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sunboki · 2 months

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⎯ SUMMER SOLACE. a StrayKids fiction

Stray Kids x implied! fem. reader (no poly)

TROPE. friends to lovers (not really lovers, more just strangers to friends), summerschool! au, reader is in student council as class prez

WORD COUNT. 12.6k words

PLAYLIST.

WARNINGS. cursing, very troubled childhoods, han lacks parental figures, minho’s mother passed, bullies, evidence of physical violence, mentions of depression & anxiety, just overall very angsty themes, healing, sadness, comfort comfort comfort — ALL OF THE ISSUES/TROUBLES OF CHARACTERS ARE 100% FICTION

AUG'S NOTES. i hope whatever you’re going through works out in the end, and that reading this very indulgent fic can help heal a part of you and get you through summertime sadness — inspiration for the fic came from this!

SYNOPSIS. It was never your intention to be the one in charge of a summer school class—a troubled summer school class, but here you were. Eight boys in this classroom, all with their individual stories and silenced opinions. And somehow, you can’t find it in yourself to give up on them.

or alternatively :

Eight kids, one purpose. Get them to be okay with one another — with themselves — by the end of the summer.

Eight kids, one purpose.

Get them to be okay with one another.

Although, you didn’t realize that yet. That your Class President position would throw you right into such a mess (or what you referred to it as the first time you got word).

We all have the things we hate. The things we say we “heavily dislike”. But in reality, we hate it. It incessantly grates our nerves, has our patience forming into a ticking pipe bomb, enough that sometimes, we explode. Say things we don’t mean, get angry, get mad.

The thing that sets these boys apart, according to the acknowledgements paper you were given, is that they don’t even try to be sweet, they don’t ask for forgiveness. Not towards one another, and most certainly not towards anything else.

Your job is just as you said. Get them to be okay with one another.

Catch? There’s a time limit.

Twelve weeks of summer school.

Twelve weeks for eight boys to, no, not be nice to each other, not be best friends (not even friends), but just to be okay with being in the same room, be within six feet of each other without tearing someone’s throat — or their own — out.

Is it simple? Absolutely not.

You want to try though, because up till now, everyone has given up on these boys. People that the school district have deemed always successful have pushed them aside, called them impossible.

You won’t be the next to give up.

Twenty chairs in the classroom, yet not two sit next to each other, spaced out by at least three chairs per person.

Your roster sits upon your desk, listing their names by alphabetical order.

(Sitting on the furthest end of the classroom) Bahng, Christopher - nickname: Chan

He’s a football player (god knows how), who, despite hardly showing up to practices and arriving to random games—is always responsible for their wins. In some way you’re sure that’s the only reason he hasn’t been kicked off.

Christopher’s an interesting case.

He’s got amazing grades and passes school without fail, but no one has any clue about his home situation or whether he even has a home or not. You’re told he’s extremely distant and closed off, sort of void to life. He was sent due to excessive absences.

2. (Planted dead front of the class) Han, Jisung

His record states he’s been sent to the counselor eleven times in the first two weeks of school for disruptions and inappropriate behavior. Jisung has an older brother who’s valedictorian, but they never speak to one another and don’t seem to have the best relationship. He’s said to be obnoxiously straight-forward and senseless, you wonder if it’s true.

3. (Nearest to the window on your right) Hwang, Hyunjin

Despite his popular facade, Hyunjin is regarded as the “troublesome face-card” by many deans and counselors alike. Students adore his looks, but he couldn’t butt heads more with Jisung, and they’re often sent out together. Hyunjin is believed to have a worrisome superiority complex according to the last counselor he’s been seen by.

4. (Opposite of Hyunjin across the classroom) Kim, Seungmin

Not much has been recorded as far as Seungmin goes. He’s apparently a huge instigator in lots of illegal activity surrounding campus, but no one’s certain. His last counselor claimed he stayed silent throughout his consultation and answered suspiciously vague for almost every question.

5. (A few seats behind Jisung) Lee, Felix

Both him and Christopher have been reported for vandalizing parts of the school in odd, incomprehensible words like “Miroh” and “Maze of Memories”. Some gossip that they’re secretly a part of an underground gang. But upon first glance, Felix looks harmle—

A hand raising grabs your attention. It’s Jisung, wearing a grin when you nod for him to speak.

“How much for a tit-pic, Teach?”

Everyone is silent, and you hear Hyunjin stifle a snicker in the distance.

So this is what they meant by inappropriate behavior.

The corner of your lips twitch slightly, but you successfully maintain an unnerved expression, instead, smiling back at him.

“Let’s not ask questions like that, alright?”

Jisung amusedly huffs, still eyeing you incredulously. Although, he doesn’t say any more, and you continue down the roster’s descriptions.

Lee Minho whose info is conspicuously sparse , Seo Changbin who lashes out randomly without clear conscience (some claim he’s bipolar, you think different), and Yang Jeongin remain, bio’s dotted in unspecified theft attempts, assumed messy family situations and brief mentions of mental illness that seems to a follow a similar pattern to the rest.

Stacking the papers upon your desk, you card eight sheets of notebook paper from the drawer, walking through rows of desks to pass each boy a slip.

All eyes are on you now, and your breathing feels excessively loud in the stifling quietness.

Lightly clapping your hands together in hopes of stirring some sort of sound in this stale air, you speak as fluidly and audibly as your voice will let you.

“Today’s assignment is simple. I want you to write everything about yourself.”

Confused brows lift, primarily from Minho.

“Whether it’s what you like to do, what you don’t like to do, your favorite things, your favorite places, books, movies.”

Another hand raises. Changbin, you remember his name.

“Yes?”

“We’re not in fifth fuckin’ grade.” He growls, words booming. That was another complaint: Changbin’s explosively unprovoked opinions.

Biting back the urge to snap back, you place both hands on the podium at the front of the class, essentially grounding yourself.

“Yes, well this is—“

Somebody grumbles an incoherent sentence, and Changbin is immediately on his feet, chair squealing, eyes wild with fury.

Second complaint: his flaming temper.

Grabbing a fistful of Chan’s shirt (presumably the one who muttered), he sizes up the taller boy, spitting wild curses.

Inhaling deeply, you approach them, withholding the instinct to wince at Changbin’s yelling.

“Changbin, please go back to your seat,” You usher, watching them never take their eyes off one another. Chan is eerily unmoved, though effortlessly intimidating nevertheless.

The former spins around, shoving the other boy off to the side and resorting to sizing you up now, chin lifted, gaze belittling.

One press and you’ll have assistance come in and help. You remind yourself, referring to the small red button residing in your pocket that sends a direct call to the other counselors.

What good will that do? Your first step is getting them to be okay with you, not to mention each other.

No. You can do this, you’ll be fine.

“Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?” He spits, glaring as you back up the more he steps forward. That is till you stop and cause him to stop as well, leaving only a few centimeters separating your faces.

“Because,” You ease, shoving a finger into the center of his chest sternly. “I’m your teacher now, and you’re stuck with me. So deal with it.”

Tilting your head, you meet his eyes, hooded behind a veil of black hair.

“I’m sure a fifth grader could understand that, right?”

And with that, you point to his seat and spin on your heel, taking a seat and watching the boys, one by one, lower their heads and begin writing. Well, excluding Changbin, who’s hands stick by his sides, staring at you.

He chews his lip then turns around, shuffling back to his desk.

By the time the dismissal bell echoes, you would like to say you see light in the distance, but the endless tunnel ahead tells you you’re far from even beginning.

Glasses propped on the bridge of your nose, you sort through the papers, carefully observing each one.

It’s a Friday evening, meaning you’re given a meager two days to inhale as much information as possible for the approaching week.

There’s a variety of answers on the papers, from some stating only a song they like or others more of a list-type structure. Felix apparently bakes in his free time and has two sisters while Jeongin plays piano. Although, a certain paper in particular stands out to you.

Han’s.

Only his name is written, nothing else. You’re not sure if it’s a matter of his laziness or carelessness toward the assignment, but clear as day, dead center of his paper, is simply his name.

You at least anticipated some kind of response, like an offensive joke or something, but no. Just: Han Jisung.

Interesting.

A sudden buzzing redirects your attention. It’s from Chaeryoung, cheerily asking about how the first day went along with spilling details about her own day as well.

So far, things are going well. So far.

Not permanent. Just like how you haven’t permanently tamed the beast named Changbin.

And, although you hate such a mindset, realistically, it’s only a matter of time until something goes wrong.

“Chae,” You echo, the faint rustling of your papers sounding on your side of the line. She hums.

“What do you think about this one.”

A grunt of acknowledgement is heard.

You sidle to another sheet; Han’s will have to wait for another occasion.

“Hwang Hyunjin. Said to be trouble-some, argues a lot, apparent superiority complex.”

Although your senior, Chaeryoung has always been a helping hand—a soul to rely on through the rocky periods, your rocky periods.

“Hmm..” She considers, seeming to weigh the matter for a moment. “Have you seen his grades?”

Odd question.

“Straight A student according to his records.”

Impressive. Each quarter, top-scores.

Well, it makes sense for the superiority portion in the case he uses his grades to hang over others heads, but the rest is strange, making it unusual for him to behave so brashly.

Or, maybe it wasn’t unusual, but overlooked.

As if reading your mind, she utters the same words you’d planned to.

“Anxiety?”

Said in unison, you both burst into laughter. Her blindingly bright laugh sends warmth throughout your stomach, easing the droning headache building between your temples.

Hours you’ve spent glaring at the same papers, determined to locate something, anything as a way to help them. A problem to find a solution.

Yet, each case was different—personal to each boy in a sense you couldn’t assign an overall solution.

Instead, you pinpointed one case at a time.

Starting with Hwang Hyunjin.

However, his wasn’t an easy fix. As a high school student, it was virtually impossible to “fix” anxiety (if that was even the issue at hand at all).

Everyone had it in their system. Upcoming tests, pressure.

It was also impossible to really “fix” anybody generally, meaning, more or less, you had to find a way to help them want to help themselves.

With Hwang Hyunjin though, his, stated in the page’s description saying: Cares little to nothing about grades, wasn’t a testing anxiety of a sort, but maybe a tad bit deeper, barely visible without a sharper, clearer lense.

“Send me a pic of the sheet, can you?” She begins, startling the hypothesizing from your mind.

Again, an odd question, but you oblige, swiping off the calling tab to snap a quick picture.

A long silence situates itself between you, presumably Chaeryoung investigating his information.

Strangely, you feel like a detective. Climbing skyscrapers to find a solution to a problem nobody addressed until it became horridly powerful—possessing, now fallen in your hands to solve.

You refused to let their problems ruin them. And although becoming a illegitimate teacher wasn’t the plan for your senior year, you doubt you could back away at this point, not when you had already unearthed the treasure chest.

Last step was finding the key.

Well, detectives are equipped with a magnifying glass for a reason, right?

…

“… His drawings are pretty good?”

Then do you notice the doodles in the far corner of his introductory paper, a flower, a few butterflies, and a dog.. of a sort. Chihuahua-looking.

“C’mon Chaeryoung, take this seriously,” Lightly scolding, you sigh, wetting your lips whilst flipping to the back of the page.

It’s a quick script of things he enjoys, accounts from students he knows or that know him, overall containing an overview of his person.

Hyunjin gets in lots of arguments with Han Jisung.

You know that much.

Your finger slips down the page, scouring each sentence.

XXXX: Hyunjin likes drawing. I’ve seen him drawing at his desk before.

Baseless information, the doodles prove that—

Hold on.

“Chae, when you’re anxious, do you have a reliever? Like doing something, listening to something?”

She chuckles, clattering of dishes in the background causing you to cringe slightly.

“Dancing, you know this. I’m not going to Hanlim Art School for nothing.” Teasingly voiced, you frown, deciding not to egg on her sarcasm.

“Then do you think, where it says he gets in arguments a lot, he’s projecting that anxiety when arguing because he doesn’t have a reliever?”

She clicks her tongue.

“Could be. But we don’t really know Hyunjin, yeah? It could be something deeper Y/nnie. You can’t look surface level when it comes to these guys.”

You sigh, rolling back your shoulders.

“You’re right, but I’m still gonna try it. I need to get through to him that I want to help him somehow, so I might as well exhaust all my options.”

You can’t look surface level when it comes to these guys. A phrase truthful to its fullest extent.

“…Try what?”

Ah, you forgot to mention that part.

“Drawing. I’m gonna try convincing him to give it a chance.”

The stunned silence tells you she’s likely thinking you’re crazy, her only response a breath of disbelief.

You smile.

“I’m insane, I know.”

“No wonder we’re best friends.”

Staring daggers at the papers in front of you, you prop your feet on the desk, sorting through option after option on what you plan next for class.

In the midst of learning more about each boy’s papers though, you overhear something, a few key words.

Friday. Fair.

Aha.

The school’s annual summer fair, held as a congratulatory sort of event to celebrate moving onto a new year of school.

It’s decided. Friday, you’re taking them to the fair.

Mentally thanking whoever had brought it up outside the classroom, you’re quick in crumpling the additional papers, watching as one by one, the boys enter.

Hey, at least none of them are late.

…Not like they had a choice in that anyway.

And, through a rather painfully awkward second time teaching, the ice seems to be breaking little by little.

Any progress is good progress, you’ve deemed.

“Alright, before you’re dismissed, I wanna let you know we’re going to the fair Friday. Be there.” You hum, tapping the podium.

You swear there hasn’t been a more stifling pause in your life.

Though you’d been anticipating something adverse, this is a downright oddity.

“Uh.. what?” Han speaks up as you near the door. Morbidly quiet.

“All of you, meet me at the grounds at 7pm.”

Added into the deplorable silence, you glance over your shoulder whilst stepping into the hallway, face donning a mixture of curiosity and anticipation. “Okay, class dismissed.”

Beginning out the sliding door, the eruption of voices behind you cascade into a multitude of conversation, your clarification they had in fact heard and you weren’t discussing plans with a brick wall.

All you can do is hope they show up.

Class continues through the week, trying to get them to grow more comfortable with the atmosphere—their classmates, more specifically.

Of course, you earn your fair share of close calls and near incidents in those four days leading to Friday, but seeing the whole group turn up that fateful evening seems to make the ordeal worthwhile.

Quick to move your separate ways, you’re hasty in tagging along with Hyunjin, the boy unusually quiet as you fall into step to his right.

“So.. you draw?” You start, scorning the nervousness evident in your tone.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t interject, nor bite back something as his infograph had led you to believe.

“Yeah,” He sharply replies, eyes trained ahead, taking swift, motivated steps through heavily trodden grass.

It confuses you, in all honesty. Everything about this so-called ‘superiority complex’. From these few days you’ve seen him or interacted (though fleeting), not once has the man exhibited any form of arrogance nor shed of his assumed traits.

He’s shy, actually. Maybe you’re simply gracing surface level like Chaeryoung advised, but certain aspects could be seen in the black of night.

“Y’know, you’re pretty good.”

Despite his lack of response, you can feel his eyes dance to your face for a split second.

“‘Think you should try it. You’ve got potential, just saying,” You shrug, merely talking without reason nor inhibition.

“You think?”

It’s his voice breaking through your barrier of unrequited cordiality that stirs the air. A final, conversational pair of words after watching him play countless fairground games in quietness.

“I do,” You hum, nodding avidly while watching Hyunjin’s eyes flicker down to the ground below before back to yours, holding eye-contact.

In those moments, you decipher two things.

Hyunjin rivals the prettiest of paintings, and whatever earlier assumptions had been stuck to his tanned skin couldn’t be more wrong.

“Yo! If you’re just gonna stand there, move it!”

Changbin’s interjection successfully scares the living soul out of you and simultaneously wrecks your intense staring session.

Nevertheless, it’s hard even for you to explain how you ended up competing against the boisterous boy in ball toss, only that you find yourself wanting to tattoo the sight of Hyunjin laughing and Changbin shouting with defeat beneath your eyelids forever.

Granted a gift upon winning, you snag a snorlax plush amongst the scattered options hanging at the top of the booth, presenting it to the him with a smile.

“Huh?” Changbin grunts, head tilted, gazing at you as if you’ve spawned two heads.

“Take it, ‘s for you,” You urge, surveying the boy’s tentative touch against the plush’s soft fur with evident glee.

Still pouty, yes, but you take the sight of the stuffie held in his arms while the three of you walk back as a victory.

After a quick stop by a corn dog stand, you lean against the food truck’s side, wordless as Changbin and Hyunjin head off their own ways — the only trace of familiarity near you being someone clearing their throat.

Off to the side stands Chan, quietly sparing you not-so-sneaky glances, his hands stuffed in his black jogger’s pockets.

You cock your brows, head tipped as if silently asking: “What?”

“Waiting for you,” Is his reply, and it catches you off guard at the consideration in those syllables.

Not that you envisioned Chan as someone cold, but you certainly weren’t expecting him to wait for you while you ate.

Granting the boy a tiny smile of gratitude, you find yourself unconsciously gravitating his way, stuck in an orbital pattern of continuous voyage, indifferent to moving away.

“Chris is an interesting name,” You offer, aimlessly walking past endless booths, people.

“From Australia,” He speaks. Short and straight to the point, yet lacking any hostility.

“Yeah? Why’d you move?”

Ushering him on carefully, you manage to tiptoe a bit into foreign territory, navigating rows of traps and ambushes ahead.

“There’s nothing for me back there apart from my family.” His shoes, caked in mud, shuffle to a halt, gaze trained upward toward the constantly reeling Ferris Wheel.

Almost instantly, you can sense a shift in demeanor. It nearly makes your hair stand up on end, specifically upon seeing the hint of vulnerability shed across his face.

Maybe you’re seeing things.

“I’m just.. here. Like I work so hard for a something I’ll never have.”

His nose scrunches, beautifully glossy brown irises reflecting the blinking lights. Red, blue, green, yellow, all encompassed in those eyes.

No, this is all real.

The sight steels you a bit.

After a moment, you nudge his shoulder, his head finally turning to look at you.

“I don’t think I’m really the greatest to talk to when it comes to this but, Chan, you have to live without a purpose.”

You inhale deeply.

“Because if you keep trying to find a reason for everything-“

The shouting of an oh-so skillful interruption known as Changbin calling your name in the distance temporarily cuts you off.

“You’ll never be satisfied with a reality that won’t change unless you do, with this life.”

For Chan, no place like home only applied when he had a place to call home. As for now, he was a wanderer.

That, or inches from deluding himself into a comfortable, insufficient reality instead.

Making believe until something becomes real.

“Do you think it’ll be okay?”

His words catch you off guard, and you sort of stare for a moment, holding his gaze as if looking away means your demise.

For a second, you wonder if every boy’s eyes are this captivating.

Hyunjin, now Chan.

“I do,” You whisper, voice hardly audible amidst the bustling fairground.

His lips quirking into a smile serve as your indication he heard, and he reaches a hand up to gently sweep a strand of hair from your face behind your ear.

Again, unexpected, not disliked.

“Live on, yeah?” Chan hums, lifting his pinky for you to take with a mirrored grin, emotion buried within his dark chocolate pools for eyes you fear to unearth.

Maybe that’s something irrevocably agreed upon.

Live on.

It seems so, even when you regroup with an avidly boastful Changbin barking over who won at a rifle booth against him and Han. Agreed in the pinkies still intertwined behind your backs, in the shared smiles he gives you here and there as the night continues.

“Say, what is it with the both of you?”

Sidled between Han and Hyunjin on the walk back to campus, you find the question slipping from your lips before thinking.

Hyunjin grunts, and Han shrugs.

Children, you swear.

“Constantly biting at each other’s throats, yeah?” You huff, arms crossing.

Glancing over at Hyunjin after neither boy decides to respond, you raise a brow.

“As your teacher, I’m gonna assign something,” You begin, glaring at the tiny scoff Han resounds when you try using an authoritative tone.

“Next time you see each other, try to be nice.”

Another silence.

“I’m dead serious.”

“Y/N-“ Han starts, quickly silenced by your lifted hand.

“No buts. Do it, got it?” Firmly commanding, you leave no room for argument, the two responding as if it were the worst of punishments, wallowing in self pity.

Despite an onslaught of beginnings and continuations to newly opened books, you think the chapter where Hyunjin and Han sulk all the way back to campus takes the cake.

For now it does.

“I want someone to play me,” Han says, bringing the popsicle up to his lips.

The sun beats onto their skin, warm rays causing a scrunch to appear between his brows.

In an attempt at following your “get-along” suggestion, the two found themselves coincidentally running into each other at the nearby Supermarket after school, sparing cautious glances back and forth till someone broke the silence.

Like fate, drawn together in the ugliest of ways.

Han went first, a hesitant “hey” somehow leading to the two hunkering down on bamboo flooring with a conversation in tow.

It’s a start.

“Play you?” Hyunjin parrots, confused.

“Yeah,” He responds, fiddling with the name tag attached to his uniform. “They say nobody knows you better than yourself, but I dunno.. I feel like I don’t know anything about me. I’m an alien to myself.”

Jisung bunches up the wrapper, the crinkling sound rivaling screeching cicadas clinging to the trees overhead.

“I bet if I had an actor play me, I’d make a lot more sense.”

Somehow, out of all the things Han Jisung has said to him, this is the one thing Hyunjin can fully understand.

Understand that, despite living with yourself all your life, you’re still a novice even in your own body, in need of someone to tell you about yourself, an opposing point of view to help round out the sharp corners.

That’s it. The word to describe it, how Hyunjin found himself bound to art.

Your words replay in his mind on loop.

“Think you should try it. You’ve got potential.”

Understanding.

Art, in its most frustrating, brutally painful form, allows Hyunjin to understand. Himself, his wishes, life, despair. It’s his actor. An ideal perspective responsible for clearing his conscious, a contact lense to the eyes he hadn’t realized were blurry, half-open.

“What did you write on that paper about yourself?” Hyunjin ventured, beaming sunlight cast upon long fingers that peer from the balcony’s shade, highlighting cool toned veins in an almost transparent ray.

Coins cash into the vending machine, the dull cry of birds soaring to the sky in a flurry of wings echoing in his eardrums.

“The one Y/N handed out?”

Hyunjin hums.

“My name.”

The latter’s lips quirk into a clumsy smile.

Han Jisung, that’s all he wrote. How original of him.

Hyunjin watches an ant crawl atop a leaf, simultaneously swiping a droplet of water from the popsicle’s wrapper with his thumb.

He tests his words.

“I want,”

A pause.

“To add art now. To the paper, as my friend.”

Jisung purses his lips curiously, brows lifted.

However, he doesn’t pester.

“Art is your friend?”

Meeting the other boys gaze, Hyunjin finds himself, for the first time when looking at Han Jisung, smiling.

“Yeah, it is.”

. . .

“Heh. What a weirdo— YAH!”

Next Wednesday’s evening consists of a plethora of instances, some more notable to mention than others.

One, getting slammed to a wall by Changbin, and two, getting screamed at right after.

Though you weren’t aware of that yet, not when you looked up from your phone after school to see the boy storming toward you, and certainly not when you smiled, an action seeming to have provoked his hand to your collar, cornered against a wall without so much as a greeting.

“Changbin..?” You manage, slightly breathless at the impact, brows furrowed.

And instantly, listening to the words he spews, it feels as if all the progress you’d made at class—nevertheless the fair—dissolved into nothing.

Back to square one.

“Who do you think you are?” He spits, looking you up and down with a wrinkled nose. “What? You think you own the world ‘cause you’re doing something good? Helping ‘troubled’ kids?”

Before you can interject, his grip tightens on your shirt, shaking you angrily before stopping again, darks eyes burning with nothing but rage.

“We aren’t your confidence boost, Teach, so get out of your stupid headspace. We don’t need your help and never asked for it in the first place, so get lost.”

Changbin dips dangerously close to your face, venom dripping in his tone.

“Got it?”

Using as much force as you can muster, you ram your palm against his chest, effectively pushing him off of you before slamming against his shoulder and walking away.

Halfway down the street do you stop, not daring to look back at him.

“I don’t know what makes you think I’m doing this for a confidence boost, and I’m not going to try understanding. But that gives you no right to pick me apart like you know me!” You shout, continuing to head as far as you can from him, glaring ahead.

It’s fair he got that idea. Some random student infiltrating your summer all for the sake of what? Their future? Yours? What was this for anyway? Your position as Class President using this “summer school” to make you feel better about yourself, add more to a resume?

Plopping down at a bus stop a mile or so later, you pull your legs to your chest, rehearsing just what drove you into the mess anyway.

You want to help them. That’s it.

Repeating the phrase like a sacred oath, it isn’t until the burning sun’s waning scorch that you’re reminded of evening’s approach, begrudgingly lifting yourself off the now-sweaty seat.

Unbeknownst to you, Chan stood as a witness, watching either of you quarrel prior to parting, you disappearing elsewhere while Changbin remained in place, burning holes into the ground with a furious glower.

Hurriedly assessing what his first move should be (or if he should even move at all), he decides upon following you when the dark-haired boy stalks off.

“Y/n!”

The oddly familiar voice graces your senses when you look up, pausing just outside the bus stop, earbuds dangling from your pocket.

It’s Chan, still wearing his school uniform.

“Oh, hey Chan.” Slapping a hopefully convincing smile on, you allow him to occupy the space to your left as you head home, entertaining his occasional questions, sentences.

You’re glad it’s Chan though.

“Um, Chan?” You pique upon reaching your door, looking back at him, question inches from slipping off your tongue.

Has anything happened with Changbin lately?

“Yes?”

No, you can’t.

“Never mind, um, bye!” Brushing off the thought, you give him another tight smile, waving the boy off and slipping into your home with a loud sigh.

Outside, Chan tugs his lip between his teeth, watching you debate on your words. He knows what you wanted to ask, what so obviously sat heavy on your shoulders the entire way home.

Perhaps it’s his perception that’s gotten him this far.

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he decides the next course of action would be locating the other half of this division.

Unfortunately for him, Chan has no idea where he could be. The likelihood he’s home is minuscule if his hunch is right, and so, the man wracks his head for any clues.

Abruptly, a past conversation hits him.

“Have you been there? The old train station below the tunnel?”

Chan, lips pursed as he tries recalling, shakes his head.

“I like that place, ‘helps me think.”

That’s it.

Racing off despite the darkness creeping across star-splattered sky, his legs carry him as fast as possible.

Dipping below the bridge, his skin prickles at the cold air. Minimal lighting apart from a few white beams paves a clear path to his desired individual, planted in the dead center of the platform.

“Binnie,” Chan calls.

Only he can get away with calling Changbin “Binnie”, a nickname grown into second nature as the two grew more accustomed these past two weeks.

The boy doesn’t budge, doesn’t reply. He stands there, chin down, hands firmly bunching his pants in a tight hold.

Yet, when he looks up after a lengthy pause, Chan watches his lip quiver, watches his shoulders shake senselessly as he gradually reaches his outstretched arms.

“I.. I keep hurting so many people and.. and…it’s so lonely, why is it so lonely?”

Without an utterance, he pushes Changbin’s head against his shoulder.

And they hug. They hug for a long, long time. Basking there, healing there.

Changbin cries.

There’s a lot to cry about, a lot of things he’s needed to cry about, things he couldn’t cry about before. But he does. Tonight, in this empty train station, Changbin cries in Chan’s arms, his friends arms.

Changbin’s first friend—who smoothes messy curls down in delicate strokes, holding him dearly close.

Chan isn’t oblivious, because in those particularly tender moments, one in specific taking place right after the fair, Changbin speaks words Chan had never heard before.

Problems. They told each other it all. Their secrets, struggles.

Changbin’s issues with his parents, Chan’s with his home-situation, his internal displacement.

“I know things are hard right now, but we’re going to get someplace better together, okay? We’re brothers.” Chan whispers, and his friend sniffles, nodding wordlessly.

Brothers.

Changbin is his brother now, and no blood needs to prove that. Because in times you don’t have that family, that connection, you make it yourself.

Seungmin: Y/n, can you meet me at Gokseong Hill?

You groan picking up your phone, granted a mere thirty minutes of peace after your painful run-in with Changbin and an equally painful attempt at a conversation with Chan before your phone lights up.

Y/n: Do you plan to murder me or something?

Seungmin: I’m not as creative as Jisung, so no

You crack a smile.

Y/n: I’ll be there

Fastening a jacket over your shoulders, you lock the door behind yourself, stuffing jingling keys into your pocket.

Hey, a bit of fresh air sounds tempting.

At the peak of the hill he sits, and it’s not until you follow his upward stare that you take in the stars overhead.

The slight altitude paves way to a more than incredible view. Countless galaxies right above your head, twinkling so brightly in the sky. Far from streetlights, from civilization.

Your staggered breathing hiking up here proves worthwhile now.

Wordlessly plopping down beside him, you lay back, admiring.

“Do you ever wanna scream?” Seungmin reaches his hand to the sky, allowing the dark blue and black hues to waltz in his grasp.

The twinkling wonder dappled above prohibit a full view of his facial expressions, but you have an idea of how wistfully he gazes into that atmospheric abyss. Aching.

You humorlessly chuckle.

Do I ever.

“When I first met Changbin, I wanted to scream every twenty seconds.”

Seungmin laughs. Pretty.

“Guys like that do that to you.”

He curls his fingers into a fist, arm remaining outstretched.

“Do it.”

“Hm?”

“Scream.”

He looks at you like you’re insane for a moment, then pauses, fingernails digging into the earthy soul beneath you before he screams.

Screams, louder and louder, so loud you’re surprised his lungs haven’t given up yet, surprised you haven’t laughed at how comical the entire thing is. His body practically lifts off the ground, eyes screwed shut.

Then he stops, catching his breath.

No comments nor laughter. Quiet.

Reaching out, you give his hand, dirty fingernails and all, an assuring squeeze.

I don’t know, but I care.

A silent utterance.

“Better?”

He nods.

You’re next, and this time, you’re first to laugh.

As the two week mark of class is pinned, you want to give yourself a pat on the back for managing - no less surviving till now.

So, it really makes you wonder how you ended up in such a predicament.

Han Jisung, someone you never anticipated to be beside you on your Saturday, resides in the drivers seat of your parent’s car, hands sweating up nothing short of an ocean without even starting the vehicle.

Well, you are aware of how this all began, but then again, your pride wants to be salvaged, if barely.

A bit of pleading on Han’s side about his parents nagging him and a pinch of your groggy mumbling at 9am to end up here, to be exact.

“Look… About what I said the first day.. I’m really sorry about that. I shouldn’t have asked that, it was rude and- ow!”

A hard flick delivered to the boy’s forehead has his face wrinkling up, an offended expression worn on chubby cheeks.

“Yes, it was rude, and I’ll ostracize you if you ever do it again. But I forgive you, you’re welcome,” You state, arms crossed.

Han’s sheepish nod seems to be the best reply you’ll get.

“Alright, now, shift the gear to drive.”

“…That’s ‘D’, right…?”

“You’re kidding.”

No, he wasn’t kidding, and a lesson that could’ve been an hour long turns into two and a half hours in no time.

Finally, by some miracle, you end up on the road, holding on the seat like a vice, the boy mirroring your panic with nervous jittering and random comments.

“Oh wait! Isn’t the Film Festival coming up-“

“FOCUS ON THE ROAD!”

Ah, he has the attention span of a squirrel, that too.

And if you aren’t doused in gray hairs after that you’d be surprised, Han looking just as frazzled, exiting the car with wobbly legs and wide, frazzled eyes.

From then on out, you decide teaching the boy how to drive would have to wait.

With July days away (a miracle, you’d like to say), you bury your nose into new assignments and exercises for the class, desperately gripping onto the bits and pieces of progress you’re making.

It’s meager, and certainly not sturdy, but you’ll take what you can get.

..Even if those hard silences are crippling.

A knock ushers you away from the barstool you perch on, cautiously peering from your front door’s tiny peephole.

Felix.

Upon opening in the door, you first notice his raw cheeks, eyes puffy and red.

He’d been crying, unmistakably.

You don’t move away when he walks forward and presses his face against your shoulder.

“Can I stay here? I don’t want to go home tonight.” The boy whispers, and you reach a tentative hand to pat his head.

“Of course.”

Clambering the teary boy inside, you spend a decent ten minutes helping him catch his breath and calm down a bit, not wanting to stress the poor thing out with questions.

Standing in your foyer, it’s his shaky voice piercing the air responsible for your head snapping up.

“Do you.. have brownie mix?”

“He was always the fearless kid,” Felix mutters, occupying himself with folding the batter in a bowl.

Interestingly enough, Felix is a stress baker, something of which you hadn’t realized until getting schooled on the correct ingredients to use for brownies.

The topic is Minho. Or, what Felix knew of him.

“I could never read him. I still can’t. I remember he saved this cat once and it bit him. I cried the whole way to the doctor’s office and he was the one who calmed me down instead.”

All you can do is laugh in reply, the blond sheepishly grinning.

Licking off some brownie mix, he hands you the other whisk where you lean against the counter.

Leaning forward to smear some of the sugary goodness on his cheek with a giggle, you adore the way his eyes light up, causing his freckles to almost glow.

If past-lives were real, you think Felix would’ve been a fairy.

“You knew Minho when you were younger?”

Felix nods.

“We met in seventh grade. Our mom’s were friends through work. Although, I don’t think he liked me very much.”

He shakes the bubbles from the cooking sheet, ensuring the edges of the pan were even. You slip past him to pre-heat the oven.

There’s a soft chuckle on his end, and it’s not until you turn around do you see the pikachu mitten he’s quite literally critiquing with his eyeballs.

Such expressive eyes, though they’re different than Minho and Seungmin.

While Minho has something like the atlantic ocean hidden deep behind those pupils, Seungmin is more of an open field.

Though Felix, he has stars.

So many stars, in fact, that they couldn’t possibly all fit, spreading to his face instead. Down his arms, his chest. Till all of a sudden the entire galaxy found its home in the boy standing in front of you.

“Hey, no judging,” You grin, scrutinizing his innocent shrug.

Snatching your precious oven-mit from his fingertips to load the pan in yourself, a gasp stirs when a pair of arms winds around your middle, his chin resting upon your shoulder as you close the door and set your timer.

“Thank you.”

“Hm? What for?” Stopping your movements, you allow the boy to snuggle closer.

“For reminding me of myself. I seem to get lost in other people sometimes and forget I’m here too.” At the last part of his sentence he laughs, rocking back and forth on his heels and causing you to rock with him.

Ten minutes or so you rock. Easy, comfortable.

Felix gives nice hugs. His clothes are sprinkled with a strange mixture of both brownies and chocolate chip remnants he’d snuck in without your knowledge.

Comfortable.

He’s a kid who never really got the chance to grow up. The one who was constantly told he’s so mature for his age, a phrase that eventually melded so far into his brain it became second nature, gum stuck to his shoe.

Because the kid that was so mature for his age was never asked if he needed help or if he was okay, everyone simply assumed. Even when the world came crashing down, Felix was fine. Just fine.

Until he wasn’t, and suddenly, Felix came crashing down with the world.

“..Do you like face-masks?”

You may not be able to fix his crumbling world, but you could give him some good memories to remember it by.

Which is how you found yourself roped in your bathroom, carefully applying the charcoal face mask onto his perfect skin, unblemished and definitely not deserving of the treatment. But, like you said, memories.

You should be off to bed, already prepping for the next morning, school. June 17th, officially seventeen days into summer school. Yet here you are, greedily shoving down brownies with a new companion, Lee Felix, on the couch while looking like utter idiots in face masks.

After seven episodes of Gilmore Girls does he wearily rise up, beckoning you with him to wash off your skincare madness only to make an equally weary trip straight back to the living room.

“Do you think Minho likes me?” Your baking partner whispers, his head resting upon your lap. Those unfairly long lashes begin to dust closed, the subtle flash of light emitted from your scented candle sending a golden gleam across the room.

“Mm.. I’m sure he does. I’m sure he likes you very much,” You assure, not needing a response from his fallen-asleep form, not expecting one anyway.

What occurred in the first place nor why he asked such questions wasn’t your business, but somewhere, a part of a you wanted to know. The cause of his pain, of all of their pain.

Hardest part of your evening was definitely attempting to slip him off your lap, luckily a success after four or five minutes.

Carefully propping a pillow behind his head and layering a blanket across his jacket-clad body, you sneakily turn off the TV, bidding the exhausted boy a hushed “good night” and placing a gentle peck to his forehead before turning off the porch light.

Laying in bed whilst your eyes resist closing, you find yourself hoping he’ll sleep well, hope this night is something he can look back on with a smile on his face.

Felix deserves that.

That morning, upon forgetting your alarm, either of you are scrambling from bed or, in Felix’s case, flopping from your couch with a loud thud!

“Minho lives pretty close,” Felix winds the straps of his backpack over his shoulders, glancing from side to side while observing the area. You follow suit, both clambering to rush out the door, jogging down the street hurriedly.

Seems the Minho kick is still here then, huh.

“But he might not be at school off and on because of his Grandma.”

The awaiting tip of your head calls for an explanation, and a light bulb seemed to bloom above him — obviously having realized something.

Either of you pause at a crosswalk.

“Didn’t I tell you?”

You shake your head, brows pinched.

Felix pokes his tongue into his cheek.

“Well, Minho’s mom died a bit back. He takes care of his Grandma now. After she passed he got really distant and we…” His tone dissolves, and you don’t interrupt, allowing the boy to speak his mind. “Haven’t talked since.”

Apparently, there’s a corner to this billion-piece jigsaw.

One, horrifically fateful paper lay taped down onto one desk far too many boys are trying to look at.

Levanter High Film Festival. Participants will make a 25 minute short film with cinematography and soundtrack themes made entirely by themselves.

“..And you want us to do this?” Jeongin mutters, skeptically scratching the bottom of his chin.

“Yep! We are!” You proudly announce, given quite a few confused glances in return.

As Jisung had taken the time to so kindly mention while nearly crashing the car, July, the month in which you’ve somehow made it to with this group, means the arrival of creative festivals — or, the school boards way of enhancing student participation.

“Uh.. I’ve gotta DAW at home..?” Chan speaks up, brows furrowed thoughtfully.

“…A dawg?” Han snorts, Felix smacking his back in an attempt to quell his own laughter.

“A music birth giving machine,” Changbin offers.

“Ew, weird way to put it.”

“Shut it, Jisung.”

“Alright. Now, we’re gonna break off into departments, okay? We need director, maybe script writers? An idea of where we’re gonna film, song producers, and someone with a camera.” Murmuring with your lip tugging between your teeth, you tap your foot, the group cumulating into frenzied discourse, seemingly arranging themselves.

And, almost as fast as you blink, you’re pleasantly surprised to find no blood had been shed over positions.

Accordingly — with obvious inclusion in every position at some point — Chan, Changbin, and Han are working music, Seungmin is working on the script, Jeongin and Hyunjin are doubling as directors and camera-providing members, and Felix and Minho have been elected as the main characters.

You can’t help but find it rather interesting considering your prior knowledge of the situation. Their situation.

Felix’s longing, Minho’s loss.

The imperfect, perfect pair.

“What’s the name gonna be?” Jeongin piques, the eight of you squinting at his frame leant against the windowsill.

The boy hesitates.

“Like, our label?”

Equally confused stares.

In honorary mention of the esteemed ‘Film Festival’ introduced this summer, you decided, along with Han’s incredibly distracting tendencies, that you guys would be participating.

Then again, everyone is still getting used to being within six feet of each other, so being stuck in the old photography club room on a school night remains effortlessly uncomfortable.

And with the slow eye contact each of you exchange, a gradual cacophony of “Ohhh”’s.

“How about Boy’s Generation!” Jisung jumps in, earning a smack across the head from Hyunjin followed by loud whining whilst burying his head in Minho’s chest (of whom looks unbearably awkward) who tries to console.

Emphasis on the “tries” part.

“Maybe.. Lost Men?” Changbin suggests, quiet hums of agreement sounding from the remainder.

You choke back a laugh, which, doesn’t turn out to be as choked as you’d prefer by the glare you get in response.

“Lost Men? Are we sailors?” Stammering down your giggles the best you could manage, Seungmin clears his throat, attention quickly directing his way.

Seungmin has a habit, if that’s what you want to call it. He’s never outspoken, no, but he speaks, a lot. Minho is the same in that sense. Whether quiet mumbling or the illustrious expressions he makes, you’re confident the both of them could maintain a perfectly understandable conversation using just their eyes.

Sort of scary.

“Stray Kids?”

Five seconds later and Felix grumbles, interrupting everyone’s inner contemplation.

“Kind of fitting if you think about it.”

Minho grunts, voicing a question that extinguished the conversation beforehand.

“Well what happens when we aren’t astray anymore?”

And, although the foreboding tension sat heavy in the air, it was easy to tell he held no weight to his words.

Because regardless of what kind of conclusion they reached at some point, it was irrevocably known they’d always be stray. Searching, looking for something they weren’t sure existed.

No reply came. No one complained.

Chan typed up the label in the lower left corner of the doc, the laptop he’d taken from his bag propped on his lap.

You gave Minho a half-smile he sheepishly returned.

The more you thought about it, the more it matched. Not only searching, but paving. One way or another, the assumed nobodies were growing, developing into something unforgettable, if only to a few people.

You had no doubt more would remember their names in the future, but as for now, you stay as Chan, Minho, Changbin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, Jeongin, and Y/n, lodged in the school’s vacant club room, arranging ideas for the Film Festival.

Stray Kids.

You liked it.

The quiet rolling of his bike gears sits between you, familiarly nostalgic chirping of crickets heightening the darker the sky becomes, dusk plowing a runway through orange clouds.

Headed back from school, you happened to run into Minho, jogging to catch up with him in the midst of his departure.

“I like my life.”

Mid-chew on a sour gummy worm, you cease your gluttonous rampage in order to catch Minho’s hushed breath.

“Being alive is nice.”

And when he says that, he turns his head toward you, expression piquing a “don’t you think so?” type of question you struggle to answer.

Zoning in on the repetitive motion of his wheel, you wrack your brain.

“Yeah? It’s hard, but I would say it’s worth it.”

His brows raise, a barely visible, lopsided smile winding itself around his lips — chapped but still such a captivating pink hue.

All he has to do is hum, doing that habitual blinking thing he always does to know he agrees.

Minho is the small things, you configure.

He’s fixing the bulletin when a paper fell off and picking up Changbin’s Snorlax plushie when he almost forgets it. He’s reminding you to text him when you get home “just because”. He’s the little things nobodies notices, little things that show he cares.

Lee Minho is the small things, but he’s also so much too — so many stories, people, places. He’s heartbroken but he tries, pained but still swimming in a whirlpool of an ocean that flushes him from its tides.

Perhaps somebody could be his buoy, somebody who’d keep him afloat.

You have a hunch as to who that person might be.

Bike squealing to a stop, you clamber to catch pace, backing up a bit to notice what Minho points at.

A field.

“This would be a good place to film if it weren’t off limits.” He observes, either of you acknowledging the “No Trespassing” sign latched loosely onto a chain link fence.

Biting your lip, a small smirk finds itself upon your face.

“It’s not off limits if we can get in, right?”

Minho gives you an uncertain stare, quickly tampering into downright exasperation.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a good influence?”

You laugh at this, laying your bike down to hitch each hand into diamond-shaped openings and climb, sending your suspicious audience an expectant look.

“I’m meant to be a good learning experience, think of this as part of a the process. Now c’mon, climb. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

Half-heartedly, you’re joined in your risky pursuit, scaling up to the top before thumping down on the other side.

Minho, on the other hand, is a tad bit more skeptical, remaining at the fence’s peak, glaring down nervously.

Although, with lots of patience and encouragement, the anxious boy takes a leap of faith onto uncut grasses and stalking weeds.

Halfway into your adventure do clouds begin festering, setting the atmosphere in a gray haze the longer you brainstorm filming spots, whether that’s pointing out certain locations or deciding on specific scene placement.

“We could have Felix here, then I run in and find him?”

“Okay— what if we make it like a huge confrontation. You run in, confront him-“

Jutting of metal against another surface redirects your mid-sentence focus, gaze averting toward the sound.

Shit. Security.

“Hey you! What do you think you’re doing!?”

Momentary silence and either of you go bolting as fast as your legs will go.

“Quick!” You shriek, the sky dotted in strikes of lightning, alighting into a sudden electrified cauldron of clouds and rain.

Minho is right on your heels, jackets strung over your heads in a feeble attempt to divert some watery droplets from their rapid descent.

Not only the useless fear of getting soaked, but the lingering outline of an approaching flashlight in the distance and the thumping of footsteps from behind urge you onward, scaling the looming fence using slippery fingers and wild adrenaline.

Except, just as you edge over the top of the fence does your shirt get caught in the twisted wire, effectively preventing your movement (much to your panic) while Minho shouts below.

Luckily, in the nick of time do you manage to free yourself, having to lurch forward and simultaneously earn a stinging cut before racing to your bikes and speeding off.

Learning experience was certainly a word for it.

“So..” You start, lingering by Chan’s doorway.

According to a fretful, rain drenched Minho speaking to your equally drenched self, his place was the closest.

“What’s our excuse?” You mumble, Minho scoffing before shrugging off his jacket to hand to you, earning a curious tip of your head.

Wordlessly does he point to your now dampened white shirt, and you can’t help but smile at the realization.

Hm. What a gentleman.

Easing the fabric over your soaked shirt, you just finish buttoning to the bottom when Chan opens the door, cocking a brow.

“Who knew it actually rained cats and dogs?”

“You’re not funny.”

Stepping inside, you’re greeted with the chilling temperature, skin erupting into goosebumps as either of you awkwardly stand in the doorway, Chan disappearing into the other room only to return with two t-shirts.

“Bathrooms are on either side of the hall, you’ll find them,” He hums, and you give him a grateful smile before padding off to change, the sound of your squeaking steps making you cringe.

Chan’s old swim-team tee hangs loosely from your body upon stepping out, plopping down onto his couch with an exaggerated groan.

Behind you, Minho sits on an unoccupied chair, taking sips of water here and there.

“So…” The eldest of the group steps in the room, hesitant. “Care to tell me how-“

“No.” Minho bluntly speaks, and you cock a bemused brow at his forwardness.

“Got it,” Chan nods quickly, eyes zeroing in on you for a moment, honing a stare you can’t discern.

“Y/N?” He quietly asks where you lift from your spot.

“Wanna come with me for a minute?” He hums, and you curiously follow him into the kitchen, plopping on the counter he motions for you to sit on.

“Lift up your shirt,” He softly instructs, and you do a double take to make sure you heard him right.

“Huh?”

Nonplussed, he repeats himself, appearing completely unaffected despite such a request.

So slowly, nervously, you lift your shirt as he nonchalantly maneuvers antiseptic from a medical container, your brain registering the predicament as he dabs right below your chest, bottom lip held in his teeth while he works.

Your scratch from earlier on the fence.

Leave it to him to be the ever perceptive one.

Chan doesn’t budge, shy away, nor show any reaction to the newfound vulnerability. Your heart warms a bit at the sight.

He cares, and you’ve known that, but it’s just, it’s sweet. Really, truly sweet.

Immediately upon applying the antiseptic, you wince, your grip (which you noticed) on his arm tightening while he calmly hushed you, carefully placing a bandaid on top of the wound.

“If you don’t dress it properly you could get an infection.” Chan explains. “Tell me next time, okay?”

You nod as he rearranged his materials below the cabinet and ensured you’ve hopped off the countertop.

“Lix told me you used to be a restaurant’s chef in Hongdae, eh?”

At this, he looked up in surprise, chuckling lowly, lips situating themselves into a sheepish straight line.

“Lix?” He echoes, and you tilt your head, evidently confused as to what he’s asking.

“Mm nothin’, just not many people can call him Lix,” He explains, padding into the living room.

“Really? Am I just the lucky one?” Snickering to yourself, the man nudges your side with his own squeaky laugh as you enter into the living room.

“That’s.. a word for it.”

It’s hard to recall when the gears really began turning. Breaking from rusty shackles to rotate seamlessly.

Chan opening up and giving you a glimpse of the heartthrob of a personality beneath his once cold facade. Han and Hyunjin able to have a normal conversation, talking to Jeongin more and more about anything and everything.

Maybe it’s the familiarity, the routine that naturally mends. Like a new fridge you hadn’t realized you were so accustomed to until gone, until you look back at what was.

A part of you wants to give yourself a pat on the back as if you were the person responsible for this summer school’s progress. Though, you’re sure just about four hundred other things also left an imprint.

Late nights spent in the old club room. Arranging meetups for filming spots. Headaches from the sound of a power drill where props are put together. Endless repeats of the same scene everyone keeps messing up.

And all of a sudden, it hurts. Because this is one of those moments. Fleeting. Fleeting in the sense that—as you watch Chan and Seungmin burst out laughing when Changbin fails a prop test—never again in this entire world will there ever be another night like this.

Felix won’t accidentally spill his drink. Minho won’t throw a childish fit after he gets his twenty-fifth take wrong.

There won’t ever be another summer like this. A summer in your senior year of high school you really don’t want to forget right now, not if it costs it all to stay engrained in your mind.

“Alright. So..” Chan begins, the nine of you clambering to get a glance of his screen as he finishes the final touches.

“We’re finally done!”

It takes a whopping three weeks to finish filming and editing, the clamorous chorus of relief sounding in unison as your group’s unofficial (though wordlessly voted) leader, Chan, taps the save button one last time.

Your film covers the tale of two. Fated, yet, unable to ever meet. A constant tug of war of souls infinitely bound.

One steps north, the other makes five steps south. Pulled together like magnets even when worlds apart in all aspects, even when it seems they’re only given more reasons to avoid each other.

..Yes, you certainly thought of what Felix told you that bit ago.

No, you have been thinking about it.

When they filmed; those certain scenes where you’d watch them make eye contact. Oh to listen to the thoughts behind those eyes.

So leaden with emotion.

Longing.

A longing for what was, for what could’ve been.

To watch two people like that makes your ears ring. So much said in the hurried lines, the occasional eye-contact.

Listen, listen. You’ll miss it if you blink.

How gut-wrenching to be a witness to such tragedy you never were involved in. Perhaps that’s human empathy.

You inhale and exhale, but don’t count for how long. Watching the film on the that old projector sheet makes you wish you narrowed things down to the tee, scribbled them down in a notebook to recall for eternity.

Too fast, too fast. You’ll miss it if you breathe.

No, stay forever.

If only.

And perhaps that’s the best part.

Stray Kids places fourth place in the festival, and to be honest, you might as well have taken home first.

It sure felt like it.

Smiles and laughter. Congratulations and many thank you’s amidst a densely packed theatre room.

Though, something is missing. No, someone is missing. Because in the midst of a celebration intended for everyone, it suddenly comes to your attention a presence has gone awry.

Meeting Chan’s eyes, it appears he just realized as well.

Han.

“Jisung where the hell were yo—“

Having stormed through the oddly unlocked door like a madman, Chan stops, noticing how positively bruised the boy is, sharp cut veering across his nose, lip busted and bloody.

Hurriedly forcing his face between either of Chan’s hands, Han winces.

“Tell me everything.” The older of the two demands, eyes racing.

Quick to pull away, his mouth pulls taut. It’s quiet before Han kicks the cabinet, voice watery, breaking.

“Fuck!” He clutches his head, biting back the prospect of crying.

Dropping down to bury his head in his knees, he stifles a shaky exhale.

“..These guys from Class 3-B broke my bike, that’s why I couldn’t go.”

Ah.

There’s a stillness.

Then, quietly, Chan shuffles down beside Jisung, mirroring the way his knees sit close to his chest, back flush against the wooden cabinets below the sink.

“I just.. wish I was stronger,” Jisung hardly manages, words barely audible through a trembling bottom lip.

Sparing moments of silence, Chan’s jaw tightens, attention directed onto the tile floor.

“I’m quitting the football team.”

Jisung’s head snaps to the adjacent boy.

“But why? Football’s your forte. Plus, you kick ass every time your name gets called out onto the field.”

Chan ruffles the boys hair, giving him a tight smile.

“I have.. other priorities right now.” His voice shrinks, hand resting atop Jisung’s head, staring into those bottomless brown eyes.

He’s grateful no other questions were asked.

“Say,” He begins, his counterpart experimentally prodding his swollen eye, cringing back with a hiss.

“I can help you get stronger.”

Slowly, the younger’s head turns, brows raised as if asking: “really?”, to which Chan nods, a faint grin tugging at his lips.

‘Reach for me’, and Chan reaches.

Jisung oftentimes thought the boy foolish to trust so blindly, to pour so much into someone who could easily let you down.

Yet, seeing the fist his friend held out, he returns the fist bump with a feeble grin, head slumping onto the older boy’s shoulder.

This time, an exception has been made.

There were many weird circumstances in Minho’s life, but he certainly hadn’t anticipated this one.

“..What are you doing?” Minho inquires flatly, slowing his bike down whilst Han, dripping in sweat, jogs past, avidly motivated for a reason the bystander can’t quite understand on a Tuesday morning.

He planned to bike into town and buy extra soil for his grandmother’s garden, now finding himself unable to ignore this strange appearance.

“Conditioning! New year new me!”

Minho sends the boy a mildly disgusted, mildly annoyed expression in reply.

“It’s June.”

“Leave me be.”

His sarcastic brow returned with Han’s entertained giggle, the older boy finding it irritably hard to resist an approaching smile, pedaling to catch up to him.

How burdensome, Minho thinks.

“Is this about the Film Festival?”

Gliding past, Han’s eyes widen into saucers.

“Please don’t tell me Y/n’s mad I couldn’t show up, I’m scared she’ll beat me up or something on Monday.”

He grins at the sheepish plea.

“She’s not, trust me.”

“And why should I trust you?”

Minho shrugs. “Why not?”

“Fair,” Han deflates, stopping to catch his breath, balancing his hands on his knees.

The other boy, observing his exhaustion as he pushes on his brakes, grants him a side-eye, patting the back of his bike.

“Want a ride?”

Han, looking up with sweat wrecking his hair to stick up in wild directions, gradually nods, uttering a quiet “Feels like I’m cheating” as he climbs behind Minho, legs dangling off the side.

The ride is peaceful, rice fields flourishing, fields dappled with flowers of all sorts of hues on the way to town, breeze cooling down Han’s heated face, whipping his linen shirt in each gust.

Neither talk, simply enjoying the weather, the smells, the sounds.

Though, the enjoyment is quelled as soon as it began, Minho lugging a bag of soil atop where the younger boy had sat on the back of his bike—said boy lingering outside the gardening shop.

Door bells clanging overhead when he exits, Han gives him a questioning look as he works on tying the soil down.

“..Where am I gonna sit?” He questions aloud, and the devilish boy can’t help but wear an evil smile.

“You’re not,” He says matter-of-a-fact, swinging a leg over the seat, watching despair cross his friend’s face.

“New year new you, right? Good luck!”

Quickly racing off on his bike, Minho laughs at Han’s shouting while he disappears in the distance, knowing full well the silent-treatment he’ll receive later at school.

Oh the throes (and woes) of summer.

Meanwhile, you’re helping Chan hang laundry in his backyard, having reviewed more of an album him, Han, and Changbin have been working on after the festival.

The longer you listen, the more you find Chan has a knack for curating incredible music, enough that you find yourself leaning infinitely close to the old monitor of his, craning into each note the speaker procures.

“So I was thinking,” Chan clicks his tongue, hanging a t-shirt to the close pins. “What if we had a unit name? Han, Binnie and I?”

Processing his question in your mind, you purse your lips, wiping beading moisture from your forehead.

“What’d you have in mind?” You pique, giving the boy a sidelong glance, mischief evident on your face.

Mirroring your grin, he steps down from the stool, giving you a hand as you step from yours.

“3RACHA? Cause like.. we’re three and we’re hot like Sriracha?”

Instantly, you both burst out into giggles, smacking his shoulder at the sly phrasing.

“No no I’m kidding—“

“I like it!” You loudly interject, bringing the water bottle up to your lips.

Chan’s eyes bulge out of his skull, tilt in his head, a hint of surprise etched on sun kissed skin.

“Really?”

“Yeah! I like it! 3RACHA fits,” Elaborating with exaggerated hand gestures, the spectator has to bite back his smile, dimples nudging at his cheeks.

“I’ll let them know,” He raises his brows, giving you a small high five before officially collapsing on the grass, you following suit.

By the time your eyes open again, you can’t even recall what happened in the first place, trying to figure out why the sky is already pitch black, not to mention why you’re still lying in the grass.

Leave it to falling asleep to waste your day away.

Leaning over where you stretch your arms, Chan grins, extending a hand to help you up that you gratefully accept—granted an explanation as to how you ultimately fell asleep while he was mid conversation.

Waving him off upon noticing nighttime’s introduction, you begin back past school, crossing by the playing fields in the process.

And of course, lo and behold, Minho sits on the bleachers, watching an ongoing football practice while glancing down at his lap here and there, apparently writing something.

Seems today you’re running into everyone, huh?

Perks (and curses) of a small town.

Curiosity driving your feet toward him, you carefully jump up the steps, sitting beside him without word.

He obviously senses your presence but fails to speak up, simply letting you peek over his shoulder at his notes (to which you learned were for a class), occasionally striking conversation only to engulf in comfortable quietness once more.

“Hey Minho?” You inhale slowly, heel tapping again the metal bleacher plank below.

He grunts in acknowledgment.

“Do you think I’m doing a good job?”

The football coaches whistle blows alarmingly loud, causing either of you to involuntarily flinch.

Minho, lifting his head from his notebook, studies your face for a moment, from the way your nose perches to your parted lips, he analyzes.

Returning to your eyes, he blinks.

“I do. I mean, we all like you whether we admit it or not.”

The statement causes a smile to stretch your cheeks, turning to face him.

“Why?”

“Hm.. You actually treated us like human..? It’s like,” He scoffs, one brow twitching upward the longer he thinks. It’s the first time you noticed the small freckle seated atop his right nostril.

Charming.

“Everybody else seemed to think we were animals.”

Hearing him say that, it’s almost.. cruel. To think these boys simply needed a friend, a person to count on for a bit.

But they didn’t. They were deprived.

Yet, in a twisted way, it worked out. Because it led them to you.

“Well you’re doing it right.. I think.”

You shift your weight back onto your hands, humid air finally cooling into an even breeze.

“Thanks Min.”

“Mhm.”

You’ve grown accustomed to accepting good things never last. It’s one of the many things keeping your grip tight on anything you get ahold of.

Though, it strikes you nearly dizzy how quickly something so good turned sour.

As in, what was once near-conversation between Minho and Felix has now diminished into distanced glares and horrifically heavy silence like before.

Asking the more openly emotional of the two leads to nothing. No explanation, no reasoning. Just a shrug when you ask: “Hey, what’s up with you and Minho?”

More than ever with this group had you learned assumptions lead nowhere. But when assumptions are the sole thing to be made, you feel quite like you’re chasing your own tail in this predicament.

“Minho, you have to come to school. I’m responsible for your attendance.”

Amongst the week and a half the boy had been absent, you don’t plan to waste the opportunity for confrontation.

No, it isn’t your usual approach, but any softer and he’ll slip right through your fingertips like warmed butter.

Back facing you where he’d been routinely walking his bike behind his house, you stand firm, eyes trained to the cowlick embedded in his hair.

He doesn’t move, nor budge a single centimeter—voice cut and concise upon speaking.

“I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been avoiding Felix.”

You can hear him inhale sharply, not daring to turn around.

“I know it isn’t my business, but there was this.. time Felix and I spoke. You two had a falling out again.. right?”

Prodding deeper into the wound, you can feel your heart constricting tighter and tighter in your chest.

“You’re right.” He whispers, tone low enough you crane to hear. “It isn’t your business.”

It’s your turn to suck in a quick breath.

“And.. it isn’t your place pretending like you know what my life is like. I… I’ll come back to school just-“

Ah. That hiccup. The shudder of his shoulders, the ache in his vocal cords.

“Let me deal with this by myself, alright?”

Who are you to disagree? Spoken seconds earlier, it isn’t your business nor your place shoving your nose into his life.

Synonymously, you don’t blame him. Blame his irritation, his evasiveness.

Whatever this is with Felix runs deeper. It takes but a single glance to dictate that conclusion. Minho’s loss, his hurt. Bottled up feelings bubbling over in their soda can.

When so much of you is battered, you hide, hide in fear that everything will be ripped from your fingertips — that horrid feeling of helplessness; forging grief continuing to wrack you numb.

Minho distanced himself to protect himself, but most importantly to protect them. To protect his friends, to protect Felix.

And yet, he forgot to install a safety net around his own perimeter.

Jittering hands frantically reaching for his bike’s handlebars, and you spectate wordlessly as abundant tears streak down his cheeks the moment a glimpse of his face is seen, fingernails furiously digging into the aged rubber.

“Minho.”

The boy shakes his head, sniffling senselessly before you step forward and grab his collar, lightly yanking him up, redirecting once castaway focus staring down to the cracked pavement below.

“Minho.”

Just then you notice his watery eyes and the heartbreaking, trembling frown adorning his features. Stifling tears.

Thumb carefully tracing his waterline to rid of those beading tears, he leans into your hand, face breaking a bit.

“Just.. please don’t deal with this alone, okay?”

Looking into someone’s eyes had never made you feel like you were dying until now. How can a soul carry such heavy heartache? Grieve so tirelessly even the eyes form as a window?

So broken, so beautiful.

We’re all the same, are we not?

Ten minutes later, seated upon the playing field’s bleachers familiar to the last time you encountered Minho, a comfortable silence answers any of the unspoken questions lingering in afternoon skies.

The boy beside you, puffy eyes and swollen skin, quietly delights in an ice cream bar, your own held between your lips in contemplation before utilizing your thumb and index to speak for a moment.

“I mean, I may dance around in my room to music, but that doesn’t mean I don’t cry in the shower at night. I’m still human, y’know?”

Curious feline eyes hang onto your words, enough of a beckon to go on.

“My days can be bright, my nights could be dark, there’s no limit to how you’re supposed to feel.”

Leaning forward, you tap his chest with your unoccupied hand.

“And there’s no need to try and reject something you want to feel. Otherwise, you suffocate.”

He tilts his head.

“It’s like.. hmm… if I hated the way I breathed—“

“You hate the way you breathe?” Minho interrupted, giving you an “are you stupid?” look you quickly shake your head at.

“No no, it’s an example,” You defend with a feigned scowl. “So if I hated the way I breathed, I can’t just hold my breath for too long or a pass out, right? You can’t let yourself get to a blackout point for the sake of others.”

The boy across from you sucks on the skin of his cheek, observing your extended pinkie before taking it in his own.

“Promise me you won’t get to that blackout point.”

Another promise.

Chan, now Minho.

Expression knit thoughtfully, Minho gradually nods, pressing your thumbs together before cracking an amused grin.

“Y’know, that was well-said.”

You chuckle, smacking his shoulder playfully. “I know right? I’m proud of that one.”

Of course he rolls his eyes in return, but you can see the remnant of a smile in the lifted corners of his mouth, the soft, flushed skin of his under eyes crinkling when he grins.

Ah. He’s beautiful, isn’t he?

On July 31th, your summer school class officially makes a close, and you and eight other boys graduate.

A miracle, maybe a fluke or some sort you made it out in one piece. A task proved possible after all—intentionally or unintentionally.

In the end, perhaps there wasn’t reason to stare at each sheet and pinpoint flaws.

No, Chris isn’t void of life. Hyunjin doesn’t have a superiority complex, and Jisung certainly isn’t senseless. Seungmin gets nervous ordering coffee and hasn’t participated in illegal activities a day in his life. Felix isn’t in an underground gang, and no one has stolen before.

There’s too many sides to a cube, so most stick to 2D squares. The complexity is shrunk so it’s easier to digest.

In the end, perhaps you forget it’s all so wondrous in a way, so intricate and raw. 3D.

Right before you graduated, Hyunjin gave you a painting he made. ‘A thank you for motivating me to add art as my friend’ he had told you.

Changbin still sleeps with his Snorlax plushie, and 3RACHA released their first album just yesterday.

Han finally got his license, Seungmin and Jeongin attend Sejong University as freshman, and Felix sells baked goods on Sundays while interning at a local bakery.

Minho volunteers at an animal shelter on the far side of town, he also took up dancing again.

He and Felix began talking again too.

In the end, perhaps it wasn’t a matter of you helping them, but for the all of you to understand that, in the grand scheme of things, you live on, just as you and Chan had promised.

There is no choice, no point, no break to the cycle.

It hurts, it burns, it breaks. You glue yourself together, even when the pieces shatter over and over. Shards draw blood, but a glued glass can still be useful, can still be worthy.

Bruised and battered, scraped and scorned, a connection lies within Stray Kids that sinks deeper than the anchor you planted in a sea of possibilty, a sea of what you thought was something one-sided, a sea you once believed you’d swim alone.

Maybe it’s discovery after discovery that keeps you close, or maybe it’s something deeper.

Nonetheless, your summer—a summer of hellish heartbreak and love reaping all bounds of repercussion—was one to remember.

A summer solace, for what it’s worth.

FIC TAGLIST. @kayleefriedchicken, @chaotic-world-of-the-j, @minhosbitterriver, @reignessance, @thatonexcgirl, @panbish-1209, @jeonginplsholdmyhand, @neviestayy, @stayinlimbo, @tenmii, @sunoosmainchick, @hannamoon143, @juliettacandy, @c0smicstxrs

sunboki, may 2022 ©

248 notes · View notes

psycholattemacchiato · 12 days

Text

braids and confessions

pairings: felix x gn!reader

warnings: friends to lovers; slight angst; but basically just tooth rotting fluff, really

summary: ever since felix decided to let his hair grow, you asked him if you could braid his hair. but he always said, that it was too short for proper braids.

word count: 1,2k

-------------------------------------------

"Can I? Pleasee! Pretty please let me braid your hair!" You ask Felix for the tenth time this day. "I bet it's long enough by now. And you've been saying 'No' to me since like a lifetime." You pout.

"You know that it has been just three months right? And I've just been saying no, because-" "You don't want me to braid your hair?" You interrupt him. "No, but because I want your braids to stay longer than just ten minutes in my hair. And my hair has just been too short."

These were words you heard a lot in these past three months. It was either that his hair was too short, or he had to color it, so it would be the pretty blonde you liked so much.

"Those words are just excuses. Just tell me, you don't actually want me to braid your hair and I'm just annoying you right now." You huff.

"Oh hell no! You know how much I like your hands in my hair, but-" He looks away sheepishly and you could swear you just saw a slight tint of red on his cheeks. "But what Felix? I wanna hear it." you say much softer now, careful not to get him even more flustered, even though you have to admit, that he looks pretty with that hue of pink on his cheeks.

"No, it doesn't make any sense." He whines. You take his chin in your hand and softly force him to look in your direction. "I don't care if it makes any sense, hell, most things don't make sense to me. But, please, try to explain."

"But you could be mad at me." "You know, that no one can stay mad at you long enough, right?" "But it'll ruin everything."

"You, Lee Felix, cannot ruin anything, if anything, you always put the pieces back together." You assure him.

It is kind of good that you're both sitting on the couch already, because Felix decides to just dive head first into a pile of pillows, and if you weren't sitting close to it, you couldn't have stopped him from falling off the couch, because he aimed a bit too right to completely hit the pillows. "Ugh Felix, you really need to work on your aiming skills." As an answer he just grumbles.

"So care to tell me now? You know I could help you sort it out." You suggest. "No, this cannot be sorted out. This is a world's doomsday." "Dramatic much?" You chuckle. "I don't even know what it is about but I can already say, that it's not that that bad, you seem to be just exaggerating."

"No I'm not." He argues back and you sit up straight. "Then tell me please. I don't like seeing you worked up that much. And it really has to bother you, like a lot. So come on, you know that talking can help."

"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you" He grumbles and sits up, but avoids your eyes.

"So like, I- uhm, I like you." He blurts out. "What a relief" "No, not like that. I like you romantically, I think, but I was too afraid to tell you, because I think it would ruin our friendship, if one of us catches feelings."

"So just to be clear, you think that, if one of us catches feelings our friendship slash relatioship-bond we have would get destroyed?" He nods hesitantly. And. you can't help but laugh, while he just looks at you with an eyebrow raised and that questioning look on this face.

Once you manage to get control over your breath again you grin at him and say: "Well then, if catching feelings would ruin anything, I kinda got that covered already."

If possible, Felix's eyebrow wanders even higher up. "I like you too silly." You explain to him.

And now he let's out a shaky breath. "But, but, why? Aren't I too feminine for a guy, or weird, and, and-"

"Hey, hey, listen to me. Being too feminine or too masculine is just a thing society uses to explain itself to others, who don't understand, that there are no such things, and that it is just more complex than some primitive minds, who just can't wrap their minds around the fact that there isn't just black and white but there are so many shades of grey and other colors too. And a person isn't too much of anything. A person should be allowed to just be themselves."

You end your little speech, feeling proud of your choice of words, and when you look at Felix, you have to blink a few times, to see, if you just imagined the little hearts in his eyes, or if they were really there.

"God that really makes me want to kiss you right now." Felix says without thinking. You smile but feel your face heat up at his words, so you hide it in your hands and just slightly peek through your fingers. Just to see him smiling back. "Can I? I mean can I kiss you? Do I have permission?" He asks while he removes your hands from your face, and you nod sheepishly.

And then you feel his lips against yours, at first just a soft and light touch, almost, as if it was an illusion. But then he takes your cheeks in his palms and angles his mouth. The first few moments, you don't know what to do, then you try and kiss him back. You move your lips in sync and your hands, that seemed lost on your sides find themselves entangled in Felix's hair, occasionally tugging lightly.

When you both have to break apart to take a few breaths again you lean your foreheads together and it feels even more intimate that the kiss you shared just a moment before.

"So does that mean, that I can be your boyfriend now?" He asks you while looking at you with these puppy eyes you just can't say no to.

"Yes Felix. It means that you can be my boyfriend. But only under one condition." "Everything" He answers almost instantly. "I finally get to braid your hair." You smirk triumphantly. "Yes, you can braid my hair." He grins at you. "I actually would love to have you braid my hair."

That's how you end up, sitting on the couch with legs spread, and Felix sitting on the floor in between them while hugging a pillow and enjoying the feeling of having your hands in his hair.

The distant sound of some TV-Show playing, adds to the domestic feeling, while you two are just talking about anything that comes to your minds.

Taking three little strands at a time, you start waving them together, until the three strands make one. You then grab a little hair tie to stop the hair from entangling itself from the braid. After that you repeat the process two times.

In the end, Felix has a total of three simple and little braids in his hair, two on each side of his hair, and one that can only be seen if he tucks his hair behind his ear.

For your good work with his hair he rewards you with lots of kisses and cuddles.

And when he gets on stage a week after you braided his hair, you spot these little braids, that he still carries with him.

But you weren't the only one who spotted them. Because on some gossip pages, you found posts about his little braids. 'Lee Felix, member of Stray Kids has been spotted with little braids, he seems to worship very much. Does he have an anonymus partner, no one knows about yet?'

---------------------------------------------

a/n: i just wanted to write something domestic and sweet, and kind of reassuring. because i felt like some people still judge others just on what they see, and i actually would have wantedt to hear these words too at some point, but there are people out there who need these words as much as i did. i hope y'all have a great day/night, and make sure you stay healthy. because you all are equally important. even if society makes you feel little and unnecessary. always remember you are loved. by stray kids and stay, and other people, you may not even really know.

#nicos thoughts #felix x reader #stray kids x reader #stray kids #lee felix x reader #gender neutral reader #reassurance #felix fluff #felix comfort #skz stay #i'm a simp for lee felix with long hair istg

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twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat · 10 months

Text

THE GREEN IN YOUR EYES MAKES ME FEEL WARM INSIDE ; MEGUMI FUSHIGURO

synopsis; in the comfort of a familiar bookstore, you find a boy. a pretty boy, who’s always reading, who doesn’t speak unless he has to. you’d like to get to know him — and maybe you will.

word count; 4.6k

contents; megumi fushiguro/reader, gn!reader, fluffy!!, lots of pining from afar, bookstore au, no curses au, reader is an overworked student bc uni is beating my ass, gumi is kind of awkward but hes cute <3, gojo mentioned twice (stay safe), can u tell im excited for christmas … :'3

a/n; bookstore employee gumi who hates every single customer except for you is so real to me

(@riaki its here …🙇‍♂️)

he’s there again.

with a decisive step forward, you drag the door open, and the flutter of a bell resounds throughout the bookstore. a precious little jingle, alerting him of your presence.

the boy at the counter gives you a glance. his navy eyes settle on your bundled up figure, and a flicker of familiarity blooms in the scope of his iris, a kind of recognition. something that makes your heart feel like a clumped up little ball of snow.

(oh. it’s you.

you can almost hear the silent words fall past his lips.)

it only lasts for a second, barely even that, your gazes overlapping — then he’s back to reading.

today, you recognize the book in his hands. the hardcover looks just a tiny bit worn, but still well taken care of. well-loved. and it’s a pretty rendition; a butterfly just above the title, snakes crawling on either side, vines stretching out across the scope of the image. there’s a kind of mystique to it. pretty.

wuthering heights, you read off the cover.

a little odd, in hindsight. you’ve only ever seen him read nonfiction. maybe he decided to broaden his horizons?

after a brief moment’s contemplation, your feet begin to move. taking another small step forward, inching closer, while the door falls shut behind you. blocking out the snowfall and colourful lights illuminating the street.

mitten-clad hands go to brush stray snowflakes off your shoulders, as you shift from foot to foot, halfheartedly attempting to warm up your numbed toes. wallowing in the atmosphere of the cozy little bookstore; breathing in the smell of peppermint, the hint of freshly brewed coffee. from the boy, you assume — he’s got his usual mug on standby, a cute little black dog etched into the ceramic. steam rises from it, floating up into the air, and a fragrance of espresso wafts throughout the store.

low christmas music plays from the speakers, barely audible. pleasing to your sensitive ears and tired mind. it’s the usual mix of well-loved songs, for the most part, but then some you haven’t heard before. you can only assume he picked them out himself; pretty instrumentals, or low, gravelly voices, adding to that particular atmosphere simmering around you. nostalgic, a little melancholic.

the boy behind the counter looks angelic.

he always does, when he’s reading — and he usually is. gentle, in the way he turns the pages, awfully delicate, keeping them still between his thumb and forefinger. lips pursed, brows just a tiny bit furrowed. concentrated, immersed. dark eyes trailing over the tiny letters, scanning the ink of the paper, twisting the syllables inside his mind. almost tasting them on his tongue, with the way he wets his lips. they look a little chapped.

for some reason, the sight seems to render you sort of speechless. frozen. like he’s a pretty bluebird seated on your windowsill, chirping softly in the wake of morning, and you’re afraid of scaring him away.

— his eyes meet yours, and you visibly stiffen.

it’s smooth, the motion of his hands. how swiftly he flicks the book shut, placing it face down on the counter with a twitch of his lithe fingers. not before slipping a pretty bookmark in between the pages, lilac-coloured, with flowers embroidered into the silky texture. you wonder if he made it himself.

his voice spills out into the air, a little raspy. deep, but velvety, sending shivers down your spine. he clears his throat, and you watch his adam’s apple bob. ”do you need anything?”

a second passes.

it catches you off guard, the mellow sound of his voice. when you’re so unaccustomed to hearing it. excluding the brief words you’ve exchanged paying for your novels, you’ve only heard it a select few times — mostly from afar, not-so-sneakily listening in on his conversations with the pink haired boy and pretty girl who sometimes come in and never look at any of the books.

(there’s the tall guy with the not-so-seasonal sunglasses, too. but when he enters the store, all you pick up on are usually grumbles and threatening hand gestures.)

but now, that low, low voice is directed at you.

it can’t be good for your physical health. or mental, for that matter. you’re not sure you remember to properly breathe, and you’re almost certain hearts aren’t supposed to flail the way yours is right now.

when the boy behind the counter tilts his head, just by a hair, you’re finally snapped out of your little trance. stumbling for something to say, stuttering out a response, your hands grip at the insides of your pockets.

”well, um — i’m looking for a book.”

a moment passes. the song coming from the speakers changes into an instrumental, kind of jazzy. it’s nice.

”… a specific book,” you elaborate, under your breath. gnawing at your bottom lip, feeling a bit of heat on your ears. clearing your throat, as you step forward, tearing your mittens off with your teeth.

searching for a certain image, your numbed fingertips begin to tap at the cold screen of your phone. the warm air of the bookstore envelops your chilled knuckles, and a shiver runs through them.

the boy watches, silently, as you get closer.

you don’t notice him glancing at your reddened hands, and when you look up to see a glimmer of something displeased in his eyes, you only assume it’s because you’re taking too long. speeding up slightly, you hear a low click of his tongue. his back straightens.

when he gets up from his chair, you notice that he's tall. you don’t think you’ve ever seen him do anything but sit behind the counter with a book in hand, either reading his own or scanning a customer’s.

and, upon closer inspection — he’s maybe just a little bit too pretty for words. smooth, pale skin, a sharp jaw and defined cheekbones, dark eyes that hide a subtle kind of softness. pierced ears, a glimmer of silver on his earlobes, same as the rings on his bony fingers. his nails are painted black, a little chipped. and he’s wearing a big, bright green christmas sweater; one you really can’t imagine him picking out on his own, if his previous all-black turtlenecks and gray sweaters are anything to go by.

while you fumble with the phone in your grasp, the pads of his fingers go to silently tap at the edge of the counter. a rhythmic motion; forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, over and over again.

it’s a little bit distracting. when he moves his hand a certain way, his big sweater sleeve rides up just a tiny bit, showing off the blue veins of his inner wrist. you think you catch a glimpse of a mole or two on his pale skin, and you swallow down a gulp, feeling a little like a victorian man seeing a girl’s ankle.

and then finally, you locate the image in question. swiftly showing him the cover of the book you were assigned to read. he squints a little, blinking drowsily, a flutter of his pretty eyelashes that has your heart skipping a beat.

you clear your throat.

”i’m supposed to read it before christmas break, but i couldn’t find it at our library…” you tilt your head, a little sheepish. ”do you have it here?”

he stares at the screen for just a second more. then he’s angling his head to the left, finger pointing towards a corner of the store. ”it should be over there,” he hums. monotone.

a tentative smile forms on your lips. you thank him, and his eyes find yours.

all he does is shake his head, softly, brushing you off — a silent don’t worry about it. maybe a tad gruff, but you sense an acute gentleness to it. something tender, kind of. or maybe you’d just like to believe the kindness you sense in his eyes is real, more than just a delusion.

but you don’t have time to dwell on it. the boy behind the counter goes back to reading, cradling the spine with his pretty hands. when he tries to grab the handle of his mug, one of the rings on his fingers knock against the ceramic, and he clicks his tongue in annoyance.

you go to hunt down your own book, still thinking about his voice, how it trickled like honey from out his lips.

the bookstore is entirely empty, tonight. no loud noises drilling into your groggy brain, no people to chatter amongst themselves and disrupt the illusion of peace you gain when you spend time here. a tiny respite, from your studies, from the stress and fatigue that you’ve come to associate with winter. hunting for christmas gifts, finishing late assignments, trudging through the snow. pretending that you have it all together.

but here, none of that matters.

a sense of calm washes over you, as your eyes trail over the books by the science fiction section, and a soft sigh tumbles from your throat. gradually, your hands begin to warm up, and you look out the window.

outside, the world is blanketed by a veil of snow and frost, pure whites and murky grays as far as the eye can see. falling down to earth, smothering everything in a bitter chill. a cold, cold embrace. but when looking at it like this, from inside a cozy bookstore, with a pretty boy by the counter…

it's a breathtaking sight.

little snowflakes descending, dancing in the wind. desaturating your world. if you close your eyes and focus, you think you can almost feel the wind nip at your fingertips, almost taste the fragrance of dried tea leaves and caramel fudge from the tiny shop across the street. almost bask in the green and red of the decorative lights in the skeletal trees, illuminating the city, buzzing with artificial warmth.

(your heart feels light.)

it doesn’t take long for you to find the book you need. keeping it safe and warm between your arm and torso, you walk back to the counter, gaze still lingering on the windowpane. the little snowflakes fluttering about, the glimpses you catch of passerby and their knit scarves in the darkness of the winter evening.

the boy behind the counter is as efficient as ever. he takes the book, fingertips resting exactly where yours just were, and scans it in a matter of seconds. you pay, and he puts it in a plastic bag, handing it to you — all while his copy of wuthering heights sits on the counter, pointedly, as if beckoning you to mention it.

before you can think to stop yourself, you’ve parted your lips.

”is it good?” you ask. finger pointing at his book.

the boy blinks. eyelashes fluttering. once, then twice. he seems a little caught off guard, but still speaks within a split second. almost like he doesn’t even think about the answer. ”yeah.”

a hum buzzes in your throat. you shift a little, from foot to foot, plastic bag in hand. ”i’ve been meaning to read it,” you say, desperate to prolong the conversation, ”but i haven't had much time lately.”

a chuckle slips from your lips. it comes out sounding just a little exhausted.

(he glances at the dark bags beneath your eyes, but you don’t notice.)

”i think i might buy it in time for christmas break, though…” you lift your gaze to meet his own. showing the briefest glimpse of a smile, polite.

he doesn’t return it. lips pursed, silent, gazing at you with slightly lidded eyes. a navy blue, little splotches of a murky green blooming in the corners of his iris. they only appear when you’re this close. soothing, somehow. they’re pretty.

he isn’t saying anything, not a single word, and some part of your heart clogs up like a clump of wet snow. subconsciously, you trap your bottom lip between your teeth, digging into the soft flesh before letting go. cowering a little under his intense gaze.

did you annoy him?

(he probably doesn’t want to talk to you. maybe he thinks you’re hitting on him, or something. are you hitting on him? that doesn’t matter. he must be stressed — it’s holiday season, after all. the last thing he needs is some annoying customer taking up his precious reading time.

gosh, what were you even thinking?)

you’re just about to excuse yourself, mentally berating yourself for forcibly striking up a conversation with an obvious introvert —

when the sound of something sliding against wooden material catches your attention.

you blink.

the boy behind the counter does a little cough. under his breath, clearing his throat. he wets his lips, in what you immediately recognize as nervosity — absentmindedly fidgeting with the rings on his fingers.

”here.”

when you look down, a certain book is placed on the edge of the counter, right in front of you. wuthering heights.

another blink. you look down at the hardcover, and then back up at him, but he’s not meeting your gaze. if you look closely, you think you see a slight flush to his neck, red like a candy cane.

”you can borrow it,” he says. a pause. then he continues, clearing his throat again, a hint of hesitance in his raspy voice. ”… if you want to, i mean.”

”… ah.” is all you can answer. barely a word, more of a weak little hum. an absent tremble of your voice.

outside the comfort and warmth of the bookstore, the wind whistles, digging its claws into the city. tiny whirlwinds of snowflakes dance from street to street, fluttering about joyously. you vaguely pick up on the song from the speakers changing, into a poppy christmas-themed kpop song.

a moment passes.

your muddled mind finally reacts. on instinct, sending little instructions to your frozen limbs. to your heart, face down on the floor, completely useless.

”oh — no, there’s no need!” you blurt out, putting your hands up hastily. waving him off. ”it’s fine, i can just buy my own copy!”

but the boy only clicks his tongue, with that signature furrow of his brows. ”you’re a student,” he states, just a little gruff. but then there’s that kindness. ”you shouldn’t waste your money.”

you’re just about to protest, when he continues. ”besides,” he sighs. ”i’ve already read it. you can just bring it back whenever you’re done.”

and again, your instinctual desire is to protest. unsure of what to say, somehow exasperated by his trust. that’s what it is, isn’t it? trust. trusting a stranger, a customer he’s barely even spoken to, not to just take his book and then never return. trusting you to be a decent person. a good person.

isn’t that naive?

something sprouts like a snowdrop in a ridge between your ribs, though, and you know that it’s happiness of some kind. you’re glad, that he has something even vaguely similar to trust in you.

glad that he’s acknowledging you, in a way. your presence, the sneaky glances shared between you. the comfortable feeling that sleeps inside your veins when it's just you and him, silently passing each other by, in a quiet bookstore that feels a little like heaven on earth. a safe haven, of sorts, with no incompetent professors, tight deadlines or numb fingers.

it’s just him, and cozy christmas music, and a pitter patter rhythm of your heartbeat that sounds a little like jingle bells to your muddled mind.

a lump forms in the back of your throat. you gulp it back down, and part your lips. an unsure question spills into the open air.

”are… you really sure?”

”yeah.” he doesn’t even skip a beat. fingers tapping at the edge of the counter, over and over again. another slow moment passes. ”we can… talk. about it.” he coughs into his closed fist. ”once you've read it.”

with a soft furrow of his brows, he averts his gaze. his voice comes out sounding soft, albeit a little rough around the edges. ”if you want,” he adds.

you’re so distracted by the flutter of his long eyelashes that you barely even feel your lips stretch into a smile. your hearts skips around happily within the confines of your ribcage, and you’re worried that you might look a little too excited — but how could you ever hide your joy, when he’s acting so dangerously, uncharacteristically cute?

”yeah!” you blurt, teeth peeking out when you flash him a bright smile. and finally, he meets your gaze. pretty eyes fixed entirely on you.

at your evident enthusiasm, his shoulders seem to relax. the rapid tapping of his fingers ceases, and he opts to simply bite down on his lip — attempting to obscure his own smile. but you see it, anyway; a tiny, tiny smile. the softest little curl of his lips. you’re entirely mesmerized, all the same.

a hand goes to rub at the back of his neck, and he does that cute little cough again, and you wonder if the warmth sprouting in your chest will be enough to protect you from the snowfall on your way back home.

angelic; that’s the impression he always seems to leave you with. you wonder if he has any idea just how pretty he is. if he has the slightest clue. you wonder if you’ll ever be able to tell him, yourself.

you wonder if you’ll get to know him, someday. if you’ll ever get to know the pretty, quiet boy behind the counter of your go-to bookstore, who radiates a softness so palpable you wish you could stay there until spring blooms beyond the windows and melts the frosted glass.

with tentative hands, a little shaky — not from the cold, but the anxious and excited tingle of your bloodstream — you reach for the book on the counter. taking it into your arms, cradling it gently, like it’s so fragile the pages could scatter away if you aren’t careful. with a steady hand on its spine, you begin to flip through the pages, until three little words on the first blank page catch your attention.

without thinking, you repeat the little scribbled down sentence under your breath. hoping for something. more lulls of his voice, maybe, mumbling to yourself but hoping he’ll hear.

”happy birthday, tsumiki…”

the boy stiffens.

a silent beat. then he clears his throat. ”my sister,” he explains, and you hum.

so he has a sister. a tiny fragment of his existence, now known to you, a little piece of trivia. you want to collect them, want to put them all in your pockets and carry them around, like little precious bells.

”megumi,” he blurts out, sudden, and you look up from the book to meet his gaze. ”my name,” he elaborates. and then a pause. ”i work here.”

…

in a matter of seconds, his face reddens. ears and neck slathered over with that sweet cherry hue, blooming across his pale skin. a soft giggle slips from your lips, before you can think to bite it back, and that red hue exacerbates.

”mm,” you hum, an amused smile on your face. eyes crinkling as you look at him, book safe and secure in your arms. ”i've seen you.”

megumi looks a bit like he wants the ground to swallow him whole. squirming slightly, shifting from foot to foot, tugging a little at the sleeve of his sweater. looking into your eyes, and then back at the counter.

it’s sweet. it makes you feel closer to him, somehow. like you aren’t the only nervous one here. like you aren’t the only person in this city who’s a little bit of a mess.

(it makes the sludge piling up inside your brain feel just a little more bearable.)

”… thank you.” you smile. ”i’ll take good care of it. and i’ll bring it right back when i finish it.”

a low hum. megumi brings a hand up to fix his bangs, nimble fingers running through dark locks. absentminded — a nervous habit, maybe? ”don’t worry about it,” is all he says.

again, that sweet dichotomy; a hint of something gruff, hiding an unmistakable softness. a little like snow. cold to the touch, enough to make you want to stay away, but then it melts on the skin of your palm. turns soft and warm beneath your touch.

unable to fully hide the smile still lingering on your lips, you allow yourself one final inhale — letting that scent of peppermint and espresso invade your mind, soothing every frazzled nerve inside your brain. then you put wuthering heights in your bag, protected and snug, and get ready to leave.

it’s still snowing. if anything, it seems to have gotten worse, enough that all you see when you glance towards the frosted windows are little clumps of snowflakes. obscuring everything else.

just when you’re about to speak, say a little goodbye, a voice spills out into the air.

”… the snow’s supposed to get worse. apparently.”

his navy eyes carry a gentle hue, as they look into yours. maybe a little worried, like a protective mother wolf towards her cub. you blink, and megumi sees it as his cue to continue.

”you can stay until it gets better.”

a brief pause. his signature cough reaches your ears, and it’s enough to have you smiling, even before he adds a tiny if you feel like it. nonchalant, or at least you think that’s what he’s going for. he mostly just sounds like an awfully caring person trying awfully hard to appear uncaring.

and again, a little smile slips itself into the curl of your lips. all giddy and nervous, a little flustered. but happy. now you won’t have to walk through the relentless snowfall outside, feel the wind chew at your reddened cheekbones. now you can spend just a bit more time with him, bask in those quiet, drawn out moments of pure peace, browsing through books while he sits and reads behind the counter.

”thanks,” you breathe. adjusting your knitted scarf. ”i think i'll look at the books a little more, then.”

megumi’s eyes soften. relieved, you think. hope. it’s a subtle shift, but still enough to notice, enough to see. little splotches of a mossy green sinking into that sea of ink blue.

you think he must feel a little embarrassed, though. like he’s gotten too close to broaching the line he’s set up between the two of you. because he quickly fixes his gaze entirely on a book in his hands, a new one — was it just waiting beneath the counter?

you don't think much of it, but you note that he's back to his usual nonfiction. something on astronomy, you think.

and with one final glance at his tousled hair, you begin to stroll through the store. languidly, walking to whatever spine captures your attention. savouring the tiny words on the back of the books, wallowing in the peppermint and espresso that wafts through the air, only growing heavier while you’re busy admiring the white opaque frosting of the windows’ glass.

at some point, the low whirring of a coffee machine buzzes from afar, and when you turn to the counter megumi isn’t there.

a little later, when he comes back, he’ll be carrying two mugs — matching dogs etched into the ceramic, one black and one white. he’ll put one of them on the edge of the counter, closest to you, and then meet your eyes. give a vague nod towards it, but nothing else. you’ll notice the red tint to his ears, though.

and when you do, a warmth will blossom in your chest, enough to chase away the phantom ache of the winter chill soon to envelop you.

when the little bell of the bookstore jingles its jolly tune, and the door shuts itself as you cross the threshold to leave, megumi lets out a barely audible sigh.

he thinks his heart may be beating just a smidge faster than usual, a little out of rhythm. palms against the counter, he allows his eyes to flutter shut — trying not to acknowledge the heat he feels on his face when he finally begins to process your interaction.

he smooths a hand over his face, skin just a little sweaty. chewing at his bottom lip with two sharp teeth.

god.

really, it was no more than a stupid twist of luck. that you happened to come in just when he started reading it, that you noticed and didn’t question him on any of the contents. that you believed him when he said he’d already finished it.

and, sure, maybe he was secretly really hoping you’d come in. really hoping you’d notice it, that it’d be enough to make you strike up a conversation with him, something, anything.

he happened to see you eyeing it once, that’s all. twice, and then thrice, each on different occasions. tsumiki’s old collection came in handy, rotting on the dusty shelves of her room — although he has no memory of her ever reading it.

(he remembers some, though. remembers her reading a few of them to him, on nights he couldn’t sleep. remembers the soft lull of her voice, how the whole world seemed blanketed by a wool of safety.

he wonders if he’ll ever get to hear it again.)

megumi’s heart feels warm. despite everything.

even though he didn’t even get past the first half of wuthering heights, and has no idea what the hell he’s going to be able to talk to you about. even though he thinks heathcliff is a dick and catherine is a brat, and wishes they could save everyone else the trouble and just talk to a psychiatrist.

even with the cold baring its fangs outside, and the cup of espresso sitting right in front of him, still untouched, made with the store’s shitty coffee machine. even in the ugly sweater gojo forced him into. even though he doesn’t even really know you, not even at all, and still somehow feels certain that you’ll come back with tsumiki’s book in tow.

trust.

megumi thinks it’s a little weird, how just that single overlapping of your gazes when you first stepped in seemed to solidify such an abstract notion. he’s always had a sense of it, though — a sense of goodness. an ability to seek them out, those good people, bubbly and cheerful and so tragically hard not to love.

no matter where he goes, he ends up finding them. like tiny sunflower seeds persisting beneath the winter snow. blooming when spring comes around, in a burst of golden vermillion.

resting his jaw on the heel of his palm, megumi allows himself to wallow in the solitude of the bookstore. tired eyes soaking up the words on the pages he flips through, slowly, utterly at ease. drinking his shitty coffee, trying to ignore the itchy feeling of the sweater on his skin, unable to forget the memory of your stupidly pretty smile.

so pretty he thinks it might just keep him warm, all throughout winter, until you return once more. bringing with you the glimmer of snowflakes on soft skin, and a pleasant fragrance of tea leaves from the cozy shop across the street.

a single sunflower, persisting even through the cold.

megumi smiles. a tiny curl of his chapped lips, while he flips the pages of his book. content in the knowledge that this won’t be the last time he speaks to you.

(now he just needs to read up on some good papers on wuthering heights.)

#im just thinking abt ….. bookstore gumi who goes out of his way to only work the quiet lazy shifts . and all he does is drink coffee n read #so its like his selfcare time and he hates customers n gets annoyed when they come in PHDJD…. acting like he owns the store #but then u come in !! :< n ur presence is just so gentle and soothing . n the more he sees you the prettier u get in his eyes.#so he tries to silently impress u </3 reading ur fave books even if he doesnt like them <//3 cutie #just to be clear if a bookstore employee randomly offers u a cup of coffee Do Not drink it . even if hes hot. stay safe ✌️#jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #jjk fluff #megumi x reader #megumi x you #megumi fluff #megumi fushiguro #megumi x y/n #megumi fushiguro x reader #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #jjk x gender neutral reader

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strlstlvr · 1 year

Text

OBSESSED, stray kids finding an old fan tweet abt them ♡

- PART TWO; MAKNAE LINE ! of course you were always their biggest fan, too bad they took a deep dive and found out how obsessed you actually were

⋆·˚ ༘ * smau, crack

link to part one! hyung line <3

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azen13 · 27 days

Note

I’ve never been to a Starlight Pawnshop before…just look at all this stuff. Too bad I can’t buy everything in this store.

Wait a minute, who left this Chess Piece out by itself? No matter, I’ll gladly take it, even if I’ve never played a single game before in my life!

A Losing Game

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Chess Pawn: A finely-carved chess pawn. If life is a chessboard, then so too are people pawns in other's games. Based on this pawn’s pristine condition, whoever controlled it loved it quite dearly.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

CW: Yandere Themes, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Gaslighting

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Jing Yuan is an accomplished man. As the General of the Xianzhou Luofu, he has accumulated a list of titles and achievements that could fill a thousand archives: master of foresight; skilled with a glaive; voted “Most Attractive Bachelor” of the Xianzhou Luofu five years in a row. And, of course, his prowess at Starchess.

Yes, Jing Yuan is very, very good at Starchess. One of the best in the entirety of the Xianzhou Alliance, if not in the entire galaxy. While his knowledge of opening lines could be considered weak for his level of gameplay, after he gets settled, he excels at slowly cutting off his opponent’s options, until reaching the endgame.

In Starchess, the endgame is extremely important. A poorly-played endgame can lead to a crushing defeat, while quick thinking and clever maneuvering of pieces can allow a pawn to be promoted to a queen, which can then help propel a player to victory.

While Jing Yuan is good at Starchess, he is almost undefeatable in the endgame.

Until today.

The ring was perfect and understated, a band of solid gold engraved with delicate patterns. He knew everything about you from years of dismantling every thread of your being apart, and knew you didn’t care for things that were too gaudy and outwardly luxurious. The night was perfectly planned: a picnic beneath the starlit sky, constellations framing your face like a crown. He had hidden the ring at the bottom of the basket, beneath a beautiful meal of the finest the Luofu had to offer. And you were going to be there, boundless in beauty and grace, sharp as a sword and sweet as sugar.

Tonight, though, Jing Yuan tastes the sea on his lips.

How long has it been since he has cried? Centuries, he thinks, standing in the foyer of his home, the front door slightly ajar. A biting wind snaps its jaws at Jing Yuan through the opening, but he cannot feel it. He can hardly feel anything.

The numbness spreads from his heart outwards as he moves, first forwards to shut the door. A brief glance outside, and he can still imagine you standing there. In better circumstances, you and him would have gone to Fyxestroll Gardens, and enjoyed a quiet night. He would have proposed. You would have accepted. Everything would be right in the world. But when Jing Yuan opened the door, what greeted him was the greatest misfortune he had ever faced.

You stood outside, jagged shadows stretching like scars across your face, your posture guarded, your face unreadable. At first, Jing Yuan assumed you just had a terrible day, perhaps because of your job, perhaps because of something else. But then you began to speak, poison spilling from your lips, killing both you and him. He knows this is a grave mistake, but you have already drowned in these lies.

As you walk away from him, Jing Yuan makes a vow to himself: he will not let you leave. No, not like this.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Without you by his side, safe and secure in his loving embrace, the General’s night is restless; as he tosses and turns, he replays the memories of hurt again and again in his mind, trying to wrap his head around your reasoning so he can dismantle it when he has you again. He may have unknowingly made a blunder, but he will still win this game, the most important game of his life.

Maybe a stop by the Alchemy Commission–your workplace–is necessary, no? Last time he heard, investigators are still clearing out spies from the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus hiding amongst its members.

Jing Yuan takes a moment to check his schedule, a relaxed smile falling on his face. He still has several hours before his first meeting of the day. Enough time to bring you back home, where you belong. A brief flash of uncertainty courses through his body, like a chess player second-guessing their plan, before he steadies himself. This is for your benefit, he tells himself. With all the dangers on the Luofu, someone like you cannot simply remain unprotected.

With a calm and patient gait, the General of the Luofu makes his way to the Alchemy Commission.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

He scrutinizes the cramped halls of the building you work in carefully, noting a pawn here, a bishop there. All people, yet all pieces in the game of love, and the inevitable, complete conquering of your heart. Perhaps they are playing their own games, but they do not matter. In this game, they are Jing Yuan’s pieces to move. Before today, they may have been your pieces. But while the game of life and the game of chess share many similarities, they are not one in the same. Life’s board flips and moves, expands and shrinks. Pieces change allegiances, or disappear and reappear entirely.

The board is not on your side today. You don’t even notice Jing Yuan watching you from the hall, preparing your doom. Within moments, he strides in the room, his lazy gait and relaxed expression taking control over the room and its occupants–including you–in mere seconds. Shocked faces spread like lightning, from healer to healer, before striking yours. You stand in complete terror, as Jing Yuan claims you with a simple glance, before speaking in an authoritative tone, booming like thunder.

“Mx. L/N, you are hereby arrested.” Eyes that once melted with fondness when simply seeing your face now bore into you with frigid disgust.

You can’t help but flinch from the words, mouth agape and mind blank. After a moment, you manage to collect yourself, disregarding the stares of those around you. “Excuse me? What for?” You demand.

Jing Yuan tilts his head, looking down at you. “Sedition against the Xianzhou Luofu through serving the Plagues Author and the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus,” he cites, taking a stride forward, arms snapping to lock your limbs behind your back like shackles. “You will be taken to the Seat of Divine Foresight and given a proper sentencing for your crimes.”

Try as you may, your shouts and screams of vehement denial do you no good as Jing Yuan walks you out. Streets pass you by like snapshots of a past life. You can see the tea shop where you and Jing Yuan went on your first date. His favorite restaurant to order takeout from. The balcony overlooking the Ambrosial Arbor where he first kissed you. Thousands upon thousands of moves, each and every one thought out to perfection. Countless gambits taken, small victories celebrated, and little defeats mourned. You had nearly defeated him. Or so you thought.

Eventually, you make it to the Seat of Divine Foresight, Jing Yuan’s arms still vice like in their hold, yet not tight enough to hurt. You try to follow the turns the General takes–a right, a left, another left, up a flight of stairs, right again–but your focus wanes.

You are not guilty of any crime.

At least, so you think. Because you committed a grave offense: breaking the weak, feeble heart of your lover.

A lifelong sentence is only fair, no?

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

“My dearest, why must you struggle?” Jing Yuan murmurs as he pulls you into a small room with only a table and two chairs. Pulling you away from the door, the General gently places you on the ground, and remains by the exit, cutting off any chance of escape you may have.

“Why must you falsely accuse me?” You retort, voice flickering with fire and burning bright, even amongst all the encroaching darkness.

Jing Yuan’s soft smile slowly dissipates into a frown, the shine in his eyes dimming away into nothingness. “Y/N, I have been nothing but patient with you. I have explained why I must protect you. You understood then. Why can’t you understand now?” Slowly, like he’s trying to comfort a skittish animal, Jing Yuan inches towards you, arms outstretched inviting you into his embrace.

“Because you’re a psycho!” You hiss, stepping backwards. Despite your insult, the General does not anger. Instead, disappointment flashes across his face. He takes another step forward, effectively cornering you.

With a quiet, hushed tone that echoes in the room like a hollow breeze, Jing Yuan’s arms find their way around your torso, pulling you tightly against him. Regardless of how much you struggle, you cannot escape Jing Yuan. “You don’t think that, love. You’re afraid. That’s okay. That’s why I’m here. To care for you. To protect you. To love you. Don’t you want that?” He asks quietly, letting you wear yourself out until you melt in his hands like putty, exhausted in every sense. A few moments of utter silence pass, before he speaks up again. “Why don’t we go home now? I have a surprise waiting for you.”

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

The moment you return home, Jing Yuan locks the door. To protect you from yourself, he says. Though that’s a condensed version of his actual words, which are far more persuasive, spinning you around in a whirlwind of logic and reasoning you can’t seem to keep up with.

Only a second later, the General is down on one knee, a ring in hand and a glint of fire in his eyes. For a moment, you think the look is a soft, gentle thing. But then you see it for what it is: a love so warped it cannot simply be called love anymore.

As much as you want to reject his proposal, to slap him across the face and attempt to spark another uprising against his smothering love, you know it would do you no good. He would only force the ring on your finger and crown you his spouse, whether you liked it or not.

Checkmate.

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milkteabinniechan · 5 months

Text

♡summer heat - hyunjin

MINORS DNI 18+ ONLY

pervy roommate! hyunjin <3 ko-fi // m.list

warnings: masturbation, pillow f*cking, slight exhibitionism

Hyunjin unlocked his apartment door. He heard the clu-clunk of the lock and pushed the door aside. Summer had come swiftly and lingered long into the nights. Hyunjin welcomed the sanctuary of his air-conditioned home. He stood in front of the living room vent for a moment, letting the cool air push away the beads of sweat that were collecting on his arms and chest.

"So fucking hot" he grumbled out loud. He pressed his hand to his forehead, feeling the stickiness of his skin.

His other hand gripped the waistband of his shorts. He peeled the white shirt from off his body. Hannie and Changbin wouldn’t be home for hours, so he had the place to himself. He scanned the room, trying to figure out what to do next. He knew what he really wanted to do but he questioned if he had enough time to do it. After a few back and forth debating in his head, he ultimately decided that he deserved it. He had been working hard all day, this was a special treat.

Hyunjin made his way to his bedroom only to discover his pillow without a pillowcase. Confusion coated his face as he lifted the bedsheets and peered under the bed, but nothing. Until suddenly he remembered, a movie night from last night had left his room in complete disarray, including one pillowcase covered in soda pop and popcorn. A bare pillow was… fine. But Hyunjin knew the feel of a silky pillowcase too well to go without it. He poked his head back out toward the living room. On the couch were just a few fluffy throw pillows. He could easily snag one of those but he knew they were everyone’s pillows.

Not that everyone uses them like i want to use them now… unless?

Hyunjin shook his head at the thought. He was the only perverted pillow humper in this apartment. There was absolutely no way Han and Changbin were nasty pillow grinders too. However, the thought of both of his roommates also indulging in their more primal instincts made his cock start to twitch. His hand instinctually grazed over his shorts and moved in a swirling motion over his shaft. Sweat was still dripping from his face and neck. Then another purely devilish thought washed over him; what if he kept the couch pillows where they were, right on the couch. Only he would be there too. His cock began to twitch again.

Hyunjin found himself in front of the living room couch, both hands now precariously placed at the hem of his waistband. He positioned himself up onto the couch cushions so he was kneeling right in front of one of the throw pillows. Dark green. That’s the color everyone had decided on. Hyunjin remembers picking out all sorts of dark green things to make everything match.

This is so perverted. I shouldn’t do this. Hyunjin’s words echoed in his head as his hands worked on their own, inching down his shorts and pulling out his increasingly hard cock. He held the pulsating muscle in his hand for a moment, feeling the ba-bum of the veins running up and down. Every pulse felt like a desperate pleading cry to his brain, begging him to let his shaft grind and rut and rub. Hyunjin finally gave in.

His movements were ones of embarrassment at first. Feeling slight shame for doing this in such a public area. He closed his eyes but all he could picture was getting caught, seeing his roommates come through the front door. Hyunjin’s cock started to pulsate and pump beneath him. His mouth fell open and a boisterous moan poured from his wet lips. The heat from the day was still consuming him like a devil on his shoulder, coaxing him to go harder, push stronger. He used one hand to pull his shorts down further, freeing his ballsack completely. He let them fall into the cushioned pillow as the continued to moan and buck his hips shamelessly.

He could feel his orgasm growing out of control as he moved his head from side to side, trying to find his shirt or something- anything -to come into.

No, no, no… f-fuck… Hyunjin breathed deep as he witnessed his seed gush out of his sensitive, red tip. The dark green throw pillow now a glaringly obvious clue to what he’d done while his rommates were away. He quickly tossed the stained pillow into his room and pulled his shorts back up. Just then he heard the clu-clunk of the apartment door.

Shit.

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woncon · 1 year

Text

➳ the case of the missing cookie

➶ stray kids ot8 x gn!reader ｡˚ °

-ˏ` ✎﹏ where one of your boyfriends ate your cookie and you need to find out who was the thief, so you kiss everyone.

➴ genre: fluff, poly, slice of life, non-idol au

: ̗̀➛ warnings: mxm interactions (ofc), one punch, a lil' bit suggestive if you squint, a few pet names, a lots of kissing (꜆ ˃ ³ ˂)꜆

⌨ :: 2.8k words ♡ ︵ . .

⁀➷ special thanks to @honeytwo for helping me translate this fic into english, correcting my grammar and other mistakes. thank you for everything! °♡̷•.

➳ stray kids masterlist | main masterlist

You've been keeping your cookie in store for a while now. You're searching for the glorious ocassion to eat it, and finally the time has come: your university assigment is all done, checked and sent, and you're ready to celebrate your success with having the tasty chocolate chip cookie.

The box is surpisingly light. You rip off the plastic cover, and your heart skips a beat. Your cookie isn't there, just a few little, orphan crumbs. You stare at them in disbelief, as if they would be able to point at the offender with their fingers. Half an hour ago you took a dreamy look at the cookie, because you were reassured by the knowledge that you can have it soon.

But one of your boyfriends was faster than you. Someone meanly ate your small treasure, your favourite sweet, which you guarded like how a mother would her tiny, innocent baby.

You throw the empty box on the kitchen counter, and you decide, you'll find and unveil the perpetrator. The crime happened less than thirty minutes, you just need to find the lips that taste like cookie, and then... There will be consequences, for sure. No one can eat your cookie without punishment. With that definite thought, you furrow your brows, nod and already on your way to investigate.

Minho wanted to take a look, if there's enough canned fish for the cats. That's why he goes to the kitchen. Where an unexpected you grabs him firmly and kisses him angrily and intensely. His tongue cannot resist, it's a miracle that your nor his hip doesn't hit the kitchen counter or one another. He grabs you by the hips and when he could truly have a taste of you, and take the lead, you pull away to take a breath.

You breathe onto each other's mouth after the kiss ends. Minho gives the now less furious you a questioning look. Usually, you're not the passionate one and you feel a little embarrassed in his arms, so you quickly get out from his lightsome hug.

"I'll explain later," you mumble the promise.

So, Minho can check the cat food with the memory of your lips on his mouth and heart, and you your other partners.

Your next target, who you find is Felix, sweet Felix, who wouldn't touch your cookie, 'cause he wouldn't want to hurt you this way. But it's possible that he accidentally ate it, and he didn't know the cookie was yours, so you definitely need to kiss him. It's a must.

You sit down on the sofa next to him in the living room. He's playing video games. You're still blunt from the kiss in the kitchen, so you shyly and gently pull his shirt to get his attention. Felix pauses his game, turning to you with interest on what you would want. But before he could ask you, you lean into him, crashing his lips with yours in a slow, sensual way. He tastes sweet, but not from the cookie, rather the raspberry flavored gummy bears laying next to his thigh. You're happy that you have no reason to be angry at him, and in addition you can kiss his perfect lips.

You leave his warm lips with a smile. You feel more calm and self-conscious.

"You can continue playing. That's all I wanted."

Even if you want to leave, the boy with the glittery, loving look and with galaxies shining on his face won't let you.

After a few more kisses and a giggly freckle pampering session later, with lips a little numb, but oh so loved, you go to the studio, 'cause Chan is surely there. You're ready for the next kisses to find the cookie flavor on someone's lips.

As with Felix, you wouldn't assume that Chan ate your cookie with malicious intent. Although when he's doing hard work and he gets hungry, Chan doesn't pay too much attention to what he's eating at the moment. He could eat it without knowing it was your cookie.

Before you open the door, you knock properly, and after his tired voice invites you in, you step into the room. Chan turns to you in his chair. He flashes a gentle smile, but his dull eyes show you that he is exhausted.

"You need a break."

"Yeah, yeah." Chan sighs while drumming on his thighs, sinking into his chair.

"If you continue like this, you will fall asleep on the keyboard." You step closer, running your fingers through his soft hair, massaging his scalp which he accepts with a relieved groan. Suddenly Chan pulls you into his lap and you cling to his shoulder with a surprised squeal.

"No, if I use you as a pillow."

Chan's smile widens and grows into a lovely grin as he cuddle you like a joyful yet sleepy koala, hiding his handsome face in the crook of your neck, imitating snoring sounds. You giggle at his playfulness, fishing his face out.

For a few silent moments you just watch him in deep awe. Chan caresses your back in slow circles and you give in and kiss him. He didn't eat any cookies, but he drinked one or two mango flavored energy drinks.

"Was this my goodnight kiss?"

"Not necessarily. You can get more, if you go to sleep in the bed."

"Im gonna save, then go. I promise." He press a light eskimo kiss on you and smiles widely. "Okay?"

"Uh-uh. You have ten minutes. If you're not with Seungmin by then, no more kisses for you."

After you threaten him, you leave his comfy, warm body and the room to search for your next boyfriend and potential cookie thief. Typical workout music emanates from one of the rooms: you enter there.

Changbin is on the rug, doing sit-ups in a loose athletic shirt. The TV shows the actual task and the remaining time. The music rumbles from the speakers. The boy is sweaty, his biceps streching perfectly. You're just in luck: he has a half minute long break right now. He just lays there like a starfish, panting heavily until you sit down on his stomach, pulling him up to your lips by grabbing the front of his cloth. His sigh is muted by your roaming mouth. It doesn't bother Changbin, he really enjoys how you randomly yet lovingly kiss him, how close you are. You don't mind that your chest is pressed againt his and your shirt getting a bit sweaty from the thight contact.

Changbin is very sexy, such a biscutie and a talented kisser, but he didn't eat any cookies recently, instead he had fruit flavored ice cream. The coldness is gone, but the taste is still fresh-like on his tongue.

"What's up?" He asks in a raspy voice which sends shivers down your spine. He strokes your sides lazily as the timer won't run out soon, as he can offer himself to you as long as you need him. You wanted to keep your mission as a secret, however you didn't know that Changbin would look at you like that, interested in whatever you want to say.

"Somebody ate my cookie, therefore I taste everyone. Lucky for you, you aren't the one." Your hand strokes his chest, touching every muscle beneath the sweated cloth, slightly lingering a bit on his abs.

Changbin smirks.

"Jisung was really suspicious when I went out on break."

"Thanks for the hint!" You kiss his puffy face, then get up.

The last time you were with Jisung, he was clinging to you, and he was demanding not just hugs, but attention. You were trying hard to calm him down. You reassured that when you finish your task, you will give all your hugs to him. Is it possible that Jisung ate your cookie out of revenge? Hopefully not.

But where could Jisung be? He was probably seeking hugs from somebody else. There's no better place for this than the big bedroom, where Seungmin sleeps. You approach the room on your tiptoes, quietly opening the door into the semi-darkness.

On the bed, under the big blanket hill, you can hear peaceful snoring. Smiling, you get closer, climbing on the bed. Paying attention not to kneel on anybody, and when you sucessfully make your way behind your closer boyfriend, you nest yourself to his back. You immediately recognize Seungmin from his scent, his messy hair and the soft way he snores. You lean over his shoulder to place a light kiss on his cheek. He couldn't eat your cookie unless he's a sleepwalker, which is completely out of the question.

However, the boy who sleeps next to Seungmin, maybe. Jisung maybe. You need to find out, that's why you're here. You can't cuddle up with the lovely duo and just rest, you need to know whose fault it is that you can't enjoy your celebration cookie.

You approach from the other side of the bed. Jisung's head is fully in Seungmin's chest. He got as close to him as possible.

"Hanie... Jisungie... Baby..."

You kiss his shoulder, fondling his back, softly calling his name.

"Huh?" Jisung turns your way, his tone is dripping from deep sleep. You kiss his lips. The kiss is slow, dripping with honey like his dreams. Sweet, but not from the cookie, more like the hazelnut chocolate that Changbin probably saw him eat earlier.

"Y/n..."

"Just sleep, baby." You rub your nose on his neck, when his head slumps back on the pillow.

As you climb backwards on the bed, wondering where you should search for your remaining two boyfriends, an unexpected loud noise comes from the bathroom followed by muffled swearing. Something hit the ground with a loud thud.

You become scared that something bad happened, for example the hair dryer fell on the unlucky Jeongin's or Hyunjin's feet, but that's not the case. You can see that when you open the door hurriedly. It was just the comb on the ground and Hyunjin's feet look fine - as fine as feet can be. He bends down for the fallen thing.

"Is everything alright?"

You ask in a whisper, the door clicks behind you. You let go of the doorknob, and grab the towel. You want to help dry his locks, they don't look ready for combing yet.

"Yeah."

Hyunjin is a strong-minded guy, besides his overwhelming charm helps him reach what he desires. For example, you on the top of the washing machine rubbing his hair, while he is between your thighs.

Or even the last cookie...

Hyunjin hums from the pleasant feeling as you try to dry his hair. He puts his hands on your waist, drawing you a bit closer. Then he sees your shirt.

"You're wet? Did I make you wet?"

"No. Changbin did. I mean, this is his sweat."

"What did you do?" Hyunjin mouth turns upwards into a smile, his left eyebrow frows in a teasing manner. Devilishly angelic.

"Nothing bad." You feel the heat beneath your cheeks as you poke his nose and stop the hair drying.

"Nothing bad, huh?"

Hyunjin's eyes gets smug and excitedly dark. His gaze is on your lips, touching you with his look first only, then dulcetly devouring your lips by savouring them.

Hyunjin's kisses are magical. He also magically diverts your attention from your cookie-finding quest. He didn't eat your cookie, you don't taste it, however you can't make yourself move from his embrace. He's a born talent: with his kisses, he easily distracts you from his nimble fingers working their way beneath your shirt, then with proficient and successful movements he takes it off you.

When you lean back to protest, Hyunjin lifts the material over your head, then throws it into the laundry, so he can hug your bare waist smirking pleasantly. The air feels heavier in your lungs as his fingers draw circles and unrecognizable shapes on your side.

"Hyunjin..."

Your sigh bursts into laughter as he tickles your sides and your naked belly.

"Stop, stop! Hey! Hyunjin!"

When your vehement protest bears it's fruit, Hyunjin cheekily yet lovingly smiles at you.

The door opens, both of you look at the arriving Chan. He isn't surprised, just looks at the two of you with a dreamy smile. Hyunjin and you are one of his favourite people, and seeing you together always makes his heart beat faster, while he smiles like a teenager experiencing his first love.

"I came for my promised goodnight kiss."

"Can I have your hoodie in exchange?" You want his black hoodie so bad. Though the air was hot a minute ago, it's still cold for your uncovered skin. "You won't need it anyway. The boys warmed up the bed so much, it feels like it's burning. You won't be cold."

Chan doesn't nod, just pulls his hoodie off his head. While he does it just for you, you can catch a piece of his brawny stomach, 'cause his shirt slides up a bit too. The view is satisfying indeed.

You happily pull on the relic which smells like Chan and feels like his hug around your whole torso. You still smile when you give him your goodnight kiss. Chan hums gratefully, caresses your cheek, then he gets a kiss from Hyunjin too, gently grabbing his not dried locks.

The conclusion hits you like a train: there is only one boy left who could eat your cookie.

Jeongin. The sassy, naughty Innie.

"Do you know where Innie is?"

You get down from the washing machine with the intention to track down the thief. No longer his identity, but his location.

"He went to the market."

Hyunjin finally uses the hairbrush.

"He should enjoy it while he can."

Your eyes become dark and threatening.

"What happened?"

"He ate my cookie. The last cookie."

Chan hisses. "Woe to him. Come, hug out your anger from me and Sungie, while he isn't here. Maybe it will help."

"Okay."

Chan gets behind Jisung, and sensing the big, comfortable body's heat, the boy turns around and clings onto the older with a content whine. You settle down on Chan's other side, cuddling up to him, listening to his heartbeat. As his heart calms down, he began to snore quietly as he sinks into sleep. You smoothly pat Jisung's hand, trying to focus on that and not imagine how you'll chase Jeongin with your slippers when he comes back.

Your cookie is holy and invulnerable.

You can't stay idle for long, you get up, tuck your boyfriends, then you leave the bedroom and you don't stop until you're in the living room where the freshly showered Changbin, Felix and the cats are. They're chilling on the sofa, watching one of the many Bruce Willis movies.

You sit down next to Changbin. The frustration is too much, you huff and your head land in his shoulder, the tip of your nose softly touching his neck. Maybe the stress wouldn't follow you there. Changbin's hand softly strokes your thigh as his other hand lays on the top of Felix's knee.

"Have you found Jisung?"

"Yes. But it wasn't him. It was Jeongin. He isn't home yet."

"What are you whispering about?" Felix curiously leans closer, rubbing the purring cat's head.

"I found out that Jeongin ate my cookie."

"What will you do to him when he arrives?"

"I'll kill him. I just don't know how yet."

Changbin tries to hide his smile. You are really cute when you curdle like that, 'cuz it's clear that you won't fulfill those threats.

As if somebody told him to come in, the thief arrives. You, your two boyfriends and the cats can hear the front door's opening, the key clinks, the coat swishes, the shoes tap on the floor, and there is one more person in the house.

"YANG JEONGIN!"

You're very fast, getting to him by seconds. Your mouth is a strict line, and in your eyes, the betrayal and the wrath swirls when you punch his chest, offended.

"You ate my cookie!"

"Ouch!" That's his reaction. He doesn't protect his body from you, you can easily use him as a pounching bag if you want to. But even if you're grumpy, you get interested in the thing he is holding behind his back. It's rattling. In turn, as hard you try to see, as committed he is to hide it from you.

"Please, don't kill me. I didn't know that cookie was yours, 'm sorry that I ate it. But I brought a whole pack just for you. Can you forgive me?"

Jeongin shows you the box of cookies, while he looks at you with the most precious puppy eyes and makes a little pout which melts your heart instantly. That's the guilty Innie's speciality.

You accept your gift, then you softly sigh. You're reconciled, you don't resent anymore. You can be easily reassured. You even press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, so he knows that you forgave him. Jeongin smirks widely, his eyes turn into mischievous half moons.

You're pleased and proud too, 'cuz in the end you found your missing cookie and solved the case.

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