#spence.docx

[tryagainmv]

1-800-loveline (finale)

➷ you never imagined that finding a phone number in a school library book could lead to anything. you were oh-so-wrong.

playlist: 1-800-loveline

prev ❧

your head snaps up from the ground, and everything shocks itself into view for you, despite the cloud cover and the night rapidly falling on you. renjun’s inquisitive face, jaemin’s tilted head, donghyuck leaning forward and mark with his eyebrows raised. everything was clear.

“yeah. let’s do that.” you said, voice shaky but sure.

“we can check the closest places to here, he probably left walking,” jaemin said, giving you a soft smile and gesturing for you guys to follow. “he’s not very good when it comes to impulse control these days. besides, i know where he goes when he’s sad.”

“where?” renjun asks, his voice peaking over the sound of the traffic that passed by you as you walked along the cracked sidewalk.

all of a sudden, it clicks for you. your mind had raced, every text message, every late night between you and loveline passing in front of your eyes before you realized exactly where the boy that you had fallen in love with had gone, had run in his state of terror and confusion and hurt.

“i know,” you said, voice crackling. “it’s dream cafe, isn’t it?”

jaemin stopped, turning around and blinking rapidly at you.

“how’d you know?” he questioned, eyes wide.

“i — i was the one who texted the loveline,” you whispered, and everyone’s shoulders dropped in unison, a collective sigh hushing over the group.

“makes sense,” jaemin mumbles.

“honey, he’s so fucking in love with you if he told you that,” donghyuck stated, laughing as he threw an arm around your shoulder. “he never tells anyone about dream cafe.”

“why not?” you said as you started moving again.

“dream cafe is his mom’s café. he only goes there when he’s sad or stressed. i didn’t even know about it until a few days ago, after the whole roofie incident,” renjun explained, and you nodded in acknowledgement. “also, you’re loveline?”

you nod, and renjun smiles at you before giving you a small nudge.

“you make him really happy, you know. i’ve never seen him smile more than when he would talk with you,” he responded simply. “really happy.”

as the words hung in the air, you grappled for a response before electing to say nothing. happy. you made him happy. you had taken his happiness, you had ripped it in two and you had crushed it beneath the heel of your boot when you had left. and then you had run to lucas, and you had taken his happiness and bruised it, shoved it, thrown it out the door behind him when he had taken off. you slowed down your pace, and you felt your eyes well up as the thoughts consumed your head.

you were wrong. he had been wrong before, but you were always the one who was wrong. and he didn’t deserve that. he didn’t deserve someone who was constantly hurting him, constantly jumping the gun, constantly one foot farther ahead than she needs to be, constantly taking a torch to the brush ahead of her that she was walking into, except it wasn’t just leaves and twigs. it was a heart, it was a person, it was love and it was real and you burned it all.

“i can’t,” you blurted out, digging your heels into the ground at the stop light.

“you can’t what?” mark asked, eyes big and concerned.

“i can’t talk to jeno, i can’t. i don’t want to hurt him again,” you say, inhaling feebly through your nose before peering down the street to your right.

you saw the sign for dream cafe, a cloud with soft pink lettering above the broad storefront window, and through the cleaned glass you saw him. head in his hands, fingers running loosely through his hair as a coffee sat in front of him. he looked peaceful. he looked like he was better off alone. he looked like he didn’t need you.

“you have to. you owe him that,” jaemin murmured, a hand coming out to tug his hoodie off. “put this on over your shirt.”

“why? o — oh,” you responded, immediately understanding why as you blushed from your neck up. you took the sweatshirt and pulled it on, the soft smell of soap and vanilla flooding your senses. “you smell good.”

“you can return it to me washed,” jaemin joked, and winked at you before pointing you down towards the cafe. “please talk to him. it doesn’t need to be for long. but you owe that to him.”

“does he even want to see me?” you ask.

“you won’t know until you go,” mark pipes up, and he nudges your shoulder with a soft touch. “you should go.”

you take a deep breath and look back to where you see him through the window. he hasn’t moved, except one hand has come down to stir his coffee. he sits up straight and takes a sip, his head dropping along with the glass when he sets it down.

that’s when you start walking. you find your footing, crossing the road when the light finally turns and turning right onto the sidewalk that lead to the cafe. one step after the other, you don’t take your eyes off of the cracks on the sidewalk, and your mind slips long enough for you to walk past the entrance to dream cafe. when you look up, turning to your side, your eyes meet with jeno and his jaw drops. you see his hand that was loosely draped over the table tense up, his eyebrows furrowing as he took in your messy appearance.

you give him a small, awkward wave and walk back to the entrance, pushing open the door and shuffling through. he was standing now, his chair pushed to the side as he looked at you with wide eyes. his hands ventured from his collar to the back of his neck to his pockets to his hoodie pocket, eventually resting there. you could still see them fiddle through the thick fabric.

“hi.” you give him a small smile, lips pressed together, and he doesn’t move.

you were scared that if you opened them, too much would fall out.

“what are you doing here?” jeno asked. “how did you find me?”

“back when you were loveline, not that you still aren’t, but uh — you told me back then,” you murmured.

he nods and still doesn’t move. you take a step forward. he still doesn’t move.

“can we — can we talk?” you ask, running a hand through your messy hair. “can i sit down?”

“yeah, yeah. sure.”

you nod at him and walk up to his table, pulling the chair out from where it was tucked in. the noise echoes through the almost empty café, and you take a seat in the wooden chair facing him. he’s still standing, turned around now, eyes painting a picture of disbelief on his features.

“you can sit down,” you say quietly, rolling your bottom lip in between your top lip and bottom teeth.

“yeah, uh — sorry,” he responds hastily, sitting down and almost collapsing off of the chair before balancing himself.

he takes a hand and moves his coffee back to his side of the table, the almost full mug sloshing over and spilling on his saucer.

“are you okay?” you ask, voice timid.

he lets out a laugh, looking up before running a hand through his hair.

“no, not really,” he says, lips pressed together in a frown. “why would i be okay? the girl i love thought i was using her for a quick laugh, slept with someone i don’t even know who almost punched me out, who told me that you were using me, and now you’re here and i don’t know what to say to you. so no, i’m not really okay right now.”

you nod and you feel tears springing to your eyes, threatening to spill over. as if that was new.

“that was stupid of me to ask, i’m sorry.” you sniff back the threat of waterworks and give him a self-deprecating smile. “do you want me to just leave?”

he sighed, a long, drawn out release of air before he looked you dead in the eyes.

“yeah, i do. i do want you to leave, i do want you to go,” he answers, and you nod reluctantly.

you don’t know what you expected. that he’d open his arms and you’d fall in? that one touch of his hand against yours and everything would go back to when it was you and him, on the loveline, and everything was a secret? that he’d forgive you for what you did? forgive you for the hole in the wall, forgive you for using him, forgive you for every single thing you had done to hurt him?

if you were him, you wouldn’t forgive yourself either. you shouldn’t. he shouldn’t.

so you stand up, the chair screeching against the wooden floor and you shove your hands in the pocket, looking out the window to see the clouds that were hanging above the sky turn to rain.

“i’ll leave then,” you say. and you lead yourself out of the cafe, passing by jeno’s chair, one step, two step, before you feel a hand on your wrist and you’re spinning around, looking into his eyes that were darkened by the grey light outside and the shadow of his hair.

“what do i mean to you?” he asks, his breath ghosting over your nose.

“what?” you respond.

“what do i mean to you?” jeno repeats.

“do you want the truth or do you want what you’re expecting to hear from me?” you respond, free hand coming up and fiddling with the string on jaemin’s hoodie.

“i want the truth. that’s all i’ve ever wanted from you. i wanted the truth about why you hated me, in the beginning. the truth about if you really loved me, when i was loveline. the truth about my identity and whether it even mattered. the truth about you and me, what you thought when i told you.” jeno rambles. “the truth about who he was, why he was about to hit me, why you didn’t say anything. the truth about how you feel right now. i want the truth, y/n. what’s the truth?”

“from the beginning?” you warble.

“from the beginning.”

“i hated you because you came off like you didn’t care. you were always on your phone, always smiling, joking around with friends, and i hated that. when you were just loveline to me, i loved you. i still love you. i won’t stop loving you, because nothing made me happier than 1-800-loveline. and i know this is selfish, but i wanted to know. if i knew, i could love you, i could hold you, i could feel like i didn’t have to hide you.

“when we stopped hating each other, i was scared. i was scared that i would lose that, and i wasn’t myself around you because i was walking on eggshells. i thought this was almost a huge elaborate scheme, that you had never been roofied, that you had been planning this all along with your friends to ruin me and that, wow, i had been stupid.

“when you told me you were loveline, everything i had suspected had seemed to fit. i was so devastated because, yeah, i had fallen in love. of course i did. loveline was perfect. but i didn’t fall in love because of that. i fell in love because of the small things i learned, that you don’t like black coffee, that you’re allergic to cats but you still have three rescues, that you dance but you don’t tell anyone because you’re embarrassed. that’s what i fell in love with, not the idea of a perfect boy. someone perfect to me.

“that guy was wong yukhei. he’s a freshman at konkuk and he used to be one of my best friends. the truth about him is that he confessed he loved me, and i turned him down for the hope of loveline. he got mad, and when everything collapsed, he was the first person i thought of. i wanted to feel like i was loved. but he didn’t make me feel like anything more than a toy. i was scared, jeno. that’s why i didn’t say anything. i was scared you’d hate me, i was scared yukhei would hurt me or expose me, because he has photos of me, jeno.

“how i feel right now? i’m still scared. i’m scared you hate me, i’m scared i was too stupid and i fucked everything up, and i’m so scared that you’re going to tell me to leave again. i’m scared that i ruined something, someone i fell in love with. and i’m scared that i’ll never talk to you again because i love you, i love you, i love you lee jeno and even though i make stupid decisions, i’m absolutely terrified it’s too far gone, that we’re too far gone.

“and now my heart hurts, and i’m confused, and i’m scared that i’m going to make bad decisions and i’m never going to heal if i don’t take any time. i don’t know who to be, who i’m going to be, what’s going to happen. there’s so much fog in my head, but the only thing on my mind right now is you, and i don’t want us to be too far gone. we can’t be too far gone. please don’t let us be too far gone.”

you let out a breath and he let go of your hand, your arm swinging limply at your side. you dropped your head into your palm, sniffing back a few tears and getting ready to hear him tell you to leave. to go, to walk outside in the rain until you find your way home.

but instead, you felt him pull you into his arms, and he hugged you, embraced you, held you to his chest as your arms stayed where they were and his tightened around your middle. you felt his shaky breaths move your hair against your face, his nose scrunch up as he inhaled softly, and you felt him whisper five words against the shell of your ear.

“we’re not too far gone.”

and you stood there like that, his arms around you, for the rain to pick up and the thunder to start, lightning and the clap of the sky echoing among the soft cafe music as you cried in his arms.

“god, i missed you so much,” jeno mumbled against the side of your head. “i missed you. you know how they say that in french? tu me marques. you are missing from me.”

eventually, you draw yourselves back, facing each other with tear tracks and blurry eyes.

“what does this mean?” you asked timidly, reaching out to hold his hand that hung awkwardly at his side.

“it means i forgive you, baby girl,” he says, his eyes smiling. “it means that we’re not too far gone, that we can still fix this, that we can still—“

“can i ask you for something?”

“sure,” he responds, nodding.

“can i have some time?” you whisper.

it feels like the motion around you stops. the rain, his hands fidgeting against yours, his smile, the glistening in his eyes.

it stops.

“time for what?”

“time to myself, time to… move on from what happened today. time for me to figure out when i’m ready. just… time.”

“is it me? did i do something wrong?” jeno asks, eyes widening and his hands tightening on yours.

“it’s not you, it’s not you, i promise. you have me, one hundred percent. i just need time to sort out my thoughts. but i’ll be back, i promise. i need to slow down for a minute.”

he nods and you see him frown.

“i’m sorry, jeno,” you say. “i’m so, so, sorry. you deserve more than me abandoning you twice, god, i’m so disgusting. blame me for it.”

“i — i don’t blame you. i think some time would be good, yeah, god, i’m —“

you pull him into your arms, and you feel him slide his arms around you too, and you can’t imagine how you two looked.

two people, illuminated by the soft café light, the clouds pouring out their souls just a pane of glass away, puddles on the road and puddles in your eyes. a boy with black hair and a heart too big for his chest and a girl with bruises on her body and a heart in need of a bandage. his arms tight around your waist, your arms around his torso. two teenagers whispering dulcet words into each other’s ears, alone in a cafe that had emptied so fast as the night had fallen.

love that would take time.

there was a difference between time and space. time was you, time was minutes and hours and days and weeks, and you could count it and watch it fade away and heal your heart until everything was better. space was intangible, it was the distance between people and the distance between two hearts. you refused to take the the space anymore. the space between you, the distance between you two already, you had to close it. in minutes, in hours, in days, in weeks, you could close the distance between your hearts, and you’d be ready. you would be ready to love, but now you weren’t.

love that would take time.

“i’m okay,” he mumbles.

“jeno?” you whisper, head against his chest.

“yeah, baby girl?”

“i promise to love you. i promise that i’ll be back.”

“as long as you’re here, no situation could ever be bad. we’ll be alright in the end. it’s just time. we’ll be alright.”

“yeah, we will.”

and you would.

[tryagainmv]

black and blue (part 1 of 10) (reupload)

➷ everywhere a soulmate touches leaves flowers, and everywhere someone else you’ve fallen in love with touches leaves bruises. you’re happy to suffer. 

❧ next 

ignore timestamps!

[tryagainmv]

masterlist

genre

☼ - fluff

☁ - angst 

☾ - smut

type

✆ - sns au

☉ - bulleted fic

✎ - written fic

status

☑ - complete

✰ - ongoing

♲ - hiatus/paused

wong yukhei

cherry ↬ ☁ ☾ ✎ ♲ 

➷ “a touch from your real love / is like heaven takin’ the place of evil / and lettin’ it burn off from the rush, yeah yeah (fuck!)”

huang renjun

dès vu ↬ ☁ ✎ ☑

➷ the stronger the distance, the weaker the volume.

na jaemin

spark up! ↬ ☼ ☁ ✆ ✎ ☑

➷ y/n is jaemin’s childhood friend, but when she moves back to her hometown and finds him with a group of boys called the dreamies, all kinds of different types of sparks fly.

ad nauseam ↬ ☁ ✎ ☑

➷ you had never known the meaning of lovesickness until you had crossed paths with na jaemin. 

new york ↬ ☁ ✎ ☑

➷ falling in love means you have to be willing to fall. for him? you’d fall one million times over.

black and blue ↬ ☼ ☁ ✆ ✎ ☑

➷ everywhere a soulmate touches leaves flowers, and everywhere someone else you’ve fallen in love with touches leaves bruises. you’re happy to suffer.

drive ↬ ☼ ☁ ✆ ✎ ♲

➷ after the top streetracer in town breaks for a new scene, you’re left in his dust, trying to make a new fortune. that’s when you meet up and coming streetracer na jaemin.

lee jeno

10 step love ↬ ☼ ✆ ☑

➷ or, alternatively, lee jeno’s (and huang renjun’s) 10 step foolproof program to getting the girl

1-800-loveline ↬ ☼ ☁ ✆ ✎ ☑

➷ you never imagined that finding a phone number in a school library book could lead to anything. you were oh-so-wrong. 

black and blue ↬ ☼ ☁ ✆ ✎ ☑

➷ everywhere a soulmate touches leaves flowers, and everywhere someone else you’ve fallen in love with touches leaves bruises. you’re happy to suffer.

zhong chenle

laser tag ↬ ☼☉☑

➷ you and chenle are ultimate laser tag rivals, until it all boils down to one game to determine who’s the best. that’s when things change.

[tryagainmv]

black and blue (finale)

➷ everywhere a soulmate touches leaves flowers, and everywhere someone else you’ve fallen in love with touches leaves bruises. you’re happy to suffer.

prev ❧

“are you okay?” his deep voice called out, softly against your ear as you pressed your body to his.

“i don’t know… thanks for being here for me. god, i love you so much, jeno.”

you pulled away, you opened your blurry eyes to see a boy you had thought was jeno in your arms. you saw him, eyes widened, mouth opened in shock as you pulled back. both of your arms and hands, every piece of skin you could see was covered in giant blooms of flowers you recognized, but you watched the blooms change slowly — from tulip to aloe. you saw the blossoms morph into chutes, the white turn to orange and green, and you watched it shift so quickly. everything felt like a blur, and you couldn’t rip your eyes away from his.

“jeno?” jaemin murmured, voice cracking.

“jaemin, i’m —“

“jeno?” jaemin repeated, his voice louder, clogged with emotion. “you still love him.”

“i—“

“you still love him even though the bruises are fading. even though he has a soulmate. even though he lied, he knew, he knew for so long, and you still love him. even when he blamed you,” jaemin rambled, “you still love him.

his aloe-painted hand came up to brush the hair from his forehead, and he inhaled shakily, taking a few steps back.

“is it bad that i had hope?” he starts, laughing dryly. “that you’d come to your senses and realize that it’s our destiny?”

you open your mouth, but nothing comes out. nothing but air. nothing but the wilting petals that floated out onto the breeze. nothing.

“is it bad that i thought when you hugged me, you wanted me? that you were starting to fall for me too? you’ve treated me like the dirt under your shoe, a flower you think is a weed, and you stepped on me. and i loved it. i loved every minute of it, because i thought in the end that we’d end up together. but you love him. is it fate? is it fate for you to love him?”

he takes a step, turning himself backwards, dragging his hands down his face before turning to look back at you.

“you can either respond to me, or go chase him. because if you don’t make this choice, if you don’t choose destiny or fate or whatever the hell the universe has given us, you’ll miss your window. so choose.”

you looked up at him, at the boy with the flowers and the boy who you crushed, the boy who had fallen for you despite everything. you looked up at him, the boy with a heart made of petals and eyes made of water, his words the soil to grow in. you looked up at the boy who the universe had conspired to make sure you end up with, in this lifetime, the last lifetime and the next.

and you turned around, a tear rolling down your face, and you walked away.

you walked away, your shoes crunching on the gravel as you passed out of the shadow of the bleachers.

you walked away, your eyes fixing onto the back of jeno’s head, seeing him wave a small goodbye to renjun, seeing him run his hand down his face, seeing him turn around.

seeing him see you.

your feet felt like cinderblocks as you walked closer, as you saw his eyes get bigger, as yours started to fuzz. you started to walk faster, you started to feel like your feet were molded into the ground, you started to feel his pull like gravity.

he dropped his backpack, and you fell into his arms, feeling the black and blue rise to the top of your skin, every single touch making you hurt, making you wince, but you loved it.

you loved lee jeno.

it was your fate to love lee jeno, at least for now.

you knew it would be this way. it was unavoidable. you knew your heart wanted him, would drift to him, would be pulled endlessly until you collided like asteroids and broke apart into fragments. you knew. you knew. you knew.

you knew it would end this way.

the cosmos had designed it.

you knew it was your fate to fall in love with lee jeno.

and you were okay with that.

“i love you,” you mumbled against his chest. “i love you, i love you, i love you.”

he raised a hand, tilting your head up to press a kiss to your lips, and you felt the pink transform to purple. he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you so impossibly close, so tight to him, and you felt like you would burst.

“why’d you come back?” he mumbled against your lips, drawing back.

“i love you,” you repeated, pressing a peck to his blackened lips.

“i love you.” peck.

“i love you.” peck.

“i love you.”

peck.

“but it’s not — it’s not meant to be, we’re not soulmates, we’re not —“

“bruises bloom too,” you mumble, lacing your hands behind his neck, pulling him down to crash against your lips.

“i’m sorry,” he whispers between collisions. “i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry.”

“you were right,” you say.

“i was a hypocrite,” he responds, his nose brushing against yours. “i was so mad.”

“you were right,” you repeat, running a hand through the short locks at the back of his head. “i shouldn’t have lied, i shouldn’t have kept it from you. we need to be honest, we’re already fighting destiny. we can’t fight each other, too.”

“but i hurt you,” jeno says, his breath fanning softly against your lips.

“love hurts, jeno. you’ve hurt me since the beginning, and you’re hurting me right now. but it’s okay,” you say. “it’s all okay.”

“we have soulmates. jaemin, renjun, they’re out there. they’re destined for us. how can we — how can i — how can you — after i said all that?“

“we have each other for now. it’s us for now. i’m not letting you go, jeno. it’s our fate to love each other. it’s us. right now, it’s us, it will always have been us, no matter what happens. because i loved you, and a flower can’t tell me who to love. because bruises bloom too.”

you sniff, laughing against his smile. he runs his hands up and down your sides, almost as if he can’t believe you’re here. you feel the bruises form under his fingertips, as he traced hearts and initials up and down.

you don’t care.

“doesn’t it bother you that all i can do is hurt you? all that i will ever do will be hurt you?” jeno asks, voice trembling.

you don’t care that he bruises you. that he’s not the one who makes you bloom 1000 shades of colours, 1000 different petals. that he’s not the one who the universe has decided on for you, has given you to love. because love wasn’t a choice, and you had not chosen to love lee jeno. the universe had. he was part of your fate, and he was worth it. lee jeno was worth every bruise, every splotch of black and blue. because love was truly not a choice. because you loved lee jeno.

“jeno, you’re worth it. i’d love to be black and blue. but just for you. only for you.”

and you would be.

“fuck fate,” jeno laughed out, pressing his lips to yours.

“fuck fate is right.”

but for now, fate is what you’d follow.

you’d let fate bruise you black and blue.

just for now.

because bruises bloom too.

[tryagainmv]

black and blue (part 2 of 10) 

➷ everywhere a soulmate touches leaves flowers, and everywhere someone else you’ve fallen in love with touches leaves bruises. you’re happy to suffer.

prev ❧ next 

ignore timestamps!

[tryagainmv]

black and blue (part 7 of 10) 

➷ everywhere a soulmate touches leaves flowers, and everywhere someone else you’ve fallen in love with touches leaves bruises. you’re happy to suffer.

prev ❧ next

ignore timestamps!

[tryagainmv]

drive (part 1 of 10)

➷ after the top streetracer in town breaks for a new scene, you’re left in his dust, trying to make a new fortune. that’s when you meet up and coming streetracer na jaemin.

❧ next 

ignore timestamps!

[tryagainmv]

1-800-loveline (part 1 of 15) 

➷ you never imagined that finding a phone number in a school library book could lead to anything. you were oh-so-wrong.

❧ next 

ignore timestamps!

[tryagainmv]

drive (part 9 of 10)

➷ after the top streetracer in town breaks for a new scene, you’re left in his dust, trying to make a new fortune. that’s when you meet up and coming streetracer na jaemin.

masterlist

prev ❧ next

“jaemin, why are we here?” you said as he pulled up into the parking lot of what seemed to be an abandoned gas station on the side of the hallway.

the drive had been completely silent. you didn’t dare look towards him, scared that maybe everything would come crumbling down around you when you looked at yet another person you’ve hurt.

he doesn’t even respond to you, turning the key in the ignition and sliding it into his jacket pocket. he opens the door and exits, his shoes crunching on the loose gravel of the empty lot.

you get out too, the door of his car shutting softly behind you. you don’t move from your side of the car, instead watching jaemin stand with his back to you over the roof of the car.

“jaemin,” you repeat.

he turns his head to look at you, and in that moment, with the light from the broken streetlamps, you can catch the paths of tears that had traced his face long enough ago to dry up.

you feel your heart crunch like the gravel below you, and you sigh quietly as he stares back at you.

he says something inaudibly, and you walk around to the driver side.

“what did you say?” you implore, eyes wide.

he looks at you again, void.

“what did you say, jaemin? please,” you plead.

“i asked you if you knew what you were doing,” he says quietly, his voice quiet and low in the still night air.

you take a step forward, and he takes a step backwards.

“did you play me?” he whispers, his voice finally cracking. “when you kissed me, was it because you needed me to stick around? for your money after you rigged the bets?”

“you know,” you say, and you realize how hurt he must be.

he knows that you weren’t confident in him, that you were willing to sink down to crime in order to make a profit. he thought you were doing it for yourself.

he was wrong, you decided. in that moment, you decided he was wrong, because you would never have done the same thing for lee jeno.

you truly cared for na jaemin.

he takes a deep breath looking at you, and turns around again, head hanging down.

“or was it because you actually wanted me?”

the words lingered in the air, and you wanted nothing more than to say yes, you wanted him, but the words wouldn’t come out.

maybe it was because the last time you tried to save yourself from the blame, from the weight of everything falling apart, you ended up buried alive.

“did you want me, y/n? or did you want the money?” he asks, turning around suddenly.

he walks towards you, and you take enough steps back to slam against the side of the car, but he doesn’t stop. he doesn’t stop until he’s pressed up against you, hands caging you in, eyes looking down at you with the pools of tears sparkling at the bottom.

“me? money?” he asks, and you stare up at him.

“you,” you say quietly, your throat cracking. “you.”

“then why would you rig the bets?” he asks, leaning closer.

“because i didn’t want to see you leave.” you look down at your feet, and feel the unmistakable pain of being so brutally honest rip your heart open.

“because i made you money?” jaemin asks.

that’s when you snap, everything pulled so tight to the point where it rips apart at the centre.

you felt like you had money whore tattooed on your forehead. you felt like the only side anyone ever expected of you was the business, the greed, the hands hungry for dollar bills.

you knew it was because of lee jeno, the rumours he spread. you knew it was because you didn’t play around, you were there to win, you were there to do a job, and you were so sick of it staining you. you were so sick.

“because i like you, fucker!” you scream out, your hands balling in his shirt only to shove him backwards. “because i like you! because i hate seeing you upset, because i hate seeing you want to quit, because i hate not being able to fix this even though i was the one who brought you here. because i fucking like you, na jaemin, and i’m not some money slut.”

you run a hand through your hair and inhale sharply, feeling tears prick at your eyes.

“you like me?” jaemin murmurs, and you roll your eyes.

“you like me.” he repeats, and this time, you turn your back on him, walking back to the passenger side of the car and opening the door.

you drop down onto the seat and drop your head into your hands, sniffing quickly before staring up at the roof, at the colours your hands had left dancing on your eyelids.

you liked him.

you ignored the sound of the drivers side door opening, of jaemin sliding into his seat with the plastic of his windbreaker rubbing against the leather seat. you ignored his presence, of his hand turning the key in the ignition.

you couldn’t ignore when his hand came up to grab your chin, turning your head and connecting his lips with yours point-blank. you didn’t ignore his other arm coming up to cradle the back of your head like you would disappear if he didn’t. you weren’t going to ignore the feeling of his lips moving against yours, pushing your lips open, his tongue moving against yours, of you clambering your way across the median to kiss him closer, to be closer.

you pull back to breathe, and you reconnect with a fire, something uninhibited, something that didn’t feel monetary or physical or materialistic. something that felt real and raw and honest, honest, honest.

his hands wandered down from the back of your head to your waist, wrapping around you. he pulled away slowly, breathing deeply in his chest, and leaned his head against the seat.

“you like me,” he repeated, and you choked out a laugh.

“you sound like a broken record, na jaemin.” you give him a smirk and climb back over the console, plopping down less than gracefully onto your seat and sliding the seatbelt over you.

“you know, there’s a race tonight,” he says, turning to look at you.

“what’s your plan?” you ask.

“text johnny. ask him to switch the bets back to normal and give me the regular opponent,” he asks,  one hand on the wheel and the other on the gearshift. “we’re gonna take a drive, but on my terms.”

you exhale shakily and mumble a quick yes, unlocking your phone that was almost dead.

“and y/n?” jaemin says, voice more somber.

“yeah?” you ask while typing the text to johnny.

“i know you’re not lying to me,” he affirms.

you stop typing and look up at him, a smile on his face.

“how?” you question.

“because if you were lying, you wouldn’t have had to think about it. i know you more than you think i do. you lie easier than you tell the truth,” he deadpans.

something inside of you switches off, the something that had put the smile on your face when you had looked up at him from your phone. something inside of you turns on the panic alarm, the notice that your walls had been broken, the alert that maybe something was really just off about you.

“let’s just drive.” you say.

[tryagainmv]

1-800-loveline (part 12 of 15) 

➷ you never imagined that finding a phone number in a school library book could lead to anything. you were oh-so-wrong. 

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[tryagainmv]

drive (finale) 

➷ after the top streetracer in town breaks for a new scene, you’re left in his dust, trying to make a new fortune. that’s when you meet up and coming streetracer na jaemin. 

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[tryagainmv]

drive (part 8 of 10)

➷ after the top streetracer in town breaks for a new scene, you’re left in his dust, trying to make a new fortune. that’s when you meet up and coming streetracer na jaemin. 

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ignore timestamps!

[tryagainmv]

drive (part 4 of 10)

➷ after the top streetracer in town breaks for a new scene, you’re left in his dust, trying to make a new fortune. that’s when you meet up and coming streetracer na jaemin.

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[tryagainmv]

1-800-loveline (part 8 of 15) 

➷ you never imagined that finding a phone number in a school library book could lead to anything. you were oh-so-wrong. 

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[tryagainmv]

1-800-loveline (part 2 of 15) 

➷ you never imagined that finding a phone number in a school library book could lead to anything. you were oh-so-wrong. 

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ignore timestamps!

[tryagainmv]

drive (part 2 of 10) 

➷ after the top streetracer in town breaks for a new scene, you’re left in his dust, trying to make a new fortune. that’s when you meet up and coming streetracer na jaemin.

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ignore timestamps!