gonna debut in CIX. With me.”

“What?”

“Listen. The lineup is BX, Seunghun, Yonghee, me, Jinyoung, Hyunsuk, and you. CIX will be seven now.”

“Wait, you’re not talking about Bae Jinyoung, are you?”

“Wanna One?”

“Duh.”

“One and the same. And BX and Seunghun were both on Treasure Box.”

“What?!”

“Well, it is what it is. Even if you hate us.”

“Alex Yamaguchi, you know that’s not what I mean. I just mean that I never expected this to happen.” Nala chewed her lower lip, suddenly nervous for what the following day might bring.

“Can’t wait to get you here with us.” Alex fell silent for a moment. “But you know, we’re getting closer to debut. You’re really going to have to step up the dance skills.”

“Anyone besides you who’d be willing to help me?”

“What, you’re still not accepting my help after-”

“Shut up. We don’t talk about that. Just answer my question.”

Alex sighed through the phone. “Other than your own brother, since Jinyoung is easily one of our best dancers-“

“Nope. Not Jinyoung.”

“Why? Scared of him cause he’s already famous?” Nala could practically hear the wink in her brother’s tone.

“I’m not elaborating. Anyone else?”

“Well, there’s always Seunghun-”

“Nope. Someone not previously known.”

“So you are scared of them because they’re famous!” Alex crowed triumphantly.

Nala sighed. “Let’s just leave that aspect alone. Is there anyone else?”

“Hyunsuk- that is, Yoon Hyunsuk. Choi Hyunsuk debuted in Treasure.”

“Did they combine Jaehyuk and Hyunsuk to come up with him?” Nala quipped.

Alex laughed. “No, actually, while his name would suggest that, he looks more like Hueningkai of Txt than either Jaehyuk or other Hyunsuk.”

Nala shook her head, too tired to fully comprehend. “Guess I’ll just have to wait and see for myself. So he’s a dancer but not previously known?”

“Fits all your criteria except for he’s tall.”

“You’re tall and I’m not scared of you.”

“I mean tall. He’s six two.”

“Oh-”

“But, the only members left to help you with dance are: Yonghee, who you’d be scared of because he’s a math genius, BX, who you’d be scared of because he was on Treasure Box, or me, who you don’t trust anymore with dance because of-”

“I said we don’t talk about that-” interrupted Nala.

“-that thing we don’t talk about,” finished Alex at the same time.

Nala sighed. “So basically you’re saying that I’m about to debut in a group where I’m probably going to be scared of all the members?”

“Most likely. I think you’ll find we’re not scary though. Sure, a few of us are previously known. Sure, one of us is tall. But you’ll get used to us.”

“Hope so. Say, your members aren’t hearing your conversation, are they?”

“Huh? What- no, gosh no. I locked myself in the bathroom and turned the fan on high because I knew I’d end up pointing out which members you’d be scared of. But I can hear someone banging on the door so I’d better go.”

Nala laughed in spite of herself. “Yeah, you’d better.”

“Alright, sis. See ya tomorrow.” But before Alex hung up, Nala heard him yell, “Jinyoung, I swear if you bang on that door one more time I’ll-”

Then the line went silent. Nala set the phone down, giggling at the mini-exchange. Hoo boy, if that doesn’t describe Alex, I don’t know what does.

The next morning, Nala was awake bright and early- well, technically it was dark and early, considering that the sun hadn’t even begun to peek over the horizon yet.

She’d stayed up late to pack, and although now she could hardly keep her eyes open, at least she didn’t have to pack this morning. She’d gotten a call from her trainee group’s manager right after Alex hung up, telling her to be ready to leave for the CIX practice room (and ultimately, dorms) early enough to be at the room at seven the next morning.

Stumbling through the room, lines from Insomnia by Stray Kids flitted through her head, eliciting a tired, half-hearted laugh. “Insomnia wasn’t even the reason I didn’t sleep,” she muttered, brushing her teeth and raking a brush through her hair. “Maybe I can catch a few winks before meeting CIX.”

Unfortunately, forty winks was an impossible wish. As soon as she exited the dorm she saw Alex waiting for her. “Alex, what the f-”

“Language, my dear sister.” Alex poked the tip of her nose.

“I was going to say frick, not the actual word.” Nala wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes. Maybe he would carry her to the room…

“Not a chance, sis.“ Alex pushed her upright and steadied her. “I don’t know why you didn’t sleep, but now you have to wake up.”

“Wake me when we arrive.” Nala flopped onto the floor and refused to move.

“Yonghee might tease you if you’re late,” warned Alex, but Nala could hear the smile in his tone. “Plus, aren’t you the one always telling me that first impressions are the most important?”

“So?”

“Lateness for the first practice doesn’t exactly give off a good first impression. And don’t you want to start off in the leader’s good graces?”

“Who’s the leader?”

“BX.”

Nala shot up and was halfway down the hallway before Alex caught up to her. “Wrong way, sis,” he panted. “It’s the other way.”

“Are you kidding me?!”

It was nearing seven when she and Alex reached the CIX practice room. Nala hung back, nervously biting her nails while Alex slipped inside the practice room to introduce her.

A moment later her phone buzzed with the go-ahead message. Taking a breath, she stepped inside before she could chicken out.

“Hello, I’m Nala-” She stopped short mid-bow, lifting her head and looking around suspiciously. “Alex, isn’t there anyone here?”

“Well, there’s me,” came a voice, and Nala jumped in surprise as a familiar figure came from around a corner. “Hey, Nala, nice to meet you.”

Nala turned quickly to see the speaker, and her eyes widened a bit when she saw BX- real name Byounggon, as she’d known him by before- standing there smiling. “H-hello-”

From across the room, Alex chuckled. “I kinda figured that would be your reaction, sis. Just wait till the rest of ‘em come out.”

“Alex, you planned it this way?”

“Well, you do get overwhelmed by meeting lots of people at once.”

“I… dang. I guess you really aren’t so bad sometimes.”

“I wouldn’t say that yet. You’re gonna hate me in a few minutes. Like, really hate me.”

“How so?” BX queried.

“Remember what I told you last night?”

Nala gasped. “You told him?! Alex, you little-”

Arms encircled her, preventing her from charging over and possibly hurting Alex. Nala struggled. “Alex, you two-faced little fox, you let go of me!”

“I’m not Alex,” laughed the voice of the one holding her.

Nala froze. “Then who are you?”

“Well, I’m not the one everyone knows is good at math.”

“So not Yonghee.”

“Right. I wasn’t on Treasure Box.”

“Okay, you’re not Seunghun.”

“And I’m not the youngest.”

“But the youngest is me,” pointed out Nala, “so that doesn’t really tell me much.”

“Okay, then, I’m not six foot two.”

Nala inhaled. “You’re Bae Jinyoung!”

Jinyoung laughed, swinging her gently from side to side. “Do I sense a Wannable?”

Nala felt a blush rise from her neck to her ears. “I may or may not be a fan.”

Alex hooted. “That means she’s a huge Wannable.”

“Aw, shut up, Alex,” mumbled Nala, embarrassed. “You’d react the same way if you were joining Blackpink.”

“That is not the point.”

Jinyoung chuckled. “Whatever the case may be, I look forward to helping you with dance.”

Nala’s jaw dropped. “Alex!!!”

Alex howled with laughter. “Oh boy, this is going to be so worth whatever she does me to later.”

[restlessmaknae]

back to life

Jinyoung didn’t deserve to be believed, being misunderstood was his punishment for not being able to help his friend when he would have needed it. He felt like he could have a redemption only if he finished school without anyone talking to him, so why... why did you want to see him when he wanted to be invisible?

➳ Characters: high school senior!Jinyoung x female reader/you

➳ Genre: high school au, coming of age, real-life bittersweet

➳ Words: 5.2k

➳ Warning: due to the connection to the CIX story films, there will be mentions of Yonghee's suicide attempt, bullying, violence, minor character death (Seunghun's mother), blood, hospital visits, plus panic attack, insomnia and a lot of guilt, negative self-talk on Jinyoung's part, reader has a non-specified digestive disorder, so please, do not read the story if you feel triggered by such topics!

➳ A/N: This was a story that I came up with even before the Save me, kill me MV and the following story films (ep. 6-10) were released, so there are parts that do not cover the story films, yet this is my general interpretation of its lore, plus additional fictional parts. Hope you enjoy it! ❤️

➳ CIX taglist: @wccycc, @dat-town

Jinyoung knew that he deserved the glares, the stares, the malicious whispers behind his back. If that was what he had to bear for what he had done (or hadn’t done) to Yonghee, then so be it. He could never suffer as much as his friend had done so.

He deserved it, he knew that, he deserved it all.

So he kept his eyes on the ground, avoiding the endless sea of judgemental faces, shut his ears to block out the noise of rumours, and kept his emotions at bay to prevent further bursts of fury to unleash onto someone who didn’t deserve it. After all, if he had just been kinder to Yonghee, if he had just treated him gently instead of using violence, maybe this would have not happened… If… In this world, ifs didn’t amount to anything. They couldn’t bring back the happy memories they shared, they couldn’t turn back time prior to the tragedy, and they couldn’t magically bring Yonghee to consciousness. Despite the fact that the boy was still alive, the heart monitor beside his hospital bed indicating that his heart hadn’t given up, the doctors weren’t that positive regarding his condition.

“He fell from such a high building…”

“He lost so much blood…”

“The fall was rough, he hurt himself badly…”

As if the boy hadn’t struggled enough before, he was still in so much pain, and seeing his body attached to all those wires, oxygen mask on his scarred face, impossibly white sheets covering his injured body, Jinyoung felt even worse. Whenever he visited his friend in the hospital, whenever he looked at Yonghee’s face, he was reminded of their last encounter, and it was enough for him to want to scratch at his skin for it was too unbearable to deal with the consequences of his own actions.

Even though Hyunsuk had tried to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, Jinyoung didn’t believe him. After all, Yonghee had jumped the day he had pushed him to the shelves, yelling at him, asking if he had been crazy to want to hurt himself over a bad grade. He could never understand the obsession of Yonghee’s parents regarding their son’s good grades, let alone how much it impacted the boy since he himself had never been a good student, nor had he tried to be one.

If he could have just been a bit more empathetic, if he had just opened his eyes to the signs a little earlier…

Jinyoung felt the rush of guilt creeping into his veins, taking over his heart and mind, and he welcomed the feeling almost like a familiar visitor by now. He balled his hands into fists, his nails digging deep into the flesh as he tried to let it wash through him, let it drown him. He wanted nothing more than to drown in this feeling, but reality always brought him back to life - this time, it was you.

“Oh, sorry,” you apologised hastily as you noticed the boy sitting on the floor between two bookshelves, and he looked up, albeit a bit hazily. It was as if you had woken him up from a stupor, he still didn’t feel like his senses were his, his surroundings were real. It was always like this when guilt pulled him under.

He kept quiet, waiting for you to break eye-contact or outright leave this particular section of the school library that he had found to be quiet, so he could hide here while the others were having lunch at the canteen. Not that he had a good appetite these past few weeks, but bearing the watching eyes of others while eating would have been too much, all too much. So just like before, he was a coward, and cowardly chose the easier path - running away.

After transferring schools, somehow rumours followed him, and now everyone here thought that he had killed a student aggressively at his previous school, and he had only managed to avoid juvy because his parents were rich and bribed the jury. While in reality, Yonghee’s case was classified as a suicide attempt for now, and the boy had neither died, nor had Jinyoung been the bully in his case. Not that it mattered when his friend was still lying in bed, still in a coma.

“Do you mind if I join?” You inquired instead of leaving, and confusion brought Jinyoung back to the here and now. Why were you trying to join him when he was a so-called murderer? And why did you bring your lunch box to the library? Did you not eat at the canteen like the others?

He merely looked at you, unfazed, and only spoke up when you didn’t leave.

“Why? Don’t you believe what they say about me?”

“I don’t,” came the answer immediately, and the fast response took the boy aback. “If you had indeed killed someone, and your parents would have bribed the jury, they would probably not want anyone else to know about the bribery, so word wouldn’t have gotten around. Besides, you would probably not be as lifeless as you are now if you had indeed killed someone in cold blood,” you explained thoroughly, your tone almost diplomatic. Ah, now he knew who you were - not by your face but by your voice. You were the top student of the other class, and you went to English classes together. You were always the one who had to give the right answer when no one wanted to speak up.

“Why believe in my innocence when you don’t even know me?” Jinyoung protested, not letting the topic drop. He didn’t deserve to be believed, being misunderstood was his punishment for not being able to help his friend when he would have needed it. He felt like he could have a redemption only if he finished school without anyone talking to him, but instead, looking down on him, and labelling him as a murderer.

So why, why did you want to see him when he wanted to be invisible?

“I know prejudices are scarcely right, and besides… you are in my usual hideout place,” you remarked as you pointed around you. Jinyoung could have believed that the autobiography section of the school library wasn’t that frequently visited, but for you to have it as your usual hideout place meant that you must have frequented it.

Jinyoung found himself unable to say anything to that, and you took that as a sign of approval, so you lowered yourself down and sat on the ground, your back to the shelf opposite of the one Jinyoung leaned towards. You were at a decent distance from each other, but the boy still felt oddly bare given the visibility. It was as if he was afraid that you would get to know how torn and broken he was if you got any closer. Which you didn’t, thankfully.

Instead, you opened your lunch box, and took a bite from your seemingly homemade food. You stared at the books in front of you instead of looking at him, and he was both relieved and frustrated by this. All of this just for you to sit there to eat?

On the other hand, Jinyoung knew that he had no reason to question you. Not you out of all people. So he just let you have your lunch in peace while he was slipping back into his own self-destructive thoughts, glad that they didn’t change. Someone like you might have believed that he was innocent, but Jinyoung knew very well that he wasn’t. If anything, he might have been the worst of them all. Even Seunghun could forgive Yonghee after what had happened to Seunghun’s mother, but why couldn’t Jinyoung move on from that day and wish for his friend to wake up?

Because he knew very well that he would need to face him, and he wasn’t ready for that. He wasn’t sure that he would ever be.

Jinyoung should have known that when you meant that the autobiography section in the school library was your hideout place, you meant that you went there frequently, but he didn’t give it too much thought. In fact, he didn’t really give anything too much thought apart from how he should have been there for Yonghee, and how much he wished he could have turned back time to make everything right.

On the other hand, you did come back day after day, and the boy didn’t have the heart to send you away, nor did he find a different hideout place when students were all over the building and the schoolyards during lunch break, so there was nowhere else to hide. Here though, no one bothered you. To be precise, Jinyoung was bothered by your presence at first, but since you didn’t push him for answers, you just greeted him when he showed up or vice versa, and finished your lunch in silence, he couldn’t find a reason to be bothered by you. He merely didn’t understand why you weren’t bothered by him.

“Why don’t you eat with the others?” He found himself asking once, eyes narrowing as his eyes found yours. You blinked a few times at him as if you were surprised that he had actually asked a question from you, and gulped down your food before answering.

“I don’t have any friends, and I don’t want anyone to comment on my food. I have enough of that on school trips,” you sighed out, your voice carrying an all too familiar emotion - bitterness. Raw, deeply personal, and fragile. Bitterness wasn’t a feeling that he had been familiar with before, but now, if one emotion could embody what he was going through, it would be this one big mess of bitterness without seemingly an end in sight.

The boy assumed that you would leave it at that, but you didn’t. He found that he didn’t exactly mind.

“I have gut problems, so I need to bring my own food, but they make fun of it as if I chose to eat this way. You don’t realise how isolating it can be when you can’t eat the food that others eat, but here, no one bothers me,” you added as you looked around the huge, still shelves of books that could indeed not ask stupid questions, let alone judge her for spending her lunch break here. He could understand the sentiment well.

“That’s ridiculous,” he snorted in disbelief, but your lips trembled and sadness moved into your eyes, so he felt the need to add. “That they make fun of you for that, I mean. It’s not your fault,” he justified solemnly, and your shoulders easened as if you had been bearing a weight for so long that had just come off now.

“You’re the first person who says that at school.”

Jinyoung was about to open his mouth, but he couldn’t utter a word. It had never been him who had caught onto someone’s change in their body language or who was said to be the most empathetic. After all, if he had been, Yonghee wouldn’t have laid in a hospital bed… So for you to voice out that he was the first one who took your side, he didn’t even know if he should have protested or shared that it was only natural in his eyes.

He closed his mouth, and looked down at his own intertwined fingers - ones that pushed those away who wanted to keep him close, ones that pushed Yonghee away quite literally when he should have needed help the most. He felt himself going back into his usual spiral of destructive thoughts when your voice pulled him out.

Again.

“Where’s your lunch? Aren’t you eating?”

He was so surprised by the question that his eyebrows elevated and his eyes widened. He was sure that he seemed pretty dumbfounded because you let out a short-lived yet beautiful (thus fragile) giggle, and explained that you figured out that he was here during lunch break because he didn’t want to eat with the others. However, unlike you, he didn’t have food with him.

“I don’t feel like eating.”

“You should. You need the energy to bear all the weight of those malicious rumours,” you pointed out almost gently, giving him a small smile before turning back to your food and proceeding to eat.

You didn’t say a word afterwards, nor did he, but now he wasn’t sure whether his lack of response was because he didn’t find it in himself to tell you that he didn’t care, that he was fine, that he deserved it, that you didn’t know anything, or because he was awestruck by the fact that someone cared. That you cared whether he ate or not, whether he was affected by the malicious rumours or not.

That you cared about him in the first place.

Jinyoung wouldn’t deem it a habit, but you still came back day after day, and he did come back day after day as well, and somehow you fell into this unfamiliar rhythm of silences filled with occasional, more or less vulnerable questions, and his heart was open to answer them. Even when you inquired whether he didn’t want to fix the broken watch around his wrist and he said that it was a friend’s, so he didn’t want to, he didn’t mind telling you, and you didn’t push for more details, so he left it at that.

He didn’t admit though that the watch was Yonghee’s, and that he found it with a torn glass lens on the rooftop of the school - from where Yonghee had jumped from. He had picked it up alongside the boy’s phone, and selfishly kept the watch, so that it could remind him of the only time that mattered - of his friend’s lifespan; so that it could be a compass for him - to show where he was supposed to go; so that it could be a guide for him - to indicate what he was supposed to do, what was the right thing to do. Such as not beating up the bullies at his previous school even though he had wanted to.

You also shared how tough it was to constantly live up to the expectations of your parents, teachers and classmates, and how you were always supposed to give the right answer even if you were an outcast, even if you were ridiculed for your health problems, even if you were never enough. Hearing that, Jinyoung couldn’t help but be reminded of Yonghee (when wasn’t he reminded of his friend, honestly?), but you seemed to be floating above all the criticism well.

When he inquired how you managed, you shared that you worked with a therapist, and the boy was surprised both to hear that and to hear you admit that, yet you confessed that asking for professional help had probably been the best decision of your life. You knew either way that school would be over soon - as you were seniors -, and you hoped university would be different. Besides, you hoped that you would meet people who could understand you like you had found Jinyoung.

The boy was never one to feel touched, but when you confessed that you deemed him someone who could accept you for who you were, he felt immensely moved. He was overcome with this inward urge, this deep want to keep you safe that was just so jarring, he felt like catching his breath while only staying still. Yet, he couldn’t tell whether it was because he didn’t want history to repeat itself or because he genuinely wanted it to stay this way. He was, as always, torn, and he wasn’t sure whether he could get an answer to his turmoil of emotions.

Nevertheless, when you didn’t come to the library for a few days, Jinyoung immediately jumped to worrisome conclusions, and he even went as far as to ask from your homeroom teacher whether you were absent because of an illness or because something had happened to you. The elderly man reassured him that you caught some bug, so you would probably come back a few days later, and unbeknownst to him, he was relieved, lungs working to full capacity again, heart quitting those crazy palpitations he had while worse and worse scenarios were going through his head.

Interestingly so, the next time you met wasn’t even in the library, but at the sports day event where everyone was supposed to participate, at least as spectators, and he found you sitting alone on the bench of the grandstand, so he headed towards you.

You looked up as he approached, and there was a small smile hiding in the corner of your lips as you realised who he was. Upon the sight, he was yet again overcome by that feeling of protectiveness. He knew that just as much as he could make you smile, he could hurt you as well, and he didn’t want that, but he didn’t want to run away either. Not from you. Not from someone who didn’t push him for questions, who didn’t care that he didn’t talk a lot about his past, who didn’t care that odd rumours were spread about him.

Besides, his internal turmoil in the past few days prompted him to appreciate the time you two could spend together, and so he wanted to keep these times within an arm reach, he didn’t want them to slip through his fingers, to crush and burn, and be just a faded, bitter memory in the future of what ifs and could haves.

So he took the first step towards you, and then the next, and before he knew it, he was sitting beside you, both of you watching the currently playing students on the field.

“You didn’t come in the past few days,” he pointed out matter-of-factly while still keeping his eyes on the football match. He saw from the corner of his eyes that your shoulders tensed a bit, and you audibly took in a deep breath before answering.

“Yeah, well… I wasn’t really feeling well. The meds that I’m taking for my gut suppress not only the harmful stuff but the beneficial bacteria, so I’m more susceptible to illnesses. It’s not the first time it happened either,” you concluded a bit bitterly, and he could hear the hurt in your voice. Though you tried to mask it, though he had not always been good at picking up on the signs, he could tell that your condition bothered you - the fact that you were tending to one illness while leading the way for others.

“Are you feeling better now?” Jinyoung inquired genuinely after clearing his throat, and looked at you just in time for you to look at him. As your gazes connected, something inside of him burst, and it flew through him in waves of warm, comforting reassurance. Just the fact that you were beside him, seemingly safe and sound, lifted such a heavy weight off his shoulders, he felt like he could breathe again.

At least for the lifespan of this conversation.

“Yeah, I think so. Don’t worry.”

“I didn’t,” the boy tried to protest immediately, but you narrowed your eyes as if you were trying to decide whether to question his words or not. In the end, you did speak up.

“The homeroom teacher told me that you asked about me. He thought I was tutoring you or something like that, and that’s why you asked about me,” you replied without batting an eye, however, Jinyoung couldn’t bear to look at you anymore. Instead, he looked away, finding the currently running boys on the field much more interesting.

The truth is, the boy didn’t know why he was embarrassed about the situation. Worrying about someone after what had happened to Yonghee was still an unfamiliar feeling to him. He didn’t even know he was concerned about you until you didn’t show up at the library, but if there was one thing he had learned from the past few months behind him, it was that he couldn’t take anything for granted. Or anyone, for that matter.

“Anyways, do you want to exchange contacts? At least, I can tell you next time if something like this happens,” you suggested warily, breaking the silence that fell upon the two of you. Jinyoung slowly shifted his eyes from the field to you, but you were looking down at your intertwined fingers, your phone resting under your hands.

“Sure,” he found himself saying even though he wasn’t sure that it was him speaking. Even you were a tad bit surprised that he had given it so quickly, but either way, you exchanged contacts before you were called for a jogging race and needed to leave him behind.

Nevertheless, as you were walking down the stairs, you halted and looked back over your shoulder, directing a gentle smile in the boy’s direction. Whenever he saw you smile like that, the only thought that he had was for how long you could smile like that before he would paint it with agony and hurt, before he would ruin your blossom of affection, before he would break the heart you held out to him.

“Thank you. For worrying about me.”

Your voice broke through the overwhelming mass of his own destruction that was ready to bring him down anytime, and suddenly, in that moment, his heart whispered something else: maybe your smile was one for change, one for hope.

Jinyoung knew that they all blamed themselves for what had happened to Yonghee, and they had all changed since their friend had tried to commit suicide. Byounggon, for one, had dropped out of school altogether after he had realised that he had no power as someone who lived alone on a rooftop, abandoned by his parents, struggling to make ends meet with school and his part-time job. He had started working full-time instead. Seunghun, who had aspired to become a dancer before, had given up on dancing after he had not been able to go back to the practice room because it always reminded him of how his mother had died. He was completely lost for now. Hyunsuk, who had always tried to do well at school - to gain his parents’ love and his father’s attention who lived far away since his parents’ divorce - had started dropping in rank, even going as far as attempting to steal because he could no longer tolerate who he was, and how the supposed-to-be perfect Yoon Hyunsuk had not been able to help his friend because he had been blinded by his own suffering.

And Jinyoung, well… He had changed schools, but his guilt followed him everywhere. His parents said that they didn’t even recognise him anymore, but Jinyoung couldn’t either. Whenever he looked into the mirror, he saw his friend’s face as he had grabbed Yonghee by the collar and pushed him to the shelves, and he wished he could break the mirror, punch the glass until his knuckles bled, scream at the top of his lungs until he became speechless. The truth is, he felt like a part of him had died on the day Yonghee had jumped from the rooftop. Living was painful, but sleeping wasn’t peaceful either. He was constantly tormented by nightmares, and not even the sleeping pills could help - they helped with actually going to sleep, but not with chasing away his nightmares.

He wasn’t one to believe in miracles because he had tasted the bitterness of life, but you, you seemed to shine some light in the darkness. A kind of light that warmed him but also scared him at the same time. What if you were suffering in silence, and he wasn’t able to help? Again. What if he was to hurt you, either literally or figuratively? Again. What if he couldn’t take care of you? Again. The thought of anything happening to you made his already agonising days even more frightening. Staying away from you seemed as much of a bad idea as getting closer to you. He was truly lost in his sea of emotions, he felt like drowning.

And just when he thought that he was doing better, he realised that the hardest part was still left: letting go of the guilt when his friend’s state was still uncertain. However, if you hadn’t told him to think from Yonghee’s point of view, he would have never realised that Yonghee would want him to be happy. Yet, he had a panic attack once when you were in the library and he got a message from Seunghun saying that Yonghee’s heart had stopped for a while, but they had managed to resuscitate him. Afterwards, words just spilled out from him, and it was like an avalanche: sweeping everything up into the air, raging through slopes and destroying anything that got in its way.

Jinyoung told you that he blamed himself for everything, and that he was the reason his friend had still not woken up, and you let him speak until his mouth ran dry, until his words bled together, until his heart was finally brought out from the shadows, put in front of you to hold and decide whether to break it or tend to it.

You seemed to decide on the latter.

“It’s hard to say for sure at times like this, but usually, a decision like this is more about a handful of different things coming together at the wrong time, and consequences seeming daunting. Your friend might have also wanted things to be different,” you mentioned tentatively after you had let him tell you whatever he wanted. He figured that you had a feeling that if you interrupted him, you would hold him back from sharing the whole story, and he was sure that it could have gone down that way because he wasn’t one to talk about his emotions, especially not the ones regarding Yonghee.

“I don’t know…”

“He might have been happy while you had been together. It might have given him strength to hold out for so long. Something in him still wants to fight,” you reasoned gently, your words rolling off like drops of rain on a tranquil night just between fall and winter.

These were just words, mere syllables put together, but Jinyoung was struck, he felt his heart clench, his mind flooded with the memories they had made in the movie club, flashbacks of Yonghee smiling, the twinkling eyes of the boy, the childish giggle of his… and in that moment, Jinyoung realised that his mind was clouded by all the pain of the past few months, and he couldn’t see the joy, the care, the happiness before… It was as if everything else had been erased from his life apart from his wrongdoings and the events that followed Yonghee’s fall.

And in that moment, he found himself collapsing like pillars of a building that gave in to the massive weight on top of them, and cries broke out of him. Ugly, raw, heart-wrenching sobs that you didn’t try to muffle, you didn’t try to calm down, you merely let him like it all out.

And for that, he would always be thankful because he felt like he had been holding out for so long, he had tried to keep it all together before because he couldn’t crumble, he couldn’t cause more pain to others around him, but maybe it wasn’t about being a burden to others, it was about being human.

After so long without being in the same room together that was not the hospital ward, the four boys got together to read Yonghee’s letter, back at the music club of their old school. To be precise, Jinyoung and Byounggon’s old school. And you were right, Yonghee confessed in his letter that the only happy times he had were the ones he had with the four of them. Damn it, you were right.

No wonder tears were shed, words were exchanged, and after watching the movie they had worked on together, Jinyoung felt like something mended. It was as if with Yonghee’s fall, they had all fallen apart like broken pieces of a vase because there wasn’t a glue anymore that held them together - there wasn’t Yonghee there to keep them together. Yet, now they were together like this again. For a while after what felt like eternity, they were themselves again. It felt like maybe they forgave themselves. Not entirely but maybe forgiveness wasn’t as far as they had thought so.

And coincidentally, the next morning when Jinyoung was at school, zoning out during Maths class, he received a message in the groupchat that Yonghee had woken up. He didn’t think twice, he disregarded the exclaims of the teacher, the stares of his classmates and ran through corridors, streets, hallways, hopped on and off buses until his legs could give in and fall to the ground beside Yonghee’s bed.

Byounggon was already there, but through the waterfall of his tears, Jinyoung couldn’t see what state the boy was in, he could only see Yonghee's face breaking free from the stern lines - the ones that made him resemble a statue for so long - and his eyes - wide and bright as usually - focusing on him.

“Jinyoung…” He muttered quietly, and his voice - the one he could only listen to in videos on his phone before - seemed both familiar and brand new. He couldn’t believe his ears. His friend had not only woken up, but he also remembered him. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he added, voice raspy and words a bit uncertain, but the message was there, and if Jinyoung could fall even deeper, he would have.

“Thank you…. Thank you so… much… for coming back,” Jinyoung cried out, interrupted by his jarring sobs. Yonghee’s lips curled upwards slowly, and Jinyoung found himself smiling with him through his tears. Gosh, just how easy it was to smile again.

He didn’t know what he would have done if Yonghee’s heart had given up for good, but now, he knew that he wouldn’t take anything for granted again. Not his friend’s silent plea for help, not his parents’ support towards him, not his friends’ care, not the smiles and laughs and jokes, not the silly little nothings and the “I’ve told you so” sentences, and not you as well, not the chances he had been given to feel alive again, not the friends he had mended his relationship with again, and not the bond you two had created. He would cherish all of it as much as he could, and make sure that he would voice it out. Because he now knew that life was so precious, and despite it being hard on the living, it might have been more difficult on those who had left or chosen to leave.

Something within him gave in, and he felt like his lungs were working on full capacity, but not because he couldn’t breathe - but because he was ready to welcome more air, more life. He was coming back to life bit by bit.

A/N:  If you or someone is in need, don't hesitate to reach out for help! A list of worlwide helplines can be found here.

We are never alone.

I want to clarify that I believe one could be a support to a person struggling, but it's still the person in question who has to find the will in themselves to keep going. So I purposefully didn't make it into a romance-focused story where the reader "saves" Jinyoung because Jinyoung needed to forgive himself and "save" himself, but the way the reader supported him, showed him a different way of life and put things into a different perspective helped him tremendously to deal with everything that he was going through. They both helped each other, to be precise.

In my story, I wanted Yonghee to wake up from the start, but only after the boys forgive themselves, yet in the story films, I think there might be a different ending regarding Yonghee's condition. However, we can see the boys slowly coming together and moving on in their own way, and I wanted to showcase that same kind of hopefulness by the end of the story.

I'm super proud of CIX for having such a storyline, for taking it so seriously and for showcasing all the different ways a person can deal with such things and find some salvation. Super proud of them for their acting, too!

As for my story, I know it might not be able to do the storyline justice, but I hope it could spark something in your nevertheless. Thank you so so so much for reading it!❤️

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for CIX or for other bands, consider signing up for my taglist here.

Hope you have a lovely day/night! Take care! ❤️

[wanna-able]

Jinyoung: I came out here to attack people and I'm honestly having such a good time right now.

[hyunbaes]

masterlist ♡

hi! my name is didi and i occasionally write cix content ♡

—

bx ✰

[1:27am]

— the one where your boyfriend falls asleep during your late night study sesssion

seunghun ✰

[2:17am]

— the one where you can’t sleep without your boyfriend next to you

yonghee ✰

[1:25am]

— the one where your boyfriend protects you from the storm

[2:17am]

— the one where it’s your favorite boys birthday

jinyoung ✰

[12:12am]

— the one where you’re secretly in love with your bestfriend

hyunsuk ✰

[12:10am]

— the one where you stargaze with your boyfriend

[restlesswritings]

Restlesswritings KPOP Masterlist

A/N: This is a list of the groups I write for! REQUESTS are always welcome! If you have groups/artists you'd like to request, go ahead! Check out my JPOP masterlist!

SEVENTEEN

Reactions (All Members):

You surprise them on tour

Scenarios (All Members):

Drabbles/Oneshots/Fics:

S.Coups (Choi Seungcheol)

Boyfriend POV

Jeonghan (Yoon Jeonghan)

Boyfriend POV

Joshua (Hong Jisoo)

Boyfriend POV

Jun (Wen Junhui)

Boyfriend POV

Hoshi (Kwon Soonyoung)

Boyfriend POV

Wonwoo (Jeon Wonwoo)

Boyfriend POV

Woozi (Lee Jihoon)

Boyfriend POV

DK (Lee Seokmin)

Boyfriend POV

Mingyu (Kim Mingyu)

Boyfriend POV

The8 (Xu Minghao)

Boyfriend POV

Seungkwan (Boo Seungkwan)

Boyfriend POV

Vernon (Choi Hansol)

Boyfriend POV

Dino (Lee Chan)

Boyfriend POV

ATEEZ

Reactions (All Members):

Finding out your bias

Scenarios (All Members):

Drabbles/Oneshots/Fics:

Hongjoong (Kim Hongjoong)

Boyfriend POV

Seonghwa (Park Seonghwa)

Boyfriend POV

Yunho (Jeong Yunho)

Boyfriend POV

Yeosang (Kang Yeosang)

Boyfriend POV

Mingi (Song Mingi)

Boyfriend POV

San (Choi San)

Boyfriend POV

Wooyoung (Jung Wooyoung)

Boyfriend POV

Jongho (Choi Jongho)

Boyfriend POV

NCT

Reactions (Separated By Unit):

NCT 127: Wearing Their Clothes

NCT U

NCT DREAM

Wayv

Scenarios (Separated By Unit):

NCT 127

NCT U

NCT DREAM

Wayv

Drabbles/Oneshots/Fics:

Taeyong (Lee Taeyong)

Boyfriend POV Dad POV

Taeil (Moon Taeil)

Boyfriend POV

Johnny (John Suh)

Boyfriend POV

Yuta (Nakamoto Yuta)

Boyfriend POV Love Bites

Kun (Qian Kun)

Boyfriend POV

Doyoung (Kim Dongyoung)

Boyfriend POV

Ten (Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul)

Boyfriend POV

Jaehyun (Jeong Jaehyun)

Boyfriend POV

WinWin (Dong Si Cheng)

Boyfriend POV

Jungwoo (Kim Jungwoo)

Boyfriend POV

Mark (Mark Lee)

Boyfriend POV

Xiaojun (Xiao Dejun)

Boyfriend POV

Hendery (Wong Kunhang)

Boyfriend POV

Renjun (Huang Renjun)

Boyfriend POV

Jeno (Lee Jeno)

Boyfriend POV

Haechan (Lee Donghyuck)

Boyfriend POV

Jaemin (Na Jaemin)

Boyfriend POV

Yangyang (Liu Yangyang)

Boyfriend POV

Chenle (Zhong Chenle)

Boyfriend POV

Jisung (Park Jisung)

Boyfriend POV

CIX

Reactions (All Members):

You being scared during a movie Wearing their clothes

Scenarios (All Members):

Drabbles/Oneshots/Fics:

BX (Lee Byounggon)

Boyfriend POV

Seunghun (Kim Seunghun)

Boyfriend POV

Yonghee (Kim Yonghee)

Boyfriend POV

Jinyoung (Bae Jinyoung)

Boyfriend POV

Hyunsuk (Yoon Hyunsuk)

Boyfriend POV When The Hand Stops

VAV

Reactions (All Members):

Scenarios (All Members):

Drabbles/Oneshots/Fics:

St. Van (Lee Geumhyuk)

Boyfriend POV

ACE (Jang Wooyoung)

Boyfriend POV

Ayno (Noh Yoonho)

Boyfriend POV

Jacob (Zhang Peng)

Boyfriend POV

Lou (Kim Hosung)

Boyfriend POV

Ziu (Park Heejun)

Boyfriend POV

UPCOMING GROUPS: (Requests open)

BTS STRAY KIDS GOT7 TAN RIIZE SHINEE TOMORROW X TOGETHER THE BOYZ MCND

[oraclekleo]

[Readings] CIX

All tarot readings related to CIX and all sub units.

Read the instructions in Master Post before requesting.

Any requests that don't follow the guidelines will be deleted from my inbox.

I have the right to refuse to do a reading without explaining.

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Disclaimer

I strongly urge you to take all the tarot readings on this account lightly. All the posts are intended to have an entertaining nature, they are pure speculations and completely made up by me. I can never ever guarantee any of it and you should never take any of the tarot readings for granted. I would like to stress that I know no idol nor actor personally, I never met any of them and all those readings are fictional, imagins, make believe and hypothetical scenarios. Do not base any of your life decisions on a tarot reading only, always use your common sense. If you have issues with tarot cards for religious or other reasons, do not engage in reading my posts.

When you make a request take my life into consideration and be patient. I’m a responsible adult with a full time job, dog, family, friends, duties, house chores and requests from other sources. All these take my time. Also reading tarot cards requires a certain mood, vibe and concentration, it can’t be done just anytime. Count on the time delays, please. I will do my best to complete your requests.

I’m always willing to help out if you yourself consider taking on tarot cards as a hobby. Feel free to ask if you have any inquiries about it, no question is dumb. I don’t know everything but will try to help the best I can.

🟪◼🟦◼🟩◼🟨◼🟧◼🟥◼🟪◼🟦◼🟩◼🟨◼🟧◼🟥

Tip me for my readings on ko-fi! Purely optional! All readings are for free now!

🟪◼🟦◼🟩◼🟨◼🟧◼🟥◼🟪◼🟦◼🟩◼🟨◼🟧◼🟥

CIX

Bae Jinyoung Kinky* Reading

Hyunsuk Kinky Reading

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