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#but he first told that to yjh
orviposition · 10 months
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pls tell me it's not true that ebook removed "let's meet again" of joongdok I'm crying why they would do that!! 😭😭😭
yeah they did.
the new line is "please live, yoo joonghyuk"
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milkbreadtoast · 3 months
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looking back at the yjh webtoon screencaps i have saved and giggling... hes so cute... moe... my pookie ^___^ 🥰🥰 poor little meow meow woof woo- *eliminated where i stand*
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also these poses are sooooo... 꺄아악🖤🫣🫣🫣🫣
#talk tag#orv liveblog#<--gonna just tag my orv misc posts as this now#i looooove when the webtoon artist draws him like a demonic beast#its genuinely so moe to me smdbsndn like hes supposed to be rly handsome but theyre not afraid to make him look unhinged#i rmbr livetweeting that yjh hibernation pic captioned 'hes so moe'... apparently that was 2022(just dug it up)#more than 1 person has told me that theyre surprised i bias yjh from the webtoon alone#bc apparently they dont do his chara justice(v 😔😔😔 to hear that...thats not good..)#BUT HOW COULD I NOT BIAS HIM!!!! (apparently this is not a universal experience aldjskdj)#this just makes me even more uncontrollably excited to read the novel i cant wait to love him more than i alr do#and i love when he glares and makes a disgusted face at kdj... its so cute 🤭 he's like an angry black dog to me. hes like a wolf puppy#*tries to pat his head and gets cut down in .00001 sec... no he wouldnt waste his sword on me... i would simply perish from being in the#the presence of his aura#literally the tsundere ever#aside from hiei... hiei rly primed me to like male tsunderes guys#like after him i have loved sm tsundere male charas since#yjh is in a league of his own tho. like idc how many similar/near identical charas have come before or since#he OWNS the yjh archetype literally everyone else is just copying him <33#even if it was a choice btwn yjh and cedric id have to go w yjh... he is the original im sorry... i love u cedric#and i love that the whole point is that his design/chara archetype ISNT supposed to be original... thats the Point#he's the typical op dark haired stoic cold brooding (and sexy) protagonist...#his chara concept is supposed to be that trope... but what orv does w him is so subversive#and the fact that he is supplanted from his position as the protag in the narrative... i love it sooo much#like maybe i wouldnt care as much if he actually was the protag? bc again it wouldnt rly be new#but the fact that he isnt the actual protag is sooo good#IM NOT RLY SAYING OR ANALYZING ANYTHING RN BUT I JUST FELT LIKE YJH LOVEPOSTING#o sidenote his webtoon faces make great rxn images slfnsmd I LOVE USING THE FIRST ONE#i love using heartwrenching anime/comic moments out of context as rxn images its so funny to me#me @ the orv live action cast announcement
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luviestarz · 1 year
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yoon jeonghan fic recs!
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✧ such a flirt ! - @amateurasterism (it’s simple: jeonghan knows he’s a flirt, but didn’t realize you flirting back was the key to breaking him.)
✧ deeper in denial ! - @amateurasterism (if there’s one thing you know about jeonghan, it’s that he’s a tease. what happens when the teasing makes it to soonyoung’s game of spin the bottle?)
✧ MON ANGE ! - @itadorins
✧ KIDULT - @hvae (jeonghan always believed he was never fond of children, especially when he took the job at your daycare. little did he know the child in him was playing hide and seek, finally revealing itself after growing to love the kids. oh, and you too)
✧ mirror mirror - @cheolism (jeonghan asks to roleplay him being jealous and fucks you like the little desperate slut you are)
✧ It's Nice To Have A Friend | yjh x reader - @sluttywoozi (You and Jeonghan have embarked on your fifth annual Best Friends trip, but it's a bit different than usual, considering he made the reservation under Yoon Y/N and told them he was your husband. What's a honeymoon between friends anyway?)
✧ a little attention - @onlymingyus
✧ MY ATTENTION - @slytherinshua
✧ when jeonghan realizes he's in love with you - @wonwoonlight
✧ 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒 𝐍𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐘 ♥︎ - yoon jeonghan ! - @hoshzone (not being able to wait until Jeonghan gets off the phone with Joshua, you decide it’d be a good idea to get yourself off on his thigh. He makes sure you pay for that.)
✧ call me by his name | yoon jeonghan [M] - @sweetlemontart (to you, one of jeonghan's most admirable trait is his candid nature. he's straightforward with most people—if he's angry, they'll definitely know. but with you? he'd rather swim the ocean day and night than take his anger out on you. well, that is, of course, unless you ask him to.)
✧ to live again | yoon jeonghan - @viastro (it’s been years since your last milestone birthday; a time when everything still felt right in the world with youth and ambition. now that you’re older and times have changed, would you dare take a chance to save someone else in the past at the cost of your own future?)
✧ 彡 my heart is beating for two. — yoon jeonghan - @seuonji (daycare worker yn! x secretary jeonghan — you’re a worker at the daycare and of course, your main priority is the safety of the kids. how’d you deal with an unfamiliar face trying to pick up one of the kids one day?)
✧ the long way | yoon jeonghan - @trblsvt (it was just like any other shoot. go in, pose, drink water, don't get food on the clothes, and don't joke around with the staff. easy. except it wasn't that easy.)
✧ — ode to you  - @lovelyhan (if there's one thing you've learned from all the lives you've spent together, it's that jeonghan isn't always someone you'll end up wanting. he can be crass. he can be secretive. he can be nothing short of vexing. but in the end, he's everything you need him to be.)
✧ rain and kisses | yoon jeonghan - @babyleostuff
✧ sharing is caring - yoon jeonghan - @etherealyoungk
✧ lowkey — yoon jeonghan - @chenfleur (Jeonghan's supposed to be on stage in twenty minutes, and he's nowhere to be found.)
✧ our dawn is hotter than day. - @ikigaisvt (in which you and your boyfriend says i love you for the first time surrounded by his friends.)
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simpxxstan · 3 months
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to you (yjh one-shot)
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pairing: model!jeonghan x f.reader
genre: friends to lovers, fluff, slight angst, smut (MINORS PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT!)
summary: jeonghan loves to play cupid. he's thoroughly successful at it as well. you know it's just his incredible luck, and you can't wait for him to trip and fall. even if you'll be the first one to stop him from falling.
word count: 16.2k
rating: 18+
warnings: seokmin and joshua are sexually and romantically attracted to men in this fic(this is not meant to represent/imply anything from real life). infidelity (not by jeonghan or reader mc), heartbreaks, body image insecurities, bad familial relations, jeonghan comes from a rich family, slight love triangle between jeonghan and mingyu, jeonghan is slightly self-centred, joshua is a mean guy and breaks hearts. smut warnings: oral sex (m. receiving), nipple play, protected sex.
a/n: this fic is largely inspired by jane austen's emma. it's an amazing book so pls do read/watch the tv renditions (personally recommend the 2009 bbc version). if you are familiar with, you might think of this fic as somewhat from mr. knightley's pov. i've not kept the plot exactly same ofc, but there are a lot of similarities. hope you enjoy reading it! your feedback, likes and reblogs make my day <333
One fine morning, when you were busy harvesting the freshly grown radish from your backyard, a boy who was about as tall as you and had a mop of brown hair that made you cross because it was so unkempt, peeped from the other side of the backyard gate. He was waving at you, and had a bright smile on his face. 
“Who are you?” You asked, with as much courage as you could, for a five year old. 
“Hello! I'm Yoon Jeonghan!”
“Why are you here?” 
He stuttered, and pointed his hand to the big mansion that marked the otherwise quiet locality as posh, the landmark for all delivery people, and the pride of the neighbourhood. “I live there!”
“Yaah! You're not allowed here.”
“Why?” He pouts.
“I'm busy now. I can't entertain guests.”
“What are you doing? That's what I came to see!” He's smiling again. 
“Harvesting radish that I planted last month!”
“Really?! Wow! You're a farmer!”
You smile with a little bit of pride. “Yaah! How many rooms do you have in your house? Eomma says you have 10  rooms!”
“No…” he pauses, and you're hopeful that he'll just prove your mom was merely exaggerating. “There are 14 rooms!” He then continues, making you even more annoyed.
“Yaah! Then why don't you go live there! Why are you disturbing me!”
“You haven't even told me your name. Why are you being like a mean Ahjumma!” He whined and slapped the gate once. 
“I don't tell strangers my name!”
“Okay keep your secret name.”
“Yes. Now go to your big house.”
“I don't want to! I don't like it! I want to live in your house!”
You're really angry now. First he disturbs you, and then tries to steal your house too! “Yaah! You're a bad guy!”
“No! I really like cozy houses like yours.”
“But when I grow up, I want to live in a big house like yours.”
“No! I want to live in a house like yours. Cozy and warm.”
“You're crazy Yoon Jeonghan.”
He smiles sweetly, before making a tiny heart with his fingers, making you cringe. 
“Won't you let me in, friend?”
“You're not my friend.”
“Aaah…. Right. I must be your Oppa!”
“Oppa? Yaah!”
“What a rude dongsaengie, aigoo! How old are you?”
“I'm not your dongsaeng!”
“No! You are! I was born in 1995. You?”
You bite your lip when you realise you indeed are younger to him.
“Just because I was born in 1997 doesn't mean I'm your dongsaeng. You'll always be Yoon Jeonghan to me!”
He shrugged before giggling. “It's okay, dongsaengie. We can be informal like friends!” He throws another heart at you, and you cringe again.
“Now will you go home or will I call my mom to shoo you out?” Your hands are on your hips. 
“No! I'll leave then. Bye bye chinguya! See you tomorrow, Y/N-ie!”
You huff as you see him skip along the road and enter the gate of his-
Wait. Did he just say your name? 
_
And that was how, twenty years ago, you had met Yoon Jeonghan. And your friendship had stuck along, surprisingly (to you, not to him. He always nodded smugly and very knowingly, as if he knew something more about the secret to how you two had tolerated each other for so long. And you wouldn't be surprised to know he did know more. He always did.)
You had thought to yourself many times. Maybe because you and Jeonghan were the perfect yin and yang. There was enough pride from your end to make up for his shamelessness. Enough street-smartness and easygoing charm from him to make up for your coquettish, brisk attitude. Enough ambition from you to make up for his laidback, lazy nature. Enough laughs from him to make up for your forever anxious self. Enough optimism from you to share the light between the two of you. 
Just like that. You clicked like puzzle pieces, and you loved each other to bits.
Well, mostly.
You certainly didn't love Jeonghan any bit when he was behaving like this. This Cupid thing he adorned whenever he was around people of your age. His matchmaking and romantic agenda, as you liked to call it. It was nothing but a stroke of luck that his brother had married the exact girl that Jeonghan had predicted he would marry (three years before they had started dating, as he reminded you often to prove that it was truly his instinct and nothing else) and the silly fool had taken it straight to his dick and given his already large ego an extra-large pump.
His latest prey was Lee Seokmin, the new boy who had recently joined your friend circle, courtesy of Kim Mingyu, who was his childhood friend somehow. Seokmin was what one could call a young, impressionable mind. He was innocent to an extreme degree, and so illogical and gullible that he believed every damn thing that came out of Jeonghan's compulsively bluffing lips. You hardly knew what he was telling Seokmin, but they were both very animated while talking about it. Ever since you two had met Seokmin at a party three weeks ago, he had followed Jeonghan about like a puppy discovering the joys (and pains) of the human world, and Jeonghan had pretty much adopted him. 
So you take matters into your own hands. When you bump into him in the kitchen of the party you two are at now, you whisper to him, your hands on your hips, “Jeonghan, if I see you mess around with that kid-”
“Which kid?” He asks, an innocent look on his face. “Don’t play innocent now. You know very well I’m talking about Seokmin.” “Aigoo, Seokminnie! He’s such a lovely boy!” “Yes, and we’d all like him to remain lovely, if you please. Don’t go around putting foolish ideas into his head.”
“What foolish ideas?” 
“Jeonghan, I know you’re trying to set him up with Joshua. You know Joshua is a textbook playboy.”
 “Shhh! I think this one’s different. He’s actually bewitched with Seokmin.”
“Bewitched? You’re exaggerating, as usual.”
“Y/N!! You’ve gotta trust me, I have a gut feeling. Now, let me do God’s work, please don’t disturb me, Y/N-”
“Matchmaking is God’s work?”
“Yes! It’s called finding soulmates!”
“And how are you so sure Seokmin is into Joshua?”
Jeonghan pauses, smiling slyly. “Oh my god. You don’t know that yet, do you?” “No, but-” “Jeonghan!” “I know that he’s into guys. Listen, it’s not like I’m forcing him into anything. All I want is that he has some fun in his life! Can you believe it that he’s never had a relationship in his life? He’s too much of a good boy. And he’s told me he thinks Joshua is pretty attractive. The whole gentleman thing is rubbing off on him!” “I have a bad feeling about this.” “You know what, Y/N? You think you’re the only one who can do things correctly. You and your stuck up judgements. Can you please open your mind a little and let loose?”
There. He’s guilt-tripped you successfully. Now you’re on the verge of thinking whether you’re really stuck up. Under better senses, you probably would lean on your instinct that Jeonghan is messing around with you, but now, no. You’re three wine glasses down, and you’re a lightweight anyway. The insecurities have started kicking in.
“Anyway, why are you so protective?”
“I’m not,” you cross your hands across your chest, exhausted from the banter.
“It’s ‘cause of that Mingyu guy, isn’t it? You want to protect Mingyu’s friends?” He’s walking up to you, smiling again, as wicked as the devil. 
“What? I can’t care about a nice guy all on my own? What are you implying-”
“Please. We’ve all seen how you talk to Mingyu.”
“God. I’m so tired of this, Jeonghan.” And so, you walk away. You really are too tired. You’ve seen his brain do acrobats in this one field, and although he may have had successes till now, you’re sure doom is on the way. It’s sickening. Especially now that he’s pushing his agenda on you too. 
_
You’re woken up at six am in the morning to the irritating sound of your ringtone. Squinting, you pick the phone up. It’s Jeonghan. 
“Hello?”
“Were you sleeping, Y/N-ie?”
You pause. You seriously consider cutting the call off right now, because you know that tone. That is Jeonghan’s laidback tone, he’s not in an emergency, he’s not in a crisis. He’s called just to hear your voice, and you’ve been on the receiving end of too many calls like this in your life. 
“Jeonghan, what do you want?”
“Are you still pissed at me?” He’s pouting and you know it.
“Yaah,” you huff out, sitting up in your bed. “I’m not. Just. It’s 6 am for fuck’s sake, Hannie. Did you need anything?”
He’s silent for a second. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“It’s fine.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t fall asleep, and the rain outside keeps making me tense. I decided to call you because I was feeling a little lonely.”
“Hmm. Do I need to come over?”
“Hell no. I have a girl over. She’s naked, and I don’t think you’ll want to see-”
“Wait, what? You have a person at your house?”
“Yeah, we slept together-”
“Then why the fuck are you awake?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you awake and calling me?”
“Umm, because I was thinking of you when I couldn’t sleep?”
“Don’t people, like, sleep very well after sex?”
“After good sex, yes. After what we did last night, no.”
Another pause. 
“Not that I’d know. But isn’t she going to feel upset you’re talking to me instead of, I don’t know, cuddling her or something?”
“Really, Y/N-ie. You want me to cuddle a stranger instead of talking to you? That’s how much you hate me?”
“Han, do not twist my words. You stayed up all night hooking up with someone and now you’re calling me, this is not how people behave after sex in movies-”
“Life isn’t a movie, Y/N-aah. You’ve told me this yourself.”
A slightly long pause.
“I’m sorry for waking you up,” he says. 
“No, I’ll just get into the shower now. I had to wake up at 7 anyway.”
“Ugh, but it’s a Monday!”
“Adults work on Mondays, Hannie. Why don’t you take a walk in the park or something and relax a bit? Work out. Get the energy out. It’ll improve your sleep.”
“Hmm, thank you Eomma. Enjoy your long day of work today! Make sure you earn a lot of money!”
“Hmm, bye bye Yoon.”
“Bye Y/L/N.”
The call disconnects and 6.15 stares at you from your screen. You’re tempted to scream into your pillow and curse Jeonghan for stealing your sleep time. But now you can’t afford to go back to sleep otherwise you’ll lose one of your precious 20 days of leave as well. The opportunity cost is definitely higher, you think, as you stumble and make your way towards the washroom.
_
“Oh Mr. Mingyu, someone’s early I see.” You enter the small office which is bustling with energy even in the morning. “Ms. Y/N, good morning!” Mingyu greets you with a bright smile as you sit down at the desk next to him, and you offer the second cup of ice americano you brought on your way. “Coffee?” “Of course, why not?” And his accented English never ceases to make you laugh. It’s funny how hard he tries to converse in English, even though it’s not even required in your job, but you guess it’s part of his charm- the hard-working good-natured himbo everyone is in love with. 
“How was your weekend? You didn’t come to the party at Soonyoung’s party last night.” You ask Mingyu. “Oh, my sister is in town. I went to pick her up from the train station last week and we spent the entire evening roaming through night markets.” “That sounds nice! Maybe I can meet her finally, after hearing so much about her.” “Yes! That’d be good. She’s here till Thursday. She’s actually here for an interview at a college for the designing program she wants to pursue.” Mingyu’s eyes are lit up with the brightest lights, putting even the sunlight in the room to shame. “Wow! I’m so happy for her.” “Yeah. Are you free tomorrow after work? I wanted to take her to see the cherry blossoms, and you could come too?” “Perfect. That works.”
Mingyu nods happily, before settling down in his seat, still buzzing with excitement. His puppy-like buzzing is endearing, but you quickly turn your eyes away from him, when you notice at least three other pairs of eyes staring at you from across the room. You gulp and glare back, and the eyes look away. You’re well aware of the gossip that surrounds your and Mingyu’s friendship, but you couldn’t care less. As long as it doesn’t interfere in your actual friendship. 
_
“Cherry blossoms? With his sister? Absolutely not!” 
“I didn’t really ask for your opinion, Jeonghan-ah.” You stare him down from where you are sitting across him with the chess board in between you two, and he takes a sip from his juice before playing his next move. 
“You don’t think it’s a date?” 
“A date? With his sister along, how could it be a date!” 
“You’re too oblivious. You can’t see what’s right in front of your eyes.” 
“And what may that be?” 
“Kim Mingyu is, obviously, into you.” 
“Excuse me.” “Excused,” he scoffs, before motioning to you to speed up your next move. You play your move too quickly, and he jumps up in glee, instantly locking you in checkmate. “Fuck!” 
“Pay attention, cutie. Do you want more juice?” 
“Hmm, it’s really good, Hannie.” “I know,” he giggles, before pouring more juice into your glasses. “I want to see cherry blossoms too. I’ll come along with you three, hmm? I’m sure Mingyu won’t mind.” 
You peer curiously at him. “Okay. Yeah, he won’t mind. But I didn’t know you wanted to see the cherry blossoms.” 
“I saw it in my feed today. It’s all the rage right now.” 
“Yeah, it is.” 
“Which is why I’m sure it’s a date. It’s what happens in all k-dramas!”
You can’t argue with Jeonghan, so you don’t. 
“You know, I think it is a little odd that you think Mingyu is into me. We’re really just good friends. I know he’s a little flirty, and very touchy, but that’s just him being comfortable around me.”
Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “My instinct about humans is always better than yours, Y/N-ie. You know it.” “Sure.” “Let’s just wait and see how things turn out, hmm?” He gently pulls your hair back into a bun using a hair tie that’s wrapped around his wrist, and you whisper a thank you, because you hate it when your hair is in your face, and you didn’t realise that he knows about it. Well, you must’ve talked about it sometime or the other.
“Do you want takeout, or should I just make some omelette to mix into rice?” “Or we could just eat ramen.” “I thought you were on a diet, Han-ah?” You gape at him, and he pulls a face. “One cup of ramen won’t do anything.” “No, let’s stick to your diet, hmm? Because we won’t stop at just one cup of ramen, you know that.” He gently places his head on your shoulder in mock crying, and you pat his head before heading towards the fridge to take out eggs. 
“By the way, I have a fair coming up next week, will you come to help me?”
“What will I get in return?” He asks, while popping an olive into his mouth. 
“My friendship. My gratitude. My love and affection-”
“Tangible, please. None of this intangible stuff.” 
You gasp dramatically and relent, “Okay, I’ll treat you to tteokbokki. You’ve been craving ever since your diet started, haven’t you?” He makes an inhuman squeal, but you’re sure it’s one of joy because his eyes go up in twinkling crescents. “Oh, Y/N-ie, you’re the best! What would I do without you?” You laugh, and ask him to turn on the television, before breaking the eggs into your fry pan.
_
It was a mistake telling Jeonghan about your outing with Mingyu. It was a mistake even letting him come along, thinking oh, Mingyu is his mutual friend too through me, so he’ll definitely not mind if Han comes along. Mingyu did not mind, but you minded a lot. Because not only did Jeonghan come along wearing his most expensive Chanel outfit and his most limited edition perfume which you’ve never smelled before, but also brought along his most obnoxious attitude. 
Mingyu’s sister is an innocent darling, nearly six years younger than Mingyu, but his literal split image. And Mingyu is, as usual, accommodative. But there really is something wrong with Jeonghan tonight, you think. Every sentence he utters is passive aggressive, opinionated and designed to annoy. 
I think the air is too stuffy tonight to enjoy the cherry blossom show perfectly. 
I’m wearing my cherry blossom scent tonight, it was a gift from the last event I attended.
Mingyu, don’t hog Y/N all to yourself, let your sister meet your friends too. 
Oh, I don’t drink coffee these days. I’m into earl grey iced tea. Do they have that here?
“What on earth is wrong with you tonight, Jeonghan-ah?” You whisper-scream to him, as you draw him to one corner as Mingyu and his sister go towards the cafeteria to buy drinks for the four of you. “Why?” He says, casually pressing lip balm on his own lips, before extending the stick towards your lips, attempting to put the same balm on your (undoubtedly, chapped) lips, but you shrug away. 
“You’re being an arse. You know, it’s already a stretch that I brought you along here. So, don’t be obnoxious to everyone, especially Mingyu because his sister’s here!” 
“I’ve not been obnoxious for even a second, Y/N-ah! I’ve been so cheerful, so amiable, so wholesome tonight. I have not spoken my true mind for even one second, I’m literally speaking only pleasant words.”
“Oh, really? And what is your true mind?”
“That Mingyu is being too touchy with you.”
“Jeonghan! This- god- is that all you gathered from our lovely evening together, that you’re trying your best to spoil?”
“I mean- he makes it hard to not notice, does he not? He’s literally all over you, even when his sister is here. You should be thankful I’m here to keep company to his sis, otherwise imagine how bored she’d be as a third wheel.”
Right then Mingyu and his sister return with drinks for the four of you, and you resume your walk around the show. So you can’t reply to Jeonghan fittingly, but you notice that on the rest of the evening, you notice that his attitude has softened a little, especially when he talks enthusiastically to Mingyu’s sister about the program she’s selected, and even thanks Mingyu for letting him come along on this outing. 
When he drives you home that night and drops you off at your doorstep, he has the oddest smug grin lazily spread on his face. 
“I was right, then.” He tells you as you walk around the car to say bye to him at his window.
“Hmm?”
“It was a date.”
“Not this again, Jeonghan.”
“Hmm. Sure. Just so you know, I’m rarely wrong.”
“It was not a date. Not with you ruining every single conversation we had.”
“That was the point, wasn’t it? Goodnight, Y/N.” 
And then he drives off with a sharp salute, leaving you with nothing to say. 
_
Jeonghan doesn’t know you’re annoyed enough by him to not reply to his texts during work hours (which you otherwise would). So he doesn’t take the hint and calls you as soon as your work hours end, and you step out of your office into a world painted by the sunset.
“You didn’t say if my haircut looks good?”
You sigh, and you hope it’s loud enough for him to hear.
“Oh god, Y/N, are you still mad at me for that evening with Mingyu? What, did he say something today?” 
“No. He’s too nice to say anything, of course. Anyway, is it really so hard to wait for a few hours to see if I like your haircut or not?”
“Sorry. But I want to know. I’ve cut my hair short after ages, so-”
You take a quick look at the photos he’s sent you. “Hmm, yes you look great.”
“Really?” You can hear the upward lilt in his voice, and it makes you smile. 
“Yes really. Jeonghan-ah, I have that fair tomorrow. Will you be coming?”
“Is it through Saturday and Sunday?”
“Yeah. You don’t have to come throughout the two days, of course. You can just come tomorrow evening, if you’re free.”
“I am. I had a shoot today in the afternoon, after which I went and chopped off my hair instantly.”
“Good decision, Hannie.”
You can hear his satisfied voice grunt in the background. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow? I have a lot of packing work tonight, okay? I won’t be able to call or text.”
“That’s okay. I won’t disturb you. Work hard, Y/N-ie.”
“Yeah, okay. Bye, Han-ah.”
_
Although you might grumble when Jeonghan forgets the name of the plant when a customer arrives at your stall although he’s been your helper for so many fairs now, you’re really very grateful that he makes time to come. Sure enough, as the sun wears down after a particularly sweltering afternoon at the fair and you’re really craving an iced tea, Jeonghan arrives with a bright smile on his face and two glasses of boba tea for the two of you. 
“Your part-timer is here, Miss.” He says, and you hug him. “So happy to see me?” “No, this is for the boba tea.” And you fall back on your chair, chugging down the boba tea as if it’s elixir. He sits opposite to you, picking up an orchid plant that’s hanging on the wall next to him. “How was the footfall today?” “Not great, if I say the truth. But I’m hopeful for the evening. The morning was too hot anyway.” “Hmm, and what’s this one called? Never seen this flower before.” “It’s called vanda. Pretty, isn’t it?” “Hmm, really! But why doesn’t it have any pot or any soil?” “It’s epiphytic, so-” “Epi what?” “Epiphytic. It absorbs moisture from other plants near it and from humidity in the air.” “Wow. E-pi-phy-tic. Fancy new English word.” 
And you’re right. The customers do start strolling in as the atmosphere becomes cooler and the fair more crowded. Although there’s not a whole lot of variety at your stall, you have an edge because you generally sell rare varieties, which are less frequently visible in the other plants’ stalls at fairs. A lot of people think it’s an odd hobby for you to have at such a young age, but Jeonghan knows its the only way you pay homage to your mother, who had helped you fall in love with gardening at a very young age. After her death, you’d had to sell the house in the countryside and move to the city for a job, so you didn’t have a garden of your own, but you made do with plants you grew in your balconies and windows. That’s why your collection was more unique than the general lot- you provided beautiful, rare plants that fit right into modern life- fuss-free yet diverse. 
“This is a vanda orchid!” You see Jeonghan enthusiastically pitch to an ahjumma from the corner of your eye as you’re busy packing some hydrangea plants for another customer. “It’s really easy to keep in your house. It’s epiphytic, which means it absorbs water from its surroundings. So you don’t even need to keep it in a pot. You can just leave it in between other plants and regularly water the plants around it to keep a humid atmosphere, and it grows on its own! So little care!” And along with Jeonghan’s winning smile and persistent pitch, the ahjumma has no option but to fold almost instantly. 
That marks the beginning of a busy evening. The crowd suddenly increases and each of you soon have no time to breathe. It’s at moments like this that your gratitude towards Jeonghan increases- he may ask you the names of plants every two minutes, or make up some random facts about a plant while trying to sell it (pretty sure it would be called out if you did it, but the customers just blindly buy into whatever Jeonghan tells them). When passing behind, he gently pats your butt before bending behind you to retrieve something from the storage area. When you’re free for a second, you tap your hand on the small of his back, asking him to take a break as you take over the customers. It’s nearly nine o’clock before the crowd finally dissipates and you both can take a breather. 
“Good work, Han.” You gently card your fingers through Jeonghan’s newly trimmed hair. 
“Boy, am I glad I cut my hair before coming here. I’d sweat the hell out just by standing here with my old hair.”
“Hmm, it is much more manageable.”
There’s a pause as you both become silent for a long minute. From around you, you can see other stalls shutting down and the sounds of the fair quieten down. Your fingers form a pattern as you gently massage his scalp and his lower neck. You’re too busy taking in the scenery around you that you miss the way his eyes flutter close. 
“I had brunch with mom today.”
You sigh. 
“It felt good to show my new hair.” 
You turn around to look at him, and he opens his eyes. “What did she say?” 
“Nothing. She doesn’t say anything anymore, as long as I keep my hair for her shoots.”
“But it’s still hot outside.”
Jeonghan mumbles, “When has that mattered for her?” He turns away and suddenly gets up. “Y/N-ah, all the other stalls have shut down. Shouldn’t we pack up too? And anyway, the tteokbokki place won’t be open for long…” 
You laugh, and relent. “Okay, let’s feed the baby his treat, hmm? Thank you for coming and helping me out! It was pretty hectic today and we made a lot of sales, thanks to your charms that even the ahjussis cannot resist.” 
He smiles, “Well, what can I say, it’s not easy to be God’s favourite-” He can’t finish his sentence because you punch him softly on his chest, and he bursts out in giggles. “Let’s go get food, Han-ah.” “Hmm, let’s go!”
_
“Hannie, are you free tonight? There was an offer at the convenience store, so I bought two boxes of that pizza you like.” You ask him while you walk into your home after picking up groceries from the store. 
“Nah, I have plans with Seokmin today.”
“Seokmin?!” You ask, a little surprised. “You two are going out together? Wow, I didn’t know you were so close.”
“Oh! We’re inseparable. He’s too fun a guy to let go.”
You sigh. “Wow. Okay okay, enjoy, hmm?”
“Yeah. Do you wanna come? Shua will be there too.”
“Shua?! You’ve started again!”
“Literally no,” you can hear his laughter, and he says, “I didn’t even know Shua would be there until like an hour ago.”
“I bet the plan was made only an hour ago.”
He laughs again, “I’ll have to go now, okay? I’ll be late otherwise.”
It turns out to be a very high-end party of models in which Jeonghan has been invited, and he’s brought Seokmin as his plus-one. You get all this information from the news tabloids on your instagram, which flash extra-large sized photographs of Jeonghan and his new friend Seokmin, who everyone’s curious about. You then see stills of Joshua laughing away, dressed to the nines, arm-in-arm with Seokmin and Jeonghan. Of Joshua whispering something into Seokmin’s ears and Seokmin turning red even under the dim neon lights of the party. Of Joshua and Seokmin making an intense eye-contact, and Jeonghan smirking over his glass of whisky. 
Wow. 
His plan must be a success. Seokmin and Joshua do look like they’re going to hook up. 
Well, you’re just going to have to take the details from Jeonghan later, if that happens. 
You don’t stay online after that, so you miss all the photos of the late entrants of the party. 
_
It’s seven in the morning, and you’ve just woken up, when there’s a knock on your door. “Jeonghan?” Not only is he standing there with his eyes red and his clothes messed up, but you can also see hickeys blooming all over his neck, in shades of purple and red that look pretty against his milk skin. 
“I came here to see if I’m alive.”
You tilt your head towards one side, raising your eyebrows. “You seem alive to me.”
“Good, because I’ve gone to heaven and come back.” And without another word he enters and throws himself face-down on the couch and passes out instantly. 
You don’t wait around for him to wake up, and you figure his metaphorical statements can be cleared up after you’ve come back from work, so you leave him like that.
When you’re back, tired after a long day of work, you see him still lying there, except he’s changed that one shirt and sweatpants he’d left at your place a few months back, at your last sleepover, and he’s watching something on his phone. When you peer close from behind him, he doesn’t even notice you. Which is odd because Jeonghan is usually an alert sort of guy. 
It’s a video of a woman interacting with Jeonghan at last night’s party, her dress a blaze of flames, her dark hair falling in cascades around her lithe frame, and she giggles elegantly at something Jeonghan says, before he takes her hand in his own and kisses on her knuckles, and the video cuts off right there. 
“Who’s that?”
Jeonghan jolts up at that, dropping his phone on the ground, and letting out a tiny yelp. Then he sits up and lightly punches your arm. “You scared me.”
“I literally came in through the door, what if I was a thief and you hadn’t even noticed me?”
“Why would a thief come into your house, what are you doing for its security, huh?”
“God,” you sigh. “I see you’ve made yourself at home. Who were you looking at?”
He walks towards the kitchen to get a glass of water. 
“Heaven. I went to heaven last night.”
“Yes, you told me. What happened, can you explain simply?”
“I met her. That’s what happened.”
“Who?” you ask again, ignoring the dazed look in his eyes as he looks out of the window. 
“Her! Did you see her?”
“I did. Is she famous? Am I supposed to be knowing her?”
“Well. I don’t know. I don’t think you would know her. I mean, I’ve never met her before then clearly, you wouldn’t know her-”
“Then tell me who she is.”
“Han Sujin. She’s the daughter of the owner of Han Electronics.”
“Really? Wow. Must be filthy rich.”
“Is that all you gathered?” Jeonghan turns around to look at you incredulously, and you retort, “Well what else is there to gather?” “Maybe the fact that she looks like an angel?” “She does look gorgeous. Did you sleep with her last night?” Jeonghan sighs. “No. I slept with someone else, but I’ve not been able to get her out of my mind! This has never happened before!” 
You stare at him. “You’re right, it has not.” 
“Am I falling in love, Y/N?” 
“I don’t… know? It’s a little too early to say, isn’t it?” 
“I’ve been dreaming about her for twenty four hours now, I’m pretty damn sure it’s love.”
You gulp, realising he’s not going to hear your voice of reason now. So you switch the topic. “What happened with Shua and Seokminnie?”
“Huh?”
“Joshua? Seokmin? You set them up last night, I know.”
“Oh that.” He runs a hand through his hair. “That went well, as far as I remember. Well, I didn’t really notice them much after she came in. They went off to get drinks, Joshua’s hand was gripping Seokmin’s bicep very suggestively, so I’m sure that went well.”
“You were so blown away by this woman that you missed out on your little pet project?”
“Shame, isn’t it? But no matter. I’ll call Seokmin tomorrow and find out about it. Y/N-ah, do you know anything more about Sujin?”
“I literally just told you I don’t even know her-”
“Ugh! I have to meet her again, somehow!” And he lets out a dramatic huff of exasperation before lying down on the couch again. 
_
“Seokmin?” You’re surprised to see Seokmin at Jeonghan’s place when you drop by on Friday night. “Y/N! Jeonghan didn’t tell me you’re coming.” “Nah I just came by on an impulse. What are you doing here?” He stands up, his face red with excitement. “Joshua invited me to his housewarming party!” He pauses for a second, waiting for your reaction. He’s clearly expecting a very happy reaction, so you humour him with a bright smile. He doesn’t see how fake the smile is, and he claps his hands with yours. “Oh, isn’t it going to be so much fun, Y/N-ah?”
Just then Jeonghan walks into the room, and calls out your name. 
“Did you hear? Seokmin is in the circle now!”
“Yes, that’s pretty cool. But then, who wouldn’t want Seokmin as their friend,” you smile. 
“Not friend, Y/N. Seokmin is Joshua’s specially invited guest. He sent roses with the invitation!” 
There’s another loud squeal from behind you and you turn to see Seokmin rubbing his face with his hands, making it even more red than it is already. 
“I saw y’all had fun at that last party.”
His blush goes down till his neck and collarbones. “Yes, it was such a high-end party. There actors, models, singers, idols, and chaebols everywhere! And the food was so awesome- although I’ve never eaten any of them before and I don’t think I’d be able to eat them anywhere else because they looked too fancy.”
You giggle. “But would you go back a second time?”
Seokmin thinks for a second, before whispering scandalously, “If Joshua wasn’t there, I don’t think I would.” 
You laugh at that, extending your hand for a high-five. “Same! They get boring after a point because I simply cannot fit in.”
“That’s true! Although Joshua introduced me to so many people, I don’t think I could make eye contact with any of them.” 
You continue laughing at that. “But I gather you really had a good time with Joshua.”
Jeonghan intercepts. “Good time?” He scoffs. “They made out in the backseat of my car.”
Seokmin whines at Jeonghan’s slightly strict voice, “We didn’t have any other spot because I came with y-”
Jeonghan laughs, “I’m not mad, hey! It’s just funny that Joshua chose to make out in my car and not his-”
“That’s because his car was farther away and the valet took longer to bring it along.”
Seokmin gets a call and he excuses himself for a second. You take that opportunity to turn around and look at Jeonghan, who’s sitting right behind you. “So?” You raise one eyebrow, “Looks like your plan will come through.” “When am I ever wrong?” “But be careful, this is first-” “Oh god. Even after coming so far, you’re going to ask me to be cautious?” “ Because you need to be. Seokmin is such a soft soul- do you see how excited he is just by receiving flowers from Joshua?”
Jeonghan stands up. “But I don’t recollect Joshua ever sending flowers to anyone before. And I’ve known Joshua for long enough, you know.”
You sigh, twisting your lips in displeasure. 
“Still. I just don’t want anyone’s hearts to be broken by your meddling.”
_
An invite arrives at your house as well. There are no roses, but at least some beautiful gerberas. But Jeonghan’s meddling does not stop. Nor does it slow down in pace. Before Joshua’s housewarming party, Jeonghan ensures that Seokmin and Joshua bump into each other at least three times. First, on Monday, at the coffee shop Joshua and Jeonghan often eat brunch together after hungover weekends. Second, on Tuesday, at a pop-up store Joshua has been invited to inaugurate. Third, on Friday, at Jeonghan’s mother’s flagship store, where Joshua was invited to browse through the latest collections at the same time that Seokmin was taken by Jeonghan to choose an outfit he’d like for the housewarming party. 
It’s getting a little too forced. Seokmin doesn’t see it because of his rose-tinted glasses of infatuation. Jeonghan doesn’t see it because he’s desperate for success. But you do see it. Seoul is not a small city. It’s incredibly hard to run into the same person three times in the same week, right after making out with them. But you also know that Jeonghan will turn a deaf ear to any of your words now. 
So you don’t broach this topic of conversation for the rest of the week, until the day of the housewarming party. As always, you’re never too sure of what to wear to any of these parties of Jeonghan’s friends, because you’re sure all these models have their secret dress codes planned and you always seem out of place. It’s not that you don’t enjoy dressing up, and you also have the advantage of being able to borrow dresses from Jeonghan’s mother. But somehow, you never fit in. Or perhaps you don’t try hard enough and you don’t want to put in that much effort either. So you settle for a baby blue dress with little yellow butterflies embroidered throughout. It’s a safe bet for a cocktail party, so you’re hoping it’s not going to be a wild night. 
Jeonghan arrives at your door right when you’re about to leave for the party.
“We’re going together?”
“Have we ever not gone together?”
You open your lips to say that you had thought he’d be going with Seokmin, but he interrupts you. “You look good.” You notice that he’s wearing a grey silk blouse that fits him like a glove, paired with golden earrings. “So do you.”
“The paparazzi are saying I would look better with my old hair.” He bites his lips and averts your gaze. 
“Where did they see you?” 
“Oh, I was getting out of my house. There were a few people outside.” 
“The paparazzi don’t matter.”
“Yes. They don’t matter. But for what it’s worth- they’re not lying.”
You sigh. “Let’s go, Han-ah. We don’t want to be late.” You’re well aware of the insecurities Jeonghan has about his hair, so you don’t want to say anything more. You remember all the times when Jeonghan’s cried next to you because his mother is obsessed with him having perfect looks, because she knows very well that her designer brand blew up ever since Jeonghan started modelling for it. You also remember Jeonghan being bullied by boys in high school because of his long hair, in response to which you’d cut your hair to a crew cut, making an odd visual when you both walked through school corridors. You know that the reason that Jeonghan spends so much time at your house in spite of having his own house, is because he wants to be as far away from his mother as possible, who only sees him as a source of revenue. And you’ve tried but given up trying to mend his relationship with her, primarily because Jeonghan’s mother disapproves of his friendship with you and considers you as the reason why her son does not listen to her. 
“Wow. Joshua has spent a lot, clearly.”
The penthouse is absolutely stunning. Definitely as expected from South Korea’s top model. The guest list seems to be hand-picked, with the paparazzi stopped outside the gates, providing full privacy to the guests. And yet again, you’ve dressed quite differently from what everyone is wearing. You’re now fully convinced that there’s a secret dress code that they don’t tell non-celebrities to purposely make them feel left out. 
But Joshua is the perfect host. He greets you almost as soon as you two enter, successfully avoiding all the cameras flashing at the entrance. 
“It’s so beautiful. Love the asymmetric design, and all the glass detailing outside.”
Joshua smiles that disarmingly charming smile of his, as you sip on the glass of champagne. “I’m so glad you liked it. Now that I’ve impressed someone in the housing industry, I know I’ve invested in the right property.” 
“You certainly have. The view is also idyllic, displaced from the general crowds, but you still get a view of the Han.” 
Jeonghan groans next to you, clearly bored with the talk, but Joshua’s smile widens at the praise. 
“I’d like you to come around someday in the morning, when the sun is still up. The view is even more spectacular.”
“So cool, I’d be able to see the design even better then! Thanks. You know Mingyu, my colleague? He’d really appreciate the design.”
“Oh yeah, he did praise it highly.” 
You pause for a second. “Sorry- he- he’s seen it already? Did he design it, by any chance?” 
Joshua laughs. “No, but he’s here as Seokmin’s plus-one.”
You turn to look at Jeonghan, who also looks at you at the exact same moment, eyes wide. “Wow, I did not know that,” you gulp, before laughing the embarrassment off awkwardly. 
“Yeah, they’re up near the mini-bar. Now, if you’ll just excuse me-” and Joshua walks away with a polite smile, waving hi to someone in the distance.
“I did not see that coming.” Jeonghan says. “Seokmin must’ve lost his nerve and brought him along. Good, now Joshua will be more jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Didn’t you see how Joshua’s smile tightened when he talked about Mingyu?”
You stare at Jeonghan for a solid second, before looking away because he did not break the gaze, determined to prevail. 
“Let’s go and find Mingyu and Seokmin, hmm?”
_
You do stick to Mingyu’s side throughout the evening, as Jeonghan goes out to mingle and Seokmin is soon called to Joshua’s side as they go to see the other side of the house. 
“Wanna bet?”
You’re stuffing your mouth with the croutons on the cheese fondue plate you’d received along with your glasses of wine, while Mingyu ravishes the delicately baked egg tarts he’s seemed to fall in love with. 
“On what, Gyu?”
You were wrong earlier. Seokmin and Mingyu do not look out of place. Seokmin is wearing an all black outfit, the shirt with a low neck which accentuates his excellent figure, while Mingyu wears a charcoal grey turtleneck and glasses, which you’ve never seen him wear before except when he’s working on something intently. They both look exactly in place, especially Mingyu. You’ve noticed multiple people send flirtatious smiles towards Mingyu, but he keeps his eyes on yours while the two of you talk at the edge of the bar. 
“On Joshua and Seokmin. I bet that they’ll be dating by the end of the month.”
You laugh. “Sure. What do you want if you win?”
“I don’t know. Loser takes the other out to dinner?”
“Cool. But Mingyu… by the end of the month… you may be short on cash.”
“Me?! Hah! I’m not going to lose. Have you seen how Joshua’s undressing Seokmin with his eyes?”
You tilt your head in amusement. “Did you know that lust does not equate dating?”
“I do! But Seokmin isn't the type of guy to like someone based on lust purely.”
“I agree. But Joshua might just be.”
Mingyu squints his eyes, then shakes his head. “I doubt. He sent roses, you know. That can only mean one thing.”
“We’ll see.” You clink your glass to Mingyu’s before sipping it. Your eyes trace the large lawn area to see if you can spot Jeonghan, but it’s hard to find him under the dim lights. Thank god for Mingyu, you think. Otherwise you’d be bored to death tonight, and drink yourself to death on the open bar. 
“Say, Mingyu. Who do you think will get married earlier from our friends? We’re all pushing thirty now, you know.”
“Twenty-five isn’t pushing thirty.” He pouts, clearly upset at the idea. “I don’t want to be called an ahjussi anytime soon so don’t say things like that.”
You pinch his cheek, which deflates his pout into a smile. “My question still stands.”
“Well, I think Seungcheol will get married first. He’s really smitten with his girlfriend, I don’t see why they’re not married yet.”
“Hmm, I agree. He’s the oldest amongst us as well.”
“By that metric, Jeonghan would be married next. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Do you think Jeonghan would ever? He’s told me many times that he's not interested in settling down.”
“That’s all big talk. Going to change the second he meets someone he likes. And from what I hear, that may not be too far-”
“Oh here you are!” The man in question arrives at the spot, cheeks flushed with excitement. There’s a woman walking right behind him. It’s her, you realise. The girl from that night, the girl he was so desperate to meet again. So he has met her again, you see. 
“Sujin, this is my best friend, Y/L/N  Y/N, and her colleague, Kim Mingyu.” You do a light bow, while the woman in front of you smiles elegantly while bowing in return. “I’m Han Sujin. Such a pleasure to meet you two. Are you also in the modelling world, Mingyu-ssi?” 
Oh. 
You don’t miss how her question is directed to Mingyu only. 
Mingyu grins, “No, I’m an architect. Y/N and I work for a housing estate firm.”
“Oh? Such a shame. What a waste, isn’t it, Jeonghan-ah?” You wish Mingyu would shrug his hand away as she drags one carefully manicured nail along the edge of his bicep. You wish Jeonghan would also react, but he doesn’t seem to move at all except one smirk. Perhaps this is normal for them? You don’t know why it’s annoying you then. Maybe because you don’t like this undue attention she’s giving Mingyu, clearly flirtatious as she leans into him to whisper something into his ears which you miss as you zone out of the conversation. Maybe because Jeonghan is still looking at her as if she’s a goddess, which is so uncharacteristic of him, leaving you second-guessing every damn thing you’ve understood about him till now. The ugly head of something raises its head in your chest, but you don’t know what it is so you really can’t quash it either. You wish it wouldn’t be so- you wish you could be normal about this, whatever this minuscule interaction has been. But you decide in your mind. You don’t like this woman at all. 
But as the night winds away, one thing becomes clear to you. 
There’s no one else who has the same opinion as you. They’re all clearly in love with her. Folding over for her. And perhaps you understand- she’s everything you expect a rich, high-class, beautiful, elegant and socially supreme woman to be. She’s the perfect woman, the epitome of one’s dreams. 
No wonder she’s the first woman Jeonghan is falling in love with. And falling in love, he is. It’s in the cherry eyes he’s throwing her, the way he’s blushing everytime she introduces him to someone all while clasping her fingers around her arm, the way the small of his hand rests on her pristine back which is left naked in the backless dress she’s wearing, the way she seems to have inside jokes with him because you can’t catch half of the things they’re saying but they seem to be laughing a good deal over it. 
You don’t wait for Jeonghan to offer you a ride home. You know he will not. So when Mingyu offers to drop you home after dinner, you jump to his offer.
_
Something changes from that night onwards. Two things had clearly happened that night. First, Seokmin and Joshua did sleep together. As per Mingyu’s details, when Mingyu had gone to Seokmin’s house the next night to pick up something, he’d found Joshua casually lying on Seokmin’s bed, wearing Seokmin’s favourite red jersey and no pants, and both of them had been covered in hickeys, but he had not been able to ask anything else because Joshua was right there. 
Second, Jeonghan had definitely become enamoured with Sujin. Such that over the rest of the week, you barely see him, only communicating through a couple of texts here and there. His instagram story receives more updates than you do- and his soft launching definitely fails because his dates with Sujin are so obvious. 
It doesn’t matter. 
You make yourself busy with work. It doesn’t matter when the entire
It doesn’t matter that you have another fair coming up this weekend and you clearly remember telling Jeonghan about it a few days back. But he doesn’t come to help. He doesn’t even call before the fair, to wish you luck. For that matter, he doesn’t even call after it. 
It doesn’t matter that your mother’s death anniversary comes and goes, and Jeonghan breaks the four year old tradition of the two of you visiting her grave and spending the entire day together.
It doesn’t matter that Jeonghan has never gone this long without meeting you, but it doesn’t matter. You’re twenty-five. You’ve lost friends before, you can make do with losing another one. 
_
“So, it’s the last Friday of the month. I remember a bet…”
You sidle up to Mingyu’s desk as the work day comes to an end, gently sitting against the edge of his desk. 
“Fuck. I can’t believe I lost it, Y/N.” He leans back against his chair, stretching his arms behind him. He’s wearing a short sleeved polo shirt today, so his biceps strain against the sleeves. You wonder again how many hours he dedicates to the gym every day. 
“Well. It doesn’t matter now, does it? You’ve lost it, now don’t act like a sore loser. Where are you taking me out?” 
“So it’s a date?” He suddenly stands up, so that your eyes are at his chest level, and your breath is knocked away. 
“Where did that come from?”
“I’m the one taking you out, so it’s my rules.”
You smile. “You could’ve told me before. I’m dressed shabbily today.”
“Huh? I think this blouse suits you perfectly. The red makes your lips look… brighter.”
You gulp, as Mingyu takes another step towards you, almost locking you into his desk. “Pack up so we can leave early, Y/N. Don’t wanna miss our reservation.”
_
“This looks expensive.” You feel underdressed for the high-end Mingyu has brought you to. “Are you sure this is the place you booked your reservation at?”
“You heard them saying that this table was for Kim Mingyu, didn’t you?”
“Still.” The place is too cold, it makes a shiver run down your spine.
“Have you ever been here before? What’s good?” You ask Mingyu when you’re offered the menu card by a server, and Mingyu asks her for the special wine of the restaurant as if he’s already tried it before. 
“The pasta is good. But I particularly enjoy their paella. But of course, it’s your call-”
“Dude, I can't even read all these english names. I’ll eat whatever you recommend. It is your treat afterall.”
“Alright then.” So Mingyu orders two plates of seafood paella and the pesto pizza. 
“Seems like you came all prepared to lose the bet? A reservation here could not have been easy.” “Well, it was some luck. But it’s kinda unbelievable that I did lose the bet. How has it been twenty days since they’ve been hooking up but still not dating? Maybe they’re just, like, secretly dating. And not announcing it. ‘Cause Joshua is a celeb and all.” “Perhaps. But I would think Seokmin is close enough a friend of yours to tell you if he did get into the first relationship of his life.” Mingyu pouts, his eyebrows furrowed as he drinks some of the wine that just got served. 
“I just hope he doesn’t get his heart broken, Gyu.”
The man in front of you shakes his head. “Don’t worry. Seokmin may be innocent but he’s cautious. He wouldn’t go in deep if he wasn’t sure of Joshua’s feelings too.” He gingerly edges his fingers towards your palm resting on the table, and gently caresses your fingers, sending shivers down your spine. “Y/N, let’s take our mind off the bet for some time, hmm? If I’m taking you out for the first time, I want it to be a date, and I want it… I want to do it the right way. Will you let me do it the right way?” 
Your breath hitches in your throat. Mingyu doesn’t have to make it more explicit, you understand well enough what he’s trying to say. But you still ask him, because you can’t wrap your head around it. 
“What do you mean, Gyu?”
He smiles, his cheeks glowing with happiness. “It means I’m asking you for a chance, Y/N. I like you. Let me show you how much I like you. Will you let me?” The intensity of his gaze and his gentle but firm grip on your fingers mean that he’s waiting for a response, but you’re literally taken aback and speechless. That took a quick turn. You had hardly expected that Mingyu did actually like you. All that banter and friendly touching? It was not your fault for thinking any good-looking man with flirtatious tendencies probably did that with every woman he saw. 
Fuck, Jeonghan was right about Mingyu liking me. Wow. What would the look on his face be when you’d tell him about this?
As soon as Jeonghan’s face crops up into your mind, the pleasant buzz of the situation dissipates into an anger you cannot understand. The faint traces of a drunk conversation from months’ ago float into your mind. 
Men like him aren’t worth chasing, you know.
Men like him? Why do you say that so condescendingly, Jeonghan?
Because I don’t understand the hype about him. Sure, big arms and height and all. But he’s after all just an average man. Using greasy pick up lines, wearing printed t-shirts, looking to marry and have three kids as soon as possible, and then grow old with dogs in a house he’s still paying the loan for, until retirement and then popping off. Just like that, he’s gone. Nothing remarkable about him for people to even remember him. Jeez, I really do not get the craze for unpolished men like him. I didn’t think you’d also be like other women and like him.
Ridiculous, ridiculous opinions. At that moment, you’d dismissed his statements as his usual drunken ludicrousness, but now an intense anger grows in you. As you see Mingyu sitting in front of you, his fingers still clasping yours, eyes shining with genuine fondness, you think how wrong Jeonghan was. Mingyu may not be a celebrity. He may not be a model with thousands of fans looking for him. Sure, he may be making just a regular paycheck at the end of the month. 
But he still wants to take a date out to a fancy high-end restaurant you know is beyond his affordability. He still wants you to give him a chance and he’s willing to work hard for it. He’s not an entitled bitch who thinks he can dump off a twenty-year old friendship for some random hot woman he met the other night, because he’s too busy thinking with his dick, too busy exploring the feeling of an infatuation because he’s never felt anything like that before and-
Mingyu gently rubs your fingers, breaking you out of your head. 
You heave in a deep breath, and say, “Yes, Mingyu. I… I can’t say anything about my feelings right now, though-”
“And that’s okay! I don’t want to force anything on you either. Your feelings are your feelings. Give me one chance and let me change your mind.” 
Mingyu’s smile is ever so genuine, his canines poking out of the side of his mouth. He picks your hand and slowly brings it to his lips to kiss your knuckles. 
And you should melt at the sweet gesture. You should melt at the feel of his soft, full lips touching your hand. You should melt at how big his hands feel against your smaller ones, the way his big fingers grasp your smaller wrist.
But it gives you deja vu from a distant memory and you avert your gaze. 
Thankfully, the pizza arrives just then and you two can dig in. 
_
When the bill arrives, Mingyu doesn’t even let you see it. You let him pay it, knowing his ego is too proud. Somehow, the fact that this was the outcome of him losing the bet has escaped your mind and you’ve realised it was all a ploy to get you out on dinner. 
“Did you design the bet in order to take me out to dinner?” You shyly ask him, as you both make your way out of the restaurant towards the spot where his car is parked.
He laughs, and whispers back to you, as you sit down in his car. “Guilty as charged. Did you really have no idea of my feelings?” 
You smile, no idea why the two of you are whispering but it feels strangely alright. It makes you feel like a high school forbidden romance, and he’s treating you like those ambitious teens who want to give the best date to their crush like you see in movies. With all the attention and compliments he’s given you over the last two hours, he hasn’t made you a tad bit uncomfortable, rather you’re quite floating on clouds right now. No one has ever made you feel you so wanted. Especially at a time when you feel particularly unwanted. 
“I did not, I swear. I thought it was your usual thing. The banter and all.”
He laughs again. He seems to be laughing a lot more than usual, and that’s okay with you. It adds to his warmth and his charm, and you like the sound too. 
“I think I fell for you ages ago. Ever since you shifted to that desk next to me.”
“Hell no. That was eight months back.”
“Uh-huh. What’s wrong with that?”
“It took you eight months to ask me out, Mingyu?” You scoff at him, squinting your eyes. “You’re a sore loser then. That’s way too long to crush on someone at this age.”
“I am a sore loser, I didn’t have the guts.” He giggles. His hand extends over the console to find your hand resting on your thigh, and he gently wraps his fingers around yours. “To be honest, I thought you were dating Jeonghan at first.” You let his fingers be on your hand, and you squeeze his meaty fingers. “That’s ridiculous. Jeonghan and I have never been that sort of thing.” “Really? I mean, it’s not obvious. But I kinda figured it out when we started mingling in the same circle and going out for parties with common friends and all. Seokmin and I both thought you and Jeonghan were a thing until we noticed how often he slept around with others.” 
You shudder. You don’t want to talk about Jeonghan now. God, Jeonghan was so wrong. Average man? No. Sincere man. Mingyu was a genuine man, and what was wrong in wanting to get married and have kids early? At least he didn’t have a vanity the size of the moon and an absolute disregard for others’ feelings. 
“Mingyu, you know my house is on the other side of the town. You don’t have to drive all the way up there. I can take the bus, it’s not that late.”
“What?” He squeezes your fingers, which have remained entangled in his own. “No. Of course I’ll drop you. Why would I want to cut our time together short?” That makes you blush wildly. You can’t believe the kind of cheesy stuff that comes out of his mouth so casually, almost fully seriously. 
“Mingyu! Stop saying things like that.”
“Why? Does it make your heart flutter?” 
And there’s a red light, so he turns to look at you, and you realise he’s close enough for you to smell his cologne. He smells good even at the end of the day. The cologne is from a cheap brand, the artificial fragrances make that obvious. Nothing like Jeonghan’s expensive bergamot fragrance you’ve gotten used to. But you’re not going to think about him. So you don’t. 
You lean in closer towards Mingyu. 
“You know, it’s not a working day tomorrow.”
His eyes go slightly dilated as he stares back at you. His grip on your hand tightens as you inch closer. “Yes, and?”
“Do you want to watch the World Cup finals game tonight, together?”
A very cocky, but an excited smirk spreads across his face. “Are you sure? Of course I want to.” His voice is still a whisper, but his excitement makes it shrill and cute. “Do you want to come to my place? I have snacks and soju at home, we can have a full binge session while we watch the match. Which team do you s-”
“Hey, pretty boy! Don’t speak so fast.” He pouts, but it’s extremely cute. “Mingyu, it’s a green light.”
He looks away from you and suddenly jerks into place, and you laugh. “You’re such a baby, Kim Mingyu.”
_
So you do end up at his place. You change into a spare set of clothes that he lends you, and you two spend a solid three hours laughing and watching the match. By the end of it, your eyes are red from staring at his large TV but you both fight sleep to watch the penalty kicks and the final winning shot. And when the last penalty kick is hit, and the team you both have been supporting is declared the winner, you both jump into the air, your popcorn spilling everywhere, but the giggles and the dopamine makes it worth it. You end up sleeping on the couch, and Mingyu on the carpet on the floor, semi-drunk after finishing three bottles of soju between the two of you. And then you’re out like a light, with no dreams and no disturbances even though the couch isn’t really comfy.
The next morning, you wake up to the sound of a doorbell. When you open your eyes, you see a ton of sunlight streaming in through the windows. Must be at least ten in the morning for the sun to be this bright. Mingyu is still asleep, his legs tangled with the blanket he brought last night, and his hair mussed up. Not wanting to wake him up, and realising that you look decent enough to open the door, you peep through the eye-hole, before gasping and immediately opening the door. 
“Seokmin?”
“Y/N?” There’s a croak in his voice, like it’s broken. His eyes are wide, like he hasn’t been expecting you. “Sorry- I- Mingyu and I were watching the match last night so I slept here. We didn’t sleep together or anything-” “No, you don’t have to explain. Is Mingyu here?” “Yeah, I’ll just be leaving. You can talk to him, don’t mind me!” 
Mingyu wakes up at the sound of your conversation, and comes to the door equally surprised to find Seokmin standing there. He takes up the rein of the conversation and it’s only now that you notice how gloomy Seokmin’s face looks- clouded with worries and a seriousness you’ve never seen in him before. It’s an odd look because you thought it impossible to ever see Seokmin look downcast like this. 
“Is something wrong?” Mingyu asks him softly, drawing him a little away from you, and you understand. It may be a private thing between friends, you wouldn’t want to intrude. 
“No, it’s okay if Y/N hears.” Seokmin clears his throat and turns around to face you. 
“Joshua… cheated on me. No, that- that’s wrong. We were never together, he said. So he was never exclusive. We were never exclusive. So he’s been cheating on me since the first day… No, what I mean is-”
“Fuck.” You mutter under your breath, as you see Seokmin struggling with his words, his eyes on the floor. “Are you sure, Seokmin-ah? Did you see him-”
“I went to this house this morning. To surprise him. We were supposed to meet yesterday but I had to cancel, so…” he runs a hand through his hair. “I fucked up, didn’t I?” And your heart breaks at the misery painted across his face, so you pull him into your arms and he instantly breaks down and starts crying in your shoulder. You can see Mingyu looking equally distressed, so you pull him into the hug too, and the two of you take turns to comfort Seokmin as he sputters out the rest of the story in between sobs. 
“Hadn’t you spoken to him before about dating and all, Seokmin-ah?” Mingyu asks him, but Seokmin shakes his head. “I hadn’t… because I was too scared he would reject me. Of course, I was okay with us not having tags until he wanted to… of course, I understand that he is a celebrity and these sorts of things are probably okay between them but… It still hurts, I’m sorry.” “You should not be sorry, Seokmin-ah. It’s literally not your fault that Joshua was an absolute jerk,” you say, patting his back. “Mingyu, can you take care of Seokmin-ah? I have to go talk to Jeonghan about this.” “Jeonghan?” Seokmin looks at you with wide eyes, and you simply nod without elaborating. “Joshua will regret losing you, Seokmin.” 
Jeonghan will regret his meddling.
_
When you arrive at Jeonghan’s house, you find that his mother thankfully is not there. It wouldn’t matter anyway. In their four storey mansion, you and his mother have rarely clashed when avoidable. Although you let yourself in, you find Jeonghan’s bedroom locked, slow jazz music clearly audible. 
You bang on the door. 
No response. 
“Jeonghan, open up.” 
The door opens after a solid ten seconds, with a curious Jeonghan peering down at you. “Y/N?” He’s shirtless, his pale, glowing skin shining in the sunlight. “Is she here?” “Who?” “That woman.” “No.” You snort. Look at him, all blissfully unaware about the damage he’s done. You notice how he doesn’t open the door fully to let you come in, which is absurd. “You won’t let me in? Have we ceased to be friends?” “No, I- sorry. Come in.” “What?” “Those are not your clothes. You don’t own red clothes. You don’t even like the colour red.” You look down at your clothes and realise that you’re still dressed in Mingyu’s clothes. “Yeah, they’re Mingyu’s.” Jeonghan looks up from where he’s standing, trying to put on a shirt. He stops midway and walks closer towards you, “You’re wearing Mingyu’s clothes?” “Yes, and?” 
The beauty of Yoon Jeonghan hits you with full force as he steps into your personal space, all up close until you can count his long eyelashes. You can see the way his gaze hardens, his eyes darken, and his jaw locks itself, making his face more serious and less delicate. “Did you sleep with him?” “Jeonghan, there’s something else I came to talk to you about-” “Did you?” His finger grazes your chin. The touch is not unfamiliar, but not familiar either. It sends a shiver down your spine as you take a step back, without breaking eye contact. 
“I don’t have to answer you, Jeonghan. Not after you decided to go MIA after meeting one woman-”
“I did not go MIA.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Yoon! Fuck, do you have no conscience, lying to my face like that? Why did you stop calling me? Stop coming over? Avoided every time I planned to meet up with you?”
“I was busy.”
“With what? What on earth could make you so busy that you missed my mother’s death anniversary? What on earth could make you so busy that you felt it was normal to not talk to me properly for days? Years of friendship, broken by what? I want to know, Jeonghan! Was it her? Does she ask you not to talk to me?”
“No, what? Why would you bring her into-”
“Then why? Are you really the same Jeonghan who wanted to video call every week even when you had gone abroad for that study program? Are you really the same Jeonghan who swore that even if you got married with ten grandchildren, you wouldn’t lose contact with me?”
“Y/N, listen to me.”
“No, I’m not going to fall for your lies-”
He steps in front of you and gently places his left hand on your mouth. “I’m sorry.” There’s that intense gaze again. He wraps his other hand around your arm, holding you in place. “Listen to me, once, please?” You look away, and you make the mistake of looking down at his chest. You didn’t realise he was still shirtless. And while it’s not a view you’re seeing for the first time and it’s never really phased you before, you swear your mouth goes dry seeing the way a single silver chain hangs in front of his collarbones. 
“What is it, Jeonghan? What do you have to say?”
“I’m sorry, I made a mistake.”
There’s a pause, where you expect him to say something else, but he doesn’t continue. “That’s it?” You raise an eyebrow, and you see his jaw twitch. 
“Yes. I don’t have an explanation because there isn’t any. I was infatuated with Sujin until I found out on the internet after our photos of kissing went viral last night from a club.”
“Until you found your photos went viral? What happened, did your agency cut you off?” 
“What- no, of course not. My agency has it under control.”
“Then? Fans pressurised-”
“No, dammit. She’s not been talking to me since the incident. But she’ll come around. She’s probably a little shocked because of the paparazzi.”
You sigh. “Well. At least your life’s under control.”
“What do you mean?” Jeonghan’s eyes slightly furrow as he leans into you. Your nostrils fill with that typical scent of his, but it’s the first time you can smell his masculine scent too, perhaps because he is shirtless. But you refuse to be taken off guard, so you harden your gaze and look back into his stare with full force. 
“Seokmin…”
“What about Seokmin?”
“Joshua’s been fucking other people apart with Seokmin.”
Jeonghan steps back. “Seriously?”
“Yes. You’ve broken his heart, Jeonghan.” You can’t help from throwing him your most disappointed look, reflecting your real feelings. “You knew that he is a playboy and I’d told you that he would not take Seokmin seriously. I told you to not meddle, and look at what you’ve done now.”
Jeonghan falls to the bed behind him with a loud thud. His voice cracks when he asks you, “Is Seokmin okay?” 
You bitterly shake your head. “It was his first relationship. Think of how he’d feel after finding out the man he loves didn’t love him all along.”
_
There was nothing to be done that day, except you going back to Mingyu’s place, both to return his clothes, but also to check on Seokmin. You brought soup and some more comfort food, and found Seokmin sitting in one corner of Mingyu’s bed, wrapped in a blanket but still shivering because of the tears that kept flowing down his cheeks from time-to-time. 
Jeonghan goes to meet Joshua. You don’t know how much good that’s going to do, considering that Joshua is a stubborn man. And to be honest, you wouldn’t want Seokmin to go back to Joshua either. There was a high chance that the sensitive younger boy’s feelings would get hurt again, and you didn’t want to take that chance. 
And you’re proved right. When Jeonghan comes to Mingyu’s house after talking to Joshua, he begs forgiveness from Seokmin, who doesn’t blame him at all. He instead cries a bit more, blaming himself and his innocence, and his inability to understand Joshua’s feelings correctly. Hearing him cry, Jeonghan cries too, the two wrapped up in each other, as you and Mingyu leave them alone to sort out the mess. It is a mess, but nothing Jeonghan says makes it better. It doesn’t matter how many times Jeonghan tries to explain to Seokmin that it’s not his fault, because Seokmin has shut off all voices of reason. 
So you take Jeonghan away from him. He’s quiet throughout the journey back home, swimming in his guilt. And your heart breaks a little seeing him. 
He doesn’t respond to your voice when you ask him to get out of the car and come into your house, so you open the door and gently take him into your arms and carry him inside, his arms limp in yours. 
“Hannie?” You ask him when you’re finally inside and you’ve seated him on your kitchen stool. 
“I let him down. I let you down, Y/N.”
His eyes gradually look up at you, and you can see the raw vulnerability in his doe eyes. But you cannot comfort him. A part of your heart aches to touch him, to let him know that it isn’t his fault either, but another part of your heart thinks that he deserves it. His self-important ass should take a blow from time-to-time, and realise that everything in the world does not revolve around him.
So you don’t reply to him, only walking away. You busy yourself with other chores around the house, doing the laundry, cleaning the rooms, washing the dishes. And Jeonghan just sits there in that chair throughout, waiting for you to finish your work, as he looks at you with sad wide eyes. 
You don’t miss what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to throw puppy eyes so that you can forgive him. But you won’t forgive him. It’s only when you finish making dinner and place some of it before him on a plate, that you speak to him. “Eat up. Both of us haven’t eaten anything since the morning.”
He doesn’t look away from you, not making a move towards the plate. 
“Jeonghan. Looking at me like that is not going to mend things.”
“Like what?”
“Like that. Puppy fucking eyes. I’m not going to melt because of that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you’re feeling sorry. I feel sorry too, if it makes you feel any better. In spite of knowing what kind of man Joshua potentially could be, I didn’t do anything to caution him. I’m as much to blame as anyone else.” 
“No, you’re wrong. It is my fault, through and through.”
You push the plate of food towards him. 
“Enough of your self-pity. Now, eat, please.”
Hearing your stern tone, he silently picks up his chopsticks. And then you only talk to him after he’s finished his entire meal. “Do you want more? You must be hungry.” “Hmm, if there’s any more.” So you give him some more, and finally, when he’s done, some of the natural glow comes back into his face. 
“Do you want to go home now? Or-”
“Can I stay here? I don’t want to go home.” When you don’t immediately respond, he adds, “I can sleep on the couch.”
“Have you ever slept on the couch, Han?”
He looks away. “I’ll wash the dishes.” So you leave him to do that and go into your bedroom to brush your teeth. He doesn’t come into the room for the next hour, not until you’ve changed into your night clothes and snuggled into your warm bed with the covers pulled up to your chin. On any other Saturday night, Jeonghan and you would wear matching face masks before going to bed. On any other Saturday night, you would eat liquor chocolates before bed, as a guilty pleasure. On any other Saturday night, Jeonghan and you would watch youtube videos till you slept. 
But tonight is not any other Saturday night. There is still a rage simmering in your heart. So you text Mingyu good night, but you don’t even look at Jeonghan when he finally comes into the room. Even as you feel him finally shuffle into bed and the other side of the bed dip under his weight, you don’t turn to look at him. Almost thirty minutes later, you finally turn around to stretch your body, hoping that the smoothness of Jeonghan’s breathing means he has finally dozed off to sleep. 
You’re wrong. As soon as you turn around, you see his eyes flutter open to meet yours, his face shining under the moonlight flitting in through the window. It’s at moments like this that you realise that he was truly born to be a model. He looks beautiful, even restless like this, even on stressful nights, when his eyes are clouded and the usual flush in his cheeks is lessened. 
Somehow seeing his eyes on you makes your heart calm down. 
“Did you really sleep with him, Y/N?”
Huh? This is what he wants to ask you? Is this what he’s been restless about? You can feel your heart race up again with irritation. Why is he pressing on about this? How dare he, when the only reason you’re spending time together with your best friend after weeks is because he’s made a grave mistake and he wants you to forgive him. 
Is this why you’re not forgiving him, yet, Y/N? Because you want to hold on to him at any cost? A voice in your head asks you. You dismiss it quickly. 
“After everything, this is what’s keeping you up?”
“Just please answer me, Y/N-ah.”
You take a breath.
“No I didn’t, Jeonghan. But we did go out on a date last night.”
In the darkness, you miss how his breathing speeds up and his jaw clenches. You just see him stare at you for a long minute. Then you turn back around and close your eyes. You hope he’ll be gone the next morning. 
_
He is gone the next morning. 
Well, gone from the room. You find him sitting on the couch, reading something on his phone. 
“You’re up early.”
He looks terrible. It’s clear he’s not slept well, if at all. 
“She called.” 
The coffee machine pings, indicating that your cappuccino is ready. 
“Who?”
“Sujin.” 
You pick your cup and turn around to look at him, leaning on the kitchen counter. “Oh good. Do you want eggs or ramen-”
“She has a husband. He lives in New Zealand.”
You almost drop your cup, as Jeonghan stares at you with the full force of his gaze. “She wants to break off ties immediately. She doesn’t want to stay in touch.”
“God, I didn’t know people were this casual about relationships these days. First, Joshua… then Sujin. I am sorry to hear-”
“Don’t be. I don’t feel bad. I don’t know, should I feel bad?” He walks up towards you and slowly takes a sip from your cup of coffee. He’s standing really close to you, and you can see the way his hair is growing along his neck. 
“Jeonghan, but you liked her?”
“I did, I suppose. But I can’t find myself to care that she’s gone. The restlessness in my heart is not caused by her at all. And, the longer,” he takes another sip, “I think about it, I think, I’m glad she’s gone.”
“What?”
“Because she took me away from you.”
Your breath hitches in your throat. “What are you saying, Jeonghan-ah?”
“Y/N, I- I don’t know what came over me. I swear I didn’t want to miss your mother’s anniversary. I knew you had a fair last week and-”
“Jeonghan! It’s fine, don’t fret so much. I’ll eventually get over it,” you laugh, trying to desperately avoid the intense gaze which is pinning you down now. 
He takes a step closer to you, his hand extending to touch your neck gently, feeling the hair near your neck. “You might. I won’t be able to look myself in the eye in the mirror, fuck, I won’t even be able to look at you with a clear mind until you forgive me.”
And then there’s a strange sensation in your limbs. A sensation to touch him too. It’s not like you’ve never touched him- but this time, you don’t want to touch him like you’ve touched him for all these years. You want to touch the way the faint morning sunlight is kissing his cheeks. You want to touch the gentle ends of his brown hair which are slowly growing in length. You want to touch his lips, chapped evidently, but still rosy and delicate. How would it feel to kiss him? Would he kiss you back?
“Jeonghan, you don’t know what you’re saying. You feel hurt because of Sujin and you want a quick fix.”
“Fuck, no, Y/N! Stop misunderstanding me, please! You don’t get it, do you? When I heard that you and Mingyu went on a date, I realised it.”
“Realised what?”
“That you’re mine. And I’m yours. I can’t imagine belonging, I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else.” You don’t have any words to say, just leaning back as he gently caresses your neck and hairline. So you stay silent, as you let his touch ease your mind. It doesn’t feel wrong. It feels as if his fingers just belong there. You crave the way he touches you, and you think you agree with what he’s saying. “Y/N, I… there’s a reason why I’ve never fallen in love with someone. Because, I didn’t need to. And because nobody was you. I’ve been a fool to not realise it earlier- but you’re literally my soulmate. We match, yin and yang, you’ve said this before yourself. And nobody makes me feel as loved as you do. Nobody makes me as happy as you do. I’m sorry I got carried away with the infatuation, but I know in my heart that it was nothing but physical attraction with Sujin. And I don’t even care for it. She has no place in my heart. Nobody does, except you.”
“But Sujin is perfect. You-”
“But she’s not you. She may be perfect, I don’t know. She’s definitely not perfect for me.” 
He leans in even closer, until you’re breathing the same air as his own, and his palm gently massages your neck. “I know who’s perfect for me.”
And then he steps back. He fucking takes a step back, leaving you high and dry, leaving you perched on his words, a glint in his eyes and all misery gone from his face. “I’ll wait for your reply, Y/N. I’ll wait for you to give me a chance. Unless, of course, your heart has already gone to Mingyu-”
You take a step forward. “Mingyu has never meant anything for me. I don’t … feel anything for him. You know that.”
“But you went on a date with him?”
“I… I didn’t put too much thought to it. We were going out just normally and he suddenly said if we can make it a date. And I had no reason to not give into his request-”
“But do you like him? Giving into his request and wanting the same thing as him are two different things, Y/N.”
You stay silent for a second, considering his question. It is a perfectly valid question, a question that had tormented your mind throughout the ‘date’. You hadn’t paid it much mind because of the sudden incidents after that, but when it comes back to your mind now, you realise…
“No. I don’t like him like that. And you know that too.”
There’s an evident shift in Jeonghan’s eyes, his gaze becoming warmer. “I do. But he is a better man, Y/N-ah. Better than I could ever be.”
There’s a long pause after his words, both of you waiting like prey and predator, wondering what the other’s move would be.
And then you take quick steps towards him, gently moving towards him timidly, until his back is against the wall, and you’re pinning him down on it. His lips part and he leans downwards, and that’s enough bait for you to fall for it, hook, line and sinker. So you meet him halfway and kiss him. You press your lips against his softer lips, the same lips you had wondered what it would be like to kiss, the same lips you had wondered if it would kiss you back. 
When you both finally break the kiss for air, you whisper to him, “I don’t want a better man, Jeonghan. I want you.”
So you kiss him again. And again, until his kisses become insistent, and he gently pries open your lips with his tongue. When his tongue enters, he flips you so that your back is against the wall, and he gently cages you with his hands on your hips. Then he takes his sweet time exploring your mouth the same way his gentle hands roam all over your waist and hips, pulling you up towards him, so that his hands wrap around you back as well.
“Fuck, Y/N, why haven’t we done this earlier?”
“Because we were friends?”
He laughs, a warm, tinkling sound in your ears, as he bends down to kiss your neck, making you gasp with each touch. “Fuck being friends, Y/N. I love you. I don’t think there’s ever been a day when I haven’t loved you and wanted to live the rest of my life with you by my side.”
“Hannie, what you’re saying-”
“Does it feel wrong? Do you want me to stop? I will stop if you say so, love.”
Love. He’s called you nicknames before, but something about the way he says it now makes you weak in the knees. 
In the past twenty-four hours, you’ve realised you were wrong so many times. Like right now, you realise that it was never Mingyu who made you feel the most wanted. It was because you were craving for Jeonghan’s attention that made you feel like Mingyu’s attention was unique. It was, is, and will always be Jeonghan. Had been him when he’d seen you through the shabbiness of your home, through the simple lifestyle your single mother provided, through your worst days when you’d isolated yourself from the world because you were too scared to face your demons. Had been him when he’d shown you that friendships can exist beyond a single classroom’s companionship, that love doesn’t always have to come in the form of big gestures and gifts, that life is always better with someone by your side. 
And you can’t imagine anyone else by your side, except Jeonghan. 
“It feels so right, Hannie. Don’t stop kissing me, please.” 
He chuckles, a deep, glorious sound, as he captures your lips again, his fingers daringly fiddling against the clasp of your bra that’s evident through your thin t-shirt. You gently edge yourself off the wall, bracing your back, pressing your body against his. “Fuck, don’t do that, Y/N. I’m not going to be able to keep my control if you do that.”
“You don’t have to control yourself, Han-ah. I want you as much as you want me.”
He kisses you again after that, a searing kiss that makes your body warm with liquid passion, and then he unclasps the bra from behind in one go. Then he kisses your jawline, leaving tiny bites as he pulls of the straps and your bra drops to the floor where you’re standing. Your body suddenly feels cool, so you press your chest against his, nipples rubbing against the fabric of his t-shirt and hardening, and he notices it.
He mutters something under his breath, before asking you, “Can I?”
“I don’t know,” you throw him a smirk. “Can you?”
“Fuck,” and then his hands grasp your breasts from over your tshirt, gentleness all forgotten as you arch your back to press into his squeezing hands as they rub circles into your nipples, feeling so warm against the cold air of the house. He trails his kisses down from your neck, through your collarbones, and finally over your shirt on your breasts, leaving wet patches all over. The erotic sight turns you on, as his spit gently lingers on the thin material of your shirt, leaving everything translucent. 
“Babe, let’s take you to the bedroom, please? I don’t want our first time against your kitchen wall.” His voice is hoarse in your ear, desperate groans you could never imagine Jeonghan to be emitting, but here he is, his low voice working wonders to your body. And you whisper a yes, before he drags you into the bedroom and nudges you to fall against the bed. He quickly pulls off your shirt, damp all over by now, and takes in the sight of your bare upper body. “God, you’re so fucking pretty, Y/N. Prettiest fucking tits I’ve ever seen,” he whispers, making you blush with the way he’s casually talking dirty to you. Then he latches his lips onto one of your breasts, sucking your nipple, while a hand pinches your other nipple, making you scream out at the sudden pleasure. And it’s his name you’re screaming. He looks at you with crazed eyes, his bangs falling over his eyes, but he doesn’t leave eye contact even as he switches sucking and nibbling from one breast to another. The soft skin of your tits are all wet and blooming with hickeys by the time he’s done, leaving your panties sticky and your breathing erratic. 
“I want to feel you too, Hannie.” You whimper, and he giggles. “God, you’re so cute, babe. Can you take off my shirt, cutie?” You sit up instantly and take off his shirt. And his chest is as pretty as you remember it. But this is the first time you’re having such a visceral reaction towards his bare chest, as you gently lick and leave open mouthed kisses all over his neck and chest. “Baby, so good-” his voice breaks, and it makes you feel powerful. The blood rushes to your brain, and you quickly unzip his pants on an impulse, feeling the loose fabric slip down, leaving his boxers in front of your face, his dick already weeping through the thin fabric of his boxers, leaving a stain. “Hannie, I want your cock, in … my mouth.” You know the effect your words are having on him, as he grips on to one bedpost to steady himself. “Yeah? Pretty baby wants her mouth on my cock? God, just do it already. Don’t tease, f-” his voice gets strangled again as you lick the stain on his boxer, before gently taking his red cock out of his tented boxer. “So pretty, like you, Hannie. Delicate and pretty, and oh,” you gag on your first attempt. “So long.” Unexpectedly long, so you can’t fit him in one go. Still you try to take as much as you can, and his hands wrap around your hair. When you bob your head once, a low groan leaves Jeonghan’s mouth as his grip tightens on your hair. “If you do that, Y/N-ah, I swear I’m going to cum right now.” You don’t listen to him, you continue to suck his length off. His pretty length, which is leaking more and more pre-cum as you continue to suck it and lick off the tip, as you enjoy the sounds Jeonghan makes just for you. 
An insecure part of you wonders if Sujin did it as well. So you ask him, in all your vulnerability. 
“Did Sujin do it like this? Or was she better?”
Hannie’s hands stop in your hair. He gently pulls his cock out from your mouth before sitting down to your level on the bed. Then he roams his hand all over your skin as he pushes you down to lie on your back. “Y/N, believe me when I say this. Sujin didn’t make me feel even an ounce of what I’m feeling right now. I feel so safe, and wanted, and sexy when you even moan for me, and I swear I almost came on the spot when you took off your shirt and showed me your body.” 
His hands delicately wrap all over you, as he places his weight on you. Your heart warms at his words, so you grab his face to kiss him. And kiss he does. Slow, passionate kisses, as you lift your hips to feel some friction against his milky smooth thighs. Kisses which end up in him biting your lower lip as he pinches your nipples almost cruelly, making your toes curl up. Kisses which bend down to your chest as he sucks on your buds to make them hurt less, and his hands move towards gently pressing a finger against your folds. 
“So wet, pretty baby? For Hannie?” 
“For Hannie. All for Hannie.”
And he enters the entire finger inside you without a moment’s pause, making you moan out his name in an almost pornographic moan, arching your hips, as he uses his thumb to gently rub your clit. “So pretty for Hannie. You were made for Hannie, all of your beautiful body and your beautiful mind. What would I do without you, love?” 
“You would never be without me, baby.” And he kisses you again, as his fingers work your folds open gently, first one, and then two, and slowly, without you even realising, with the way his fingers piston into you, you’re on the brink of your orgasm. So you cum all over his fingers without warning, and he chuckles as he feels the warm sensation over his fingers. Then he sits up, and rubs the remnants of your wetness over his dick and jerks himself off a little, making his proud length stand up even taller. 
“Fuck, Hannie, put it inside me already. Feel-feeling empty.”
He kisses your cheek. “So cute, but so dirty, god. You’re empty? Wait. Do you have condoms?”
You nod. Indicating the top shelf of your bedroom drawer. He retrieves a pack quickly, and as he rolls the condom over his dick, he sits tall, watching how you’re writhing under him for his touch. 
“Does this boost your ego, Han-ah?”
“So much. To think that you’re like this for me. Fucking unreal.”
“Shut up,” you giggle shyly, before grabbing him and kissing him slowly, as he gently enters you inch-by-inch. Once he’s seated all the way inside, he breaks the kiss. “Does it hurt?”
“No. You can move, Hannie.” You blush with how he tries to angle his hips correct from the very first thrust, biting his lips in concentration. He’s really trying to make this the best experience for you two, and it warms your heart. But he doesn’t have to get so worked up about this. 
So you whisper to him, “Hannie, come into my arms please. Wanna hold you, wanna feel you close.” “I’m here, I’m here baby,” he says, leaning closer to you, his thrusts becoming slower, but you can feel him deeper like this. 
And soon, your moans become higher and higher pitched, as do his. He kisses you through every second of it, even when you’re both chasing your climax. “Fuck, baby, I’m going to cum now, can you cum with me?” You nod, reaching out to rub your nipples, as he kisses the sensitive spots on your neck. And within seconds, you’re both seeing stars, as you feel an intense orgasm run over you and his lazy thrusts through it all. 
It takes you a long minute to recover, and you see that Jeonghan’s cleaning you up with a soft cloth. “Hannie?” “Sleepy?” “Hmm,” you reach out for him, and he comes to cuddle in your chest. “But it’s still early morning, how can I sleep now?” “Let’s just cuddle, hmm? You need some rest at least before we go for round two,” he gives you a cocky smirk, and you blush at his words. God, he made you feel all mushy and gooey inside. 
“I love you, Hannie.”
“And I love you, Y/N-ie. I always have.”
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orphiclovers · 3 months
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unpopular epilogue opinion time again. you have been warned
I've been thinking how profoundly unfair the epilogue is from 49% perspective. because he wasn't enough for Yoo Joonghyuk and Han Sooyoung.
He barely gets to speak any lines in (supposedly) his own story, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ™, because no one respects him as his own person, just who he isn't. all three of them are given the chance of a 'happily ever after' due to the sacrifice made by another version of themselves (1863!hsy, black coat wearing 1863!yjh and 51% kdj) but yjh and hsy couldn't settle. they just had to be 'greedy' and demand all of him. when kim dokja has never placed that same expectation on them, even when all this time, to kim dokja, yjh and hsy have been the 49% versions of themselves.
take 1863!hsy - who we are told is cooler, smarter and has way more of the 'original' han sooyoung's memories than our han sooyoung. yet kim dokja never thinks of our hsy as lesser or inferior and even tells so to 1863!hsy face (accidentally making her fall in love with him in the process but I digress...)
not to even mention Yoo Joonghyuk - at first he only remembers the first three rounds, and even at the end he doesn't regain all of his memories. you know how much 3 out of 1863 is? 0.16% ! He's less than one percent Yoo Joonghyuk. Less than one precent Secretive Plotter. Yet Kim Dokja chooses him as his companion even with the memories he knows are missing, unconditionally.
but yjh and hsy. can't.
just. urghhhhhh I'm in pain....
(tbf to hsy and yjh- I get it. orpheus turns around in every version of the story etc etc. I think it was the only choice they could have possibly made)
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seventeenreasonswhy · 1 month
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Same Team! A YJH Office Romance Pt. 2
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Idol!Jeonghan x ProductionStaff!Reader
You’re serious about your job, but not as serious as Yoon Jeonghan is about flirting.
Read Part 1, Part 2: ~1.8k words
Series Content: slooowwwwww burn, fluff!, cute flirting!, will-they-won’t-they vibes!, tension!!, office crushes, office romance, appearances by all of the members, reader is shy and gets flustered easily!, jeonghan is jeonghan-ing!
My Masterlist
Author's Note: Jeonghan and MC actually talk in this part! Yay! Still a very slow burn, though. Sorry about it! Hoping to have some smut ready soon. Once again, not sure how long the tension is going to build! Special mention of BSS and some fictional staff characters in this part. Enjoy! Thank you for reading!
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
You’d rented a small flat that was pretty far from the office. It was what you could afford, and you were used to long commutes—having lived in most of the major cities in the U.S. New York’s subway was always crowded, LA’s traffic was always congested... Seoul was no different. You took two buses to work, except on days when you were shooting on location, when you and some other staff in the area would get picked up by a company van very early.
You had gotten slightly more comfortable around the members. It helped that they were all delighted that you spoke fluent Korean. And you were glad you could speak in English with Joshua and Vernon.
You’d noticed that some of them had rather open personalities and were surprisingly easy to talk to. Seungkwan, Dokyeom and Hoshi (who told you you could call him Soonyoung) always greeted you, which made you feel more confident. Mingyu and Seungcheol had recently started to greet you as well.
Your first assignment was to help capture behind-the-scenes footage at a paid sponsorship shoot featuring BSS, one of the group’s subunits. It had just been you and one other more experienced production staff member on the shoot—the idea being that you would shadow and learn the ropes for smaller/subunit shoots. The three members were very helpful and patient with you. You really appreciated them. You’d had such a good time with them on the shoot that eventually they were all calling you “nuna” which made you feel even more at ease.
Idols are kind of like puppies... you’d thought, watching the three of them. They tried to be grown up, but you could tell that they brought out the child in each other. How could they not? Pretty much all of them had known each other since they were kids.
It should go without saying, but you were surprised at how... regular all of the members were. They were really just guys in their twenties at the end of the day. Some of them were quite shy, others were funny, some were serious, some were charming... They were all very different but meshed together well. You were kind of amazed by them each day.
But, even after a couple months of working with the members, you still got tense around Yoon Jeonghan.
Sometimes it felt like you could only hear his voice whenever you met with the production staff and the members to talk about content or scheduling. It was such a beautiful sound. You couldn’t help but simply bow to him when your paths crossed, not sure how to act around him. He was always polite to you but hadn’t really struck up much conversation since you’d started working there.
Sometimes, you would see him across a hallway or a room, and it felt like your eyes would lock—or like he had been looking right at you. But you were sure that you were imagining it.
You were ashamed to admit it, but in your preliminary research on the group Jeonghan was the member that stood out to you the most. You were captivated. Your friends had told you that he must be your “bias.” And now that you had spent time near him... now that you had even stood close enough to smell his perfume as he reviewed footage during a shoot... now that you had made even fleeting eye contact with him... it was a full-blown crush.
I’m almost thirty and I’m crushing on a singer... you’d chide yourself, feeling embarrassed. And a coworker, no less...
There was a strict no-dating clause in all employees’ contracts. You remembered reading through it at your initial onboarding. Being found in an inappropriate relationship with another staff member or the talent—regardless of whether the relationship was mutually pursued—could result in the “immediate termination of your position.” Not that you would ever have a shot with him. But, even if you did, you couldn’t afford to entertain these feelings for him beyond a simple, one-sided crush, so you decided to accept it and keep things professional.
At least, you thought you had accepted it.
“What do you do for fun, Y/N-shi?”
The question visibly startled you. You were hanging out in a practice room, helping shoot some extra footage for an Inside Seventeen episode as the members prepared for an upcoming awards show performance. All of the members were there, but only the performance team was working through their section of choreography. You were sitting on the far side of the room, near where the vocal unit was taking a break, and chatting with one of the producers, asking questions about the ceremony and what to expect, when you saw that some of the members were talking about going to play badminton with Seungkwan.
“For fun?” You repeated, dumbly. You couldn’t believe that Jeonghan was speaking to you.
“Ah, yeah I wanna know what nuna does in her free time!” Dokyeom piped in.
“You call her nuna and everything?” Jeonghan asked sharply, with the energy of an older sibling reprimanding their younger brother for being rude.
“She said I could!” Dokyeom whined.
“It’s unprofessional. Don’t make Y/N-shi uncomfortable!” Jeonghan chided back.
“It’s okay, really,” you said sheepishly.
“How old are you?” Jeonghan was looking directly at you now. You couldn’t meet his eyes for more than a second before looking away.
“29,” you said.
“No way!” Jeonghan said, “I thought you’d be way younger!” You could feel your face getting hotter by the second.
“She’s got a young face,” Dokyeom said, smiling.
“Stop flirting,” Jeonghan warned again.
“Touchy...” Dokyeom teased his hyung, continuing to smile as though nothing was wrong. Dokyeom had a naturally sunny, playful disposition. You kind of envied him. You swore you caught him looking at you... his face seemed puzzled for a moment.
“You’re annoying,” Dokyeom said suddenly to Jeonghan, “I’m going to practice this bridge in the hallway.”
“I’m annoying?” Jeonghan said, chuckling to himself as Dokyeom left. You turned to bow in Dokyeom’s direction, but he simply winked at you.
What was that? You wondered, unsure how to get your face to behave the way you wanted it to and settling for simply facing away from Jeonghan. He was wearing baggy clothes, and had his long, dark hair half up. He wasn’t wearing any makeup.
I wonder what skincare products he uses. You wondered as you became slightly less tense. He’s so pretty.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Or maybe you were even more tense than before.
You turned slightly, still unable to look Jeonghan directly in the eye. He was seated on a couch at the far end of the studio, looking up at you as you stood stiffly beside him. 
“Uh,” you didn’t know what to say. You couldn’t think of a single thing that you did for fun since moving to Seoul. You had been too busy. Some of the other staff had asked you out to drinks after work once, but that was so long ago... and you’d ended up going home shortly after getting there because you were so exhausted.
“Well...” you tried to continue.
“Ah! You can say it in English,” Jeonghan said. Your stomach nearly fell right out of your body. You were certain that your face was bright red. He thinks I just don’t know the words... that’s so... cute.
“Haha, to be honest I can’t think of anything because I work so much,” you said, sticking to Korean, “but when I lived in the States, I liked to play billiards at bars. Or go to karaoke. And rock climbing.” You spoke rapidly because you were nervous, then hesitated before stealing a glance at Jeonghan.
“Wow,” his face was genuinely shocked. You weren’t sure what to say next.
“Sorry,” you said out of habit.
“No! Don’t be sorry! Your Korean is just really good. I didn’t realize because you hardly ever say anything. How did you learn to speak like that? You don’t look Korean at all.”
“I’m not,” you said, “... languages have just always been... kind of an interest of mine.”
“Wow,” he said, “so, you’re like a genius.”
“Not at all,” you said, feeling like you were about to faint you were so excited and nervous. This was the longest conversation you had ever had with him. You couldn’t really believe it was happening, that he was looking right at you. You hadn’t felt his gaze leave you for a second.
“When’s your birthday?” he asked suddenly.
“What?”
“Your birthday!” he said, smiling at you. It kind of felt like he was making fun of you, but you didn’t even care. 
“Why?” You weren’t sure whether to play along, but immediately regretted not just telling him. Why am I being so cagey about it? You scolded yourself, the butterflies in your stomach going out of control.
“I want to know if I should call you “nuna” or not.”
“What!?” you couldn’t help but get flustered.
“What’s up?” two other staff members looked up from the monitor they were looking at to turn in your direction, surprised by your sudden outburst. You knew your face was bright red, and you could see Jeonghan grinning like a little boy out of the corner of your eye. He is making fun of me.
“Boemseok-hyung,” Jeonghan said to the gentlemen standing not too far from you, “did you know Y/N-shi’s age?” You turned to Jeonghan, mortified that he would bring this up to someone else.
“No,” Boemseok said, turning to you, “but I’d guess...”
“It’s hard to tell,” the other woman on staff said.
“Yeah, I can never guess foreigners’ ages right,” Boemseok said.
“She’s older than me!” Jeonghan said, and your heart skipped a beat.
“Oh, wow,” the woman said, “you do take good care of your skin, then.”
“Yeah, I’m surprised,” Boemseok said.
“Haha, thank you...” you bowed nervously.
“You know you don’t have to bow so much, Y/N-shi,” Jeonghan said, his tone still smug. What is this? Are we this familiar now? You were panicking on the inside.
“Sorry,” you said.
“Don’t apologize!”
“Sorry!”
Was this man trying to kill you? You could barely handle this sudden playful dynamic that seemed to come from nowhere.
“When’s your birthday?”
“August 28th.” You answered.
“Ah, I can call you nuna.”
“That’s fine with me.” You didn’t realize it, but the grin that had been slowly creeping across your face as you two talked now blossomed on your face. Jeonghan felt himself smile involuntarily.
“You’ve been here for a while now and this is the first time I’ve seen you smile,” he said.
Your heart almost stopped. All you could do was stare at him.
“We’re all on the same team, right?” his voice was velvety, and you were sure that he could tell how enamored you were. “It’s okay to loosen up a little.”
It’s not okay, Yoon Jeonghan, you thought.
“Thanks,” you said, in spite of your skyrocketing heartrate.
It’s not okay at all.
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1800-page-not-found · 3 months
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Helloo! Can i have kim dokja x reader where its like reader and yjh at first hate each other but over time they start getting close (slight yjh x reader if you want) and dokja starts seeing them being close and gets jealous (i love dokja being jelly)
(sorry its a bit hard to read😓 have a great day and stay hydrated !)
Yall love jealous kim dokja goddamn
Jealous Kim Dokja x reader
Platonic Yoo Joonghyuk x reader (like a sibling dynamic)
heres some father son time with kdj and gilyoung (wingman!!)
Im sorry btw if you think it's short, i struggle with writing long stories 😭😭😭
When Dokja first told you about the novel he was reading, you felt bad for the main character. But jeez...meeting him in real life? Man you just wanted to curse him out!
During one of the scenarios, you had all split up, pulling sticks to see who'd get paired with who, and you just happened to be paired with Joonghyuk. As you both walk around, an elderly lady walked up and offered some food. After evaluating it, you decided it was safe.
"We don't n-" Before he could finish, you kicked the back of his knee and made him kneel, pushing his head down.
"Thank you granny!" You smiled at the lady, "I'm also so sorry for his actions, you see, he escaped from a mental institute-"
Before you could finish your lie, he covered your mouth, the grandma laughing and walking away, talking about her youthful days.
"Seriously? Mental institute? Please, as if." He scoffed.
"Yeah you probably escaped." You laughed, before running off as he chased you with his sword.
Running around, you found your beloved dokja, and leapt into his arms like a princess.
"Dokja! Your companion is trying to kill me!" You laughed at the fuming Joonghyuk, pointing at him.
A string of jealousy tugged at Dokja's heart, his mind wandering off to what a cute one on one time you two would have had...
-
After settling down, you, dokja, joonghyuk, and gilyoung decided to walk together.
As you all turned a corner, a grotesque monster popped up out of nowhere.
With your heightened blood pressure, you kicked joonghyuk forward, shouting, "Take him!"
Of course someone like him faced no difficulty cutting down the monster, but it did end up with you two bickering and fighting. Man...you two had to be long lost twins at this point...
-
Although dokja didn't notice it, gilyoung definitely did.
"Are you jealous?" He asked dokja.
"Wha..what? No!" Dokja waved his hands in the air.
"Yes you are...You frown everytime you look at that bastard," He nods in approval, "It's okay ajussi, me too, me too. He's wasting [name]'s precious time!"
So, the cooked up a plan.
A trap was set up, in which they titled it, 'Bastard Trap.'
Both you and joonghyuk were too engrossed in fighting each other and bickering that you both didn't realize the trap. As the two of you walked behind, you blinked, and joonghyuk was gone??
On the other hand, joonghyuk blinked and he was suddenly flung into the air, far away.
You shrugged it off, this basically meant you win...the gods were really looking out for you...! You wept a silent tear.
Gilyoung too initative, grabbing your hand and dokja's smiling and dragging you about.
"This is nice, right?" He spoke, grinning ear to ear.
You laughed, "Sure is!"
Mission accomplished!
Dokja smiled at your reaction, you really were the perfect woman. His jealousy was gone now (in which said jealousy found himself in an alleyway)
He would do this again in a heartbeat.
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your--isgayrights · 3 months
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wait IS jhy confirmed trans? i was interpreting that way but it seemed like translation confusion when i read it. i'd be so happy if that was true ;o;
Short answer: JHY is definitely a woman, early translation confusion was largely due to the fact that Korean doesn't necessitate gendered pronouns as much as English, she is never specifically called transgender but her portrayal represents a lot of trans experiences and I choose to interpret her as transgender.
Long Answer:
Jang Hayoung as a character represents the webnovel catagory of 'transmigration,' wherein a character from 'the real world' wakes up in the body of a 'character' and must navigate their life. Jang Hayoung was a transcendent reborn into the body of Aileen Makerfield's 15 year old 'son' Aslan in the demon realm. To my understanding, Jang Hayoung's gender previous to her transmigration is unclear, it's possible that she was a cis woman in her first life. Hayoung (or Hayeong) is commonly from 夏榮 with the meaning 'glory of summer' and generally has a feminine connotation. Regardless, after her transmigration she has to face the dysphoria and challenges of 'spiritually' being a 23 year old woman in the body of a 15 year old 'boy,' and the interactions she has with other characters are easy to recognize trans experiences in to me.
Throughout 'episode 43' her gender is discussed a lot. YJH who has little concept of transmigration calls Jang Hayoung a weak 'guy' and a 'rude jerk,' to which Jang Hayoung replies 'actually I'm a bitch.' It's also shown around this time that through the scenarios, transformation of the body is possible to the point of changing gender representation, as Yoo Joonghyuk takes on the 'Punisher' persona while enduring a punishment for rescuing Kim Dokja. Afterwards, Jang Hayoung says something to the effect of 'no matter what your body is, if you are a girl you are a girl no matter what' and YJH vehemently agrees with her, leaving Kim Dokja very confused. My interpretation of this scene is that YJH gains experience of what Jang Hayoung feels being seen as 'the wrong gender' because of her body when he presents as the punisher because he still feels he is the same person as before, but I've seen other interpretations of Transfem-coded YJH that also make a lot of sense.
It's also good to note that in Korean gendered pronouns are not used as frequently, so Jang Hayoung confused many translators because her use of exclusively feminine pronouns is not confirmed until the first chapter told from her third person POV, after which most translators switched their pronoun choices for her.
For me ORV's interpretation of JHY's transmigration falls into a lot of the transgendery feelings that I have. One time a girl in a psych class asked my professor why there were so many genderqueer autistic people when one of the major symptoms of autism is struggling with changes and I had to get on my soapbox of like, to be honest I feel like I never really changed but suddenly everyone else around me did. Like it was never important to me whether I was a 'girl' or a 'boy' because basically those were like teams to be on in elementary school and it didn't matter. But then I was growing up and it was kind of like... There was something just so soul crushing to me about the idea of growing up to be a "woman" as opposed to growing up to be a "man," as arbitrary as those labels can be it just does mean something to me. Choosing to be a guy and let myself orient my experiences and social life around that concept just feels right and makes it easier to be myself without being misunderstood by others. So for me the idea that someone with kind of reverse feelings from me who has always been a woman having to endure the experience of being in the role of a 'prepubescent boy' is pretty representative of A Transgender Experience even if that language is not specifically used. It's also a lot more compassionate than representation seen in other works, or even earlier in ORV itself, and I think my favorite thing was Kim Dokja being told he was a dumbass for thinking a woman wasn't a woman just because she was in a 'boy's body,' lol.
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skylark325 · 3 days
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so i was thinking. throughout this book so many characters have been determining exactly ‘who’ yjh is. kdj would often characterise him in accordance to three ways and that’s mostly the lens we saw him through initially. it wasn’t up until yjh found out that he was a character, that kdj reconsider how much he truly ‘knew’ yjh and we even learned from yjh that he was likely a different person.
and then there’s secretive plotter who told him that he wasn’t good enough to be yjh and who himself fragmented his identity into separate beings. so it could be said that sp wasn’t the true yjh either. and now i’m reading about 999 yjh’s companions and they’re saying that yjh is not him either. but rn every single yjh persona in existence has condensed into a single body of our yjh. this a yjh nobody knows about and yet this is the first time yjh likely felt like he truly knew himself.
the theme of identity plays so strongly in this story when we realise dokja’s own inability to accept himself reflects yjh’s identity crisis as well. so all along the reader and the character he chose to impersonate were the same. neither were able to reconcile with their true selves until they met each other.
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mhaynoot · 11 months
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the poetics of sp's involvement in 1863rd is just ... there's no words to capture the how retrospectively tragic it is. sp is the oldest being in the story. his tragedy has stopped being told but the story was still continuing off the page, years and years and even more unending years of being trapped without resolution, blocked behind the wall. he wants to die but cannot.
hsy's plan was to make 1863 yjh sleep forever. while it is not true death obviously, it will have been the closest to death any yjh has ever gotten (besides 0th who still turned away from it). not death, not regression, but sleep. it is only the domain of the dreams that will let him escape the cruel reality of his unreality and the silent god who will continue to watch over him forever so long as it was this man, yjh.
an important recurring symbol/motif in orv is dreams and there are several important themes linked to dreams i want to discuss.
first one is pretty obvious: dreams as escapism, as a way to desperately wish for a better life, wanting desperately to be saved from a ruined world. ala 1863rd yjh's wish for death and the oldest dream's wish for the characters to become real, to save him. as such, dreams represent a desperate plea for salvation.
and this might be a reach but i would still like to argue that it is the character's belief of their own hopelessness that lead to dreams but also perpetuates an unending cycle. wanting to be saved but also not being able to believe that you're worthy of being saved, that nothing / no one would / should save you. this duality is what leads me to the second theme: in their endless cycle being trapped and neither dead nor living, dreams are but another form of regression.
kdj becomes the oldest dream, the willing lonely god who could only ever dream of everyone's happiness but his own. he had seperated himself from ever reaching out and watching 1864th worldline where all his loved ones are and where he knows he would have been tempted to return. so symbolically, he interferes with 0th yjh and, as his stardusts falls away, he watches all the regressions and yjh. always yjh. his dream. in the end, the train that traps him is himself.
but a final point i want to touch on is this:
it is only when they get off the train and reach their epilogue, does sp finally achieve liberation, does the oldest dream finally end (become free). the dream has ended and into the waking cruel world, they become characters no longer having found each other at last. this was sp's ■■. and that's what i meant by the poetics of it all. the happiest, gentlest of epilogues: the ending of the oldest dream.
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its-your-mind · 11 months
Text
fuckin. still thinking about how yjh, two years after bringing back comatose kdj, attacked the museum to steal the remnants of the ark. Not to run away, not out of a desire to destory or forget or regress, but because he just… didn’t know what else to do. He needed kdj back because he had tried to live his ending for two years now and it hadn’t worked, he hadn’t been able to find any kind of peace that lasted. Not with his sister, not with his “former life” as a pro-gamer that never really happened, and not with the new family he had built beside kdj.
he needed to go and find kdj because he needed him to tell him what to do. he needed to know what end kdj had envisioned for him. dokja always had the plan, always had the answers, had been the one to promise yjh that he could make it to the end of this world and still stay human, and now he’s here and he’s alive and it’s over but… kdj never told him the next step. He doesn’t have his Reader there to guide him. He’s lost. He needs to go find the rest of kdj because there’s just nothing and no one else he can think of that might help him find peace.
And then hsy comes to stop him from destroying the museum, and she makes eye contact with him and… and. she wrote him into existence. she knows what he’s thinking. she knows what he’s asking of her. he’s not willing to end his own life, but he will let his Author write the final sentence of his story. she’s the only one he would trust with that task, now.
And I’m just. Sooyoung was the one who wrote everything down, who narrated all of his life and his actions and his millennia-long odyssey, but he truly and fully believed that all she could do for him now was put a permanent end to his story. in all that she wrote for him, she had never written him a life of peace, and so he could not trust her to tell him what to do next. his only peaceful memory was after the end of his very first round, with the family that kdj had helped build for him. even then, he left that behind to choose the path of the regressor for the chance to finally meet his sponsor, The Demon King of Salvation, the all-powerful being who sacrificed so much to bring yjh and his family to a happy ending, and asked for nothing in return.
and then, after 1,863 attempts, he finally broke free of the author’s story, and he did meet him. they had fought and argued and loved and lost and bled and died beside each other. neither of them knew it, but dokja was bringing yjh into the possibility of a second happy ending… but now…
yjh had lived a life driven by the scenarios for thousands of years. he didn’t know how to live a life of his own, a life of peace. his Author, who had guided him through that journey, couldn’t write him a happy ending. he needed his Reader, the one who watched him live and die through all of that, the one who still wished so much that he would have a happy epilogue that he willed it into existence and sacrificed himself for it over and over and over and…
He needed to go find Dokja, because he was the only one who would be able to dream into existence a happy ending for the story Hellscape of Eternity.
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jomeimei421 · 2 years
Note
you got any orv fic recs 🙏🏼
BOY I sure do. This list is going to be pretty long, so I'll put it below the cut.
Mei's ORV Fic Reccs
Spoilers for ORV until the epilogue!
Post-Epilogue by the1864
GEN, yoohankim if you squint. This one is one of my favorite ORV fics at the moment so it's going first in this list! It picks up right where 551 leaves off, and every single character is written absurdly well, especially the main trio! Great if you're looking for KDJ recovery stuff.
Rendezvous by WindsofTime
Joongdok. A reimagining of select scenes from ORV, if KDJ and YJH made more use of Midday Tryst, told from YJH's point of view. A tiny bit different from canon, but not enough to call it canon divergence. The babygirl YJH fic ever. Op GETS him.
The False Last Act by younglegends
GEN. If you read any fic on this list, please read this one. I can't say anything about it without spoiling parts of it, and I really don't want to do that. Extremely well executed. Lovely, comforting, and will make your stomach flip like you've stared too long into the abyss. Read this fic TWICE. Read it TWO (2) TIMES.
My Cooking was Always Better with You (Now if only you would eat it) by pave_ment
GEN, joongdok if you squint. For those who lament over the fact that we never got to see any scenes from YJH's 81st regression cooking adventure I present to you: Dungeon Meshi AU, ft. chimera KDJ and bratty chef adventurer YJH. Enjoy!
Tell Me I Did Good Until Now by featherx
GEN. with a little sangsoo on the side. KDJ returns post epilogue, but stays a child in body and mind. This one had me reeling for the whole week when I read it. Sweet and melancholy. I especially loved YJH being bullied by children. KDJ is really, profoundly loved in this one.
An Incomplete Record of Correspondence Between The Magnificent, Unbiased, Genius Author Han Su-yeong and The Jackass Who Dares to Edit Her Work by Dragonomatopoeia
Joongdok. Yoohan's annoying arguments in the ORV shared google doc. The concept and title alone are too funny to not put on this list.
The Prologue Past the Epilogue by AVoresmith
Yoohankim, though mostly just JD at the moment. Of all the ORV fics I've ever read, I think this fic comes to closest to imitating the actual writing style of ORV along with nailing the characterizations with pinpoint precision. Also contains a JD kiss chapter that is more intense than any actual nsfw scene they could have wrote. There are some caveats to this recommendation though:
It gets slightly NSFW in the latest chapter.
Biyoo is several hundred years old and is treated as an adult, not a kid. There will be mention of Biyoo in relationships with adult partners -- including implied YJH. In my opinion it's handled tactfully, but it's also something that might turn some people off to this fic, so please be aware!
LGY has a big puppy love crush on KDJ. Obviously completely one-sided, but it's there.
Home Invasion by misoriri
GEN. KDJ gets shingles and has to be taken to the doctor. YJH breaks a door and then looms in the kitchen like an evil lamp post. JHW bites a tomato like an apple. LJY gets demolished at Club Penguin Card Jitsu. A short read, but hysterical. KCom is so fucking funny in this.
I saw you in a dream by featherx
GEN, Doksoo if you squint. OD meets the HSY of his new worldline, and can't help feeling like he knows her from another time, another place. Had to lay down after this one. Solid 999 and SP fam content, as well as typical YHK style cosmic unbreakable bonds.
We are A Woven Thread by ksalientian
Yoohankim. A reincarnation AU. I read this one a while back but I found it again recently and it still hits just as hard! The cosmic codependence trio finds themselves trapped in another looping cycle, but as is always the case with them, they always find each other and are okay in the end.
A Short Pause by Je_te_veux
GEN, but can be read as JD. An episode set between 517 and 520, a day in the life of YJH, and having some time to think. JTV is a Chinese writer, and you will need to copy and paste into a translator to read their fics, but genuinely they are one of the best ORV writers I've ever read. This fic is one of the ones I always come back to. Really excellent YJH characterization.
Honey and Ginger by Rivani
Yoohankim. Good old fashioned fluff sickfic! The banter is very well done; the three of them are insufferable <3
Too Many Cooks by SonaSona
Yoohankim. KCom makes dinner. HSY makes herself a nuisance. Sona's prose is incredible, and her characterization of the main trio is impeccable. Light, sweet, with just a touch of the ORV brand melancholy. Yoohan is always funny.
There are more but this post is getting pretty long so! Enjoy 👍
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sarcasticmirage · 11 months
Text
Okay I can't find the post anymore, but a little while ago there was a poll about what animal coding Han Sooyoung had, and only four people said dragon, and yes I get it an aquatic animal, fits into the trio. And hsy is almost always figuratively knocking shit off counters, so cat works too... but have you considered i will die on this hill
novel spoilers!
So this all starts with one part in orv that has always been a sticking point for me: why is hsy's constellation ABFD?
It always seemed weird to me because kdj and yjh have both never had sponsors that were not part of the trio, and in a complete parallel kdj and hsy were both constellations who both had yjh as their incarnation (reader and writer only able to communicate through a character). So all this works... but where the hell does ABFD come in? To be honest, it makes more sense for 1864 hsy to be sponsored by secretive plotter, it ties the trio even closer thematically and even makes sense considering the contract that the two of them make in the early scenarios. So why ABFD?
The easiest answer is that it's meant to draw parallels between kdj and hsy, with both of them having similarities to Kim Namwoon, and at times acting as a villain or antagonist to the narrative. The other meta explanation is that if hsy had a strange sponsor or no sponsor at all, it would clue the audience in, that hsy is just as distinctly important to the world as kdj and yjh... and make it harder to convince the reader that she "totally didn't" write twsa. But there are easier ways to draw parallels that aren't as core to the story, and why of all constellations was abyssal black flame dragon chosen?
Because hsy, herself, is a Dragon...
Dragons are important to ORV, the most destructive thing within the star stream, and in some ways the only thing that could kill yjh, so what does it mean to be a dragon?
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This conversation with the apocalypse dragon is the only real time that dragons as a thematic are brought up, and on the re-read, damn do most of these descriptors sound like hsy, or at least the perception, at this point, of the twsa author. The author is viewed as "the origin of evil" in ORV, they're the person who has made each of the scenarios and has caused all suffering in the characters lives. Hsy, similarly, when we first meet her is a villain, using the apostles to directly control canon and attack kdj as well as our whole primary cast.
However after hsy is revealed as the author of the novel and her story is told, we learn that she "was chained to restrictions" giving her only a few hours a day to be in control of her body and it was during this time that she was "the scenario's target of submission" made to make the scenarios, yes to save kdj, but also because she had always made them, without them already existing she could never have gone back to create them in the first place, but she is never given the chance to exist in the main story beyond this role. Before the end of the story, she is mainly seen by the narrative as either a villain, or someone forced to suffer (50 yrs later). Yjh is the protagonist of twsa. Kdj is the protagonist of ORV. As for hsy?
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One of the most classical concepts in storytelling is that of a Hero, Damsel, and a Dragon.
The Hero embarks on a perilous journey to save the Damsel from imprisonment,
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The Damsel is stuck alone and far away from those she loves,
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The Dragon guards the Damsel to the point that she is trapped away from others.
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These roles are even referenced in one of hsy and kdj's first conversations:
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Kdj is not the Hero,
he's the Damsel.
Hsy is not the Damsel,
she's the Dragon.
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moonlight-blue-rose · 8 months
Text
Part 4 of my journey with the 1863rd arc, yesterday I didn't even realise I've spent 4 hours on 4 chapters....
ch 295
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… h u h? huhhhhh?????
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This,,, makes sense actually. I wondered how she would kill yjh but never guessed it would be through such means…
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Oh. Oh. It was Yoo Joonghyuk, wasn’t it? He was the one who told her to protect the people he loves until the end she thought of. That’s why he promised to die, didn’t he…
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Ahhhh the back and forth, “some call it salvation” – was that a dig at kdj’s modifier? Because it sure feels like one
And what does she mean “it isn’t the world I made”? Is it because of the Covenant? Or is it because it is a world reached after 1862 regressions? I really don’t think kdj is right about his guess for hsy’s Covenant. Something just doesn’t add up
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Of course he didn’t haha
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Oh Kim Dokja you sly little- So that was the decision he reached in the end
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... holy-…
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Ch 296
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Wow, just, the description… I have already spoiled myself yjh’s sponsor but every time they are referenced in the story is with such mystery and ‘otherness’ that leaves a big impression. Just, wow…
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Snow… reminds me of the snow garden between the letters, the space only a reader can hide in…
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Oh Yoo Joonghyuk… (╥╯^╰╥)
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It’s a very faint voice… A voice suffocated underneath all the others… But it’s still there… Kim Dokja heard it…
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The whole scene that feels like slow motion… Kim Dokja’s determination, his desire to see the ending, an ending, even if it’s not the ideal one he wanted… Why does all of this feel like defeat? And yet at the same time like a culmination to everything he has ever wanted... Even if he is not part of that story… he still wanted to see it…
I want to go there and shake him, ask him why is he giving up? The Kim Dokja I’ve read about didn’t give up, even if everything looked impossible. I want to tell him there is another way. But there isn’t, is it? He tried. He gave his best. There is nothing he himself can do anymore… And it’s just so unfair, to see him bow down like this, here and now… But at the same time, it’s a decision only he, the person who loves this story the most in the world, can make… The decision of a Reader… God, this arc is giving me too many emotions
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Hahaha, of course he would throw himself on the path of an attack meant for yjh. He did the same with the 41st sys too after all
"Director of the false last act" such a fitting name
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It does! It does… It’s a world only Kim Dokja could create…
Ch 297
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It’s what you deserve for making yjh eat soil lmaooo
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Honestly, the whole orv feels like that one post here on Tumblr “I’m asking you to endure it.” Yes, it may be incredibly selfish. Yes, you will suffer and it will hurt so much. But, still, please, endure. Orv just has this particular taste…
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*crying* It’s the first time he admitted that he just doesn’t want Yoo Joonghyuk to die…
Honestly, it felt really strange since we got wos’s revisions but, the original text of wos disappeared forever. It was the story he grew up with. It was the story he fell in love with. And yes, it means so much that he can influence the third turn so they can reach the end but… But the original text disappeared. If I was Kim Dokja, I would feel heartbroken. Your memories can remain for only so much, that why losing the original text hit me hard. Yes, kdj has his strange mind library thing but can he go there at will? Maybe he could in the future. But it still makes me wonder whether kdj represses these feelings. I wonder whether he reread the text again and again in the 1863rd round not only to find a way out but also for himself. As a last attempt to keep this story with himself just for a little longer…
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This whole arc is just pure pain, I understand why everyone is crying about it
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… I knew it but having it confirmed hurts a lot more… Yoo Mia… His only baby sister… and his mother figure too… (╥╯^╰╥)
…. Everything until the end of the chapter… I need a moment… Yoo Joonghyuk…
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At this point I can’t even explain what I’m feeling (╥╯^╰╥)
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BOTH, BOTH ARE REAL!
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He picked Kim Dokja’s coat… He abandoned the person he was and turned away so he can become someone new, someone who isn’t “the protagonist”… Yoo Joonghyuk, who found a different answer altogether
One of them is gone forever… I can’t believe this. I-
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At this point I’m just crying- He isn’t a character, he isn’t a character
Ch 298
Kim Dokja having a panic attack is really understandable, with the way everything ended. Dissociation time yay! *sighs*
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Of course he would want her to be honest with the rest of the party… He loves them too much not to do at least this for them…
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Yeah… Maybe it was finally a time he did that… Not being chained down by the “protagonist” title but just being Yoo Joonghyuk…
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A baby?? Is this referencing yjh’s sponsor? There was the sound of a baby laughing when they were described earlier. Uhhhhh I don’t know at this point
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Hahaha of course she got attached. No matter which one it is, hsy has such a big, bleeding heart
I don’t think I can finish the arc today, these few chapters were just so draining. Hopefully there won’t be much to cry about in the next chapters, I don’t think I’ll be able to bear so much emotional damage in such a short time…
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mae-i-scribble · 11 months
Note
Hi, I hope you're having a nice day - in your author's notes for chapter 2 of The Long Way Home, you mentioned the idea that the story HSY wrote is different from the ORV that we know. I wanted to ask if you've ever written any posts expanding on that? I would love to read more about your thoughts on this (KDJ in your story's last memory being about reading that instead of WoS. Gutted me.)
Hello there! I have unfortunately not written a post detailing this (if you are the very nice anon who has asked me to elaborate on this i am very sorry, if you're not anon i am still very sorry), in large part because doing so in a way that I would be happy with would involve combing through the last 1/3rd or so of the novel. Since the major thematics about authors and characters and readers as one aren't really gotten into until that point. To be honest, I just haven't had the energy for that.
The idea that the novel HSY wrote not being ORV is one that I've always had since first finishing ORV- I can't say where exactly it originated from. Now to be clear, it's an undisputed fact that HSY and kimcom *are* writing about the events they lived through, and I do 100% both understand how and why HSY writing ORV is the more widely accepted theory (them including lines from early orv scenes, the way that it loops right back around into ORV's very meta theming, the way it would match up with the ideas of loop of fate, etc.) I just don't agree with it.
One of the greatest takeaways for me on the author/character theming in ORV is that an author will never fully understand a character they write. HSY and YJH live this out in real time, alongside HSY learning the origins of WoS vs the YJH she has come to know as a companion. In writing WoS she straight up admits that she fudges her memories of him because it isn't as if she could know everything about him- she just wrote the story she thought KDJ needed to hear. (I swear I have a point I promise). HSY as intimate knowledge in how while writing someone, you both grow to understand them intimately while simultaneously remaining clueless. With the experiences she goes through, combined with the fact that KDJ's narration in ORV is so specifically *him* with all its unreliability and the glimpses we get into his past/bits of him on his own without kimcom around, I just don't think ORV is something HSY would have written. To me, she wouldn't have tried to write from KDJ's perspective, already having far too much entanglement in obscuring people and characters with KDJ (and possily from that one scenario where she's almost taken over by the character she's incarnated into, but again, i would need to reread).
Then we reach the point where she writes this novel for the KDJ's across worldlines- or rather, kimcom does. Which I think is another very relevant point, HSY is compiling and spinning this into a narrative, but *everyone* is contributing to it and writing bits and pieces. Now that I type it out, I think that might be part of what makes me so happy with the thought that instead of ORV, HSY is writing that same story but told from kimcom's perspective, not KDJ's like ORV is. The image of everyone coming together to give their own perspective and accounts while HSY compiles and sorts those varying viewpoints into a narrative with KDJ as the focus just warms my heart. In a post I made about the epilogues, I brought up that with this interpretation, you can see it as kimcom writing KDJ as they see him, so that he can understand just why they love him so dearly- which I think is especially poignant considering this novel's true purpose isn't even to bring KDJ back, its to help everyone else heal from the trauma of losing him.
So basically, I can't really give you much of a textual basis for my argument besides for the fact that ORV doesn't straight up say HSY is writing ORV, it's more just was my first takeaway that has forever stuck with me as my preferred interpretation.
(P.S. thank you for taking the time to read my fic, I also loved writing the bit where KDJ remembers that story.)
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orviposition · 11 months
Note
if you could, would you have wanted for 0!yjh to meet dkos even just for a short nice moment (besides the canon one at the very end)? even if he would forget about it all in the end? vahdhv jgdjk how would that even go in your head 🤣
though i know he didnt suffer the way 41!yjh did it'd be so funny to see his reaction since 41 had such a.. memorable one XD i love them dearly. i want them to lose their shit and be down bad for a man they never met lol 41 had not even had an inkling of kdj's existence before yet fainted at what. happiness?? lol. and imagining 0 who knows kdj and has been getting help from dkos seeing his face and talking to him makes me scream
oh. ohhh man yeah ive thought about it although very briefly cuz with the way the 0 storyline is structured leaves a lot of room for imagination but also makes it clear that kdj cannot descend. but let's just say it's not the case, how it would go. maybe they'd meet during constellation banquet. yjh would be invited as seoul's representative, although he has (maybe) no story to inherit and no regression restrains at the time.
in walks kdj. yjh notices. hes rather young and much inexperienced, not exactly hardened by regression depression and still has that light-in-his-eyes so to speak. for yjh I'd say the first meeting would be bordering cute-awkward angle. this is still the guy who was paying for their private midday tryst all the time btw (yes. even during 0th turn) surely there must've been a few dms outside the context of scenario revelations that the two of them shared
for kdj, on the other hand, he'd feel probably sad, maybe even silently cry a little. he misses his own yjh and his own companions too. while 49 was busy having existential dread, 51 was having the time of his life with 0 after all. he succeeded in making him happy regardless where that happiness lead him.
gonna be talking abt side story now
oh 41yjh is still so... the human personification of "the tip of the iceberg" we know nothing about that guy. kdj knows nothing about him. hsy has no idea who he is. kdjs narration about him is both at fault and not at fault at the same time. cuz the og 41st turn isnt even written in twsa to begin with. nor is the 40th turn written either. kdj saw the one short paragraph of 41yjh shutting off his heart during that turn and using his companions for his benefit and ran with it and you cant even blame him cuz thats the only thing tls123 wrote of that turn. hsy mentions at some point during the epilogue that she and yjh (1863rd turn) did talk about events of his past regressions so twsa is not all "hsy's imagination" and yjh also mentions to biyoo that he doesnt remember the 41st turn so what if it was 1863yjh the one who told hsy that exact paragraph?? thoughts like these keep me up at night
and contrary to kdj's narration and lhh's fears, 41 isnt actually a monstrous existence. he cares for people and helps them. he loves people and people love him in return just as much. he is confused this time around though I'll give him that much. there are strange people around him. people who know him and the scenarios. people who keep mentioning this guy named kim dokja so much even he gets curious about him. most importantly his "archenemy" of the previous round is *gasps* not evil anymore. he knows something is going on just is far away from finding out what exactly.
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