#but I'm rereading (not) your fault

[hualianschild]

love how instead of accepting he liked kissing hua cheng he blames his teacher for not teaching him how to not be tempted by men 💀

[lgbtlunaverse]

I think i need to explain why this line makes me go so feral

I think the "fine! I'll kill myself after I kill you" line from nie mingjue in chapter 49 permanently altered my brain chemistry and it has something to do with precisely how i got into the mdzs fandom space in the first place.

I've mentioned it a few times but i started watching the untamed in late 2019 right as it was blowing up everywhere and, likely due to a combination of undiagnosed adhd wrecking my ability to be interested in anything for longer than 4 seconds and me very much not being used to the specific style of acting, especially during fightscenes, i never finished it. The only concrete memory i have of it is seeing wen qing's face and meng ziyi completely short circuiting my little gay brain. I remember more of staring endlessly at pictures of her than I remember of the plot. Press F to pay respects.

Flash forward a few years and a friend recommends me a fic writer for an fma fic (the fic riter in question is metisket) and i like their stlye so much i decide to read other stuf they've written. Here we get to our prime suspect: "the one body problem" a genuinely hilarious fic where jingyi gets posessed by wei wuxian like a year before the plot happens and they become awkward brain buddies. 10/10 i loved it (and still do) even though i remember huasiang showing up in my first reading and I, having fully forgotten his name, had no fucking clue what was going on. (Little did i know...)

Anyway flash forward ANOTHER year and I decide to reread that fic, and then the other untamed fic metisket wrote, a wen qing time travel fix it that's also real fun. And then i'm like. huh. that's fun. wonder if there's anything in their bookmarks.

And then, within 20 days, I had read approximately 350 fics. Many of them 100k+ words. I cannot stress enough how much this CONSUMED my brain's ability to do or think about anything else. I now think back to the early days of getting my adhd diagnosis and insisted that while i had pretty much all other symptoms, I did not get hyperfixations. Lol. Lmao, even.

I am mainly focused on wangxian and the junior quartet becuase they are my baby ducklings and i love them. I do come across some 3zun fics and I think huh... this is interesting. But the 3zun brainrot is LIGHT at this point.

The thing about reading more than 350 fanfics is that at some point you kind of piece the plot of the source material back together backwards. Especially because my favorite genre was time travel fix its, where characters relive the whole plot and like to make allusions to all the ways everything went wrong last time.

Because I'm still squarely in my wangxian + juniors (plus a heavy dosis of yunmeng sibling reconciliation) corner here... the feelings on jin guangyao in my fandom corner are. different from where I'd end up soon after. He is my special little guy though, so I do kind of immediatley develop a fondness for him, and I approach my 3zun and early nieyao thoughts specifcially from the assumption that the widespread opinion is that nie mingjue is a fine good guy and jgy is the evil one (I have not seen the bad nmj takes yet. well... I am seeing DIFFERENT bad nmj takes but they're nice to him. In, like, the wrong way. With no solid undertanding of the inherent tragedy at the heart of him that makes him so blorbo to me. But still.) major reactions to the stairs scene as I see them on twitter are "girlboss! He should've kicked him harder 💅"

And the baby jgy apologist in me goes :/ me no likey. And at this point I am also actively seeking out metas and analysis posts so i'm seeing some better opinions than that and getting a halfway solid graps on the themes. wwx and jgy being foils becomes very obvious to me very quickly. So, with my curent understanding of the plot, I go... you know all you people who are like "god i wish nmj would have killed jgy sooner" it uhh... kinda sounds like he'd have died if he did that. If he'd killed him before meng yao had gone off to spy there is a very big chance they'd have lost the sunshot campaign and most of the main cast would be dead. If he'd killed him at the stairs that's... well that's killing your sworn brother, which by the canon's own admission is a universally reviled crime, and jin guangshan could easily take advantage of this by demanding nmj's head in retribution, since he already wanted to get rid of him anyway. He doesn't give a fuck about a-yao of course but he could pretend well enough that he does. And what leg would nmj have to stand on? The jin clan is canonically both willing and able to slaughter entire clans for the murder or attempted murder of the leader or his family, and nie mingjue is the kinda guy who'd immediately offer himself up if it meant the rest of his clan would be spared.

This combined with jin guangyao specifcally dying for his murder of nie mingjue, with huaisang basically not caring much about everything else he does and wanting to get revenge only for his brother, it gives nieyao a sort of mutual doomed soulmates feel. For either of them, killing the other would spell death for themselves. They either both die or they both live, one cannot live on without the order. That's crunchy. I like it.

The fire palace though? well, on meng yao's part there is a real argument that if he'd let nmj get killed immediatly instead of dragging it out he wouldn't have been able to get wrh alone and distracted enough to assasinate him, so that's one half of the mutual doom coin, and if nmj had killed him during their fight there he's also done for. But after? Right before Xichen intervenes? I had no answer for that yet.

(You know what's coming. I did not)

It is at this point that i realize that if this is gonna keep being A Thing then i need to read the source material before I catch fatal fanon poisoning. Yes, I can piece together the plot and themes from seeing what stays consistent across fics and what are the author's own opinons. But I know just as well that sometimes fanon just agrees on shit that didn't happen and treats it like canon, and I have no way of knowing which is which. So I start reading the novel.

And of course, eventually I get to the empathy sequence. And remember, my "nieyao both live or both die" theory is heavy on my mind at this point, and the only stickler is that nmj could sort of have killed meng yao after the confrontation with wrh, still believing meng yao was actually working for him, and not a spy, and get off... not scott-free, Xichen won't be happy, but it's not gonna cost him his life.

And then I read THIS.

Please Imagine dropping a whole block of pure elemental sodium into water. Except the sodium is this quote and the water is my poor little delicate brain. Not only is my theory right, it is ten times more unhinged than i thought it was.

And considering that Nie Mingjue does not seem like the kind of guy who'd consider something like a life debt to have an expiration date, and because after this he will link himself legally and socially to jin guangyao as family and declare that one among their brotherhood turning against the others is to be met with a painful death, I can no longer read the scene at the stairscase in jinlintai without the impression that he is still planning to die afterwards. Which, if you wanted to make that scene even more painful, this is a very efficient way of losing all your remaining hinges.

I think I'd have gone crazy about this line no matter what context I heard it in, but this one specifically? where I'm already obsessed with idea of nieyao's deaths being connected by the narrative and missing just this one piece and having it confirmed? out loud? from one of the characters himself? It's like giving cocaine to a baby.

[nocentis]

Honeysuckle

⚶ ┆ Between his teeth and beneath his nails, an airy fruit light as love is bitten down to the rind. Even with his mouth full of pulp he finds himself desperate for her taste.

A sigh echoed and swallowed, kept locked in his chest like a secret. He held his breath until it burned; savored every hitch and every hum of her sacred song. Each curse spoken like a prayer, like praise; wept like gratitude wrenched raw from the soul — raked clean and spit out like the pit of a cherry. When he's forced to breathe, she is the hallowed riptide, and he would be blessed to drown in her lush.

Ripe as a peach at the crown of her cheeks; soft red flush so sticky sweet. Another of her colors comes to life in his mind. One shade closer to the divine.

⚶ ┆ Woven together like lace under the pale light of a waning moon. He can't be sure where he ends and she begins. She pierces straight through him like he belongs to her, and in some capacity, he knows that he does. There is no room left in his heart for desire of this nature. It has reached its bounds and collapsed inward on itself — a singularity the size of her that takes of these moments and stretches them infinitely, ever deeper, ever denser; inescapable.

Too much would never be enough and yet he counts every falling grain of timesand, tallies them up, and says his Hail Mary's in correspondence. Blessed is he for these hands to hold her, for these eyes to view her, for this mouth to speak her name. Blessed is he for the breath and the bread, the water, the whine.

Under his breath, to no god in particular, he issues his thanks.

"You're still awake." Her voice is strained by the small hours. The calm is sweeping her away and yet she remains afloat, waiting for the rise and fall of his chest to slow before she sinks into sleep. "Your train leaves early. You should rest."

His own voice is gravelly, thick with syrup, when he attempts to quell, "There will be another train. There is always another train."

There is nothing more important than this — her head on his chest and his fingers in her hair, scarlet as the sun's kiss and softer than silk.

She shifts so that she can look at him, and the nightglow catches the honey of her eye. "You should rest," she reiterates, and though she aims to chastise, he can feel her care bleeding through her touch.

"I will," he promises, though he chooses not to specify when. "I'm not ready for tomorrow."

He feels her hum before he hears it. Gentle as a lullaby, it dims his vision, and he finds a brief reprieve inside his eyelids.

"You're ready," she assures, succinct as ever.

"You're right," he concedes through a sigh, "I don't want this to end."

"Then don't end it," she slides her hand into his, weaves their fingers together in an airtight knit, "Water it. Let it grow. Keep it alive while we're apart."

He responds first through a light squeeze, a bit of humor trapped in his chest, and he can't deny that, "There are some things even I can't kill."

[likeadeadbattery]

Guess who's still up on a school night because of really loud and nasty wind and because the melatonin won't work and because of the no-no thoughts???? 😘

[peppermintmochafem]

hi lovely 💖 I just wanna send you a digital forehead kiss, a big hug, a soft blanket, and your favorite lil beverage. and most importantly, I want to tell you—it wasn’t your fault, sweetheart. it is never our fault for being abused. you DO deserve a safe gentle tender caring loving relationship/sex/both, you are so inherently worthy as a person and you are so deserving of those things. this girl sounds like very bad news and you deserve better!!!!!! do not settle for this kind of treatment!!!! you are so loved, I’m sending you all the love in my gay lil heart. I hope you can feel a lil bit better today 🥺💖💖💖💖💖

I don't even know what to say just the fact that you would go out of your way to tell me this is so incredibly beautiful and you are just so lovely. reading this does feel like the softest forehead kiss. I hope you know how loved you are.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[sovonight]

xan's candle event is so funny to me. you have to choose 1 specific option for the candles to even be significant to your charname, and yet the next day xan presents you with a lit candle no matter what you said, and if you're like um is that supposed to represent something, he's like yes but also no, and i will not explain, and also i'm still going to use this as a symbol to make a promise to you, even though i literally refuse to elaborate

[lovelaceisntdead]

Now I'm feeling deeply unwell about our wives under the sea again. thanks a lot rose.

[chronicowboy]

really convinced myself that reading a bunch of plays would be a good way to get back into reading then chose the most gutwrenching, heartbreaking plays out there

[mythicalartisttm]

WEEPINGGGGG ALL THE STORY IDEAS AND NO TIMEEEEEEE

[cordeliawhohung]

UM HELLO?? MOTHER THE GAZ POST??? HELLO?? WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THAT???

so what i'm hearing is we want more alpha!gaz and omega!reader yeah?

cw: abo dynamics, omegaverse, i am making everything up as i go along

You're chewing on your pen when he enters your office.

Teeth marks scar the tip of the soft plastic as you gnaw like a dog with a bone. It doesn't taste good, and it's hardly a treat. It's a bad habit, one your mother always told you to break before your teeth did, but it's soothing at this point. Being able to mold something against the shape of you.

LED lights burn into your retinas as you read through the email on your screen. You've tried ten times now to absorb the information, but your brain is too saturated to soak up anything more. You're stuck on the same sentence as you were two minutes ago. Rereading to no avail.

... by Friday morning... file reports directly to... sincerely...

"Constance?"

A voice catches you off guard, and your teeth nearly slice through your writing utensil. Hazy eyes glance over your monitor as you soak in the sight of the man before you. He's handsome; clad in the same battle dress uniforms as every other soldier on base. The green looks good on him. No, better than good. It heavenly contrasts his darker complexion, and you find yourself drawn to his eyes; wide and sweet, like a good dog.

"You don't look like Constance," he chuckles. It's warm, and the baritone of it has your throat growing dry.

"Retired. You're looking at her replacement," you hum.

You breathe deeply as he approaches, hoping for a whiff of something. A gentle redolence; something. You're ashamed of the disappointment that fills you when you catch nothing.

A beta.

"Pity, she was sweet. Though, you're much easier on the eyes," he humors. "I swear her scowl was mean enough to send most drill sergeants running for the hills."

You chuckle at his flattery as you click the tip of your chewed up pen against your desk. It echos hollowly in your empty drawers, the space yet to be filled with scrap paper and stolen library books. You tilt your head as he hands you a short stack of papers. You fight the urge to sink your teeth through his palm. Almost time to go home and he gives you more work to do.

"Suppose you're in charge of this now, yeah?" he says.

Solemnly, you nod. "Garrick?" you confirm as you read the name printed at the top of the report.

"Sergeant Garrick," he corrects with a smirk. "Or Kyle, if you're feeling friendly."

His suave humor is enough to earn him another chuckle as you set his report on top of your keyboard. Tilting your head, you pull at the buttons on your blouse absentmindedly, too on edge to sit still. You fail to notice his nostrils flaring at the movement of your shirt.

"Well, thank you, Kyle. I'll get to work on this," you say, quietly excusing him.

Kyle nods short and curt as he takes a step back. "Thank you, ma'am."

He hardly makes it out of the door before he's clamping his hand over his nose. He almost pinches his nostrils; suffocates himself so that he doesn't have to smell anything at all. Everything spins as if the very earth beneath his feet sways with the desire of the universe. You reek. Nothing but need and exhaustion — you're going into heat soon. He's smelled it on omegas countless times before — the brutal hormone change — but it's always come across as just a fact. Something he can sense. Like a light flickering on. It's not supposed to make him feel like this; too warm to be comfortable in his skin.

Shaking his head, Kyle forces his feet to trudge down the hallway as he fixes his posture and clears his mind. This is his own fault. Just needs to get better about taking his hormone suppressants on time, that's all. He's kept up this facade of being a beta this far, and he's not about to ruin it now. Not over some sweet smelling thing in the main office.

Still, he can't recall if there was a bite mark on your neck or not, and he hates the way his throat grows parched — how his tongue needs to taste your skin.

"Fucking hell," he curses with nothing but the empty hallway to hear him. "Get your damn head on straight."

[mangomonk]

i've been dreaming

↳ summary: read this drabble and pt. 1 first! remus deals with the repercussions of falling in love too late. ↳ content: angst, happy ending, mentions of eating/sleeping properly ↳ a/n: get comfy, this is a long one! i really appreciated and loved each comment from pt. 1, it made my day to see y'all scream heartbreak. would love to hear your thoughts on this one : D anyways, i went back and forth on my characterization of remus a million times, but i hope this version of him resonates and i hope you enjoy :") tense/grammar is all over the place, minimal proofreading but i've stared at this for too long. p.s. i'm kinda proud af about connecting the titles, they're from ivy by frank ocean.

Remus has been dreaming. Every time she had looked at him, he had felt like he was dreaming.

There wasn't a moment in particular that Remus could name when he realized he wanted her to look at him. He was in the middle of it before he even knew he had begun, though maybe a part of him had known it would have been futile to resist when she looked at him like that.

Or maybe it had been an accumulation of moments of Remus longing for her to look at him.

Maybe it had been when they had started their fourth study date together when Remus had decided he needed to act like a normal person and have strict boundaries instead of casting sidelong glances at her over the top of his book. He couldn't help but look at her as he tried to figure out why in the world a girl like her would ever agree to date him in the first place — he had only really asked so that he could be rejected and put the whole thing behind him.

But it wasn't his fault that the more glances he stole at her, the more he noticed the way her expression changed with each new story she read. It wasn't his fault that her lips parted when she was concentrating too hard on Ancient Runes. It wasn't his fault that her lips were the same color as his mother's tulips. But she never noticed when — or how — he looked at her, to his mingled relief and disappointment. It wasn't his fault at all, he reasoned — anyone would notice these things if they just looked at her properly. It baffled him a little how no one else seemed to have noticed this things about her yet.

It had been that day that Remus had decided he needed to start acting normal. He needed to learn how to control his eyes before he bore holes through her face. So he had focused on reviewing his Magical Theory textbook. Even though he had been rereading the same line for over five minutes. Even though he was so painfully aware that if he moved his leg out just slightly, his knees would knock against hers. Even though he could begin to feel her glancing up at him from across the table. When had he become so attuned to her gaze?

But he hadn't looked up, frustratingly going against every fiber in his body, because he needed to be normal and have boundaries and this was temporary. Even if she was looking at him like that. Remus Lupin, with his ever so strong willpower, hadn't looked up to meet her not-so-secret secret glances and had scribbled a note on his scrap of parchment and slid it over.

Hogsmeade this weekend?

Or maybe it had been when they had gone to Hogsmeade, the first time they had done anything together outside of studying. Asking her to go was a stroke of madness, but Remus had reasoned it to be a healthy show of their relationship, no matter how temporary it was supposed to be. It wouldn't make sense if they were dating and only ever studied together, right?

Right.

He had thought about sending an owl to cancel, even as he tried on Sirius's shirt for the second time — the night before, he had come to the sobering realization that all his clothes were plain. He had thought about telling her that he caught a cold, even as he let James slather Euphemia's silkifying potions through his hair. He had still been thinking about canceling even as his feet took him to the entrance gate—

—and she had been wearing a skirt.

It had been one of those long and flowy Muggle skirts — Remus had never before paid attention to women's fashion, but after that moment, he realized that maybe he ought to subscribe to one of Lily's Witch Weekly magazines so that he could get her more skirts, or rather, more of anything, he thought she'd look pretty in anything. Had he said pretty out loud?

Remus Lupin didn't have butterflies in his stomach, he had damn hummingbirds.

"Hi," he had said, a little too tersely and sharply.

"Hi," she had said back, all smiles. Despairingly, he had noticed that she was wearing lipstick. When he stared at her a little dumbly and didn't say anything back, her smile turned nervous as she fidgeted with the collar of her blouse. Impulsively, his eyes darted to follow the motion. "So... Hogsmeade?"

He wasn't going to tell her she looked pretty because he had laid out his boundaries. And if he started, he would never stop— "You look preautiful," he had blurted, stricken.

Her eyes had widened a fraction before she broke into a laugh. A proper laugh, not the quiet, library huff type of laughs he had grown fond of hearing. The warmth in his chest had spread all over and it had felt like it got to his head as a fog, rendering him unable to think. Remus had no idea what to do with the new, dizzying knowledge that she looked absurdly stunning when she was laughing, but all he could think about during their walk to Hogsmeade was how he might make her laugh again.

Or maybe it had been the first time he had properly introduced her to the Marauders. She had stepped closer to him instinctively — perhaps nervously, because Sirius was staring at her too appraisingly with narrowed eyes — when the back of her knuckles had brushed against his. Remus had nearly jumped out of his skin. Sirius's gaze had darted to him swiftly, his gray eyes knowingly bright with interest.

"Pleased to meet you," Sirius had said a moment later, his face breaking into a warm smile, but Remus wasn't paying attention anymore. He was just trying to figure out how he might hook his pinky with hers.

All this to say that there hadn't been one particular moment Remus Lupin could have pinpointed that had sealed his fate of wanting to be under her gaze.

The first time she looked at him, it was the start of nothing and when she looked away that night, it was the end of everything.

Remus wished she yelled at him. Hell, he even wished she had called him a monster, cursed him, hexed him. Remus thought that he would have been happier if she looked at him with contempt and disgust in her eyes, which only weeks ago had been his greatest fear when he considered telling her about his lycanthropy. The thought back then had kept him up at night, but Remus found himself dreaming for it now. Anything if it meant that he didn't hurt her the way he had. He found himself dreaming that she would just look at him again.

If Remus thought he had been panicked that night, it was nothing compared to the next day when he realized she was avoiding him. She hadn't shown up to the Great Hall — Remus knew this because he got there the moment the doors opened to make sure to catch her — and she didn't show up to any of their classes for the remainder of the day. The Marauder's Map showed that she was unmoving in her dormitory. When Remus finally did catch sight of her the next day in the Great Hall, he burst to his feet but froze a moment later. She walked past him, her expression one of unfamiliar blankness.

"Y/N!" He called, lurching forward towards her.

When she turned away from him to avoid meeting his gaze, Remus felt something like dismay sink so heavily and swiftly in his chest, like a stone thrown into a calm lake. The idea that Y/N wouldn’t look at him again drove him half-mad with a panicked disquietude that sent him scrambling to find a way to talk to her again. 

He tried in the Great Hall, but she stopped coming. She would arrive just late enough that class would start and would disappear the moment class ended. She stopped going to the library. Even with the Marauder's Map, he had no luck. The closer he tried to get to her, the further she stayed away.

Remus thought he was dreaming when he saw her alone in the corridor one Hogsmeade weekend when he couldn't bring himself to leave.

"Y/N," he said instinctively, hopefully. She looked up, her surprised expression immediately shuttering close. "Can we talk? Just for a moment?" He asked, stepping towards her. When she didn't move away, he straightened, encouraged.

“I know,” Remus began, his throat bobbing as he swallowed back the jolt of despair when he realized that she still wasn't looking at him. The despair only grew into a gnawing worry when he noticed the way shadows lined her eyes, the planes of her face hollower. Was she taking care of herself? "I know you don't want to see me anymore, cariad, but—"

"You don't get to call me that anymore."

He sucked in a breath, steeling himself before continuing. "Okay," he whispered, "Okay. I know. And I'm sorry, Y/N. I've never been more sorry in my life. And I won't ever ask you to forgive me. But, but I'm selfish because I want you to know that it was real for me."

She looked like she was folding in on herself as she clutched her forearms. "It wasn't real. You don't actually like me, Rem— Lupin," she said evenly, her tone neither cold nor warm. "It could have been anyone else."

"No, I do, I do," Remus lurched forward, desperate and earnest and wishing. "I like you, and maybe it wasn't real in the beginning, but it's real now. Like isn't even a strong enough word for how I feel about you, Y/N. I lo—"

"Don't." At the harsh steeliness of her tone, Remus froze, stricken, his heart dropping to his feet. "Don't say it."

"But it's true," he whispered entreatingly, imploring her to look at him again. "It's been true for awhile now."

"I don't believe you."

Each word hit him in the chest like a sharp pang, the stricken feeling in his chest clenching around his heart. "Okay," Remus swallowed back the crumpling sense of despair as he nodded earnestly. "That's okay," he whispered, as if not to spook a wild animal. "I... I'll show you." He had so much he wanted to say, so much that he wanted to show her. If he had been honest since the beginning, he wouldn't have hurt her. But maybe if he was honest now, it wasn't too late — he could still fix things. "You have my heart, Y/N," he continued softly, "—and you can break it, if you want, if you'll give me another chance—"

"I don't need it," she said quietly, looking away from him again. "Nor do I want it."

— — — — —

Remus stopped dreaming as he stopped sleeping.

"You should get some sleep tonight, mate," James said as he edged near his friend. "Full moon coming up."

Remus grunted in his response as he continued writing at his desk.

"Prongs is right," Sirius agreed, exchanging a quick look with the others. "She'll come around soon, anyone with eyes can see how you look at her. And how she looks at you."

"Why don't you talk to her again?" James suggested gently as he sat on the edge of Remus's bed.

"She doesn't want to," Remus said quietly, a blot of ink pooling at the end of his quill as he tried not to think about their last conversation.

"Why not write her a letter then?" Sirius asked. "Look, Moony, we're worried about you..."

A letter, Remus thought dimly as he stared down at the parchment in front of him.

Cariad, he began before setting his quill down to stare at the word. The first time he had called her cariad had been a slip of tongue. When he was younger, before his father had burnt himself out trying to find a cure to his lycanthropy, his father used to call his mother cariad. It was like a gentle period at the end of each sentence, an endearment that said everything all at once.

It had slipped into the end of his sentence one morning when he had asked her if she wanted orange juice or apple juice. Maybe it was too early to confess love, but it had slipped out, subtle and quiet like their time together.

"What's that?" She had asked, her attention now caught. "Car-iad," she said slowly, as she tried pronouncing the word carefully. Remus had thought he could have kissed her then.

"It's Welsh," he had said, keeping his tone light and casual as he reached for her cup.

But she had been as attentive as ever, her eyes seeing right through him as they tracked across his face carefully. It didn't help that he could feel his ears begin to burn. Despite himself though, Remus delighted being under her attention, and had relished it even as she narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "For?"

Remus had schooled his expression carefully. "For 'Y/N can never pick between orange juice and apple juice,'" he had deadpanned, inwardly delighting in the way her lips twitched as she huffed, unconvinced.

"Today is an orange juice day," she had declared finally. Remus had bit back a smile as he poured her juice. When she took it, she had smiled at him around the rim of the cup. "Thank you, cariad."

Remus had thought that he was dreaming.

Remus picked up his quill again and got a fresh sheet of parchment. Dove, he began again before promptly crossing it out. A new piece of parchment. Y/N, he started again. Y/N. Y/N. Y/N. He missed saying her name. When the squeeze in his chest got too tight to ignore, he set his quill down and rested his forehead against his desk and closed his eyes. He had hurt her so terribly, the person he loved. And Remus resented himself for it. He didn't have the right to call her cariad or dove or darling or anything anymore. He didn't have the right to wallow in pity. He didn't have the right to try to fix things when she so clearly didn't want him anymore.

"Remus Lupin," a voice snapped sharply as the door to the dormitory flew open with a boom. "How could you—"

“Lily!” James blurted in clear alarm. "Lily, what are you doing here?"

"I'm here because you lot have really gone too far this time," Lily seethed, her eyes as fiery as her hair as she stalked into the room. "Remus, I thought you were better than this! Y/N hasn't—"

"Lily!" James jumped to his feet in a rare show of courage against the witch. He let out a nervous laugh, but to his credit, stood firm even as Lily rounded on him. “You’re making him feel worse!”

For a moment, Lily turned on James, an incredulous expression on her face before her gaze slid over to Remus, who still hadn’t looked up during the exchange. She faltered, her scowl softening as her gaze darted back to James who gave her an encouraging nod. But then the fiery-haired girl straightened. “He should feel bad,” she admonished, though the venom had begun to dissipate from her voice. 

“And he does,” Sirius supplied helpfully from his corner of the room. “Moony hasn’t really, er, moved or spoken in days, really. We’re all getting concerned.”

"Well neither has Y/N," Lily grumbled, though her tone was beginning to soften rapidly.

This caught his attention. Remus lifted his head to look at her. "Has she been taking care of herself?"

Lily narrowed her eyes at him, a crease forming between her brow as she looked at him assessingly. "Have you been taking care of yourself?"

Remus didn't say anything to this as he turned to rummage through his desk. "Will you make sure she eats and sleeps properly?" He said before finding the stack of parchment he had been looking for.

"It took me nearly an hour to get her to understand that I wasn't a part of the mess you had created," Lily said, though not harshly. Remus ignored the look of pity in her eyes as he busied himself with cobbling together a few more sheets of parchment. "I think you should be the one making sure she's alright."

At this, he paused to look down at the parchment. “She doesn’t want to be in the same room as me, let alone speak with me,” Remus pointed out, his voice unsteady. In a quieter voice, he added, “She can’t even stand looking at me.”

The room fell silent. Then finally, Lily spoke up again. "Fine. I'll check up on her but not for you, but because I'm her friend. And if you ever considered her at least a friend, you ought to do it too sometime and have a proper conversation with her."

Remus bit the inside of his cheek as he turned to proffer the stack of parchment to Lily. "Can you also give these notes to her? It's for Ancient Runes. I charmed the handwriting so she won't know it's from me, but—"

"Remus," Lily sighed, but took the notes anyways as she looked down at his desk curiously before sitting down on the edge of his bed. A pause. Remus could feel her eyes seeing right through him. "Were you ever going to tell her?"

Remus tried not to look like he was unraveling. "I don't know," he admitted honestly. "I wanted to and I didn't want to all at once all the time."

He had thought about telling her before. But to do so meant that he would have to tell her about his condition, and that had sent him into a stricken spiral every time he had thought about it. He had thought that if he told her, she would look at him differently, with pity or repulsion in her eyes. He had been so afraid, so, terrified, of that look that every time the truth nearly bubbled out of his throat, he'd choke on it. But now Remus knew that the worse thing wasn't that she would look at him like he was a monster. It was that she wouldn't look at him at all.

It had always felt like he was running on stolen time, but each grain of sand in their hourglass had felt so startling incandescent that it had been easy to pretend that they weren't trapped in a fragile glass of his own making.

Every moment he had thought to tell her, she would turn and look at him with such fond adoration that Remus would swallow the words back in. She always made for such an arresting sight that Remus felt his breath still as affection would bloom so violently, so dizzingly, so distractingly, in his chest that it became hard to say anything at all.

He was distracted by the way little crinkles would form on her nose when she was thinking too hard. He was distracted by the way he could hear her smile in her words. He was distracted by the way she breathed and walked and loved, slow and steady, to a silent metronome.

And the honest truth was that Remus was more than happy to be distracted by her.

— — — — —

When Remus woke up from a dreamless sleep the morning after the full moon, he found himself, predictably, in a bed in the Infirmary. It must have only been dawn — he could tell the room was still dim behind his eyelids as he did his mental check of his limbs. No new scars please, he thought wryly once he confirmed all his limbs were in place, albeit sore and strained. Remus sighed. Then came the more dreaded question.

"Did anyone get hurt?" He asked, his voice hoarse from his transformation.

He expected one of the boys to respond, but when no response came, his eyes flew open in a panic. They normally stayed the night in the Infirmary to get their checkup from Madam Pomfrey — Remus knew they were just there to keep him company, though they always deflected when he tried to usher them back to the dorms — and they were normally the first to assure him that no one had gotten hurt. Alarmed, Remus sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed hastily to look around, his joints groaning in protest.

"Are you hurt?" A voice next to him asked.

He was dreaming again.

Y/N was sitting in a chair next to his bed, alarm quickly breaking through the remnants of the sleepiness that clung onto her eyes as she scanned him hastily as if to ensure he was still in one piece. There was an imprint of his blanket on her cheek. Remus's fingers twitched to rub it when she spoke up again. "Should I call Madam Pomfrey?"

So it wasn't a dream.

At the sobering realization, Remus shook his head hastily. "No, I, uh, I'm fine," he said, the words faltering on his lips. Suddenly he felt very seen. He had never wanted her to see him after a transformation, especially not then, when he was all fresh scars and worn bones. He felt like a shell of himself. "What are you doing here?" He asked quietly, fixing his gaze on his hands and noticing a new scar across the back of his hand, still red and shallow. He couldn't quite look at her now as shame and mortification flooded his system.

For the first time in his life, he wished she wasn't looking at him.

"You guys normally come back earlier on full moons," she said, still looking at him. "I was worried that..." She fell silent. So she had even known their schedule, he despaired.

"I see," Remus said tightly, feeling drained.

When he didn't say anything else, she spoke up again tentatively. "Sirius told me to tell you that no one got hurt—"

Chagrin and shame roiled in his stomach as he stared at the new scar on his hand. "You can go back now," he interrupted, grasping the blanket tightly. He wished she wasn't looking at him, he wished that he didn't have a new scar, he wished that the floor would just open up and swallow him whole.

He wished this was all just a bad dream.

"I'll go if you want me to go," she said quietly. Remus couldn't tell what expression she was making because he couldn't bare to look at her. Pity, fear, disgust. He was sure he'd never recover if she was looking at him like that— "But I... I don't want to go."

His gaze darted from his hands to her face. She was biting on the inside of her cheek, her eyes wide and imploring and distracting. Slowly, it became easy to breathe again. The imprint of the blanket was fading from her cheek. Remus still wanted to rub it off.

"Okay," he acquiesced, the word coming out as a soft breath. She relaxed back into the chair. "I never wanted you to see me like this," he murmured quietly, feeling all too cracked open under her gaze.

"Remus," she began, also whispering as if not to break the fragile peace between them. His heart stuttered dangerously at the sound of his name from her lips, but he shouldered forward, adamant to not let himself start dreaming again.

"Have you... been well?" Remus asked, first as a deflection before he took in the shadows on her face. It was like once he started, he couldn't stop. "Have you been eating properly and sleeping enough—"

"Remus," she said again, this time more urgently and softly. "I got your letters."

Remus paused, his dry throat clicking as he swallowed. "So you knew the notes were from me," he murmured, rubbing at the base of his neck. "Sorry, I thought they would help, but I'll stop if you're uncomfortable—"

"No, I mean, I got your letters," she said, reaching into her book bag.

To his horror, she pulled out a stack of parchment. Some of them had were heavily creased from being balled up, but someone had carefully straightened them and piled them up. "You weren't supposed to see those," he blurted, mortified now. "I threw those away."

"I know," she said, her gaze fixed on the letters. They weren't really letters at all — he had never been able to get past how to address her. He could catch glimpses of his chicken scratch handwriting. Y/N. Dove. My sweet girl. Cariad. My love. Cariad. Cariad. Y/N. Y/N. Y/N. "Lily gave them to me. She also gave me this—" Carefully, Y/N pulled another familiar piece of parchment from her bag. This one was filled and messy with different colored inks across time.

Remus's mouth went dry. He didn't need to look at it to know what it was because he had it memorized.

Ketchup and pepper with eggs (prefers sunny-side up)

Three younger brothers

Likes mum's knitted sweater the most -> owl mum how she did it??

No favorite color, but it's probably green and yellow??

Needs a midday nap most days

Likes long skirts (or is it because I complimented it?)

Y/N is Sisyphus and the question of orange juice or apple juice is the rock

Peonies

Chocolate frogs (non-jumping)

Always needs hair ties -> ask Lily if Hogsmeade has any

Tea = 3 sugars, lots of milk (prefers juice though)

Give notes for Ancient Runes

Find out if there are hair tying charms

Jane Austen

Christmas ideas: skirts, cat, necklace, journal, hair ties

"You weren't supposed to see that," he said again dumbly.

"I know," she said again. A pause. "I believe you."

Remus's head snapped up to see that she was looking at him. He was dreaming again. He shook himself out of it. "No, you don't have to," he said hastily.

"No, Remus, I believe you that it was real," she said, her words choppy as she wrung her hands together. He wanted to reach out and cover her hand with his but instead he sat perfectly still. "But I— But I was so hurt by you," she whispered.

"I'm so sorry," he said with every fiber of his being. "I was afraid and selfish and I hurt you and there's no forgiving that."

"But Remus," she said, looking up at him finally. "I've missed you. I miss you so much and I don't know what to do—" Her voice cracked. Remus felt like something in him cracked open again.

"Oh, cariad," he breathed. "Can I—" He faltered, but miraculously, she picked up on what he meant. Wordlessly, she surged into his arms and for the first time in weeks, he felt like he could breathe again. "I'm so sorry, my sweet girl," he murmured into her hair as he breathed in her familiar scent. "If... if you'll have me again, can we start over?"

"Only if it's for real this time," she mumbled into his shoulder with a dry huff of a laugh as she clutched him back. God, he missed her laugh.

He pressed a kiss against her temple, the first of many. "It's real. Very real."

Remus prayed he wasn't dreaming anymore.

— — — — —

a/n: thanks for reading :^) would love to hear thoughts! my masterlist here

[lixies-favorite-cookie]

Don't cry over spilled milk ◦ l.f

-Accidents happen is an easy thing to say when your daughter didn't just dump a cup of milk on your husband's new black carpet and all of a sudden— you can't breathe

Paring◦ Dad!Lee Felix x Mom!Reader

Words◦ 1633

Genre ◦ Hurt and comfort, ngl this was like really angsty and I didn't mean for it to be 😭, definitely fluffy towards the end though

Warnings ◦ Kinda points towards the fact that the reader might have been abused, descriptions of the readers father being an asshole, talk about abuse, the term beating black and blue, crying, spilled milk, Felix being sickeningly sweet, overuse of love, descriptions of bad dreams, trauma, bleeding, bad thoughts, and wounds (all these are metaphors).

Taglist◦@thetoastghost222I hope you like it <33

A/N ◦this is just something simple and cute I cooked up real fast I didn't really put too much thought into it honestly I just let my brain go also don't judge me but I literally just looked up "cute Korean girl names that mean sunshine" in the search engine and picked the first thing so... also I'm going to be reuploading all my old stuff into my new blog in one fair swoop soooo I'm rereading this and there's something about my writing I have always noticed is off so if anybody can point it out/ give me advice I would literally appreciate it so much

~cookiecreates 🍪

You took "Don't cry over spilled milk" very seriously because it took every fiber of your being not to sob when Ha-Yun's glass of milk dropped on Felix's new carpet, throwing a vibrant white stain on the expensive black furnishing. You really don't know how many different adjectives your brain could come up with to describe the horror you felt pounding in your heart.

It was as though this moment was a portal into the deepest caverns of your mind—a key that unlocked a swarm of memories flickering in the back of your brain like fireflies. You squeeze your eyes shut, pushing back the flood of bad feelings that seem to wash over you quicker than you can wipe them away—You're transported back to those days when your head was high and your hands were small, spilling milk on your dad's new carpet. You were so little, so naive, you didn't know that the world wasn't all butterflies and unicorns; that milk stained and dads got mad. You vowed to be the parent who held their baby's hand as they picked it up, smiling when they threw the dirty towel in the trash. 

Accidents happen.

Accidents happen.

Accidents happen.

But you don't know if that's what Felix vowed to do, and with the carpet being 600 dollars, you wouldn't be surprised if he beat the poor girl black and blue.

Just like your dad did. 

Your fingers tremble as you grip the cup in your hands, the world seems to swirl around you, swimming in all your bad dreams. It only took a teaspoon to die and a bad thought to drown. How easy it is to be pulled under the waves when you're vulnerable. You thought you kept the sea at bay, but even the most experienced divers can get pulled into a riptide. 

The cup clatters in the sink, startling you out of your thoughts. Ha-Yun babbles in the corner, throwing cheerios to the ground. This was all your fault; you shouldn't have put her high chair in the living room. 

All your fault.

All your fault.

All your-

The lock clicks.

Your heart drops, plummeting into the grave in which you buried all your pain. You scramble to find something to cover the stain. In all your panic, you forget that shit doesn't magically go away, sticking to your skin like syrup dripping down your spine. Everything was spinning in your vision as your lungs contracted, you wondered if you could really drown in theoretical oceans, especially the ones that occupied your mind.

It all seemed so silly as Felix's frame came into view, like he was made entirely from watercolor pouring down the page. You threw the towel over the mess, attempting to conceal your sobs.

Maybe he'll walk away.

Maybe he's too tired to notice.

Maybe you can spare his wrath.

“Love,” Felix's deep voice floats into your ears like cotton candy disintegrating under the waves of words you drown in. Scars were never promises on the skin; the human body is a delicate chemistry, and with the right motivation, it can crumble.

You snap. Break apart. Succumb to the river of sentences that stuck to your skin, like honey and glass. Time heals all wounds, but what about the ones that never scar, never scab? What about the ones whose vile words poisoned the flesh, eating away at your soul? Time doesn't heal all wounds because sometimes wounds are just too deep. Strong arms wrap around your huddled frame, your face drawn to your knees. 

“I-I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." you sob mindlessly, it was as though your younger self control—caught in a weird form of fight or flight—dissociating from reality.

“Sorry? Sorry for what, love?” He whispers, dropping to the floor and pulling you onto his lap. He's so gentle, so calm, so completely opposite of any love you have ever felt or any father you have ever seen.

"Milk-" You choke; your words getting caught in your throat. You dig your face into his shoulder. "She spilled the milk on the carpet. I'm so sorry." The tears keep coming as though you're bleeding all the emotions you had kept under wraps for too long; it was like an infection, and Felix's loving arms cleansed your wounds.

"Oh, love," he coos, petting your hair, "didn't anybody ever tell you not to cry over spilled milk." You can't help but chuckle, a weird mix between a sniffle and a sob. 

You must look like such a wreck right now—face blotchy and red, snot dripping down your nose, tears pouring down your cheeks—you look like you just crawled out of the pits of hell, and he still looks at you like you're the most beautiful woman he's ever laid his eyes on.

In that moment, you feel so silly, so stupid, kinda wanting to crawl back into the pits of hell from which you came. You should have known he wasn't going to react the way your father had. Felix was nothing like the man; he was kind, he was gentle, he was all sunshine and smiles, he was safe.

"I'm sorry for being such a wreck." You cuddle deeper into his chest, sniffling into his shirt. 

"Never be sorry for being human, and especially, never be sorry for showing me." It took everything in you not to break down again, letting his strong arms hold you while you scrubbed all the syrup from your soul, but you have a baby and a mess on the carpet that will be ten times harder to clean if you leave it sitting.

"I'll go get another towel," you sniffle, wiping the tears from your cheeks.

"Don't," he pulls you back down on his lap, “Put your arms around me.” You lock your hands behind his neck, yelping when he picks you up bridal style.

“What- Felix, what are you doing?” You squeal as he walks you to the couch, laying you gently on the cushions.

“I'm showing you how to clean up spilled milk,” He smirks like you didn't just destroy his 600-dollar carpet; his attitude genuinely baffles you.

"How are you not mad?” You whispered, dazed, your mind turning into mush. He tilts your chin up, peering at you with a soft smile and kind eyes. Your breath hitches, little heart eyes popping in your pupils. 

"Accidents happen, love, you never grow out of’em." You melt, literally disintegrating into a pile of goo on the couch.

"D-Do you, um, D-Do you need help?" You stutter, blinking harshly to try and gather your thoughts. It was as if his gentle heart short-circuited your tangled wires—knotted from years of wear and lack of care. 

"You just sit there and look pretty, and I'll show you why you shouldn't cry over spilled milk." He kisses you softly, smiling on your skin, "Okay, baby," he breathes, passion crackling between your lips, "You just keep-" Ha-Yun screeches, slapping her high chair full of Cheerios. Felix groans, tipping his forehead to touch yours. 

"You know, one of these days we've got to get a babysitter. I don't know how long I can stand just being able to admire my beautiful wife from afar," your cheeks burn as you tilt your head down bashfully, "Well maybe we can do that when milk isn't marinating on the floor," he claps, jumping up from his arched position, "yep, your right, jeez baby, you really know how to pull me away from a task."

You cheese, pulling the collar of your shirt over your face. "Go on," you shoo him away, "You were going to teach me something."

He smirks, walking over to the kitchen, pulling the roll of paper towels off the counter and tossing them down next to the mess, unlocking Ha-Yun's highchair to lift her out of it.

"What are you-"

"Shh sit there and look pretty," The way his eyes sparkle and his lips tilt makes him appear almost mischievous. You sink back into the couch, folding your arms in front of your chest, assessing him intently. Ha-Yun beams when she sees Felix, waving her arms around, spitting gobbly gook.

"Oh is that right, well I couldn't have ever guessed," he nods attentively like she just stated the stages of evolution, "Well, as much as I love this conversation, baby, you are going to need to clean up your mess". He chastises her gently, and she frowns, glaring at him, he lifts his brows in retort.

"You know you've got a lot of sass for a 4-year-old," he grumbles "Probably got it from your momma," he sends you a look, lips curled up in a smirk. Your jaw drops in faux offense.

"You know what-" he puts his finger to his lips, cutting you off.

"Were you this bad in school? Cause the teacher," he gestures to himself, "is teaching."

"I'm gonna-"

"Looking pretty," He singsongs, a smile playing on his lips. You bite your cheek, holding back your glare. He snickers, placing her down next to the milk—putting a paper towel in her tiny hands.

"Can you help daddy clean it up please," he squats down to her level, stretching his fingers over hers. She blinks down at the splattered milk. You can almost see the gears turning in her head when he starts carefully moving her hand back and forth over the mess. 

"See!" he cheers, his eyes glowing with pride, "Accidents happen, you just gotta learn to clean them up."

Watching the scene unfold before you fills you with an obscene form of bliss, like you have achieved one of life's greatest victories—that maybe all dads weren't raging assholes that yelled when you spilled milk because, like Felix said, accidents happen—you never grow out of'em.

©CookieCreates (posted: June, 26th 2024) All rights reserved. Do not translate, copy, or claim my works as yours! I only post on this platform so if any of my works are elsewhere, report and notify me immediately.

[binniesbooks]

okay so here’s my request hehe.. i thought long and hard about this :>

alright so what about beomgyu (shocker) but he’s like your super rich (slightly older heh) boyfriend who loves loves loves to spoil you. so he buys the reader the most expensive and cutest piece of lingerie and has her try it on for him, ultimately leading to them fucking heh :>

soft dom beomgyu soft dom beomgyu soft dom beomgyu I BEG OF YOU 🙏

• LUXURY GIFTS

BG 001 .F23 2024

wc 3.6k

pairings richbf!beomgyu x spoiledgf!reader

warnings a lot of cursing, marking, unprotected sex, creampie. softdom!beomgyu

faye's note this is my first ever fic in Tumblr and here's my 'lil reign with my first ever ask. Won't stop yapping abt her being my inspiration. I gave her the honor and I'm gladly dedicating this one to her with all my heart. I poured out my blood sweat and tears here. I even remember your tip that I must start light, AND FOR FUCK'S SAKE, THIS, IN WHATEVER SENSE, IS NO LIGHT AT ALL. FUCK. Enjoy I guess! ㅇㅅㅇ For so many times, I kept on rereading this, not wanting to disappoint anyone of my grammar. I think I still need to work on my writing style, my grammar and my mind itself. Goodness. I-i'm just gonna give it a shot, hehe-

Totally dedicated to the one and only, @beomiracles *bows down*

Beomgyu was a hard-working boyfriend. He had always been the most hard-working person you know. He was always busy working on something even at the premise of his very own house. You often teased him as a slave at work even though, he, basically owned the company where he was working at. He may be always busy but he always makes time when it comes to you. He never forgets every detail about you, your likes and dislikes, and does not even need to mark his calendar to remind himself about dates because he knows when. Beomgyu is not your average type of boyfriend. However, people mistook him as just a worker and not the owner. The humble aura he carried is what made people mistake him for one.

Being with him wasn’t easy. Because of his friendly and approachable attitude, girls tend to hit on him, and sometimes it gets on your nerves causing an argument between the two of you.

"What the hell was that?" You raise your voice as you harshly step down the stairs to the parking lot from the party you two are at.

"Baby, please, at least stop walking and listen to me, you might trip and hurt yourself". He tries to catch your hand as you swing it away from him.

"There were so many times, I've warned you not to get too close to people who are eye-fucking you", you faced him, brows meeting.

He sighed as he stepped closer and held your hand.

"Princess. I'm being extra careful, promise. I wasn't even expecting that she would do that, but I pushed her hands away, I swear" he genuinely apologized as he caressed your hand.

You close your eyes, about to speak again when he interrupts you. "I promise, that will never gonna happen again". He cupped your face as he looked at your eyes.

"One more time a girl tries to place their hand on whichever part of your body, I'm gonna cut their hands" you fumed as you tried to erase the memory of that girl trying to fix Beomgyu's necktie.

"Her actions were too unnecessary given the fact that you have a girlfriend" you muttered under your breath as he gave you a tight hug and kept on apologizing.

"Not my fault you're younger than me and they mistake you as my sibling instead" he teased.

You shove him as you glare at him saying, "Excuse me, a two-year difference is not that big?! Plus are you enjoying the fact that you are being touched by other girls?"

"Words, miss. We don't want you getting in trouble with you accusing me, yeah?" He holds your face closer to his with a smirk plastered on his face. "I'm not enjoying it. I just wanna tease you, pretty. You don't have a clue how many million times I explained to those people who are around us that we are a thing, not siblings." He sighed and kissed your forehead.

"Why don't we go do some shopping instead? What do you say? It's still early. We can buy everything you want." He smiled as he cupped your face once again coaxing you.

"Just because I am agreeing to this doesn't mean we are all good now", you glared at him. He chuckles at your actions as he opens the door of his car.

"Get in princess, I'm going to buy you lots of gifts," he gestured as you sat down in your seat. You watched him circle the car and enter the driver's seat. You sighed, it is never easy to have a good-looking, humble, and kind type of boyfriend.

He drove to the store where he always buys you gifts and luxuries. This was a normal occurrence between the two of you. Him being the target of every girl, you fuming, and Beomgyu spoiling you to make it up to you. It might sound like he is bribing you but he's not. He just really loves spoiling you. If possible, he won't allow you to spend a single cent. Claiming that he is the man and he must be responsible ever since the two of you started dating. But of course, you also sometimes stand your ground and 25% of the time, he accepts losing to you.

Another normal occurrence was that you would get a flower delivered to your place before you go to work, every single day. And of course, who did it come from other than your boyfriend who loves to spoil you? You even thought of planting a whole garden with how many flowers he kept sending you. If only you had cool hands that could keep the flowers alive after planting. From flowers to accessories, from dresses to footwear. Anything that your eyes laid upon, he buys it, with or without your permission.

One Saturday morning, you woke up with a ringing phone. You grabbed it and answered without checking the caller's ID.

"Hello? Who is this? The sun is barely up..." You talked with eyes still closed, voice becoming faint. You heard a chuckle on the other side of the line. The voice registered to your brain, it was Choi Beomgyu, your boyfriend.

"Good morning sleepy head, happy anniversary." He greeted with such joy in his voice. Your once sleepy mind and body were fully awake now as you scrambled to sit up face palming your face. Remember how you set your alarm the night before to wake up early and be the one to greet him first but you ended up switching your phone off every time the alarm rang.

"I'm sorry, love, I wanted to be the one who greeted you first-- my goodness." You exclaimed as you mentally punched your head.

He chuckles once again as he tried to cheer you up, "It's fine baby, I know you are tired from work, it's too early to be upset"

"Happy anniversary, Beomie, I love you." You smiled and tried to sound more positive.

"I love you, princess. Oh, by the way, can you come alone here later? I might not be able to pick you up, I still have a lot more to prepare. Plus I'm planning to cook."

"Mmm, will do, baby. Don't worry." You answered as you stood up from your bed and placed your phone between your shoulder and cheek to make your bed.

"Are you sure though? I can still pick you up, you know, plus it's still early. We're gonna meet at 6 in the evening. I can make time." He asked.

"Beomie, you don't have to worry, really. I'm gonna finish my chores first, might run to a store and buy something before going straight to your place". You assured back.

"Okay then. I'll see you this evening, love. I'll be at work. I love you, take care of yourself." You answered with a sweet hum and a smile as if he could see you before he dropped the call. Beomgyu has been calling you different pet names, which did not even bother you a single bit. His sweetness shows through the way he calls you. You were so used to it that whenever he did not call you any, you knew that he was angry.

After finishing all your tasks and chores, you had to clean yourself up. Standing in the middle of your dresser, deciding on what you will wear.

You've been pondering already for half an hour. Digging every corner of your cabinet to look for something special to wear. You can't disappoint Beomgyu, especially today. He loves to spoil you and you love to show it off especially when you are with him. Well, he tells you to dress pretty all the time. If you were his wife already, he would have considered you a trophy wife.

Within a few minutes, you decided to wear the silk red designer dress he had recently bought you. It hugged every corner of your curves the right way. Although he did spoil you with so many accessories and wardrobes, he was not a fan of heavy makeup. He likes it simple. After dabbing some face powder and a gloss on your lips, you were good to go.

You immediately get up, and grab your phone, the gift you ordered a few days ago, your purse, and your car key. You were still planning to drop by a store nearby to buy some wine for the special night.

It was 10 minutes before 6 when you arrived at his place. "Hi love, how are you?" You greeted him as you placed the wine on the table that you brought from the store before you rushed to his side.

"I'm good princess. Maybe a bit exhausted. I doubled my work for my pretty girl", he smiled as he removed the apron wrapped around his waist. Repositioning the folded sleeves of his dress shirt.

"I'm almost done here, why not take a seat?" He approached you and kissed you while giving you a tight hug. "You look pretty..." His fingers brushed along your cheeks when he pulled away to look at you. "Happy anniversary" he muttered once again. You smiled at him as you tiptoed and gave him a quick kiss. "Happy anniversary Beomie" you giggled.

He pulled the chair for you and made you sit down, "could you wait for a couple minutes more? I'm almost done. " You nod at him.

You shared the evening with sweet talks and love lingering between the two of you. Sharing the food he cooked and the wine you bought.

"I have a gift for you." You said joyfully as you placed the glass of wine carefully on the table. "It might not be much, since you have everything." You playfully roll your eyes as you push the small box in front of him.

"You can open it now." You said as you clasped your hands near your cheeks. Excitement can be easily heard from your voice.

He carefully unwrapped the gift as if almost scared to destroy it. His eyes widened at the gift you gave him.

"Love, you didn't have to." His eyes softened when he looked at you. It was a wristwatch. It was nothing compared to everything he bought you. But this particular one was hard to find. He couldn't find it in the stores you both often go to. He dislikes online shopping, saying it's too much of a hassle. So, you, as a loving girlfriend, patiently search every single online shop you know, just to find this watch.

"It's nothing compared to everything you have given me, Beom." You held his hand and looked at him lovingly. He smiled sweetly at you as he sighed in defeat.

Beomgyu has always been a big fan of extravagance and elegance, and tonight, he was eager to show it off again to you. He asked you to close your eyes as he stood up to grab the gift he bought. When you opened your eyes, a beautifully wrapped box sat invitingly on the table.

“Open it,” he said, a playful glint in his eyes. You excitedly open the box. Inside, you found the most exquisite lingerie—a lingerie that shimmered softly, and you bet it wouldn't cover you fully.

Your eyes are wide as you stutter to talk to him.

"L-love, what...what is this?" This is the lingerie your eyes always laid upon whenever you go to that one place with Beomgyu. You just always smile at yourself every time you see this, shaking off the naughty ideas building in your mind. But to hold it with your own hands, to be gifted it to you as your own, it makes you so shy.

“Try it on for me,” he urged, his excitement palpable. He crossed his arms on his chest as he stared at you, a smirk, once again, plastered on his face. You felt a rush of anticipation as you headed to his bedroom, slipping into the lingerie. Staring at your reflection in the mirror. Unsure if you want to go out and face him. Your cheeks show a visible bright hue of pink, and your ears red.

Beomgyu was the one to follow you when you did not show. Beomgyu’s expression was one of pure admiration. “Wow,” he breathed, stepping closer. “You look breathtaking.” The red lingerie is barely covering your chest, you are thankful that there was a free mini skirt cut of the lingerie that can cover you below.

He circled you slowly, taking in every detail, before leaning in to whisper, “Fuck, it fits you perfectly." He tucks your hair on the back of your ear. Your ears burn hot with embarrassment and with the sensation. Yes, you've been with Beomgyu for a while but you haven't taken it to the next level, aside from heavy make-outs of course, that's why you feel so small and embarrassed in front of him.

He made you face the big mirror again, as he stood at your back. He gently placed his arms on your neck. You couldn't help but whimper at how you looked. You shut your eyes as you felt a shiver down your spine.

"Fuck." He cursed once more, almost unheard. "Don't make a sound like that, sweetheart. I might not be able to control myself." He places his other hand on your waist, taking a dip where your neck and shoulder blades meet as he inhales your scent. "You smell so sweet."

"Beomgyu, please..." You can feel yourself trembling in his hands. He pulls away, making you frown a little bit. He walked towards the bed as he sat down on the edge.

"C'mere." He taps on his lap as you walk towards him. You swear you heard him mutter 'fuck's' and 'shit's' under his breath. You sat on his lap as he held your waist, letting his lips crash on yours. You clawed on his chest for the sensation you are feeling. The kiss he's giving you is careful but needy, gentle but hot. You both pull away, lips swollen, and steam can be felt between the two of you.

"Please tell me to stop now. I can't afford to hurt you." He closed his eyes as he tried to ground himself. With mustered-up courage, you slowly got off of him and started to get down instead.

"Sweetheart, I'm warning you." He tried to warn you as he held your wrist. You shook your head. "I've been dying to do this to you, Beomie". You stared up at him as you slowly unbuckled his belt.

"Fuck, please..." He bit his lips. Still trying to control himself. You raise his dress shirt a bit, enough for his abdomen to show.

You slowly stroke him when he finally lets go of your wrist.

"Ah! Shit- love, fuck." You can see how his abdomen clenches at the sensation. You lowered your head, giving him kitten licks, testing the waters, tasting his pre-cum. He held your hair, not enough to hurt you but enough to take control. He tried to lower your head more, making his tip be fully shoved into your mouth.

"Fucking hell. You look so pretty." He loosens his grip on your hair and carefully caresses your face, as you lean on his hand. He voluntarily removed the buttons of his shirt discarding it at the bedside.

His hands moved back to your head once again as he pushed you down a bit more making you whimper. He cursed once again as he felt the vibrating sensation from your mouth. "Are you okay?" He checks you. Only for him to moan again as you hum on his cock in your mouth. Once he knows you got used to him, he controls the moment of your head, making you clench on nothing. You are guessing he is almost coming undone when his voice gets a bit higher in pitch.

"Fuck, stop right there." He commanded, making you stop your movement. He pulled you up to kiss you once again, this time a bit more aggressive than the first one. He pulled away, only to press his thumb on your lips. "Hot.." you muttered, before sucking on his thumb. The action got Beomgyu reeling as his remaining self-control slipped out.

He made you stand up and lay down on the bed as he discarded his pants. You were not expecting him to go down on you but he is Beomgyu. The guy who always puts you first. The guy who always took care of you first instead of himself. His fingers swiftly removed the newly bought lingerie,

You trembled when you felt his tongue lap onto your cunt. He gripped your waist to stop you from squirming away from him.

"Beomgyu! Ah fuck! Fuck it feels so good!" The voice came out strained. He hums and looks up at you as he rubs a circular motion on your sensitive nub.

"Please, please Beomgyu! I-i'm gonna cum!" Your eyes well up with tears. As you beg him, unsure of what, you chant him as many please as your mouth can say.

He tasted a salty-sweet taste on his tongue as you come undone, fucking his tongue in and out of you as you ride your high.

"Give me one more, love, I know you can." He said as he once more made you cum on his tongue.

"You tasted so sweet. I might be addicted to your taste, damn."He mutters as he hovers over you, littering your neck with dark red and purplish marks. You tried to grind on him which he immediately felt and smiled.

"Never thought you'd be this eager. I should've bought that lingerie a long time ago if I only knew." He chuckled as he pressed a deep kiss on your still-swollen lips.

He supported his body up with his arms. Your eyes watched how his muscles flexed on both of his arms. You can't help but hold on to it knowing what is happening next.

"Should we stop, love? I have no condoms prepared. I really didn't know we were taking it up to-"

"Please take me raw." Your eyes pleading. You held his arms tighter. He stared at your love bites- littered body as he bit his lips.

"If you ask me like that, how can I even say no?". He held your cheeks for a while before totally discarding his boxers. "Tell me if it's too much and we'll stop. I want to ruin you but I don't wanna hurt you, darling." He sincerely said as he lined himself up at your entrance.

You never felt a sensation this good before. His raw flesh drags inside you slowly. "More. I can take it" you assured, shaking off the stretching pain you are feeling.

"Please tell me the truth. I think I'm hurting you, baby." He worries. You hug him closer as you ask him to fully push in. "Please push it in more, Beom. I need more.." you muttered, cock drunk, fucked out.

He can't help but to bit his lip and bottom out in you as he stared at your fucked out expression. "Fuckin' tight. You feel so good, wrapping around my cock, baby." He smirked at you. You avoided his gaze out of embarrassment as

"I'll start moving." He announced still staring at you as he slowly moved in and out. You are now a whimpering and a moaning mess in front of him. The pretty girl who once was pretty in his eyes when angry is now all fucked out. Unable to form coherent words as whimpers, whines, and moans are the only thing that comes out of your mouth.

"Ahh! Shit love, please stop clenching on me or I might cum inside you!" With a warning tone, he tries to stop you. But every time you hear him curse, you heard him moan as if on cue, as you were clenching on his cock. You can't help yourself but clench on him some more.

"I'm.. fuck.. fuck! Fuck Beomgyu! Oh god!" You were squirming under him, feeling every bit of his cock drag in your insides. It's giving you too much sensation you couldn't handle.

"Come on my cock then. Show me how much you love me, baby. Show me how much you can do for me." He himself can't help but move faster inside you with his high nearing.

You clawed on his arms making him wince as you come undone on his cock, body shaking, he held you closer as he fucks you more into your high, his white thick cum painting your walls. "Shit!" He exclaimed as his ears rang when he pushed more inside, making your lips quiver and your eyes shut close.

A few more seconds when he calmed down from his high he pulled out of you. Almost ran to the bathroom to grab a wet towel. In everything, he puts you first, cleaning you more than himself. He grabbed a shirt from his closet and made you slip it on to make you feel comfortable. He picked up his pants to wear them again as he laid beside you.

You mouthed 'Happy anniversary, love' before you buried your face in the crook of his neck. He chuckled as he pulled you closer and hugged you as he tucked you both under the blanket. Allowing you and himself to dive deep in sleep.

'This was a better gift than the watch, I guess', he thinks to himself.

@binniesbooks 2024

[peavhyshy]

𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗡 𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗦 (oneshot)

Pairing: Sarah Cameron x Reader

Summary: In which you and Sarah share a secret kiss while hanging out alone in your room, complicating both of your relationships with John B.

Warnings: sarah cheats on john b with reader, explicit language, fluff, smut, secret relationship, friends to lovers, this set after ward blew himself up, emotional hurt/comfort, fluff, fingering, oral sex, grinding/tribbing, nipple play

Words: 2,617 

a/n: guys is it bad to sleep with your best friend when your boyfriend is being a douche and didn't comfort you after you watched your dad die? but seriously there needs to be more sarah fics on here, y'all sleeping on her

((not proofread because i'm lazy and rereading stuff I write makes me cringe for some reason))

Outer Banks Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The sun had just set over OBX, casting an orange glow across the sandy beaches. Inside the your families beach house, Sarah lay sprawled across your bed, half-watching some cheesy rom-com on the little TV in your room.

"Ugh, I can't watch this anymore," Sarah groaned, grabbing the remote and flicking through channels aimlessly. She was grateful for you trying to cheer her up after the traumatic events of the past few days, but she just wasn't in the mood for happy endings right now.

You glanced over from where you sat braiding friendship bracelets on the floor. "Yeah, I'm not really feeling it either," you said with a sympathetic smile. You tied off the bracelet and scooted up onto the bed next to Sarah.

Sarah clicked off the TV and flopped back onto the pile of pillows with a dramatic sigh. "I just keep replaying it all in my head, you know? Like maybe if I had done something differently…" Her voice trailed off as she stared up at the ceiling fan swirling above you guys.

You reached over and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "It's not your fault, Sarah. There's nothing you could have done."

Sarah turned her head to look at you, her brown eyes glistening. In the soft glow of the bedside lamp, You looked so beautiful and comforting that Sarah suddenly felt the urge to kiss you. Before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned in and pressed her lips to yours.

Your eyes went wide in surprise before slowly closing as you kissed Sarah back tentatively. After a few seconds, you broke apart, blushing wildly.

"Um, wow," you breathed, biting your lip. "So that just happened."

Sarah let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah, sorry, I guess I'm just feeling extra emotional and impulsive tonight. I've always thought you were really pretty though." She grinned sheepishly.

You laughed and playfully hit Sarah with a pillow. "Oh so that's how it is, huh? Taking advantage of me in my own bedroom?"

Sarah dramatically flipped her hair. "I mean, can you blame me? Have you seen this hair?"

You both dissolved into giggles, the tension instantly broken. No matter what else was going on in your lives, you always had each other. And maybe this was the beginning of something more.

“What about John B?” you asked, putting the bracelet on Sarah’s hand.

Sarah sighed, twisting the new bracelet around her wrist. "John B…I don't know. He's been so caught up in everything with his dad and the gold, it's like he doesn't even see me anymore. I miss how things used to be between us."

She looked up at you. "But then there's this…" she gestured between you guys. "This connection we have. I've never felt this way about another girl before."

You nodded, a worried crease forming between your brows. "I know what you mean. I care about John B, but I also care about you." you bit your lip. "Maybe we should keep this between us for now? At least until we figure things out.”

Sarah considered it for a moment then nodded slowly. “Yeah, you’re probably right. No need to complicate things even more.” She linked her pinky with yours. “This can be our little secret.”

You smiled, hooking your pinky with Sarah’s. “Our secret,” you repeated.

Sarah leaned in conspiratorially. “So should we pick up where we left off before we were so rudely interrupted by your question?” you teased.

You giggled and closed the distance once more, your lips meeting in a soft, tentative kiss.

Sarah lifts your shirt over your head, exposing your bare chest. She runs her hands up your sides, caressing your soft skin as she kisses down your neck. You let out a soft gasp, tangling your fingers in Sarah's blonde hair.

"Sarah…" you breathe out, your heart pounding as Sarah's hands continue to explore your body. You feel a growing heat between your legs, this new intimacy with Sarah awakening desires you never knew you had. Sarah kisses lower, trailing her lips down your collarbone, then takes a hard nipple into her mouth. You moan, arching your back off the bed at the sensation.

Sarah lifts her head to look into your eyes, her own darkened with lust. She reaches behind you to unclasp your bra, then tosses it aside. Sarah sits back on her knees to admire your naked form, a smirk playing on her kiss-swollen lips.

"You're so fucking beautiful," she says throatily before leaning down to capture your lips once more. As your tongues meet, Sarah reaches down to undo the button on your shorts, her hand slipping beneath the waistband. You gasp into Sarah's mouth at the intimate touch, your hips bucking involuntarily. You never felt more alive than in this moment with Sarah, every nerve-ending tingling with anticipation.

Sarah's fingers dip lower, finding slick heat that makes you cry out. She strokes slowly at first, learning what makes you whimper and moan.

As Sarah's fingers work between your legs, you feel pleasure building within your core. Your breathing comes faster, soft moans escaping with each circular stroke of Sarah's fingers over your slick, swollen clit. Your hips rock uncontrollably, pushing yourself against Sarah's hand as your arousal grows.

Sarah watches your face, taking in every flutter of your eyelids, every gasp and whimper. She slides two fingers lower, teasing your entrance before pushing them inside. You cry out at the penetration, panting Sarah's name over and over. Sarah thrusts her fingers slowly at first, then faster as your inner walls clench tight around them.

The coil of tension in your belly winds tighter and tighter until suddenly it snaps, your orgasm crashing over you in waves of euphoria. Your back arches off the bed, a string of curses and Sarah's name on your lips as you come undone.

Sarah pulls back slightly to look into your eyes, her own bright with exhilaration and desire. She runs her fingers through your tousled hair and grins, trailing her hand down your body. She slips her fingers beneath the waistband of your shorts again, raising an eyebrow in question.

You bit your lip and nodded, lifting your hips so Sarah can slide your shorts and underwear off. Sarah tosses them aside, then settles between your parted thighs, kissing a path up your inner leg. You shiver in anticipation, propping yourself up on your elbows to watch. When Sarah's mouth finally finds your pussy, you gasp, your head falling back against the pillows.

Sarah hums in satisfaction at your reaction, the vibration sending sparks of pleasure through you. She uses her tongue to explore your slick folds, quickly finding the sensitive bundle of nerves that makes you cry out and clutch at the sheets. Sarah focuses her attention there, alternating between broad laps of her tongue and tight circles around your clit.

Your soon panting and writhing beneath her. "Oh god, Sarah…feels so good…" you moan. The coil of tension winds tight once more until you shatter again with a sharp cry, your thighs clamping around Sarah's head as you come. Sarah works you through it with soft licks, not stopping until you go limp with satisfaction.

Your moans fill the room as straddles you and slips off her underwear, your bodies coming together in a tantalizing display of desire. The slickness of your wetness creates friction that sends shivers of pleasure through both of you. Sarah's core radiates heat, igniting a fire within you that can't be quenched.

Your hands greedily explore Sarah's sides, eager to feel every inch of her. You grab onto Sarah's ass, pulling her closer, urging her to grind harder against your throbbing clit. Sarah leans down, capturing your lips in a searing kiss that leaves you both breathless. Your tongues dance and entwine, a passionate tango of desire. The taste of your shared arousal fill your mouths, fueling your hunger for each other.

Your hips move in perfect harmony, each thrust bringing you closer to the edge. Sarah's grinding against your clit, your clits rubbing together in a rhythm that drives you both wild. The wetness between your legs acts as a lubricant, allowing your movements to become even more intense, more intimate.

You arch your back, offering your breasts to Sarah's hungry mouth. Sarah eagerly takes the invitation, capturing a nipple between her lips, sucking and nipping at the sensitive flesh. The sensation shoots electric sparks of pleasure straight to your core.

With one final, powerful thrust, Sarah's body shudders with pleasure. She cries out, her climax washing over her in a wave of bliss that crashes through her entire being. Her walls clench around nothing but the air, her core pulsating with every release.

Your own release follows closely behind, your body convulsing in waves of pleasure. The intense sensations ripple through you, causing you to grip onto Sarah tightly, your bodies pressed together in an intimate embrace. You both ride out the waves of your orgasms together, matching each other's moans and gasps.

When you finally break apart your both are flushed and beaming. Sarah's fingers gently stroke your face as you kiss languidly, softly.

"Was that okay?" Sarah asks after a moment, suddenly shy.

You smile, pulling Sarah down for another lingering kiss. "More than okay," you assure her. Sarah grins, nuzzling into your neck.

Sarah smiles contentedly and lays her head on on your chest, listening to the steady rhythm of your heartbeat as it returns to normal. She feels a sense of peace and belonging that she hasn't felt in a long time. Here with you, away from the chaos and tragedy of the outside world, Sarah can simply be. No expectations, no pretending - just two souls connecting on the most intimate level.

Sarah traces lazy circles on your bare stomach as you lay entwined. She thinks about how rapidly her feelings have shifted - from seeing you only as a friend, to suddenly being unable to resist her. It feels natural though, not scary or confusing like her past crushes on boys. With you it just feels…right.

Eventually your lips find each other again, the kisses growing heated once more. You roll yourselves over so you're the one on top, straddling Sarah's hips. You look down at Sarah with hungry eyes as you slowly grind against her. Sarah gasps at the delicious friction, gripping your hips.

"Now it's my turn," you say in a low voice that sends a jolt of arousal straight between Sarah's legs. You reach down and tugs at the hem of Sarah's shirt. "Take this off."

Sarah complies, pulling her shirt up over her head and tossing it aside. You make quick work of her bra too until Sarah is laid bare before her. Your admiring gaze roams over Sarah's body, making her shiver with anticipation, you capture one of Sarah's nipples between your lips.

Sarah cries out, arching up into your warm mouth. As you lavishes attention on her breasts, Sarah is reduced to a writhing, moaning mess beneath your ministrations. This is even better than she imagined as she lets you take full control. 

You kiss your way down Sarah's trembling body until your mouth replaces your fingers between Sarah's legs. Sarah closes her eyes, crying out your name as a slick tongue explores her slick folds. She reaches down to tangle her fingers in your hair, urgent moans spilling from her lips.

"Y/N, I'm close…" she pants out. The coil of tension winding tighter and tighter within her finally snaps as she comes undone under your tongue.

You take Sarah into your arms. You exchange soft, languid kisses as Sarah catches her breath.

"Wow…" is all Sarah can say, still reeling.

You grin, kissing the tip of her nose. "I'd say we're pretty good at this secret relationship thing so far."

Sarah laughs. "I'd say so too. But we should probably keep practicing, just to be sure." She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.

You smirk, pulling Sarah in for another deep kiss. "I like the way you think."

Your lips meet again, both of you giddy with the exciting newness of exploring each other. For now, you’re content to stay lost in your little bubble of bliss, putting your troubles aside for a stolen moment of passion and release.

Sarah sighs contentedly, her body still tingling from her intimacy with you. She strokes your hair softly as you lie tangled together on the bed.

After a few peaceful moments, Sarah props herself up on one elbow to look down at you. "Not that I want this to end, but won't your parents be back soon?" she asks.

You glance at the clock on your nightstand and grimaces. "Yeah, probably. As much as I'd love to keep going…" You trail a hand suggestively down Sarah's side.

Sarah shivers at your touch. "Later," she promises with a grin. She gives you one last lingering kiss before reluctantly climbing off the bed to gather her scattered clothes.

As Sarah gets dressed, you sit up and wrap the blanket around yourself. You watch Sarah wistfully, not quite ready to burst this intimate bubble you’ve created. But the approaching sound of a boat motor outside makes the decision for you.

"Coming?" Sarah asks from the bedroom doorway, now fully dressed. Her cheeks are still flushed, lips swollen from kisses.

You sigh. "Yeah, be right there." As Sarah disappears down the hall, you take a moment to collect yourself. You press her fingers to your lips, Sarah's taste still lingering. Your heart flutters thinking about what just transpired between you too.

With a giddy smile, you get up to get dressed. You rejoin Sarah in the living room just as the front door opens and your parents walk in, loaded down with gear from their fishing trip. If they notice your matching blushes and shy glances, they don't say anything.

"Are you staying for dinner, Sarah?" your mom asks as she heads for the kitchen. "I'll throw some fish on the grill."

Sarah catches your eye, an impish look on her face. "I'd love to," she says sweetly. Under the table, she squeezes your hand, your secret.

The you too sat close together on the worn couch in your living room after dinner, shoulders touching. Your parents had retreated outside to the back deck, giving you some privacy. Sarah turned to you, looking into your eyes. She still couldn't believe what had transpired between you too earlier that evening.

"So…that happened," Sarah said with a small smile, cheeks flushing pink.

You nodded, biting your lip. You reached over and gave Sarah's hand a gentle squeeze. "It did. And as crazy as it sounds, it felt…right."

Sarah let out a soft laugh, interlacing your fingers. "I know, I feel the same way! I mean, I never expected this, but being with you just feels so natural."

She glanced down bashfully. "I know things with John B are complicated right now. But he's been pulling away, and you've been there for me. You make me feel safe and happy even during the worst moments."

You lifted Sarah's hand to your lips, kissing it softly. "You deserve to feel safe and happy, Sarah. I'll always be here for you, no matter what happens with John B. And if this-" you gestured between you too "-is something you want to explore, I'm open to it."

Sarah's heart swelled with affection. She leaned in and captured your lips in a sweet, lingering kiss.

"Then let's explore," she murmured against your mouth. You smiled into the kiss, twining your arms around Sarah's neck to pull her closer. 

[asahicore]

we’ll always have this summer - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader synopsis. Your mom ruins your summer plans by sending you to the equestrian center your grandmother owns in the south of France, wanting you to spend some time away from the city and take a break from your med studies. Although you’d been determined to spend the worst time ever there, you soon find out that maybe the cold but cute horse nerd next door who doesn’t want to talk to you might actually turn this summer into the best one of your life. genre. summer au, strangers to mutual dislike to friends to lovers ig, city girl x country boy type beat, mainly fluff and smut but also angst cause i love pain word count. 25.9k a/n. hi sisters i'm super excited to repost this, it was really fun rereading and editing it, and i hope that all of you who had enjoyed reading it last summer will still like it this time around and that those of you who hadn't read it will enjoy it now <3 i had also posted an sfw version, so if anyone would like that too, pls lmk! ok thats it let me know what u think love you bye

Sunghoon was going to have a very normal, uneventful summer. He would take a very much needed break from his studies and take care of the equestrian center he lives in, letting his parents take a breather and enjoy their summer. He’d wake up early and do everything he needed to, then spend the afternoon on horseback or sleeping in a random field. It’d be a routine his body is used to and likes, and he’d be able to let his worries go for a while. But then, you came along.

You, who’d had big plans for the summer. You, who should’ve been going on a two-week vacation with your friends to Mallorca as a treat for having aced your second-year medical school final exams and as a celebration for getting an internship in the hospital of your choice. You, who would’ve done nothing for those two weeks but sunbathe, read trashy romance novels, and get margarita-drunk at 2pm, and would’ve spent the rest of the summer hanging out with your friends in Paris, your home, and taking day trips to random French cities. This summer would be your last fun, carefree summer before you were thrown into real semi-adult life, and you were going to make the best of it. That’s what you had planned; to your utmost despair, your mom seemed to have other ideas in mind.

“We’ve gone over this a thousand times now, sweetie. You’re going. It’ll be good for you.”

“You know what will be good for me?” you say, close on her tail as you descend the stairs. “Relaxing and having fun with my friends for two weeks. Not cleaning horse manure and having to walk ten kilometers to get service.”

“It’ll be one or two kilometers at most, dear, not ten.” 

“Ugh!” you groan ostentatiously. Your mother only shoots you a don’t-be-so-dramatic look. You glare back at her.

“It’ll be good for you,” she repeats, turning back to whatever was occupying her in the kitchen before you started arguing with her as you plop down on one of the stools at the center island. “You’ve seen neither your grandmother nor the countryside in ages, so it’ll be a nice change. What’s more, they say the best doctors are the ones who’ve done different jobs, you know.”

“Who’s ever said that…” you mutter under your breath, a clear look of distaste on your face. “But anyway, I see Mamie every Christmas at Auntie’s in Perpignan, and even if I didn’t, whose fault is it I never go to the countryside? You never bring me there.”

Your mother lifts her head and looks at you. “I’m too busy to make the journey all the way there. You’ve seen it, there’s two trains and two buses, I can’t do all that. Which is why we settle for Marseille. Direct train, easy. You, on the other hand,” she says, pointing to you with her wooden spoon, “will have plenty of time this summer.”

“Yeah, time I could’ve spent on a beach in Spain or with my friends here!” You know you’re being annoying, but you can’t help it. You really want to go to Mallorca.

She sighs. “I just need you to trust me on this one, honey. You’ll have tons of other summers to do all that. Your grandmother is getting old, so I want you to have at least some memories with her before… you know. I know it’s our fault you didn’t see her more often, so this is our way of making up for it!”

Your father walks in the kitchen, materializing out of nowhere as he often does. “Your mother’s right, you know.” They both peer down at you, and you know then you really don’t get a say in this. “I had an amazing bond with my grandfather, and I want for you to have something similar with your grandmother. She’s the only grandparent you’ve got left, and I promise you, you don’t want to let that go to waste.” You still don’t look fully convinced, so he adds, “Plus, you already get along well, right? You always talk lots when you see each other at Christmas.”

Your father does have a point. You know the problem isn’t being with your grandmother, anyway. Truth be told, you were quite looking forward to spending more time with her. She had a great sense of fashion, and you were sure she had many stories to tell you. It was the fact that you had to spend your summer in a godforsaken town of Southern France where the nearest town was seven kilometers away and the nearest city almost a forty-minute drive. Where you lived in Paris, you had everything you needed in a five-minute walk radius, and you just needed to hop on the Metro or the train to go anywhere else. And it was an equestrian center, of all places. You didn’t even like horses.

“Also,” your mother starts, dragging out the vowel, “the family that lives in the house next door has a boy your age. I heard he’s cute.” She wiggles her eyebrows and you groan at her, which just makes your parents laugh more. You don’t want to stereotype, but you highly doubt a boy who lives in an equestrian center in the middle of God-knows-where is anywhere as handsome as the boys you see everywhere in the capital city. Hot people live in cities; to you, that’s always been a fact.

And as if a stupid boy could make this any better anyway.

-

Your mother wasn’t lying when she said the journey was long. You took the Metro from your apartment to the train station, then a rapid train to Perpignan, a regional train to Argelès, and a bus to the town of Laroque-des-Albères. And that wasn’t even it - there could’ve been a second bus, but your grandmother had arranged for the neighbors’ son to come and pick you up and drive you to the small commune named La Pierrerie where the equestrian center was. 

To your dismay, there was another thing your mother had been right about; the neighbors’ son being cute. When you get off the bus, you look around the almost empty parking spot with no idea of who you’re supposed to look for. But he must see your lost expression and all your luggage and assume you’re the one he had come to pick up, so he calls out your name. Your head snaps towards the direction of the voice, and the moment your eyes settle on him, you have to hold yourself from gaping at him like a dead fish. For someone who supposedly spends his weekends and vacations outside, taking care of horses, cleaning stalls and doing handiwork, his features are… delicate. The perfect blend of sharp and soft - a round face contrasted by a knifelike jaw, plump lips, his eyebrows forming a straight line over his almond-shaped eyes. But you find roughness on his face is in the crease of his eyebrows as he peers down at you. You haven’t done anything yet, but he already clearly disapproves of you.

There’s a scowl on his face - he may be pretty, but he’s definitely not welcoming. You walk towards him, dragging your luggage behind you, and he doesn’t move to help you until you reach the car, and finally he opens the trunk and hauls one of your suitcase in. 

“Thank you,” you breathe, looking up at him, “um?”

A beat passes as your eyes lock, and he looks so bored you think he might not even bother to give you his name, but thank God he does. “Sunghoon.”

You decide not to let his rudeness get to you and put on a bright smile, but by the time you’re done saying “nice to meet you,” he’s already gotten in the driver’s seat. He starts the car without another word, and your efforts at any sort of conversation are so fruitless that you give up after two minutes of asking questions that are only met with two-word sentences. You can only hope that his family isn’t as unfriendly as he is, otherwise you’d be in for one hell of a summer.

When you arrive in La Pierrerie, it’s almost nine p.m., and you’re exhausted from your long journey and from carrying around such heavy suitcases. Still in complete silence, Sunghoon takes two of your bags and heads towards what you can only assume is your grandmother’s house. You go to follow him, but you soon notice your grandmother and another woman, who you guess is Sunghoon’s mother, sitting at a table, sipping on some lemonade. As soon as they see you arrive, they rush towards you (well, the woman does - your grandmother walks as fast as she can), helping you with the rest of your baggage. They kiss you on both cheeks as a greeting, starting from the right but you’re used to starting from the left, which almost makes your lips bump into each other. Thankfully, they laugh it off, and you make sure to remember the local custom to avoid future potentially awkward encounters.

The woman introduces herself as Mrs Park and tells you she lived next-door to your grandmother, just like you’d guessed. She says that she’s happy to meet you and hopes that you had a nice trip and that you weren’t too tired for the meal she and your grandmother had prepared for tonight. You like her instantly - her kind eyes and warm smile make you feel at home right away. 

Your grandmother hugs you too, and you had to admit it felt nice seeing her after such a long time. Such a sweet welcome revives you a bit, and a nagging voice in your head tells you, see, this isn’t that bad, this summer might be good after all, but you quickly shut it down. Your stubborn nature wants you to hate this for at least a little bit, especially after the excruciating car ride you just had to sit through. You won’t show it to your hosts, obviously, because you want to be respectful, but you can at least scowl and curse your parents when nobody’s looking.

There’s no time for awkward silence and looking back and forth between the two women because as soon as the greetings are over, Mrs Park announces she’ll go heat up the food and get the last things ready while your grandmother shows you around her home, which would be yours for the next two months and a half, and lets you unpack for a bit.

Your grandmother’s house is on two floors. The ground floor is basically one big room, which the front door leads directly into. There’s the kitchen, the dining room and the living room. It’s all very open and bright, and you can tell it must be very warm when the sunlight poured directly through the large windows into the room at the right time of day. It’s simply decorated, with furniture that probably hasn’t been updated in a while but that is well maintained and looks cozy enough. Black-and-whites and photographs of fuzzy quality are hung on the wall of the dining room and you’re eager to take a closer look at them later on.

Upstairs are two bedrooms and the bathroom, as well as a mezzanine that’s a few steps lower than the rest of the floor and that looks over the living room. This is where your grandmother keeps her books and her trophies from her past very successful horse riding career. There are a couple armchairs in the corner and a window to bring more light in, and you’re sure this would make an amazing reading nook for late evenings or stormy afternoons. 

Your room is not much more than a double bed, a chest of drawers, a cupboard to hang your clothes in and a few empty shelves. Your grandmother had told you you were welcome to bring any kind of decoration you wanted to make this room yours for the summer, so you’d taken with you a few posters and framed pictures as well as some babbles you liked looking at. She’d picked out some daisies from her garden and made a bouquet out of them, livening up the vase on your bedside table. 

She sits on your bed as you put your clothes away (which you had brought so many of, you weren’t sure there’d be enough room to put them all in) and tells you how she’d come to live here with the Parks. This is something you like about her - she has many stories to tell, each more fascinating than the other, and she’s always willing to tell them.

Your grandmother had actually grown up not too far from here, on the other side of town. Her parents had signed her up for lessons every Wednesday afternoon for a few years, until her instructor recognised her potential and told her she could ride professionally if she wanted. So, she started having two-hour lessons four times a week. When she started winning local, then regional, then national championships, she moved to Perpignan to be taught by more qualified instructors in a more renowned riding club.

Years forward, she got pregnant and her career as a rider was over. When her kids were old enough, she got a job as an instructor and even managed a few athletes of the club in Perpignan, but she continued to visit her old club in Laroque once in a while, as she always did throughout her career. She’d seen it wear down and lose customers over the years to the point that at the end of the nineties, it was under threat of closing down. Her old teacher had long passed and her son and his wife had taken over. This son, who was a bit older than your grandmother, had worked there his whole life, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do - as the only son, he’d had no choice but to stay and take care of the club. However, he hadn’t wanted it to close that way, and he was still desperate to keep the club alive, especially because his own son truly loved it and wanted to take over and manage it once he was done with high school.

Your grandmother, with more money than she needed from her successful career and the inheritance she got from her husband’s passing, offered to buy the club from the Parks and manage its finances while they took care of the horses and of lessons. Her only condition was that she could move in in the other house on the property that wasn’t inhabited and needed a few renovations. They agreed immediately.

Mr Park graduated from high school in 1998, got married to the now Mrs Park in 2000, and they had their first child, Sunghoon, in 2002 - the same year as you. His parents moved out to the city and got new jobs that they liked a lot more while the club, thanks to your grandmother’s donations and Mr and Mrs Park’s hard work, prospered once again. It did help that an Olympic rider sometimes helped out with lessons and gave out advice for aspiring athletes.

And now, here you are, twenty years later, visiting her for the first time since you were probably six. You don’t have many memories from those few times you’d been here, so it was all new to you. Especially that Sunghoon boy, whom your grandmother was sure you would get along with based on how chummy you were back in 2008. When you were both six. You didn’t have the heart to tell her how he had been with you in the car.

“Sunghoon’s a bit shy, but once you get to know him, he’s a really good kid. Very passionate and hardworking. So is his sister Yeji, but she’s got different ambitions,” your grandmother muses.

“Oh yeah? What does she want to do?” you ask, genuinely interested, as you try to somehow fit another t-shirt into one of the drawers. You’d started out by folding them nicely but you’d soon given up and started stashing them into the corners.

“She wants to become a professional rider. Says she wants to become like me,” she explains with a small chuckle. “Well, she’s definitely got what it takes. I got her a spot in that bigger club in Perpignan I told you about, so she goes there after school twice a week, but she still trains here with me every weekend.”

“You give her lessons?” you ask, some surprise in your voice, which makes your grandmother laugh.

“What, you think I’m too old?” she jokes and you shake your head rapidly, but she doesn’t take any offense to it. “I can’t stand for hours and shout like I used to, but I can sit in the center of the riding hall and watch, then tell her what she needs to work on and what she’s doing well. She says it helps her, so I’m happy to do it,” she adds with a shrug. You nod as you open another drawer and decide this one will be for your underwear.

“What about Sunghoon?” You can’t help but ask, a bit curious about him. You doubted you could really chalk up his impoliteness to shyness, but you could still listen to what your grandmother had to say about him.

“He’s more like his dad, wants to take after the club. But he’s a very decent rider, too. If his sister hadn’t said she wanted to go pro so early on, I’m sure he would’ve. You know one thing that’s great about getting old?” she asks suddenly.

“No?”

“You observe people a lot more, and you understand them a lot more too. Well, now that I think about it, it might be just me,” she says, making you chuckle. “I don’t have a lot going on in my life, so I have more time to be nosy and see what others are up to. He’d never admit it, I don’t think, that he gave up on a potential riding career for his sister. He’s the type to make quiet sacrifices, and he loves his sister to death. He’d rather take over the club and watch her be happy than the opposite.”

You nod, an approving expression on your face. “Sounds like a good guy,” you say honestly, surprised that someone supposedly so kind could also be so rude.

“He is. Handsome, as well, by the way, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” she adds, a knowing smile playing on her lips, but you just roll your eyes playfully.

“That’s what mom said,” you reply, not wanting to admit that they are both right on the matter of Sunghoon’s handsomeness. 

Sunghoon’s the one who opens the door when you and your grandmother knock. His expression when he sees you is the same as earlier, but you don’t have the time to ponder over his behavior, because quickly enough, two figures appear behind him. He steps to the side, letting enough space for you to come in, his harsh gaze never once leaving your face. You turn your attention to the figures, namely his father and a young girl who you guess is Yeji, and, thank God, they’re looking at you with wide smiles.

“You must be Y/N!” his father beams, and you nod, returning his smile and saying hi. He kisses you on both cheeks, and this time you remember to start from the right. “Welcome. We’re very happy to have you here, aren’t we, Sunghoon?”

He seems oblivious to his son’s clear distaste of you as he loops an arm over his shoulders, happily shaking one of them under his grasp. “Right,” Sunghoon says, voice monotone. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you reply with a slightly confused tone - what the hell was his deal? Usually, whatever energy someone gave you, you’d give it back to them. You’d have no problem being as rude to Sunghoon as he was to you if only his family didn’t seem so nice.

“I’ll go help Mom in the kitchen,” he announces and walks away. His father turns back to you and gives you an apologetic smile.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just shy. He’ll warm up to you eventually.” You nod, saying it’s okay. 

Yeji then takes a step towards you, introducing herself as she goes in for the usual two kisses on the cheeks. “Hi, I’m Yeji!”

“Hi, so nice to meet you!”

“Me too, I’m really happy you’re here! It’ll be nice being with another girl,” she says, gesturing towards her oblivious brother with a tilt of her head. It takes a lot more effort to be nice than to be rude, you think, side-eyeing Sunghoon in your head.

“Are there not a lot of girls that come here for lessons?” you ask as she leads you inside the house, showing you where to take off your shoes and jumper.

“There are, but they only come here once a week and stay for a few hours, so it’s not the same. I’m stuck with my anthropoid of a brother most of the time,” she says, lowering her voice to make sure only you can hear what she says. You both laugh at her diss; nothing like bonding over hating boys with another girl. You can already tell you’re going to like her.

You ask if there’s anything you can do to help, but the Parks tell you to not worry about anything and sit down. You and Yeji join your grandmother who’s already sitting at the dinner table, and the three of you chat, or rather, you and Yeji chat while your grandmother listens. Or maybe she isn’t listening, you’re not sure. 

Yeji is in her first year of high school. The prestigious riding club she is being taught at doubles as a school, so that’s where she’s been studying for the past few years, and she boards there as well, coming home every weekend unless she’s got important competitions coming up, in which case she stays there for a few weeks. Competition season is about to start, so she’ll be spending most of her time there this summer.

“And do you like it there?”

She looks slightly taken aback by your question, as if she’s not quite used to being asked about that. “I mean, yeah, yeah, I do. It’s nice being able to ride so often, and not having the stress of needing to figure out what I want to do next. But it is… you know,” her voice gets quieter, “a lot of pressure sometimes.”

Sunghoon walks in then, plates and cutlery in hand, and starts setting the table. Yeji’s face lights up at her brother’s arrival, using it to change the topic. “Sunghoon is studying to become a vet. He’s finished his two years of preparatory classes, so now he’s going to a vet school in Toulouse.”

He glares at his sister, but she doesn’t pay him any mind. “He graduated top of his class, you know.”

“Why are you telling her about me?” he interrupts.

Yeji just shrugs. “I’m telling her about us.”

“Well,” he says, putting down a plate in front of you and a fork and knife on each side of the plate, “she doesn’t need to know about me.” You can’t see his face but the cold tone of his voice and his presence right behind you are enough to send shivers down your spine. What the hell is his deal?, you wonder.

You look at Yeji, a confused look on your face, and she rolls her eyes as a dismissal of her older brother’s behavior. “Don’t ask me, cause I don’t know what his problem is, either,” she says, and you can’t help but chuckle.

Mrs and Mr Park walk in then, bringing in the main dish of duck confit as well as roast potatoes, vegetables and some bread. Mrs Park gives you the biggest chunk of meat and a load of sides, saying you must be famished after such a long trip even though you tell her you’d brought things to snack on. She says she’d hesitated between cooking Korean food or a typical French Southwestern dish but had opted for the latter, wanting to welcome you properly in the region. You thanked her and told her it looked amazing.

When everyone is served, you wish each other ‘bon appétit’ and start eating. You’re chewing on your first mouthful of duck and potatoes when Mrs Park asks you what you study. “Your grandmother said you were a med student?” she asks with a smile. Everyone looks at you except for Sunghoon, who only has eyes for his food.

You nod, waiting to swallow before answering, and Mr Park tuts his wife for not letting you eat. “I am. I passed my second year,” you say, earning yourself some congratulations, “and I’m starting my residency in a hospital in Paris next semester.”

“Do you know what part of the hospital you’ll be in?” Mr Park asks.

“We get to do turns, so we can see what we like. We give our school our top five choices, and then they put us in three departments for three months each, and then choose our favorite one based on the offers we get for the summer. I’m in the children’s ward first, then cardiology, then reeducation. We’ll also get to watch over surgeries.”

He nods, humming at your words. “And is that what you want to do later? I mean, work in one of those departments?”

“I’ve got time to change my mind, so I guess it depends how much I like being at the hospital, but I think I’d rather have my own cabinet after some time. I feel like overtime, you build more of a relationship with people, and it’s a lot less stressful, too,” you add with a chuckle.

Mr Park smiles and nods again. “Ah, I see. That’s nice. And would that be in Paris?,” he asks, and this time, it’s his wife that tells him to leave you alone, but you say it’s okay.

“Probably. It’s the city I know best, but nothing is set in stone.”

“You should come here!” Mrs Park perks. “Most people who live here are quite old - no offense, Nadine - ” (“None taken,” your grandmother says with a smile), but we’ve only got two doctors, and one is probably retiring in the next six to ten years.”

“You tell me to leave her alone, and then you tell her to move here,” Mr Park mutters, earning himself a small slap on the arm. They start bickering, and your grandmother just sighs and shakes her head.

“Young love,” she says, making everyone laugh. Even Sunghoon cracks a smile, and you get a glimpse of his dimples. As soon as he catches your gaze, his smile drops, and you turn your eyes away, your cheeks heating up. Yeji starts a new topic and soon enough you’re all chatting again. If it wasn’t for Sunghoon making it very clear he didn’t want you here, you’d already feel at home, just sitting at this dinner table.

When dinner is over, you insist on clearing the table and doing the dishes, saying you felt bad not doing anything. “I need to earn my keep,” you tell Mrs Park with a smile.

She laughs and says, “Oh, no need to worry about that, with Sunghoon showing you the ropes the next few days, you definitely will.”

Sunghoon perks up at the mention of his name. “What’s this about?” he asks, that crease still in his eyebrows. You find yourself wanting to stroke them with your thumbs and brush that frown away, but you quickly snap out of it. He may have a pretty face, but from what you’ve seen, that’s about all there is.

Mrs Park lets out a small puff of air through her nose. “We’ve talked about this, dear. You’re showing Y/N around the club tomorrow and Monday. It’s so you know how everything works before summer lessons start,” she explains, turning towards you.

“Why does it have to be me, though?” Sunghoon almost whines, and you want to scoff at him.

“Because your father and I said so,” his mother says, ending the conversation there, and you’re reminded of your own parents.

Sunghoon looks at you and frowns, so you raise your eyebrows back at him. It wasn’t your fault you were here or that his parents had designated him to show you around, so there was no reason you should make yourself small or apologetic for him. He scoffs and looks away. “Just be outside by eight a.m. tomorrow morning, okay?”

He doesn’t let you answer, just gives you one last hard look and walks away.

-

“Why are you wearing a dress?” Sunghoon asks as soon as you step outside the next morning.

“Good morning to you too, Sunghoon,” you reply sarcastically. You roll your eyes when he doesn’t say anything, just stands there, arms crossed over his chest, so you add, “Because it’s going to be hot today. And because it’s pretty.”

“This is an equestrian center, not a fashion show. You won’t be comfortable. Go put on a t-shirt and some shorts or some leggings. And wear sneakers, not sandals, Christ.”

You scoff and mirror his posture. “You don’t get to tell me what to wear, you know.”

He lets out a dry chuckle and rolls his eyes, a disbelieving smile on his face. “This might be a holiday for you, because it’s sunny and there’s nature everywhere, but this is work we’re gonna be doing. So, for your own sake, wear the right kind of clothes. But if you want to get horse saliva on your dress or step in horse shit wearing those shoes, be my guest.”

You glare at him for a few seconds, realizing that he’s right, and huff out an annoyed “fine,” stomping back into your grandmother’s house. “Be quick!” he calls after you.

You come back out five minutes later, wearing a tank top you usually use for sleeping, a pair of denim shorts and old sneakers your mother had told you to pack. “Took you long enough,” Sunghoon says, a true ray of sunshine, but you decide it’s better to ignore him. He barely talked to you yesterday, but now that it’s just the two of you and he has to, his words are somehow more annoying than his silence.

You stare at him unfazed and ask, “So, what’s first?”

He raises his eyebrows, seemingly surprised, but answers anyway. “Right. Follow me.” He heads towards a part of the farm that is attached to the riding hall and that your grandmother had pointed out yesterday evening as the reception and office area. 

Sunghoon fishes a keyholder out of his jean pocket and slides open the door using one of the many keys he has. He goes to stand in front of a postboard and points to it. “This has the daily and weekly schedule on it. It’s a routine, so things don’t change much, but when they do, we add a post-it to the board. For example, the blacksmith is coming next Thursday to check horseshoes. That’s a post-it. Today, we’re cleaning out all the stalls and adding fresh straw. We do that every Monday, so it’s on the schedule. No post-it.”

“Right. That makes sense,” you nod. “Is that all we do today?”

“We do rounds first, but basically, yeah, because cleaning takes a long time. And Monday is technically our day off. No one comes in for lessons so we use that free time to clean out the stalls.”

You nod and Sunghoon chuckles at you, but you don’t have time to question him about it because he’s already off and you have no choice but to follow him. He leads you to a part of the farm on the other side of the courtyard and pulls out another key, pushing the door open to a wide three-and-a-half-wall room with rings attached to the walls every few meters. Three and a half because behind that space on each side are stalls, as Sunghoon points out.

“This is the prep room, where we get the horses ready before a lesson.”

“What do you do to get them ready?” you ask, looking around the room.

“You clean their coat and their hooves, brush out any tangles in their manes and tails, then saddle and bridle them. The club saddlery is over there,” he says, pointing to a door on your right. “Horse owners have their own stuff in lockers in another room.”

Apparently, you’re not checking out the saddlery today, because Sunghoon is already walking over to the stalls. 

“Hi everyone,” he greets softly. You follow him closely as he walks on one side of the stables, petting each horse as he walks past them or peering over the door to see how the sleeping ones are doing, and then does the same thing on the other side. He greets each horse by name, and even though it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he remembers each and every one of them, it still does. You tell him exactly that, and he chuckles.

“What would you think of a teacher that doesn’t know their students’ names? This is kind of the same,” he explains. He shows you the stacks of hay and straw at the end of the stables, and explains that they bring it here from the fields every once in a while because it’s more convenient, and that this is what you’ll be using later.

When he’s checked that everything is okay, he opens the door on the other side of the room leading outside. On your right stands a huge pile of manure, and you can’t help but make a stank face at the odor hitting you right in the nostrils. Sunghoon chuckles again (can he please stop chuckling at you for no reason?) and reassures you by saying they’re emptying it soon. “The farmers use it for their crops,” he explains.

On your left, there’s another barn that you guess hosts more horses. He gets out yet another key and pushes the door wide open. Light fills the barn instantly, making the dust particles in the air visible, and you hear a few grunts and huffs from the horses - of annoyance at Sunghoon waking them up or of happiness at seeing him, you’re not yet qualified enough to say.

There are two other smaller, one-sided stables next to the riding hall where he takes you and does his rounds again. When he’s all done, you follow him to the riding hall where he opens two doors on each side, that way you can walk through it to get to the pastures in the back rather than walk around the whole center, and takes down the electric cables that serve as an entrance to the pastures. He doesn’t explain any of this, however, so you sort of have to guess. Wordlessly, you head back to the last stables you were in and there, he throws a bunch of what you think are harnesses at you.

“What are these?” you ask dumbly, looking at the thing in your hand.

“They’re halters,” he says, and when you just stare wordlessly, he adds, talking as if it were obvious, “you put them around the horse’s head so you can take them places?”

“Right. Can you show me how to put one on?”

He sighs but obliges; he doesn’t have much of a choice anyway. Not your fault that he’s lived here all his life whereas you’ve encountered a horse maybe three times in your twenty years of life. 

He demonstrates how to put a halter on and watches over you as you practice it on an old and tired-looking white horse. When you manage to do it somehow quickly, he says, “there you go,” and you’re surprised to not hear any sarcasm in his voice. However, when he pats the horse’s forehead, you have a feeling the praise was more directed towards her than you.

You walk side-by-side to the pastures, you with the white horse, whose garrot reaches your shoulder, and Sunghoon leading a small pony in each hand. They have to walk quickly to keep up with his strides and you can’t help but laugh at their cute swaying hips.

“How old is she?” you ask Sunghoon, head tilting towards the horse you’re walking with.

A soft smile cracks on Sunghoon’s lips, perhaps the first smile you’ve seen on him today. “That’s Nellie,” he answers quietly, looking at the horse in question. “She’s turning 20 this December. We were only born a few days apart.”

“Wow, so you grew up together, that’s pretty cool,” you say honestly, and Sunghoon’s eyes settle on you for a few seconds, eyebrows raising a bit as if surprised by your words. 

“Yeah, it is,” he says, looking back in front of him. “My parents taught me how to horse ride with her. And she’s the only horse that belongs to the club whose papers actually state that I’m her owner. All the others have my parents’ name or the club’s on theirs.”

“Ah, so she’s your horse,” you say, looking at Nellie and smiling. You’d have imagined a much taller, handsome and dark-haired horse for him, but this somehow matches as well. It makes Sunghoon appear sweeter, for some reason.

“Yeah,” he says simply, but you don’t miss the small smile on his lips. So maybe there is a way to get to know Park Sunghoon, you think.

Once in the pastures, he shows you how to release a horse safely in case they get excited about being outside and hurt you accidentally or run away. Thankfully, these horses know better than to do that sort of stuff, so it’s very unlikely that anything will happen, he explains, but you’re always better safe than sorry. You head back to the stables in a silence a bit less awkward than before and do the same things with the three other horses in those stables. Not much is said, but you don’t want to force the conversation. He just explains to you that these few horses work well together in the pastures, but that it’s not always this easy.

“Horses have a herd instinct, so they need to be with each other, but also not with anyone. You know how wolf packs have alphas and betas and stuff?” he asks, and you nod. Your friends and you had an obsessive Teen Wolf phase when you were in middle school. “Well, horses kind of have that too, because there’s a hierarchy in their herds. So there’s usually one leader, a mare, and some others that just get along.”

“How do you know which horses get along, though?”

“You just have to observe. You can tell pretty quickly which horses are going to have a leader or a follower type personality. Just put two leaders together, and they’ll clash instantly. It can get pretty bad pretty quick, so the first few times you put certain horses together outside, you really have to watch over them and be careful.”

“That’s so interesting,” you say after a few moments. “I never knew horses to have such complex relationships,” you say, and he smiles.

“Horses are really cool,” he says, and immediately grunts. “That was such a loser thing to say.”

You can’t help but laugh at his self-realization, but quickly reassure him. “No, it’s not. It’s something you’re passionate about, of course you’re gonna find them cool,” you say, and the smile he gives you as an answer shouldn’t make your heart beat that much faster, but it does, and you don’t know how to feel about that. You’re just glad he’s being nice to you - bare minimum, but still, a small victory.

“Time for the hard part, now,” he says when all five horses are happy in the pasture. You follow him to a toolshed where they keep tools, of course, but also two empty wheelbarrows and snacks for the horses like grains, carrots and salt blocks. He tells you to grab a shovel as he rolls out a wheelbarrow and you head back to the stalls together.

There’s nothing complex about shoveling dirty hay and horse shit into a wheelbarrow, but by God is it a draining task. The shovel itself is heavy, so having to pick all that stuff up, heave it back into the cart, and then repeat for who knows how many times is a real burden on your poor back and arms. You definitely let Sunghoon know how hard this is for you, what with all the sighs and loud breaths and grunts you’re letting out. You’ve barely finished cleaning one stall out when Sunghoon is starting his third, and you can tell he’s not happy about it.

“If you complained less, you’d work faster, you know,” he says, that scowl back on his face.

“I can’t help that I’ve never done anything like this in my life,” you chide back, out-of-breath and wiping some sweat from your forehead.

“Yeah? All the hard tasks usually done for you, princess?”

His scowl turns into a small smirk as he looks at you, and you curse your heart for doing a flip when he chuckles at your dumbfoundedness. It’s just a stupid nickname, you tell yourself, no need to get so worked up over it.

“I’ve never had any hard tasks like this in the first place,” you say, moving on to the second stall. “My body isn’t made for it.”

“Well, it’ll have to get used to it.” Yesterday, his mother had also told you you’d get used to it, as a way of reassuring you; but Sunghoon’s words are a far cry from his mother’s, and are more of a threat than anything.

Another few minutes and you’re done, Sunghoon watching you as you finish cleaning your designated stall. You dump everything at the manure pile, then head to the straw pile and fill the wheelbarrow to replace the dirty straw with fresh one in the stalls. And then, you only have to do that four more times. Easy enough, right?

No. Not easy.

The only semi-easy part is taking the horses out of their stalls and tying the rope that are attached to their halter to a ring in the prep room, except some horses are less compliant than others and you end up having to call Sunghoon a couple times so he can take care of them for you.

The whole time you’re heaving manure into the wheelbarrow, you’re complaining. At first, it was the stank that had really gotten to you - as one can imagine, hay infused with horse piss and shit doesn’t smell like fresh linen. But somehow, you got used to it - maybe the physical exertion forced you to forget about the smell and focus on the pain taking over your whole body. 

You huff and puff as you feel the heavy weight of the shovel in your arms and shoulders every time you need to lift it up and bring it back down. The pain in your upper back from years of carrying your backpack on one shoulder makes itself known, and after half an hour you’re whining that you can feel muscle scores coming in your whole body.

“They’ll probably stay for a whole week too,” you mumble to yourself, but still loud enough for Sunghoon to hear.

“You’ll get used to it, I told you. In a few weeks this will feel like nothing.” When you only grunt in response, he adds: “I usually do this on my own, you know. You’re lucky you’re only doing half of the work. Or more like one fourth, with the speed you’re going at.”

“Why don’t your parents or sister help you out?” you ask as you lean against the stall wall, using the distraction of a conversation to take a break.

“My parents already work all week when I’m not there, giving lessons and taking care of the club, so it’s the least I can do to help out on weekends and during my breaks. And my sister already works hard enough at her school so I want her to relax when she’s here,” he replies, never stopping his shoveling.

“But you work hard too, don’t you? I mean, your sister said you were top of your class. You should get a break too.”

His movements halt for a split second only. If your words have any sort of impact on Sunghoon, he doesn’t want to let you know.

“I just study hunched over my desk all week. It’s nice to do something physical, and I don’t mind the time alone.” You’re not sure whether this is an excuse he’s come up with for himself or if he’s telling the truth, but his tone is so final and you understand that he’s done with the conversation, so you pick up your shovel and get back to work. You don’t complain for the rest of the morning.

When you’re finally done with the stalls, you bring back the horses you had walked to the pastures so that others can enjoy the free space and green grass. That’s when you run into an obstacle.

No matter how much you pull, coax, or stare impatiently, this horse won’t budge. Sunghoon rests his back and one foot against the plastic half-wall of the riding hall, chuckling at how awfully you and Dona are getting on. He’s already brought back the other five horses to their stalls and has nothing better to do than be useless, apparently. 

After a few minutes of you trying to negotiate with Dona, to no avail, Sunghoon finally speaks up, just loud enough for you to hear. “Stop staring at her. Horses get nervous when you stare too much.”

You scoff. “But she won’t move! I’m trying to show her the desperation in my eyes!” you shout back, and turn to the horse who only peers at you with empty black eyes.

“Don’t shout. Horses don’t like it when you shout,” Sunghoon simply answers, propping himself off of the wall and taking his sweet time walking towards you. When he reaches you and Dona, he takes the tether from your hands and says, “C’mon, Dona,” without even looking at the horse, who immediately follows, no questions asked.

You stand there dumbfounded and mouth O-shaped as you watch the two of them stride away calmly, running after Sunghoon when your shock dissipates. “Don’t run,” he says when he hears your quickly approaching footsteps, “horses don’t like it when you run.”

“My God,” you say, already out of breath, “how many things do horses not like?”

“Quite a few,” he answers matter-of-factly, although you meant your question more rhetorically than anything.

“How did you do that, anyways?” you ask when your breathing returns to normal.

“Well, mainly, it’s just because she knows me and knows to listen to me,” he explains, turning his head just a bit to look at you as you walk back to the main stables, the sun making itself shy behind the tall trees even though it’s nearing midday. A warm breeze blows, sweeping your ponytail to the side and rustling the leaves on the trees. “But also, horses need to be told what to do, not asked. Your attitude needs to be, ‘we’re going back now,’ not, ‘hey, wanna go back?’” You nod slowly at first, then faster when the words start making sense in your head. Sunghoon wants to make fun of you but finds it sweet that you’re at least trying to understand.

“Right,” you say after a few moments. “It’s not very nice, though,” you add, causing Sunghoon to tilt his head and frown his brows, silently asking you to go on. “Well, I’m sure Dona would like a say in the matter.”

He once again contains his laughter because you look so serious and he doesn’t want to make you feel bad, but ultimately fails and snorts at your comment, making you look up at him, bewilderment written all over your face. “What? I’m being serious!”

“I know you are,” he chuckles, “but don’t worry, Dona doesn’t mind having to go home. And if it was up to her, she’d stay out all night.” 

Sunghoon tells you some anecdotes about the club and its occupiers on your way back, making you giggle at some of the mischievous things the horses have gotten up to. He’s more talkative than this morning which takes you slightly aback, but you’re not going to complain about the change. You were dreading having to spend your summer annoyed at a cute boy you’d have to see every day, so you’re glad his first impression is drastically different from what he’s actually like.

You and Sunghoon part ways a bit before noon, and you plop down on the couch as soon as you get to your grandmother’s house. “Tough morning, huh?,” she calls from the kitchen. You only have enough energy left to hum a small “yes” back. She chuckles at you, then tells you to take a shower before having lunch. You spend the rest of your day sunbathing on a deckchair in the backyard, taking some time to relax before what you’re sure will be a tiring week.

-

One thing you learn during that week and the weeks after that is that Sunghoon has his fair share of fangirls. As a female-dominated hobby, most of the club members are teenage girls who love horses and cute boys.

Tuesday morning before lessons start, he shows you basic things like how to properly groom a horse and how to put their saddles and bridles (which is actually a lot harder than it looks - putting your thumb in a horse’s mouth seems a bit counterintuitive), just in case you ever need to get a horse ready for whatever reason. You’re going to be here for two months, so might as well learn things like these. 

While you help him walk some horses to the pastures, he explains that summer lessons are different in that instead of learners coming once or twice a week, they come all day from Tuesday to Friday and then pass an exam on Saturday morning if they want to. Since both his mother and father teach, they’re able to have two separate groups, one for riders who come for more laidback lessons with games and walks in the fields nearby, and one for those who want to improve their skills in an intense week of both practical and theoretical lessons.

There isn’t much you can do on your own, so after you’ve gone around the stables giving grains to the horses that need them, you join Sunghoon outside in the courtyard as he cleans and greases some saddles and bridles that are starting to wear out. It’s fairly easy to do and he lets you help out, so you sit outside together in silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun on your face. That is, until you start noticing the girls.

You don’t want to pay them any attention, but what with the way they wave shyly at Sunghoon and giggle when he waves back, a smile you can’t describe as anything but dazzling adorning his lips, it’s impossible not to. Some of them even call out his name, saying “hi” in the sweetest way they can. You don’t blame them: had you been fifteen and seen a boy as pretty as Sunghoon, you probably would’ve acted similarly, especially if you got to see him on a regular basis. 

What gets on your nerves, however, is how much Sunghoon enjoys it: you can tell by the smirk that won’t leave his face the whole time or the way he makes them all swoon by remembering their names. Bare minimum, you think to yourself once again, but you don’t say anything. Even if slightly infuriating, it’s also entertaining, seeing Sunghoon enjoy himself this way. You would’ve thought he was the type to want to be by himself at all times, unbothered by anyone, yet here he was, blushing at all the attention he was receiving.

After a girl who had come up to him (sparing you a confused “hi” when she saw your unfamiliar face but quickly turning her attention back to Sunghoon), wanting to know how his year at school had gone, skips giddily away, you can’t help but tease him.

“I can’t believe you’re liking this so much,” you say with a smile, keeping your attention on greasing the leather parts of the bridle.

Sunghoon looks up at you, a semi-offended look on his face. “I’m just being nice.”

“I didn’t know ‘just being nice’ entailed letting yourself be showered in compliments and winking at fifteen year-old girls. Aren’t you turning twenty?” 

“I’m not- I didn’t- Whatever,” he gives up, a pout on his face as he returns to work. You nudge his shoulder, making him crack a smile, and you feel like you won the Grand Prix of something.

Another thing you learn that week is that there’s a lot of going back and forth with Sunghoon. One minute he’s laughing at your jokes and acting like a normal human being, and the other he’s giving you the cold shoulder as if he suddenly doesn’t want you around anymore. Sometimes, these changes in his attitude are so quick, they give you whiplash.

You learn to not pay too much attention to these mood swings, not wanting to create any problems for yourself. He seems to be happy when you ask him about horses, so you often come up with the most random things you can think to ask, and he always patiently answers even the dumbest of questions. However, his patience is much quicker to run out when you complain about any task you’re given, so you settle on glaring at the back of his head.

Thankfully, you’re actually a lot less busy than you thought you would be. Your tasks consist mainly of cleaning the stalls, feeding the horses, and taking care of the ones who are too old or have some kind of illness and can’t be mounted. You bring them to the pastures, where they spend a lot of their time, then brush out the dirt and dust embedded in their fur after rolling around on the ground. These horses are often the most affectionate, gently nuzzling your hands when you try to clean their face and huffing happily when they see you arrive.

You do this a couple times a week and Sunghoon often joins you, bringing Nellie out and attaching the rope of her halter next to the horse you’re taking care of so he can groom her as well. These are the moments when he’s in his best mood and he lets you blabber away, talking about random things and concerns in your life as he listens and nods, sometimes sharing some of his as well, letting you take a peek into his closed-off world. You find that you have actually quite a lot in common, with you being in med school and him in vet school, which are both intense and high-pressure. Yet, there’s always something that’s quite surface-level about these conversations; students will always easily bond about the stress of deadlines and horrible professors. You want to dig deeper, but something tells you that Sunghoon will quickly shut you down, and you’re okay with waiting for a bit. You’re just glad he hasn’t been the way he was with you that first day the whole time and that he’s actually talking to you and even sending a smile your way once every now and then.

You also hang out with Yeji quite a lot. Even though she’s on her summer break, competition season means she spends four days a week at her boarding school to train and the other three days at the club, trying to enjoy her summer like any other normal high schooler as best as she can. She doesn’t say much more on how she feels about training so much, only slightly hinting at her level of stress and fatigue like she had done at the dinner table, and you can tell it’s a touchy subject, so you don’t pry.

It does take your body a few days to get used to being outside in the sun and walking around all day, so your first week at the club, you head home as soon as you’re done with your tasks and take a shower then help your grandmother with dinner, spending your evenings reading or playing Scrabble with her (she’s an impressive player, by the way, and has taught you many words). Every Sunday night, you have dinner with the Parks, although Mrs Park also sometimes urges you into her house at one p.m. with the promise of delicious food.

On your second Wednesday there, however, you feel like going out in the evening. After a really hot week, it had stormed during the night that made Tuesday turn into Wednesday which had made the air feel less heavy and more refreshing, so doing anything was a lot less energy-consuming than it had been before. It’s nine p.m. and the sun is low in the sky when you tell your grandmother you’re going to explore the property some more. You know there’s a path that goes behind the pastures to a forest and that is used for horse rides and walks, so you make your way there and follow it.

The mud is still a bit soft from all the rain of the night and morning and you can tell apart footsteps as well as hoof and dog paw prints. The trees on each side on the path are so full of leaves that they make a sort of arch overhead, barring any of the remaining sunlight from entering and casting a shadow all over, and you wish you’d have brought a thin jumper with you. It feels nice to be outside when the sun isn’t making you feel like your skin will melt right off of your body, though. 

You’ve been walking for about fifteen minutes, stopping here and there to look at a flower or snap a shot of the clouds you can see through the trees when you reach a clearing. It’s completely empty, the trees making way for a vast patch of just grass and small daisies, so of course you see him immediately.

A couple hundred meters away from where you’re standing is Sunghoon on a tall, ginger horse, galloping in circles. You don’t know much about horse riding, but you can tell that he knows what he's doing from the way he holds himself and directs the horse. His back is straight and his legs are pressed against the horse’s flanks, his hips moving in perfect synchronization with the horse’s strides so that he stays seated on its back rather than bounces like you’ve seen many less advanced riders do. The horse’s neck rounds and its head stays down, making its steps light and refined, and Sunghoon holds the reins long and low on each side of the horse’s garrot so he can gallop in a continuous circle.

The sight is breathtaking.

You’d always thought that horses had a certain grace to them, especially such tall and slim horses like the one right in front of you, and Sunghoon, with his perfect stance and control, somehow brought even more of that grace out. It was clear that it took a lot of work and talent to reach such elegance.

Although he seemed highly concentrated on what he was doing, Sunghoon noticed you after a minute of you standing there, all but gawking at him. You see him chuckle as he subtly changes his position on the horse and slows to a trot, heading towards you.

“Hey,” he calls out when you’re within hearing distance of each other. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just… taking a walk,” you say, pointing to the path behind you with your thumb but your gaze not leaving Sunghoon, still wearing an expression of astonishment on your face. “Sunghoon, that was- I mean, just, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You looked amazing,” you say, unable to keep your honesty at bay. If the girls from the club had seen him ride like this, then you were definitely starting to understand why they were so smitten over him - you felt almost starstruck.

He chuckles again and looks down bashfully, hoping the dim light hides his growing blush from you. “Thanks. I wasn’t really doing anything special.”

“Not anything special, are you kidding? I’m serious, that was awesome. It was like- like a figure skater gliding, or like a ballet dancer doing turns or something,” you say, shaking your head in disbelief.

Your grin gets even wider when he lets out a giggle at your words, immediately covering his mouth with his palm when he hears the sound he’s made. He really does have a thing for being paid attention to and praised, you note.

“So you were just on a walk?” he asks awkwardly as a way of changing the subject, scratching the back of his head.

“I needed some fresh air, I guess. Plus, I’ve only been staying in the club, so I thought I’d take a walk around.”

“I can show you around when I’ve got time this week, if you want.” His offer seems to come as a surprise to the both of you, but you nod anyway, grateful for the extended hand.

“That’d be nice,” you say. You’re not sure what’s happening when you two stay there for a few seconds, just smiling shyly at each other, but you don’t hate it. 

“Have you ever been on a horse?” he asks, breaking the silence first.

“Well, just a couple times, but it wasn’t lessons or anything, so I don’t know if it counts- wait, wait, what are you doing?”

A sudden mischievous smile has made its way to Sunghoon’s features as he dismounts, bringing the horse next to you. “Wanna try, then?”

“No,” you say with a pointed look. “No way. That horse is taller than me, Sunghoon, I’m not getting on him.”

“Oh c’mon, I promise you it’s not scary, and I’ll be holding onto the reins the whole time. We can just walk back to the club like this.” His eyes are working hard to convince you, and his small pout makes what little resolve you had crumble.

“Fine. But you better not let go of that horse.”

“I won’t,” he says, and something about his tone makes your qualms dissipate.

You walk over to where he’s standing on the left hand side of the horse and hook your left foot in the stirrup. Sunghoon instructs you to place your hands on each end of the saddle and hoist yourself up. It requires a lot more arm strength than you’d have imagined after seeing so many riders do it effortlessly, but Sunghoon is there to help you up as soon as he sees you struggling, two strong hands coming up to hold you at the waist and lift you onto the horse. You tell yourself it’s the physical exertion and not his touch that renders you breathless.

“Wow,” you say when you look around you, almost two meters above ground.

“Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

A small giggle escapes your lips. “Yeah. Pretty cool.”

“How does it feel? Are you sitting okay? Here, I’ll change the stirrup length so they fit you. Or we can just cross them over the saddle, since you won’t really need them, anyway.”

“No, I’d rather wear them, please,” you say, and your slight anxious tone makes Sunghoon chuckle.

When he’s done adjusting the stirrups for you and made sure you’re comfortable, he shows you how to hold the reins properly and tells you how to get the horse to start walking. “We usually teach beginners that you knock your heels against their flanks, but because Flame has only been mounted by more advanced riders, he might not like that. Don’t panic,” he reassures as soon as he sees your eyes go wide, “just press your calves against him instead of using your heels. Here, see? I’m holding him by the front of the reins, so he won’t run off.”

“Right, right,” you breathe out. Sunghoon’s right there, so there’s no reason to stress about this.

“Good. Just a small pressure from your calves, and we’re good to go.”

Flame is very reactive, already started walking when you’ve barely squeezed your legs against him. With Sunghoon practically directing the horse for you, you realize there’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the ride.

“This feels nice,” you say as you try to get used to Flame’s quick but steady rhythm. Sunghoon’s smile is better than any other spoken answer he could’ve given you. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, you decide to speak up.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Sunghoon replies, looking up at you.

“Why were you so mean to me the first night I got here?”

He seems slightly taken aback by your question, but you get a glimpse of a guilty expression before he looks back down. “Right, sorry about that. I’ve kind of been feeling bad about it all week, but I was scared to bring it up.”

“It’s okay, I’m just curious about the sudden change is all,” you say.

“I just-” he starts, but then seems to think for a bit. “I’m not the best with strangers, for one. Plus, you were going to stay for the whole summer. I’ve built a routine for myself every summer here, and I don’t like it when something, or someone, disturbs my peace. Also, no offense, but I’m not a huge fan of you city folk. So many people at school have this weird prejudice against me for being from the middle of nowhere, so I’ve kind of got a low tolerance for them. So before I even met you, I didn’t really like you. Sorry, that’s harsh.”

You tell him not to worry about it. His words make you understand him a bit more, and you’re glad it doesn’t seem to be anything too personal against you. You tell him to go on and he sighs. “And you know, I talked with my parents and they told me it’ll be nice to have someone else around to help, and that your grandmother always talks highly of you, and that it was stupid to have decided in advance I wouldn’t like you, and I sort of agreed, but I couldn’t bring myself to be okay with it all. It’s like, we’ve been fine all this time, so why bring in someone new? My parents told me that technically this whole property belongs to your grandmother, and that she could bring anyone she wanted, and I couldn’t really say anything against that. But anyway, I told myself that if I just was cold and pretended you weren’t here, that it’d be fine. But then I- I saw you, and…” his words trail off here and he looks down as if embarrassed to say what comes next.

“And?” you pry, too curious not to.

You really have to focus to hear his words because of how low he mumbles them. “And you were really pretty…”

This confession that seemingly comes out of the blue makes your heart swell with satisfaction and you can’t help but tease him about it. “What was that? I didn’t hear you clearly.”

“Oh c’mon, you heard me. Don’t make me say it again.”

“I want you to say it again, though.”

He sighs and gives in. “Fine. I said you were pretty.”

You laugh, way happier than you should be at his words, and he whines at you to not make fun of him. “So you were mean to me because I was pretty? Doesn’t make much sense,” you taunt.

He sighs again, shaking his head a bit as if in disbelief he’s actually talking about this. “It’s just that… I wanted to be nice, I promise you I did, but I just… I’m not even sure myself. I think it just pissed me off even more, because it wasn’t like having to ignore some rando, it was having to ignore a really pretty girl, which obviously I don’t really want to do,” he says, and you laugh again. “But then you ended up being really nice as well and even funny, and I felt like an asshole for being mean. Which I should never have been in the first place, I know. I’m just… bad with strangers, like I said. Not used to them. It’s not an excuse for my behavior, though, so I’m sorry.”

You look at him with a smile and thank him for apologizing. Sadly, it’s a lot more than most nineteen-year-old boys would do, so you appreciate it. You spend the rest of the ride teasing him about how he thinks you’re pretty and how he was really acting like a tsundere, earning a few embarrassed chuckles from him. Something about getting him flustered just gets you going: his shy smile that reveals a pair of dimples and another of fangs, the blush creeping on his cheeks as he looks down at his feet. Too adorable.

When you reach the entrance to the club, he helps you get off the horse, holding you when your knees almost buckle at the impact of your feet against the ground. For some reason, you weren’t expecting to be so high up, even though you had been on a nearly two-meter horse for the past fifteen minutes.

“You know, I could teach you how to mount, if you’re interested,” he says as you brush some horse hair from your leggings.

That’s the second offer Sunghoon makes you tonight; he’s really showing you his nice side now, you realize with a flip of your stomach. You could just say yes, that sounds fun, but instead, you decide to annoy him some more. “Didn’t know I was so pretty that the Park Sunghoon would offer to give me lessons!”

He rolls his eyes playfully and starts to walk away with Flame. “Forget it then.”

You giggle as you catch up to him and nudge his shoulder with yours. “I’d love to.” 

-

From that day on, it’s a lot easier to be around Sunghoon. He still doesn’t let you complain, and you can tell the walls he’s built around himself have only shrunk by a few bricks, but at least his attitude doesn’t flip around anymore. He reveals a side of himself that’s goofier than you’d have imagined, cracking random dad jokes and making side comments that never fail to make you laugh. He’s also quite sensitive to your teasing, always looking away with a blush, mumbling a small whatever at your words, but his shy smile lets you know that he doesn’t actually mind it.

The riding lessons usually happen in between work breaks or at the end of the day, and after a few of them, you know how to get a horse to start, turn, and stop, and you don’t like a complete fool when the horse’s pace goes up to a trot, having mastered the art of sitting and standing at the right time. Sunghoon had shown you a few horses you could practice on and you’d gone for a piebald horse named Picasso whose garrot reached your chin, because the agglomeration of white hairs at the top of his otherwise black head formed a small heart.

Although you’d noticed from the get-go that Sunghoon was nothing less than gorgeous, it hadn’t hit you in the face until now that you could call him a friend, and every time he smiled or that the light hit his eyes a certain way, your heart skipped a few beats. At first, you told yourself that that was it - you found him pretty. That didn’t mean much more than you being able to recognise beauty, and it certainly didn’t mean you actually liked him as anything else than a friend.

That was until this one day, when he was giving you a lesson after everyone had left the club. In the south of France where temperatures often rise to the high thirties in the summer, heavy storms are bound to break out. This was one of those days - it had been raining the entire day, but it had calmed out a bit at the end of the afternoon which was why you had gone ahead with the lesson. However, twenty minutes into it, the rain got heavier again and thunder suddenly rang, loud and resonating in the emptiness of the fields. Horses are generally skittish creatures, and Picasso was no exception, the sound frightening him so much that he took off in a rapid gallop. In less than a fortnight of lessons you hadn’t developed the strong legs and quick reflexes of an advanced rider, and you were unable to keep up with him, falling off of him with a yelp, everything happening in the fraction of a second.

You fell right on your butt, the pain shooting off from there and spreading to your whole body and taking away your breath for three long seconds. You had barely the time to register what had happened that Sunghoon was already next to you, frantically asking if you were okay and telling you to stay still. He pulled his phone out and called Yeji, telling her to come to the riding hall quickly. 

From your peripheral vision you could see Picasso pacing back and forth at the other side of the hall, as if to calm himself down. Sunghoon held you up with one firm hand planted on your back, his other hand resting on your arm as his thumb brushed your skin comfortingly. He helped you regain a normal heart rate by making you mirror his long and controlled breaths, worried eyes never once leaving your face. 

Yeji got to the riding hall in no time and immediately spotted you sitting on the floor and Sunghoon crouching over you, but her brother asked her to please take Picasso back to his stall before she could walk over to the two of you. She nevertheless asked if you were okay and you nodded, trying to give her a faint smile that reassured both her and Sunghoon.

“You feeling better?” Sunghoon asked when your tears had finally stopped falling, wiping away the ones that had rained down your cheeks and reached your jawline. 

You nodded, taking a deep breath through your nose that turned out to be useless when you opened your eyes and realized how close Sunghoon was, face merely inches away from yours and arms wrapped around you, taking your breath away more than the pain had. “Y-yeah, I’m fine, more shocked than anything.”

He let out a chuckle of relief and brushed the hair away from your face, fully putting your heart and lungs out of order. “I’m glad. Falls always happen when you first start out riding, but they’re still really scary. I was worried you got badly hurt for a second there,” he says simply, and before you can even process his words, he asks, “Are you feeling ready to get up?”

You can only nod, looking up at Sunghoon like he saved you from a near-death experience as he helps you up. If he notices your gawking, he doesn’t say anything, and you’re thankful for it. In your three weeks of knowing each other, you’ve been the one to tease Sunghoon and make him unable to say anything. Even just in general, you’re used to being the flirt that makes boys blush - very rarely were they able to do the same to you, even though they all tried their hardest. Yet Sunghoon, without even realizing it or doing it on purpose, had just made your heart flutter and your brain draw a blank. You wished you could blame it on the shock you just had and the pain still making your legs weak, but you’re reminded of all the times a simple smile or passing touch had put you in the same state, and you know you’d be a fool to continue on ignoring them.

It takes you literally falling flat on your ass to realize you have feelings for Park Sunghoon.

-

Unsure what to do with this newfound information, you decide to keep things between you and Sunghoon as they were. You’ll be leaving at the end of August anyway, no need to make things awkward for the remainder of your stay. Although some moments make you wonder if he might feel some kind of way for you too, you try not to think too much of them and enjoy your friendship as is. 

When you’ve reached a level where you being on a horse isn’t a danger to yourself or those around you, Sunghoon keeps his promise of showing you more of the premises and you go on horse rides together, allowing you to discover random creeks and benches that were placed in the middle of nowhere. You go on these a few times a week when you’re all done with your tasks of the day and the raging heat of the sun has somewhat calmed, and to your surprise, you actually really enjoy being out in nature, even though bugs are still a very much unwelcome part of it.

One day he mentions vet school and you’re reminded of your grandmother’s words on your first night here about how it wasn’t particularly what he wanted to do, so you ask him about it. He turns to you with a stunned look on his face. “I didn’t know she knew about that.”

“She told me she noticed a lot of things like that.”

He turns his head again and gazes up at the sky. “Well, she’s not wrong. It’s my parents that wanted me to go to vet school. I’d be happy just taking care of the club and making a living that way, but they say they don’t need my help year round and that it’s better for me to take up a better job.”

“For someone who doesn’t want to do it, it’s very impressive that you’re top of your class.”

He chuckles shyly and a blush appears on his cheeks. “Did Yeji say that? I only got the top grade for a couple of subjects, not all of them,” he says, making you scoff as if to say ‘still, very impressive.’ “And you know, I still like it and find it interesting, and if I’m doing it, might as well give it my best and make my parents proud.”

“Yeah, I get that. My parents are both doctors so there was never any doubt in either their or my mind that I’d become one too, until I started my first year and realized that maybe I could’ve done something else.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

You turn your head to look at him and he mirrors you. “Cause if I’m doing it, might as well give it my best and make my parents proud.”

You both look away with a chuckle. “Guess we’re more similar than I thought we were,” he says, taking you aback, but you’re very glad he thinks that way. You turn to your side, leaning against your elbow as you peer down at him.

“What about a riding career? Had you ever thought about that?”

“God, yeah,” he answers without any hesitation. “My parents signed me up for a few competitions when I was younger, and I won a couple. It made them happy, so I was happy, but I also actually really liked it. My parents never really asked how seriously I wanted to take it, though, and I didn’t say anything, so when Yeji started showing a lot of interest in competitions and becoming a professional rider they focused their attention on her and assumed I didn’t really mind, I guess. I never tried to prove them wrong. As I said, I’d be fine just taking care of the club.” He sighs and pauses for a second. “She was really young when she said she wanted to have a horse riding career, and my parents just ran with it. Now that she’s older and it takes up basically ninety percent of her life, I can tell it’s a lot of pressure on her. But it’s too late to switch places and she’s the same as me, doesn’t want to let down our parents. I just hope she won’t push herself too much, you know.”

You nod, listening intently to his words. “I’m sure you’ll be there to watch over her if she ever does. You seem like a good older brother.”

He smiles and looks up at you. “I try to be.” He reaches a hand up to your face and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. The sudden, unfamiliar and intimate gesture takes you by surprise and as soon as he registers your wide eyes and agape lips he retracts his hand, apologizing. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to be weird, I just- I don’t- I’m sorry,” he stammers, looking away with a blush.

You don’t say anything for a few seconds, too stunned by what just happened, and he looks back at you, calling out your name in a small voice. His worried expression immediately crumbles when you start laughing. “It’s fine,” you say between giggles. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

He breathes out a sigh of relief and smiles again. “Sorry, I just did it without thinking. My friends and family are always super touchy so I’m just used to that sort of thing.”

“I’m the opposite,” you say, and Sunghoon raises his eyebrows. “My parents aren’t very affectionate. I mean, they tell me they’re proud of me, and buy me gifts and stuff like that, but we never hug, or say we love each other. You’ve seen my grandma, right? The only time she’s hugged me in the almost three weeks I’ve been here was the very first day, and that’s because we hadn’t seen each other in six months.”

Sunghoon nods and hums at your words. “Yeah, now that you say that, your grandma isn’t the type to hug, or, I don’t know, pet your hair or anything, even though I’ve known her basically my whole life. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says, and you shake your head.

“No, don’t worry, you didn’t. It was actually… kinda nice,” you admit, looking away from him quickly.

“Really?” he asks with one of the widest grins you’ve ever seen on him, and you can’t believe this is the same boy that glared at you as he opened the door just a few weeks ago. You look at him from the corner of your eyes for a few seconds, trying to hide your smile, but give in and nod.

He opens his arms wide and says, “Come here,” and you look at him in disbelief.

“As in…” you say, pointing with your index finger to his chest, and he nods, blinking slowly. You scoff but do it anyway, resting your head on his chest, and a weird but warm bubble envelops your insides as he circles your waist with an arm and caresses your hair with his other hand.

“Is this okay?” he whispers, sending shivers down your spine.

“Yeah,” you whisper back. “This is okay.”

-

One Friday morning when he’s grooming Nellie and you’re braiding Picasso’s mane, he tells you he’s driving to the city tonight to meet up with his friends. “We’re just going to McDonald’s and then the cinema… and they’re kinda losers, you know, but it’d be fun if you came too. If you want to, I mean,” he offers, his shyness preventing him from looking you in the eyes. When you say you’d love to, his whole face lights up.

The day passes and when the clock strikes six p.m., you walk out of your grandmother’s house and find Sunghoon who’s waiting for you, back resting against his parents’ car. Hands in his pockets and sunglasses on, you can tell he’s trying to look cool and it makes him all that much more endearing to you. He fixes his posture and takes his sunglasses off when he sees you approaching, as if trying to get a better look; he’s seen you wear cuter outfits than tank tops and denim shorts for the dinners with his family but you’ve never worn such a pretty dress, and his heart speeds up at the mere sight of you.

“Like what you see?,” you say when you’re closer to him, twirling around in your dress.

“You look beautiful,” he says, and the look on his face must not be far from the one you wore when you saw him with Flame in that clearing a couple weeks ago.

His honesty makes you a bit shy, and you thank him as you ruffle his hair on your way to the passenger seat of the car. He stands there dumbfounded for a second until you call out his name, getting him back down to reality.

On your way to Perpignan, he tells you about his friends Heeseung, Jay and Jake, and how they all met two years ago. He shared a dorm with Jay and Jake in their first year of preparatory classes, and Heeseung, in the year above, was assigned as his mentor. They all clicked instantly and have been practically inseparable ever since, although they all live quite far away from each other, which is why it’s easiest to meet up in Perpignan when they’re on break from their studies.

“Heeseung’s girlfriend will also be there. Her name is Yunjin, she’s really nice, so if the guys get annoying you two can just talk together.”

“Why, do you guys have a tendency to get annoying when you’re together?,” you ask lightheartedly, making Sunghoon chuckle.

“Not always, but it’s a possibility. They’re nice though, so don’t worry. Jay and Jake especially are outgoing, even though Jay kinda ruins the mood sometimes cause his jokes are just awful. Heeseung is a bit shy though, just don’t take it personal if he like, doesn’t really talk to you or anything.”

“That’s funny, that reminds me of someone,” you say with a smile, unable to stop yourself. Sunghoon just replies with one of his famous whatevers.

It takes you about an hour to get to Perpignan. When you arrive, his friends are waiting outside of the McDonald’s, the boys waving with their whole arms in your direction while Yunjin watches them cross-armed, a smile on her face. “Oh, God,” Sunghoon murmurs, already embarrassed by his friends. “They’re not always like that, I promise,” he says as you walk over to them.

“Really,” you deadpan when they’ve started chanting Sunghoon’s name, watching as his face turns a deeper shade of red.

“Hi guys,” he greets them, bro-hugging Heeseung, Jay and Jake and kissing Yunjin on each cheek. You remind yourself once again to start from the right and not the left, and greet the boys first. They all say “hi, Y/N” and give you their names, and you’re quite flustered that you don’t need to tell them your name.

“Sunghoon’s told us a lot about you,” Jake says with a knowing expression, and you all chuckle when Sunghoon mutters “shut up, Jake.”

You go to greet Yunjin next and you’re surprised when, rather than simply pressing the corner of her lips against your cheek like most people do when they greet someone they’re not particularly close to, she actually kisses your cheek, an extra-friendly gesture. “I was so relieved when Sunghoon said he was bringing a girl,” she confesses, reminding you of Yeji, “I can’t deal with having to babysit these four all the time. Look at them,” she says, gesturing towards the quartet with a nudge of her head. They’re sizing Sunghoon up, ruffling his hair, pinching his cheeks and brushing away invisible creases in his t-shirt as he tries to swat their hands away, to no avail, and you can’t help but laugh at them along with Yunjin.

You all head inside the McDonald’s, getting into pairs of two to pick your order on the giant touch screens. You choose a McChicken, potato wedges and ice tea, and Sunghoon chides you for getting wedges instead of fries.

“People who get those think they’re better than everyone else,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Because we are,” you say with a smile. You touch the screen to get to the payment page but Sunghoon goes back, saying he’ll order too.

“But I need to pay?” you say, looking up at him questioningly.

“I can pay for the two of us,” he says nonchalantly, and you tease him with an ‘ooh.’ “Shut up,” he mutters, already blushing, “just let me do something nice for you.”

“Fine,” you smile, nudging his shoulder with yours a bit. “Thanks. I’ll get the cinema tickets then.”

He turns to you abruptly, his eyebrows drawn in together. “But then that cancels out me paying for this…” he whines, and you give him a look as if to say, “yeah, exactly.” 

“I don’t mind getting the tickets,” he says. “I get paid for my work at the club but I never spend any money, so, you know, I can get this for you. It makes me happy,” he mumbles, avoiding your teasing gaze.

“Thanks, Hoon,” you say, the nickname escaping your lips before you can stop it. He doesn’t seem to mind it; if anything, his blush gets deeper. You think he might end up eternally red at this rate.

“Of course.” He orders a double Big Mac, fries and a coke, and you tease him for getting such a boring meal. “They’re classics for a reason,” he defends himself. 

You swear you’ve never seen him so red and so stuttery as when you get on your toes to press a kiss to his cheek as a thank you for paying, and you think there’s no way he could get any cuter than this. His friends don’t miss it and Jake punches him very obnoxiously in the shoulder as what you can only assume is a weird congratulatory gesture.

His friends are a bit annoying, but in a funny way, so it’s okay. You’re so unaccustomed to their very unique sense of humor that everything they say and do makes you laugh, whereas they’re used to behaving like that and don’t even question their weirdness anymore. Contrary to what Sunghoon told you, Jay’s jokes land with you every time, even when the whole table grunts. 

Most of the conversation, to Sunghoon’s dismay, is spent telling embarrassing stories about him, which his friends have a lot of after having seen him drunk so many times. Heeseung asks you about how it’s been being with Sunghoon at the club, and you don’t really notice the sly smirk on his and Jake’s faces until you’re done answering. You tell them about all the things he’s made you do, but when you notice him about to complain, you add that it’s also been nice, learning how to ride a horse and spending time in the countryside.

“So you’ve seen Sunghoon ride, then?” Jake asks, and Heeseung’s snort tells you it’s not an innocent question.

“Yeah, I have,” you say, but it comes out more a question because their behavior confuses you.

Jake gives you a pointed look. “And, what did you think? I mean, it’s not the coolest sport out there, is it?” he asks, and the way Sunghoon looks down at his half-eaten burger is enough for you to put the puzzle pieces together.

You frown slightly. “Well, I think it’s a lot cooler than running after a ball and pretending like you’re gonna die when you twist your ankle,” you reply, remembering Jake’s mention of him playing soccer. Jay is quick to diffuse the tension when he sees Jake about to bite something back, saying to just talk about something else. You back off and look at Sunghoon, who seems to have completely spaced out and left the conversation. You rest your hand at the top of his knee, his attention snapping back towards you and he gives you a small smile, then turns to his friends and the conversation starts again as if nothing had happened. You’re thankful for it, because you don’t wanna create trouble the first time you meet them and make it awkward, but you really don’t appreciate his friends making him feel like he’s not “cool” because he’s a horse rider; there’s already enough stigma about it being a girls’ sport, he doesn’t need any added pressure from them.

The rest of the meal goes well, Heeseung and Yunjin throwing fries at each other, and the table making fun of Jay for eating his McFlurry so messily. Apart from the horse riding comment and the fact that they love teasing him (which you do too, to be fair), Sunghoon’s friends are nice and make him laugh, so you relax around them once again, although you and Jake exchange a few tense eye contacts. You won’t feel sorry for defending Sunghoon, even if you’ve known him for three weeks and Jake has for two years. 

When you’re done eating, you walk to the movie theater that’s just two minutes away, the boys ahead and you and Yunjin in tow. “I’m really glad you spoke up for Sunghoon earlier, and I’m sure he appreciated it too,” she says, just loud enough for you to hear. “I’ve tried speaking about it with Heeseung, but he and Jake just don’t seem to get that it actually annoys Sunghoon and they say it’s just for fun. I did horse riding when I was a kid, so I know how hard it actually is, and Jay is just a bit more mature than them, so we try to get them to stop, but they still do it a bit. Their humor is basically just making fun of everyone in their group, so sometimes they don’t know when to stop.”

You nod at her words, the situation a bit clearer now. “He should bring them to the club and show them how good he is,” you say. “Or better yet, make them get on a horse so they can see firsthand that it’s not the horse doing all the work like everyone says.” Yunjin laughs and agrees, saying she’d pay to see those boys on a horse. 

You reach the cinema as you make a note to talk to Sunghoon about this later before you can forget. You ask Yunjin what movie you’re seeing, realizing you had no idea, and she rolls her eyes. “I wanted to go see the new Marion Cotillard movie, but the boys said it looked boring, so we’re going to watch some horror movie. I don’t even know the name, but I’m sure it’s just a rehash of the same tired haunted house plot.”

While Sunghoon gets the tickets, you sneak to the food counter and get two bottles of coke and a large popcorn to share with him. He complains that he could’ve gotten that but you shut him up with a tut. 

“Are you good at watching horror movies?” you lean in and whisper when you’re seated and waiting for the movie to start while ads play, and you see him shiver slightly, but that might just be because of the aircon in the theater and not your proximity.

“What do you mean, am I good at watching them? Do you mean if I like them?” he asks, eyebrows slightly furrowed as he looks at you.

“No, I mean if you get scared easily. You can like them and watch them a lot but still get scared. I feel like you’d scream at all the jumpscares,” you add that later part just to tease him, and you know you hit bullseye when he looks away with a scoff, straightening in his seat.

“I guess they’re fun to watch, but no, I don’t get scared. And I’m definitely not going to scream.” He looks down at you with a smirk, his confidence hitting him out of nowhere as it sometimes does. “But I know you will, so feel free to hold onto my arm when you get scared,” he says, and it’s your turn to scoff and look away.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be alright,” you say just as the lights start to dim and the movie starts playing.

It takes a while for the movie to pick up, so the first half hour, you’re not really into it, paying more attention to the way your hand brushes against Sunghoon’s whenever you reach for the popcorn at the same time rather than to what is happening on screen. However, when a ghost with a very unpleasant face suddenly pops out, you can’t keep yourself from jumping in your seat and letting out a small gasp which Sunghoon would’ve made fun of, had he not been twice spooked as you were, the pieces of popcorn he was about to eat discarded somewhere at his feet because of the jumpscare.

You share a look with Sunghoon and when the both of you realize the other was completely bluffing, you burst into quiet giggles. He offers you his arm to hold onto again and you roll your eyes but take it anyway, glad for the reassurance his warmth brings you. You wrap one hand around his bicep and place the other in his hand, interlacing your fingers together, and for once you’re the shy one and can’t look him in the eye, keeping your gaze on the screen when you feel his eyes on you, surprised but pleased by your cute action.

You spend the rest of the movie like this, bodies turning towards each other every time something scary happens on screen as if instinctively going to the other to find comfort. If you weren’t in a public place, you probably would’ve ended up in his lap. Or he in yours, perhaps.

The loss of his warmth when the movie ends and the lights turn back on makes your heart a bit sad, and you already find yourself waiting for the time you’ll get to feel him next to you again. When you walk out of the theater, the sun’s finally set and the sky is starting to get dark. You all walk back to the parking lot, Heeseung, Jay, Jake and Yunjin ahead, talking about the movie excitedly and recalling their favorite scenes, but you and Sunghoon hang back a bit. He’s silent and for a second you’re worried all the hand-holding has made him awkward but when you look up at him, he gives you a smile that calms all your nerves in an instant.

Jake suddenly turns around to face you, walking backwards. “What did you two lovebirds think?” he asks.

“It was alright,” Sunghoon answers. “It had some scary scenes but I couldn’t really get into it.”

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause you two were too busy being all- ow!” Jake starts but is interrupted by a kick in the shins, courtesy of Jay.

“Can you read the room, just once in your life, bro?” he says, and Jake rolls his eyes but turns back around anyway, leaving you and Sunghoon to laugh at his friends’ antics. 

When you reach the parking lot, you say goodbye to everyone, saying it was nice meeting them and you hoped to see them again soon. “If you can, you should try and visit the club at some point, it’d be nice seeing you there,” you tell Yunjin as you hug her goodbye.

The car ride home is silent at first, betraying both your and Sunghoon’s shyness. “Tonight was nice,” you start, wanting to start a conversation after a few minutes of just looking out the window.

Sunghoon responds immediately as if he’d been waiting for you to say something. “Yeah? I’m glad. I was scared you weren’t going to like my friends or something…” he says, glancing at you with a worried expression on his face.

“Well, I really liked Yunjin and Jay…” you trail.

“But?”

“But…” you sigh, too late to turn back, but unsure whether it’s your place to bring this up. “Heeseung and Jake were nice, you know, but that comment they made about you horse riding really brushed me the wrong way.”

“Aww,” Sunghoon coos, and you roll your eyes at his fake saccharine tone. “Did it make you upset for me?”

“It did!” you say, wanting Sunghoon to know you were serious. “Friends shouldn’t make fun of your passions. Plus you’re really good at it, and I’m sure they’d be impressed by you. I talked about it with Yunjin, you know,” you add before he can cut in. “She said it happens all the time and you’re used to it, but it’s not something you should have to put up with. You should have them over at the club some day.”

Sunghoon hums, pouting his lips a bit. “I don’t know… It’s not that big of a deal. It’s how we mess with each other.”

“You looked really down when they were saying those things, Hoon. You’re allowed to say when something bothers you. And if they don’t listen, then they’re assholes. I know you’ve been friends for a while now, and I’m not trying to make you cut them off by any means, but I think you should talk to them. If they’re good friends, they’ll understand and not want to say something that hurts you. At least I hope so,” you say, looking out the window again to hide how upset this truly makes you. Sunghoon’s next words come as a surprise to you.

“Thanks, Y/N.” You look back at him with a questioning look, wordlessly asking him to go on, and he sighs. “I’m sort of used to keeping everything for myself. Taking a step back so I don’t take things personally, not complaining and just doing what I’m told even if it’s not what I want to do, stuff like that, I’m used to it. I just- I don’t wanna bother anyone, you know. I think you’re the first person who’s ever told me I’m allowed to voice things out.”

You don’t know what to say for a few seconds, shocked by this revelation. It’s very fitting of him - sacrificing his potential career for his sister, going to vet school to please his parents but taking care of the center whenever he’s on break. You didn’t know this behavior went deeper than that, and it was ingrained in him to just take it all and never put up a fight.

You say, “You’re allowed to put yourself first, you know. Sometimes, you even need to,” and it’s an unfamiliar breath of fresh air that blows away some of the weight on his shoulders, hearing those words. He chuckles a bit, hoping that the tears pooling in his eyes don’t accidentally overflow.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that, but it’s nice knowing I have the option. Thank you, Y/N,” he repeats, and you smile at him, relieved when he smiles back.

The rest of the car ride goes by in a flash as you make fun of each other for being so scared of the film and jump from topic to topic like frogs bouncing around lily pads, somehow neither of you ever losing track of the conversation. You tell him someone with such a boring McDonald’s order doesn’t deserve to have opinions and he says that of course you’d think that since you chose potato wedges instead of french fries.

Without noticing it, you soon reach the center, and Sunghoon walks you to your doorstep after parking the car. You stand in front of each other at the door, and you seriously feel like the main lead in a teen rom-com, butterflies in your stomach and all the works as you look up at him, expecting a little something.

“So…” he starts, pressing his lips into a flat line to hide his smile.

“So…” you repeat, nudging your foot with his as you both look down.

“Tonight was nice,” he says sheepishly and you can’t help but laugh, him soon imitating you.

“It was. But we’ve already established that, I think.”

“Right.” His gaze finds yours, and the look in his eyes makes your heart feel like it’s on an acid trip. You stare at each other for a few seconds, unable to look away, and you’re about to run off into the house, the tension too much to handle, when his eyes finally drop to your lips. Knowing him, he probably won’t do much more, so you take a small step towards him and raise your lips towards his, closing the distance between the two of you inch by inch, getting closer, closer, closer, until-

“Sunghoon!” Yeji’s voice rings out in the night, taking you aback as you gasp and stumble a few steps back, not wanting her to see you almost devour her brother’s face. Sunghoon closes his eyes and shakes his head, then lets out an exasperated “what.”

“I can’t believe you went to see that new movie without me. I saw it in Jay's story. I told you I wanted to go see it!”

He sighs and looks at you, mouthing a “sorry” before walking towards her, hooking his arm over her shoulders as he walks her back to their house. 

“Sorry, lil sis. We can go watch it together, I don’t mind seeing it again. Also, why do you follow Jay? Unfollow him,” he commands, and after that you can’t hear anything because they’re too far away. You watch them walk with a smile on your face, appreciating their little moment together, and your heart does a little somersault of joy when Sunghoon turns around to wave at you from his door.

-

After that night, you’re more determined than ever to turn that almost-kiss into a actually-happened-kiss. However, your resolve soon seems to have been for nothing when Sunghoon tells you about how he wishes he didn’t have to leave with his parents, but they won’t let him stay, and you’re reminded of the Parks yearly vacation that starts the next day, exactly three days after the night out.

It’s a late Sunday afternoon and you’ve done everything you needed to for that day, so you and Sunghoon went off on a horse ride as you often do, deciding to take a break when you reach a field in which a bunch of haystacks rest. You only had to exchange a look to understand the other immediately, so you tied your horses to a tree and raced over to the closest stack, helping each other get to the top and laying there.

“I wish you didn’t have to go either,” you say, playing with a loose strand of hay peeking out from the stack in the small space between you and Sunghoon.

“You gonna miss me?” Sunghoon teases, grinning as he lightly nudges your shoulder.

“As surprising as it sounds, I think I might,” you say, and from the corner of your eye you see his grin get wider.

“I think I will too,” he replies, and he giggles when he sees you try and fail to suppress a smile. “Actually, I definitely will,” he adds just to see you smile bigger, and it works.

“When are you leaving again exactly?” you ask to change the subject.

“Early tomorrow morning. I still haven’t packed,” he says and sighs.

“We should head back so you can pack,” you say even though you don’t want to do that at all.

“Yeah, we should, but I don’t want to,” he replies, practically reading your mind. “I wanna stay here for a while.”

A small silence settles between the two of you, but it says more than a thousand words. The tension that has been hanging over your heads for a while now but only thickened after Friday night is almost palpable now. You’re laying so close that your arms are almost touching, occasionally brushing when one of you shifts, and if you turned your head, his face would be right there, which means his lips would be right there. Well, one of you is going to have to do something about this tension, you think, and it’s definitely not going to be him.

“Sunghoon?” you call out, turning your head towards the boy next to you. He does the same and your eyes meet. In this late afternoon hour, the sun is right behind you and he has to squint a little bit and use his hand as a shield to look at you properly. He looks a bit stupid like that, but you think he’s cute.

“Yeah?”

The warm feeling that spreads over your whole body at the sound of his voice is what gives you the confirmation that you want to say what you say next, and the courage to do it.

“Can I kiss you?”

His eyebrows raise slightly but he’s quick to hide his surprise and starts grinning instead, revealing those fangs of his you love so much. You have a feeling they’d leave the cutest marks on your skin. “Sure,” he says, letting his eyes drift down to your lips just like that other night.

So you do.

You lean in close enough to press your lips onto his, letting them touch for a brief second before leaning back again. A small pout forms on his lips at the fleeting contact. “That’s it?”

You could just eat him whole, you think. A kiss will have to do. “What did you want?” you ask, trying and failing to hide a smirk.

“That wasn’t a proper kiss.”

“Yeah? What’s a proper kiss then?”

He looks away with a huff. “I’m sure you know what a proper kiss is. Why would you ask to kiss me if you’re not even gonna do it properly…”

“How about you show me then?”

This makes him look promptly back at you, his eyes a bit wider. When he just gulps without saying anything, you add: “Or should I try again? Properly this time?”

He nods, eyes set on your lips. He’d always found them pretty and inviting, and he’d caught himself daydreaming about this exact moment a few times, but now that it was right in front of him, his brain was short-circuiting. All he could do was close his eyes and wait for you.

You find it cute how he screws his eyes shut before you’re even kissing him, making him look like a k-drama female lead during the first kiss scene. You can’t help but smile a little even as you bring your lips to his once again, this time a bit firmer, a bit deeper. He waits for you to move your lips against his before he does so too, but once he’s started, he’s unstoppable.

In fleeting conversations and off-hand comments, you’d learned that Sunghoon had had a couple girlfriends but that it always ended after a few months. When you’d accused him of “virgin behavior” after he did something embarrassing for an almost twenty-year-old, he’d fervently defended himself of very much not being virgin and very much having had sex before, which you’d said was what a virgin would say, but you knew he was saying the truth because he wasn’t the type to lie, especially about this sort of thing.

What was sure was that he kissed you like he knew what he was doing, and he was doing it well. His shy demeanor from a minute ago is completely gone as he tilts his head and deepens the kiss, holding you tight against him. His hands were shy at first, but when yours made their way to his hair so you could gently tug at the strands there, he understood he didn’t need to be so polite. One of his hands found your waist while the other cupped your cheek, his thumb coming under your chin to tilt it up towards him. 

Your lips move against the others’ like you’d done this your whole life, and you’re unable to keep it Disney-friendly for long as your feelings and the fact that you were finally touching each other like you’d been wanting to take over any reason you had left. The kiss turns hungrier, needier, hotter, as if catching up on all that time you lost to dilly-dallying around each other. It’s easy to slip your tongue inside his mouth and you swear you hear him moan when your tongues come into contact, the small sound making your brain turn into mush and giving you one goal, and one goal only: hear him again.

You pull away and press a palm to his shoulder, and he lets you push him down on his back as you straddle his lips, positioning your core right over his growing erection and watching with a smirk as he bites his lips and furrows his eyebrows, humming at the feeling of you against him. You press your lips back against his and note with satisfaction that his movements are messier than before, kissing you mouth open and letting you take full control of the kiss, almost unable to focus on kissing you and on feeling you grind very lightly, almost teasingly against him. Slick pools in your underwear at the angelic sounds he’s making, and you’re very happy he doesn’t seem to be shy about being vocal because his moans are the prettiest sound you've ever heard.

You move away from his lips and trail wet kisses on his cheeks and jawline, moving down to his neck and his Adam’s apple, gently biting and sucking the skin at the base of his throat, enough to make him squirm underneath you but not enough to leave a mark, even though you’d love to, the thought of other girls seeing him all marked up because of you filling you with a sense of pride you didn’t know you could have.

You find his sweet spot at the juncture of his neck and his shoulder, so you kiss him more there, tracing the other side of his neck with your fingernails. He’s so sensitive and those actions alone are enough to have him whine a small “fuck, Y/N, that feels so good,” and you think you might actually go insane with lust for him. 

You’ve just started kissing him on the lips again, his hands holding your hips so tightly you think they might almost bruise your skin and his kisses desperate and needy, when his phone buzzes. Taken aback, you pull away quickly, and he whines at the loss of contact. He goes in to kiss you again but you tut and tell him to check his phone in case it’s important. You note that he does what you say, and you wonder whether that’ll hold up for other situations. You observe him as he unlocks his phone and reads the text, and you curse yourself for waiting until he leaves to do this. You could’ve had him heaving, cheeks rosy, lips slightly swollen and eyes blown out for some weeks now, but your hesitation prevented you from doing anything, and now you’ll have to wait ten more days to see him like this again - that is, if he wants to do it again.

“It’s my mom,” he says with a sigh, snapping you out of your reverie. “She says I need to come home and pack my bag and have dinner.”

You pout at each other and he sits up, wrapping his arms around your middle and nuzzling his face in your neck. The rather intimate action surprises you a bit, but mostly you find it endearing, and it was pretty obvious Sunghoon would be the clingy type. You’re happy he feels comfortable enough around you to show this side of him - plus, it makes him ten times more adorable than he already was in your eyes.

“I want to go even less now,” he murmurs, voice muffled and you giggle at him as you caress his head.

“Same. But ten days will go by quickly, right? And I’ll be right here when you come back,” you say, leaning back so you can cup his face in your palms and look at him, his cheeks a bit squished. “You’re so cute,” you whisper with a smile, and the compliment makes his cheeks heat up but for once he doesn’t look away and keeps your gaze locked in his.

You peck his lips quickly and get off of his lap. “Right, we should go then,” and when he whines in protest, you add, “your mom will be mad, Hoon,” which is enough to convince him.

You head slowly back to the center and walk the horses to their stalls, talking about this and that as you often do, but you grow silent as you near his house, dreading having to say goodbye. The only difference with Friday night is that you’re standing at his door and not yours; the tension and heart-fluttering awkwardness are the same. Well, maybe not exactly the same, because you had your tongue down his throat just fifteen minutes ago.

“You’ll be alright when I’m gone, right?” he asks, taking your hands in his and letting them hang between you two.

“Yeah, I will. Plus, your parents’ friend is coming to take care of the club, right? I’ll help her, and I’ll hang out with my grandma while you’re on vacation and the ten days will be over before we know it,” you say, more trying to reassure yourself than him.

Sunghoon sighs but nods as if trying to convince himself too. “Right.”

“Right,” you repeat, and look up at him with a smile. The thought that this might look completely dramatic to any outsider crosses your mind, but you ignore it because you’re really not looking forward to spending ten days without Sunghoon here. When he comes back, you’ll only have three weeks left, and that simple fact already makes your heart ache.

He takes you in his arms and holds you close to him for a few moments. “Okay. I’ll see you soon, Y/N,” he whispers in your hair. “Don’t miss me too much. But not too little either. Just the right amount,” he jokes, and usually you’d have punched his chest or something but right now all you can do is chuckle. He pulls away and pecks you on the lips, and when you take a step back, he opens the door and waves at you goodbye, then disappears inside the house.

-

Not to be dramatic, but those ten days are probably the longest of your life. The Parks’ friend, Madame Rasson, is nice enough, and you enjoy helping her out and having dinner with her and your grandmother every night, but she’s no Park Sunghoon. You don’t really have the urge to gallop away with her and kiss at the top of a haystack as the sun sets behind you, nor do you feel like a small part of your heart stays with her when you’re not together.

Sunghoon calls you every night under the pretext of wanting to know how the horses are doing, but you know Mrs Park and Mme Rasson are keeping in touch and that he just wants to talk to you. You don’t call him out on it though and let him tell you about his day when he’s done pretending he cares about who did what and who went where. After a few days, as you’re nearing the end of a call, he tells you he misses you then hangs up right after as if he hadn’t been basically crying into your shirt about how much he didn’t want to leave and how much he’d miss you just a few days prior, but you just giggle and text him that you miss him too, which he texts a heart back to.

Yunjin also comes around one day, saying she missed horse riding and wanted to hang out again, so you show her around the club and go on a horse ride together, taking her to all the spots Sunghoon took you to, pointing with a giggle to the spot where you made out. She gasps when she hears that and lightly slaps your shoulder. “You two made out?” she says, surprise and excitement all over her face. You only giggle some more and nod, face heating up.

“I mean, it was obvious it would happen at some point. You guys were giving each other major heart eyes the other day.” You roll your eyes and say you weren’t even though you know you very much were. “Plus, the guys send a lot of voice messages on their group chat and I sometimes listen to them with Heeseung. The way Sunghoon talks about you is so cute it makes me want to throw up sometimes.”

The thought of Sunghoon talking about you to his friends makes your heart jump and swell with pride a bit. “Really? What does he say?” you ask, not looking at Yunjin to hide the stupid smile you’re wearing.

“He just talks about your day and what you guys did, but he’ll focus on a random thing like the way you said hi to the horses or how you ate your food and he’ll be like, it was the cutest thing ever. He doesn’t go into too much detail cause he knows the guys will make fun of him but it’s still really sweet. Heeseung told me he’s never talked about any other girl like that, you know,” she says, looking at you pointedly. “And you probably also know Sunghoon isn’t the easiest to get to know. But he’s clearly let you in, and he really wanted you to meet the boys, so I think he really, really likes you.”

You give yourself a few moments to process Yunjin’s words, but all you can say in the end is “Well, I really, really like him too,” and Yunjin laughs at you.

She stays over for dinner, charming your grandmother with her jokes and willingness to help, and spends the night as well. You two stay up until late talking about your families, school, how she met Heeseung and how cute you and Sunghoon are, and the fact that you have to stay quiet so as not to wake your grandma up makes you want to laugh even harder. When she leaves the next morning, she mentions that she saw the sea was really nearby and asked if you’d been.

“I haven’t yet, but Sunghoon did say he knew a spot and would take me sometime… I’ll ask him about it again,” you say, and she nods fervently, saying she hasn’t been to the beach forever. You hug each other goodbye and you wave at her until you can’t see her car anymore, and you get that empty feeling of being alone again, so you go find your grandmother and bother her with tons of questions which she answers patiently. Five days to go until Sunghoon comes back.

And then these five days are over, and Sunghoon finds you in the middle of the afternoon, taking a nap in your grandmother’s backyard and oblivious to the fact that the boy you like the most is back. He wakes you up by taking your sunglasses delicately off of your eyes and pressing his lips to the top of your head. You frown and open your eyes bit by bit until you recognise the boy hunching over you and then open your eyes all at once, sitting up in your lounge chair and wrapping your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, pulling him down towards you.

“Hi,” he giggles, chin hooked over your shoulder.

“You’re back!”

“I am.” He pulls away to peck your lips, and it’s like he hasn’t even left a day. “I’ll go get changed and check on Nellie and then we can go for a horse ride, if you want?”

You nod excitedly. “Sure. I’ll go get the horses ready.” You both rush to your respective destinations and meet again fifteen minutes later in the grooming hall just as you finish buckling Picasso’s saddle. Sunghoon pecks your lips once more just because he can, and then you’re off.

Sunghoon’s prepared a blanket so you could lie in the grass in the clearing. On your way there, you ask him about his vacation and he admits it was actually really fun. They drove down to Spain, spending a couple days in Barcelona and then a week in a smaller seaside town. In terms of weather and landscape, it wasn’t very different from their hometown, but the food was amazing and the people very welcoming, and Sunghoon and Yeji could finally put their years of learning Spanish in school to the test.

“I took a lot of pictures because there were so many things that reminded me of you or that I thought you’d like,” he admits bashfully, taking out his phone from his bag once you’re settled on the blanket. You rest your head on his chest and rest your hand on the side of his stomach, feeling the vibrations of his laughter against your ear and commenting on the pictures he shows you, giggling when he starts rapidly scrolling through fifteen consecutive selfies.

You try to keep up a conversation but it’s a bit hard to do when his neck is right there, close enough for you to press kisses on or to nuzzle your face in if you just lifted your head a bit, and his skin is soft and warm and you want to feel all of it under your palms. Even Sunghoon, who usually never shuts up when he’s with someone he’s comfortable around, is quiet. His sigh when you trail your hand up from his waist to his shoulder tells you he’s probably thinking the same as you, and as soon as you graze your fingers through his hair, he’s rolled you onto your back and his lips are on yours, kissing you with all the need that’s built up over the past ten days. You have a feeling just kissing won’t be enough to satisfy either of you today.

There’s a sense of urgency to all of your movements, the way all four hands are restless and travel each other’s body tirelessly, pulling on the other’s hair, kneading the skin here, caressing it here. Sunghoon bites down on your lower lip and the action makes you moan, so he takes that opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. Your kisses are open-mouthed and wet and messy, but you wouldn’t have it any other way because they translate all the desire you have for him and you want him to know exactly just how he’s making you feel.

You remember how much Sunghoon likes it when you compliment him, or tease him using your words, so you decide to do just that. When he starts trailing kisses your jaw, then sucking and biting at your neck, leaving tiny marks there, you whisper his name, making him hum. 

“Hoon. I want you so fucking bad.” 

You feel him trembling at your words and he nuzzles his face in the crook of your neck, whining as he continues pressing wet kisses there. He ruts his hips into yours, seemingly more by reaction than deliberately. “Want you too,” he murmurs, and slips his hands underneath your t-shirt, the flesh on your stomach burning everywhere his hands touch it. You lift your arms so he can take the piece of fabric off, and he’s quick to find the back of your bra as well, unclasping it and revealing your breasts to him.

In no time he’s already delving into your body, pretty pink lips circling and sucking on one of your nipples and deft fingers playing with the other, warmth spreading all over you at the intense pleasure he’s finally giving you, wetness already starting to make your underwear stick to your core.

Your fingers find purchase in his hair, pulling whenever it feels particularly good, and he seems to like the pain that comes with it because it’s enough to have him moaning around your nipple. “Fuck, Hoon, that feels so good,” you breathe out. Despite your praise and to your confusion, he pulls away, trailing kisses down your stomach until he reaches your shorts and looks up at you when his fingers are around the button, asking for confirmation to go further. He whispers “thank God” when you nod your head yes.

“Wanna make you feel good,” he says as he drags your shorts and underwear down at the same time, eyes fixated on your glistening folds.

You hold yourself up on your elbows, admiring him and his blown-out pupils and disheveled hair - he’s never looked hotter. “You already were, baby.”

“Wanna make you feel even better,” he says before diving right into your pussy, giving you no time to get used to the feeling as his tongue licks up a long stripe up your folds before finding your clit, alternating between giving it kitty-licks and sucking it. You’re a moaning mess in an instant, pulling even harder at his hair and sometimes holding onto his shoulders as if your body might start levitating at any moment. As if that didn’t already feel good enough, he then adds a finger, and quickly a second one into your hole, his thin and long digits feeling better than yours ever have. He must be some kind of fingering expert because he finds your g-spot in thirty seconds, pressing the sensitive spot again and again until you come apart for him in an embarrassingly quick orgasm, moaning his name and how good it feels like a broken record.

That doesn’t seem to be enough for Sunghoon, however, who doesn’t relent and sends your body into overstimulation until you find the energy to tell him to stop. “Was that good?” he asks innocently when his lips find yours again, letting you taste yourself on his tongue.

“Was it good?” you repeat, almost scoffing. “Baby, it was amazing.”

“Really?” he asks, a childlike grin on his face that is worlds away from the things he just did to your body.

“Really. Let me show you how good it felt,” you say with a mischievous smile, pushing his shoulder down so you switch positions and he’s the one laying, back against the blanket. “Let’s get this all off, yeah?” you say, hands fiddling with the hem of his shirt, and when that’s gone, with the band of his sweatpants and underwear. He gulps when he’s fully naked under your curious gaze, but he’s brave and his eyes don't leave your face, patiently waiting for what you’ll say or do next.

“So pretty, Hoon,” you purr as your hands trail from his thighs up to his neck, applying some pressure there, not enough to cut off any oxygen but enough for him to feel it. “And all for me,” you add as you mark his neck just like he did yours, before pushing yourself down his body until your face is level with his now fully hard cock. You press wet kisses to his thighs and hear his breaths get shakier when your kisses get dangerously close to his crotch. “Haven’t even touched you, and you’re already this hard, baby?” you tease, and chuckle when his cock twitches at your words.

“Please,” he implores, voice small.

“Just a second, baby. Be good for me, yeah?” you ask and he nods, eyes screwed shut as if in pain. You had a feeling that Sunghoon might like to give control rather than have it, but you hadn’t thought he’d let you have full power over him like that. You can’t say you dislike it, though.

You don’t want to make him wait for too long, and the sigh of relief he lets out when you finally place your tongue on the base of his shaft and lick a stripe up is worth it. Your baby is loud and lets you know exactly what he likes, and what he likes is when you pay attention to his tip and his sensitive balls at the same time. You alternate between having your lips around his tip, hands massaging him, and your palm circling his tip, taking his balls in your mouth and letting them out with a pop. In just a few minutes, his whole body is shaking under your touch and his moans are getting louder and louder, almost shout-like. He calls out your name and pleads with you to stop, and you look up at him with a worried expression. Before you can ask if he’s okay, he says, “Wanna cum inside you,” and how can you refuse him when his blush has spread to his whole face and his eyebrows are furrowed in concentration and pleasure, trying his best not to cum?

“Of course, baby.”

He sits up and you straddle his lap, telling him you’re on the pill when he’s about to pull out a condom he’d sneakily brought from his bag. “Fuck, okay,” he says, voice shaky at the idea of feeling your bare walls around him.

You raise yourself over him, your arms wrapping themselves around his neck and his around your waist, you line your entrance up with his dick and then sit back down onto his lap, his cock stretching you out in the best way possible as it slips right in, your wetness serving as natural lube. You waste no time before moving your hips against his, first rocking them back and forth and then raising them up and down, the both of you letting out loud moans and breaths at the pleasure taking over your bodies.

“Y/N, feels so good, gonna cum quick,” he breathes out into the crook of your neck, biting the flesh there which feels surprisingly good.

“That’s okay baby, you’ve done so well, cum whenever you want.”

“Want you to cum too, though,” he whines, and you can’t help but chuckle.

“You already made me- fuck!” you scream out of surprise when Sunghoon’s hands suddenly grip your thighs tightly and he holds you steady like this as he ruts his hips up into yours, the angle hitting right where it needs to. Your brain can’t form sentences that make any sort of sense so you’re left blabbering praises and curses at the same time, feeling your second orgasm rapidly approaching.

“Fuck, baby, just like that, fuck- so close, Hoon…”

The feeling of your walls clenching as your high washes over you is enough for Sunghoon to tip over the edge as well, your releases mixing together in a loud and sticky mess. You’ve never felt closer to heaven as you do now.

The seriousness of it all soon starts to fade as you and Sunghoon lock eyes and burst into giggles, breathing still heavy and irregular. You help clean each other up and put your clothes back on, but you don’t head home until the sun has long set, feasting on the snacks and water he’d brought along.

You check the time before you go to bed that night. 00:57, Thursday 11th August 2022. Twenty days left with Sunghoon. 

-

Eighteen days left with Sunghoon. Your last days together feel like a montage, like you’re watching a movie in which you play the lead role and you know the ending credits will have to start rolling at some point. You hate to be thinking that way, but the first thing you do when you wake up every morning is check the date and tell yourself how many days you’ve got left with your summer love. 19 days, 18 days. If Sunghoon feels a change in your attitude, how your gaze lingers more, how your touch softens, he doesn’t say anything.

You mentioned how you and Yunjin would like to go to the beach, so he called up his friends and got them to drive all the way over here. He said another time when you told him this is the perfect opportunity to show them his horse riding, and you didn’t push it.

He drives you all to what he calls ‘his’ beach spot, and indeed, it feels like it’s yours and yours only. It’s a bit of a trek getting there, having to walk up a dirt road and climbing some rocks before heading down to a small sandy beach where the sand is so hot it burns and the water only feels refreshing for two minutes, but you love it. He side-eyes Jake and Jay when you take off your dress and reveal your bikini-clad body, and barks at them to stop salivating even though they weren’t looking at you.

Yunjin on Heeseung’s shoulders, Jake on Jay’s and you on Sunghoon’s, the six of you play a tournament of who can make the others fall faster. Your boy has amazing balance, robust legs, a strong core, and decent (surprisingly impressive) arm muscles, so you win, a victory peck turning into a makeout session that everybody groans at, except for Jake who whoops. 

You apply sunscreen on each other’s backs and complain that evening when you’ve got weirdly-shaped sunburns anyway, you along the lines of your swimsuit and him on the back of his knees. You eat the watermelon Jay brought and the boys spit black seeds at each other, not daring to do it to you or Yunjin after the stank look you gave them.

When you get home and everyone has driven off, neither of you is quite ready to call it a night yet. Sunghoon eyes the backseat of his car and you understand what he wants immediately. His skin smells like sun, sweat, sunscreen and sea water, and it’s all so him. It smells so good, it’s almost intoxicating, and you think you’ll never be able to get enough of his scent, of him. You won’t be able to look up at the bright star in the day sky or at an orange bottle of sticky sunscreen the same way ever again. 

You’ve had many things in your life. You’ve had dolls, and you’ve had books and CDs. You’ve also had and still have friends, sometimes even boyfriends. You’ve had fun, and times that were not as fun. You’ve had sex. But you’ve not had anything like what you have with Sunghoon. He’s the one who gave you the intense feeling of truly loving and being loved, the insatiable craving of wanting more, the overwhelming need to see and talk to and feel and smell. 

He’s the one who gave you the best summer of your life, and it’s the best thing you’ve ever had. It overpowers everything you’ve ever had to the point that it feels like it’s the first thing you’ve ever had; it might be the only thing you ever have, because you don’t understand how you could want anything else now that you’ve had him. He’s all you need.

Seventeen days left with Sunghoon. You’re having your joyful weekly dinner with your grandmother and the Parks when you feel something hit your foot gently. You feel it again, and when you look up at the boy sitting right across the table from you he’s trying to hide a small smile, but you know him too well to miss it. His clothed foot caresses the ridge of your own and you suppress a giggle at the ticklish feelings. You tease him back, and you realize you’re playing footsies at the ripe age of twenty years old, but it doesn’t bother you. You both end up failing at not laughing and when innocently, his mother asks, “what are you two laughing at?”, he coughs and says it’s an inside joke.

Fourteen days left with Sunghoon. The last two weeks of summer lessons have started again and Sunghoon and you can’t run around and lay in random fields at any time of the day anymore, but you still try your best to spend every waking second of the day together, to the despair of his fangirls. However, you still find moments where it’s the two of you in an empty stall and one exchanged look is enough for you to push him against the walls, your lips finding his in the fraction of a second. Sadly, before it can get too heated, a nearby horse always neighs or huffs as if telling you to get a room.

Twelve days left with Sunghoon. Conveniently, Sunghoon’s sister and their parents are out for the night at a party in celebration of the competition season that’s about to end, so you finally get to spend the night in his room. You technically could’ve done it before, but the house is old and the walls are thin, and you didn’t need that kind of humiliation. 

Maybe Sunghoon feels that your time is slowly running to its end too, because as the days pass, he melts under your touch like a candle to a flame even more than before, he kisses your lips with more desperation and he holds your hips tighter as if you were going to disappear from between his hands at any moment. He always asks to please, please let’s cum at the same time and please, please say my name and you do it because you’d do anything for him.

You do it three times in a row, both of your bodies weak and sensitive with overstimulation yet unending desire, and you feel tears pouring down your cheeks as your third orgasm of the night hits you. There’s no way anything will ever feel as good as this. You tell him this, and he says, “I know.”

Seven days left with Sunghoon. He asks you what you’ll do when you go home, and you reply that you don’t know, because even though you’ve been thinking about what little time you have left together, you haven’t been thinking about the time after that, simply because it puts a bland feeling in your mouth whenever it crosses your mind. “I’ll start studying again and I’ll start my internship. I’ll get black out drunk at least once a month to forget all the stress and pressure of being a med student. I’ll think about you. That’s probably about it. What about you?”

“I’ll study too and I’ll have an assistantship at some point too. I’ll get drunk on Thursday nights and take care of the club during the weekends. I’ll think about you, too. More than you, I’m sure.”

“That’s not possible. You won’t ever leave my mind.”

“You won’t either,” he whispers.

Two days left with Sunghoon. He tells you you’re going camping for your last night together, not wanting to leave your side for even a second. “We’ve only got so much time left, we need to make the most of it,” he says, and you wished he knew that that had been your exact thought for the past twenty days.

That night, everything goes much slower than it usually does. You take your sweet time taking the clothes off of each other, reveling in discovering the smooth skin underneath the fabric as if you hadn’t seen it dozens of times by now. You find all of his moles and kiss them one by one, and he takes a full minute kissing down from your lips to your core. His thrusts are slow but deep, and your lips don’t leave the other’s the whole time.

-

Ten hours left with Sunghoon. You wake up the next morning when the sunlight the thin walls of the tent are unable to keep away gets too bright for your eyes’ liking. The warmth of this late August night has made you two drift apart while you slept, but you quickly find his body again and you wrap your arms around him, nuzzling your nose into the crook of his neck. He smells like sleep and like himself, which is comforting.

He calls out your name and you lift your head to look at him. When he doesn’t turn his head as well and only gives you his chin and jawline to look at, you know he’s about to say something important. Something he doesn’t dare to say while looking in your eyes. 

Your mind goes back to all the times you’ve laid down next to each other and you hope that those will be what you see whenever you think of Sunghoon in the future. The sun not quite ready to call it a day, a slight breeze picking up, the hay a semi-comfortable mattress that sometimes poked you at the back of your neck and arms. Sunghoon right next to you. You were always happy then, hoping you wouldn’t regret anything later. You wouldn’t have known what to do to prevent that anyway.

All you know is you don't want your memory of Sunghoon to be tainted by this moment right now, this moment in which he avoids your gaze and your heart feels heavy because you’re leaving soon and you won’t get to have him in your embrace like this. You want to be happy when you think of him; you don’t want to feel his absence.

“Yeah?” you answer. He still doesn’t look at you, and you get a bit nervous.

He sighs a deep breath like you’ve never seen him do before. “Is it okay if I say something a bit selfish?”

You love him so much. You realize that maybe that’s what you’ll end up regretting. “Go ahead.”

“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” he says, and you almost laugh out of relief.

“That’s not selfish, Hoon. I don’t want to leave, either.” You reach for his hand and he lets you take it, your fingers intertwining immediately as if made to hold each other. To hold onto each other. He still doesn’t look at you, and you know there’s something more there.

“It’s selfish because I’m scared I’ll resent you for leaving,” he says, voice a whisper. 

Ah. There it is.

You squeeze his hand, wordlessly asking him to go on. He takes another breath, a shakier one this time, and he chuckles at the tears he feels pooling in his eyes. “You showed up here out of nowhere and you made me so, so happy. You listened to me and got me to open up, which I usually hate doing. You told me that I was good, that you were proud of me. And now you’re leaving and no one will tell me those things anymore.” The first crack in your heart happens when you hear his voice quiver at the end of his sentence.

“You don’t need me to tell you those things. You know them now, and you have yourself,” you try to reassure him.

The second crack happens when he finally turns to look at you, lips trembling and eyes full of tears. “But I want you to tell me those things.” It takes everything in you to not burst into tears, but you want to be strong for him. For the both of you.

“I can still tell you those things. Phones exist, you know.” A small smile appears on your lips as you try to alleviate the tension. Sunghoon’s eyebrows crease and he pouts his lips; you can tell he doesn’t want to laugh in this moment, but the nudge you give him and your smile make his facade break.

You laugh as he whines, telling you this is a serious moment and to not make him laugh. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you say between chuckles and you wrap your arms around him, bringing him to lay his head on your chest. You kiss the top of his head and graze your fingers through his hair. “Laughing is all I can do to stop myself from crying, baby,” you whisper. When you feel a tear roll down your cheek, you add, “And it’s not even working that well.”

Sunghoon buries his face deeper between your breasts and sobs. No more, no less, he sobs, loud, choked sobs that make his whole body shake against yours, and you hold him as tight as you can so that they don’t break him in two. “I’m gonna miss you so much,” he manages to say, and that’s when the third and final crack happens and your heart shatters. It breaks into a million tiny pieces that fall all over your body; some of them make their way to your throat while others travel to the tips of your fingers and others lodge themselves behind your knees or in the pits of your stomach. Your heart breaks into sharp pieces and you feel them piercing under your skin everywhere. You feel like you’re gonna throw up.

You and Sunghoon aren’t even technically dating. You’ve known each for two months. You live far, but not halfway across the world; you can see each other again. You will see each other again. It’s not supposed to hurt that much, yet it hurts even more than that. 

“I know, baby, I know,” you whisper into his hair. “I’ll miss you so much too. But we’ll see each other again, right? Paris isn’t that far away.”

His sobs calm down and you hear him sniffle as he catches his breath. “Paris isn’t far away, but we’ll be worlds apart. You’re going to study and become a doctor, and I’ll stay here. You know what medical school is like, you’re going to be flooded with work for at least four more years. I can’t expect you to stay in touch all the time.”

“Well, it doesn’t need to be all the time, does it? I’d annoy you if it was.”

“You could never annoy me,” he says, and it makes you laugh. He’d never have said this two months ago.

“Plus, I’ll still get time off. I can come back next summer.”

He raises his head to look at you and you can see all the hope and sadness in his puffy eyes. You want to kiss away the tear stains on his cheeks. You want to right everything wrong just to see him smile again. “Next summer?” he echoes in a small voice.

“Next summer,” you promise, a smile you hope is comforting on your lips.

-

Next summer doesn’t work out. The one after that either. Your internship is going swimmingly, and so is his assistantship, and you simply don’t have the time to make a trip all the way down there. A part of you is also worried that if you see him again, you won’t have the force to leave.

Those years you don’t see him, you’re reminded of the ten days you were apart during that summer, and how you’d felt like he’d kept a small piece of your heart with him, because it still feels that way. There’s something that’s keeping you tethered to that summer, something that the strongest scissors or the sharpest knife in the world couldn’t break.

For a short period of time, he was all you needed. But reality quickly seeped back in, and now you needed good grades and then a good job, a decent flat, a decent income. You didn’t need anyone like you needed him, but you still wanted them because even if they weren’t as pretty, or as patient, or as kind as your Sunghoon, they were still good, and sometimes that was all you could ask for. You were always sorry that you couldn’t give them your whole heart, because a piece of it had stayed in the south of France and you didn’t have the courage to march down there and demand it back. Selfishly, you hoped you also kept a piece of Sunghoon’s heart in yours.

You did call once in a while, but those calls made both of you more sad than happy, and after a couple years the calls were so spaced out that they only happened on birthdays and special events. The next time you see him, it’s five years later, at your grandmother’s funeral. You can only stay for three nights and you spend most of your time there with relatives, celebrating your grandmother’s life, so you don’t see him much. When you do, you get to catch up for a few hours. He’s almost done with vet school and he’s specialized in equine studies. He’s an intern at the horse vet in Laroque which means he gets to stay in the center and help his parents out. Yeji is on her way to becoming one of the best in the country, he adds with a proud smile. You’re finishing up your last years as an intern in a Paris hospital, but you haven’t changed your mind about becoming a general practitioner, which you need just a few more years of experience for. You don’t miss how his face falls slightly when you tell him you have a boyfriend and that you’re thinking of getting engaged to him. He tells you he’s happy for you with the saddest eyes. The hug he gives you when you have to leave brings back so many feelings and memories, and even after all these years there’s nothing more that you want to do than stay in his arms and never move again.

You break up with your boyfriend as soon as you get home.

On a random Thursday, you’re done with your decade-long studies, and you’re free to go out into the world, a medical diploma in hand. You get a job in a cabinet owned by a friend of your parents, and you like the job, but you know you’re just passing the time until the opportunity you’ve been waiting for comes around.

Every week, you check whether a spot opens up for a general practitioner in the small town of Laroque-des-Albères. It doesn’t for about eighteen months, until suddenly it does, and in a week you’re packing your bags and taking that trip you took twelve years ago.

Sunghoon doesn’t even know. He could be married with a wife and three kids, for all you know, and it’s foolish but you hope he’s been waiting for you. He’s just finishing up a health check on some of the older horses when you get out of your car, eyes finding him immediately. From the other side of the courtyard, he smiles at you, and it’s like the summer you first fell in love all over again.

permanent taglist: @ozymandia-s @bbujiikseu @sd211 @lalalalawon @sunghoonmybeloved @w3bqrl

© asahicore on tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, plagiarize or translate my works. feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

[creativesaturn]

What about a spencer date where you go read and he reads to you- just fluffy goodness

Summary: Spencer wasn't able to take you out, but the sound of his voice was enough.

Genre: Fluff!

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Warnings: None

Word count: 800+

a/n: I'm sorry this took so long! I enjoyed writing this so I hope this is okay :)

"Im really sorry I wasn't able to take you out..." Spencer spoke through his phone, apologizing for the moment he got a call about a case minutes before he was about to leave his apartment to pick you up.

You smiled at his voice. He always apologized for the littlest things, especially when they weren't even his fault. You knew how much he looked forward to the date, every day leading up to it he'd text you to see if you were still up for it. Your answer never changed.

"It's okay, Spence. I know you tried." You smiled, taking off your earrings in the bathroom mirror.

"I really did. I really wanted to see you again." His voice muffled through the speaker as the soft ruffling of fabric followed.

"Yeah? I really wanted to see you too." Your voice was soft, and to Spencer, he felt as if it was a texture, silky to the touch.

Silence fell through the phone, besides the sounds of moving and your dress rubbing against your skin as you unzipped it and let it fall to the ground of your bathroom floor.

Spencer had found comfort in your voice these past few weeks. Yearning to go home or take a step inside his hotel just to call you. When the calls go silent, he wishes you'd say one last word before falling asleep or having to leave the call.

He drags the calls on for hours, rambling or asking you questions you've answered in the past. Hoping you'd fall asleep before hanging up so he didn't have to. Hoping you'd open your eyes and see he never hung up, the sounds of his alarm are what wakes you.

You'd stay the rest of the morning in bed, talking to him before he had to leave for work. It was something you didn't realize the first few times, until you realized he had conditioned you to have the same sleeping schedule as he did.

"Do you read?" Spencer blurted, trying so hard to keep the conversation going without feeling intimidated by silence.

"Occasionally," You answered, "Not often though." You added as you stepped your foot inside the warm bath you had started earlier.

You let the warm water engulf you as you sat down, setting your phone on the ledge of the bath as you leaned back.

"What book are you reading?" You asked as the sound of a page flipping filled your hearing, as if he was loud on purpose.

"Rereading, The Fisher King." You could hear his smile as the words left his mouth, making your own smile follow.

"Read to me." You spoke, staring at the ceiling above you.

"Read--read to you?" He asked, wanting to be sure he heard you clearly.

"Mhm.. Please?" You hummed, looking at your phone as his name brightened the screen.

"Yeah, okay..." He nodded, flipping to the first page to begin his reading out loud.

You closed your eyes as his voice rang through your ears, comforting your thoughts. It was like a massage for your brain, your tensed body relaxing in the water as he read to you, annotating his own thoughts along the way.

It was the perfect date anyone could ask for. Sure, it wasn't roses and lit candles at a nice restaurant. But, it was a warm bath and a voice that you learned to call home.

reposts and comments are appreciated <3