“I don’t need you.”
It sounded less grounded than the villain had wanted it to. It sounded like something someone had told them to say, and they were just repeating it with half hearted determination. They said it again, “I don’t need you.”
“No,” the hero agreed. They were grinning. “You don’t.”
The villain floundered. They, in all honesty, wanted a fight. To prove something, they supposed. That they really didn’t need the hero. That they weren’t in the wrong, here. “What?”
“I said,” the hero said slowly, and the beginnings of a grin curled at the edges of their mouth. “You don’t need me.”
“I don’t need you,” the villain repeated, and the hero nodded encouragingly. It just made the villain want to hit them.
The hero lounged against the doorframe, halfway in and halfway out of their apartment. And truly, that was the worst bit of it all—the hero wasn’t showing up outside the villain’s house, or driving by the villain’s work to see if they truly looked happier without them. But the villain was.
They wanted to scream, and kick, and throw plates onto the ground.
‘Leave me alone.’
But they couldn’t say that, because the hero had. They had cut contact and blocked numbers and ignored the villain’s car as it went by. Still, the villain felt haunted. As if they would never be clean of the hero, parts of their soul forever dirtied by it all.
The hero’s smile, and the way their voice sounded when they knew the villain would cave to their wishes.
They just wanted the hero to—
“Leave me alone.” It slipped out against their better judgement. From the way the hero’s grin widened, they knew it had been the worst thing they could have said.
“Darling, I have,” the hero said, their tone saccharine. Pitying. “You’re the one outside of my apartment.”
It felt like being burned alive, the frustration of it. The way it rose in their chest but had nowhere to go, leaving them shaking with nothing and everything trapped under their tongue.
“That’s not what I meant and you know that—“
“What, you miss me that bad? I thought you—“
“Shut up,” the villain snapped. The hero raised an eyebrow.
“It’s eating you alive, isn’t it?” They sounded pleased.
“It’s not,” the villain protested.
“I told you, you don’t need me.”
“I know,” the villain grit out.
“But you want me.”
Something in the villain’s brain stalled.
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t need me. You never have,” the hero said it like it was a fact. “You want me, though. Even as the sound of my name burns you, and the memory of me rots in your mouth, you’re going to want me.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” The hero’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You can go out to every bar in this city, kiss a hundred people who look like me and get just drunk enough to forget you’re not mine anymore—but you’re never going to stop missing me.”
The hero knew, of course they did, how hard the villain had tried to forget it entirely. The disaster they had become trying to be clean again.
“No matter how many shots you take to block out the memory of me, you’ll always be mine.”
“You’re insane,” the villain finally managed. The hero simply tipped their head to the side in acknowledgement. “That’s not-what’s wrong with you—“
“You’re the one who misses me.”
It stung, deep in the villain’s stomach. It took them too long to remember how to breathe—too long after that to think of what to say.
“If I’m lucky, I won’t ever have to see you again,” their voice quivered, slightly. “But knowing us, the next time we meet it will be in hell.”
The hero laughed and closed the door in their face.
The villain blocked them. Avoided the side of town the worked in. Moved three cities over.
It didn’t matter.
The villain could still feel the hero under their skin.
Later, whenever someone would ask, “Have you ever been haunted?”
The villain would think back to the hero.
And say, “Yes.”
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You are amazing! Amazing! And I'm a greedy person, so I propose: Older! Time traveler! Baek Cheon and Tang Bo compete for Cheong Myeong's affection. CM is oblivious and CMun is in hell reserved for protective older brothers. Those perverted bastards! How dare they lust after his precious, naive and innocent sajae?! He'll break their heads!
You're so sweet to me 🥺🫶 thank you so much!!!!
also I ADORE TIME TRAVEL AUs sm you have no idea how giddy I got when I saw this ask WAHAHAHA
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"Oh? He's pretty handsome..."
Tang Bo almost spills the alcohol he was pouring into his cup. His eyes immediately snap towards Chung Myung's face as he slowly lowers the bottle back on the table.
This guy slouched in front of him wasn't someone who gave compliments that easily. It took months of nudging and stubborn insistence for Chung Myung to finally admit that Tang Bo was 'passable-looking, sure, whatever'—a compliment that had to be drawn out tooth and nail but one that Tang Bo won through hard work and effort.
So, surely, he must have misheard Chung Myung's muttering.
"Did you say something, hyung-nim?" Tang Bo asks, smile twitching stiffly at the way Chung Myung's gaze remained locked on something—someone—behind Tang Bo as he took a long sip from his own cup.
"That man behind you," Chung Myung replies, pointing at the subject of their conversation with his mouth non-too-discretely. "He looks like a traveling prince or something."
Tang Bo doesn't know what minute expression passed through his face, but Chung Myung catches it well enough and raises a questioning eyebrow at him.
"I'm serious." Chung Myung insists, not realizing that Tang Bo is irritated for a completely different reason. "He really does look like some well-off to-do guy."
Tang Bo huffs and turns around without any subtlety whatsoever, determined to see what 'this prince guy' looked like to have managed to snag his hyung's attention so easily.
Tang Bo lets out an indignant noise. Okay, he'll admit it. The guy was abnormally handsome. He had well-defined androgynous facial features and an equally well-defined body, Tang Bo thinks, as his gaze locks onto the man's thick and muscled arms.
There might have been merit in Chung Myung's comment about this guy probably being a prince of sorts. If he was, Tang Bo would hedge a guess that he was a runaway one.
The man wore faded, plain white robes without any discernable insignia marking him from a sect or family. He had a similarly white headband strapped across his forehead with dark bangs framing an unblemished face.
If he was trying to disguise himself or hide his identity, he was doing a terrible job at it. Despite the simplicity of his outfit, his presence alone (and face) demanded attention.
"Told you." Chung Myung cheekily says, laughing at Tang Bo's disgruntled expression.
Even Tang Bo could admit that the man looks like he stepped out of one of the many heroic epics that common folk often passed around through books and verbal tales. How unfair.
Grumbling lightly, Tang Bo turns back to their table and throws back his cup of alcohol. "Bet he's just some rich runaway brat."
"Eh? Probably. But—ah, huh?"
A shadow falls over Tang Bo and he watches as Chung Myung's surprised face ends up trained above Tang Bo's head.
"Hello." The man greets them with his deep voice.
Ugh, Tang Bo grimaces as he pulls back his chair away from the man's shadow. Even his voice sounded handsome if that were even possible.
But Tang Bo was the gentleman between him and his hyung, so he replies, faking politeness, "Can we help you? My companion and I are in the middle of a meal together, you see."
Tang Bo tenses, immediately on guard when he sees the man's eyes sharpen as it turns towards him, clearly recognizing the dismissive tone Tang Bo used.
Other than an indecipherable flash in his eyes, the man's face (which felt more punch-able by the second, if you asked Tang Bo) remained unchanged.
The disruptor kept his gentle smile and Tang Bo was certain that he chose to stand where he did because of the way the lightbulb illuminated his face from above.
"It's alright, I can wait."
If Tang Bo had any less self-control, he would have already grabbed the man by the lapels of his faded robes and tossed him out of the establishment himself.
Who the hell was this man to have the audacity to look at his Chung Myung with such a warm gaze as he said that?
"Ha. Ha." Tang Bo grits out, a vein in his jaw ticking.
He doesn't care if this man looks like the textbook and fairytale version of a heroic warrior. His shamelessness should cancel out that stupid-looking face of his...!
Tang Bo feels a part of his soul leave at the unfairness of it all when Chung Myung shifts in his seat in involuntary self-consciousness.
Normal people wouldn't have noticed that—hell, not even Chung Myung himself probably realized!—but Tang Bo knew his hyung. They've spent too much time together to not not know each other's body language.
So why?
Why the hell did Tang Bo just spot a smirk on the man's face, huh?!?!
Chung Myung's eyes waver momentarily for reasons Tang Bo couldn't pick out, but Chung Myung hesitantly (why, hyung?!) opens his mouth and asks, "Have we...met before?"
Tang Bo's eyes nearly bulge out of his skull at the flirtatious-sounding sentence.
He knows Chung Myung doesn't realize it, but his hyung was personally handing over a signed warrant to this man, allowing him permission to take as many shameless liberties as he wanted.
In times like this, Tang Bo wishes his hyung wasn't as socially oblivious as he was.
He knows it's a futile hope to wish that the man missed the opening. But he seemed to recognize that Chung Myung was asking the question with pure face value.
Nonetheless, Tang Bo wishes he hadn't suggested this very detour for some alcohol because then they wouldn't have encountered this tall man in front of them.
The stupid, headband-wearing man hums as he fiddles lightly with the pink tassel on the hilt of his sheathed sword.
His gaze goes a bit distant as if recalling a far-off memory, and when he blinks back to reality, he lets out a deep, vibrating chuckle and locks eyes with Chung Myung.
"You were unforgettable."
Tang Bo's lips tremble. Why did it sound as if this man was insinuating something? His words felt like a romantic confession as well as a pointed barb directed at Tang Bo.
Chung Myung coughs lightly at the odd compliment thrown at him and throws back in one go the remaining alcohol in their shared bottle. He chuckles awkwardly before motioning at the man to sit down on the other side of the table.
Tang Bo doesn't think Chung Myung realizes it, but a light pink flush is spread over his cheeks.
And Tang Bo, unconsciously crushing the cup of alcohol in his hand, knew that it wasn't because of the alcohol.
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