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netherfeildren · 1 year

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Kiss, Kiss, Kill, Kill!

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: Joel is a long haul truck driver. One day he finds a pretty girl in a diner and decides he’d like to keep her.

Murder and sex ensue!

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No outbreak; Graphic depictions of violence; Murder; Blood; Gore; Threat of SA; Impotence; Unprotected sex; Creampie; Loss of virginity; Virginity kink; Breeding kink; Spit kink; Rough sex; Pussy slapping; Dark!Joel; Mean!Joel (also kinda crazy and pathetic); Obsessive behavior; Possessive behavior; Discussions of suicidal ideations; Unreliable narrators; Alcoholism; Consensual non consent kind of (But not previously discussed - they're both into it tho); Use of misogynistic language; Grief

A/N: Hi :) Another one just bc I have no self control.

Parts of the narrative read a little disjointed and/or confusing. This is intentional. I was kind of trying something weird out here, I guess.

Word Count: 9.7K

Read on AO3

The first time Joel sees you, it’s a Thursday. His least hated day of the week, but not his favorite, for he doesn’t really have any favorite things anymore. Your eyes’d stunned him at that first look. They sparkled as if dusted with frost – speared him with an intensity that burned.

But no… that was a lie, and Joel is trying not to be such a liar anymore. He does have one favorite thing now. This middle-of-nowhere diner, this place where’d he’d found you.

The first time he’d actually talked to you, you’d interrupted his own stubborn, sour silence with a silence of your own. Different, agonizing, compared to your usual persistent fishing for his attention.

“What’re you doin’ out here in this wasteland, sweetheart?” Because you look sweet as that cherry pie you’re always trying to push on him.

“Been here my whole life.” It’s verging on evening, the sky gone to melancholy, and there’s a young girl with dark hair weeping on the shoulder of an older woman in the booth over. He wants to snap at her, demand to know what the fuck she could possibly have to cry over? He’s sure she mustn’t have a dead daughter like him, and so there really seems to be no reason for tears.

“No plans to leave?”

You shake your head, hum a little, set the coffee pot down on the edge of the table to pop a hip out and think on your answer. “Guess you could say I’m a little bit weak or scared, don’t know.”

“Doubt that,” a surprised laugh forced out of him. Entirely improbable, he knows this just by looking at you. “You’ve got eyes that seem as if they’ve never held fear within them in your entire life.” And he makes you laugh at that, head thrown back, throat rippling. The sound like the tolling of the bell indicating the start of the rest of his life.

When you’re done gifting him your laughter, you ask, “What about you? Why are you here?”

“My daughter died.” Plain.

Your eyes seem to shutter or flicker, something like a chimera about them, “When?”

“Two years ago.” He watches the crying girl and the old woman get up to go. And then the two of you are alone. You move to sit in the booth across from him. He’d been coming in here to see you for more than half that time since, and now, the first time the two of you are having an actual conversation, and this is what he’s decided to open with. But really, it’s the only story he has to tell anymore. He watches you watch him for a long moment, as though you’re searching for something within him, or mulling over what it is you want to say to him, the shift of your jaw from side to side as you chew on your words. He feels easily frightened now – fragile – and yet vibrantly malignant, at the same time. A juxtaposition on two opposite ends of the spectrum of good and not so good, or perhaps, verging on very, terribly bad, in the grocery store line of human morality. Two Joel’s at the start and end of the queue who could not seem to come to terms with one another. Enemies – they were enemies of each other. A Joel who’d once had a daughter, and a Joel who now did not. A Joel who’d pulled a trigger at his own temple, and one who’d never even considered such a thing. He draws his finger along the line of scar tissue at his temple.

For a long time he’d wanted to tear a hole in his world and escape, but he was no master of inventiveness. On the contrary, he found his attempt rather miserly – had short changed himself at the last moment and flinched. But perhaps, it had been for this reason – for you, to find you. He wishes he could peer inside your mind, crack open your skull and read everything you’re hiding away from him inside there. A violent thought, but you make him feel slightly violent, or – no, that’s not it – for Joel is already a violent man. It’s more that you pull a specific hue of violence out of him, incite it, like he needs to move, to howl, to claw at something, at you, scream and scream and scream to keep your undivided attention on him forever.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” you say finally, voice quiet. “How old was she?”

His loss. That was a funny way of putting it. It had never felt like a loss. The word was too small. Four letters was not enough to describe what it really was. There was no word for what it felt like. An emaciation of his very self until he simply ceased to exist. Something that had sucked his soul, his heart, his brain out of his body, but they didnt feel lost. They felt destroyed, decimated, or like they had never existed. Sometimes the feeling left him confused, disoriented – this strange purgatory he’d been relegated to, it was like it had never happened in his mind sometimes, or like it had happened to a different man. Like that life with that beautiful little girl with the green eyes who’d had a father who loved her, who’d then died, had happened to someone else. Someone who wasn’t Joel. Like a war that had raged and raged for centuries, and now nothing was left in its wake. Only that terribly fraught reminder of a violence too grotesque for a human mind to conceive.

How could he miss something, wish for something so, so, so fucking desperately he’d peel his very skin from his body himself to get it back, but also feel like it didn’t belong to him anymore? Like it had never happened to him, like he remembered it out of his own body? A dream that belonged to someone else, and Joel’d only been told of it second hand. His mind was fractured now, he knew this. He wasn't right – broken or glued together the wrong way. His bones didn’t fit in his joints the way they were supposed to anymore. He was all wrong and ugly and fucked.

“She was twelve.”

“My whole family’s dead,” you say it almost casually, with a half shrug of your shoulders. “Is that why you started driving? To get away?”

He’s been a long haul truck driver for going on two years now. Started just after Sarah – needed to get away, to get lost. He didn’t enjoy it – he does not enjoy it. Not because the work is bad or boring or what have you, but because he doesn’t enjoy anything anymore. But it’s productive and pays well and… well, he does appreciate the solitude. There is that, at least. He’d been on the route from New Mexico to Washington for several months now, and it was fine. Occasionally, he’d head up to the Dakotas – not so fine, longer, harder trek, but he managed it. He preferred this one, preferred the darkness of the north west corner of the country. He never went further south than New Mexico, though. Absolutely never into Texas. He’d never go back there again.

“Sure… to get away.” He couldn’t be there anymore afterwards, had nothing left. “My neighbor, Anna, she’s got a teenager, Ellie. Sweet kid. Weird kid,” he laughs fondly, remembering the two of them. “The kid was friends with my daughter, Sarah. And after everything– well, after everything, Anna made sure they both stuck around. Didn’t let me shut myself away the way I wanted to,” ill-shaven recluse, confused, fractured, “They’re good people. You’d like them, I think. They’re… they’re my friends.” They were another reason he kept doing the driving, he liked to send money back to Anna and Ellie. He knew they didn’t need it, didn’t want it, but he had to. He needed to feel like he was still taking care of someone, contributing to someone’s well being. It was just part of who he was.

“I’m sure I would.”

He watches your silent enrapture as you listen to him tell you of his pseudo life. After a while he’d realized that was all he’d started doing, making his way back to you, to this diner where you work. A sad place for ugly men to stop in on a pause from their interminable journeys and lay eyes on an angel. He hadn’t even really realized that’s what he was purposely doing or that it’d become a pattern. He just needed something to see at the end of the tunnel, a light to look towards when he was lost in the darkness. That’s what you are, a single flickering light in the abyss of darkness he exists in now.

You’re small – tiny compared to Joel’s own hulking size. He thinks he could break you, easily, if he isn’t careful, if he so felt like it. And you were – you are so fucking pretty. He thinks of you so often. Almost as often as he thinks of his dead daughter which might seem wrong or strange, but it’s really nothing more than the two opposite ends of a spectrum of perfect beauty that he’s known within his lifetime that now he cannot reach either end of. Sarah – dead, forever out of reach. And you. Too perfect for consideration, too beautiful and good for these monstrous hands of his. The thing he’s become in his grief is not worthy of a gorgeous creature like you. His existence post Sarah’s death had become some sort of apocalyptic dysphoria where the only monster here was Joel. But he does like to watch, and he does like to think of you. To come to your diner and sit and watch you serve coffee to your customers – the scum that muddles through here isn’t worthy of laying eyes on you – men like him. Sometimes, when he sits here silently, pretending to ignore you and not be entirely beguiled by you, he feels as if he has a purpose again, like the money for Anna and Ellie, getting to inconspicuously watch over you, make sure no one gives you a hard time gives him purpose. And when he goes, even though he never really wants to, he takes you with him in his mind through the long stretches of his hauls. When there are nothing but ghosts to keep him company. When thoughts of Sarah and that dead life become too overwhelming, he calls you to mind, plans his routes to make his way back to you.

You’re also fucking persistent – not giving him the chance to wallow away in his silence and brooding. He was rude at first, gruff and unresponsive and wouldn’t ever acknowledge your queries of, How’s it going today, and, Oh, back again I see. Sometimes he wanted to snap and just spit the truth at you, ‘course, I’m fuckin’ back, I’m here to see you, I’m obsessed with you. And rounds and rounds of, Can I get you another cup of coffee? The same as usual? You’d memorized his order. Pestered and pestered and pestered for his name until he’d finally ceded it to you, and, How ‘bout some cherry pie this time? After a while you’d gotten sick of his recalcitrant bullshit and just dropped off the piece of pie, slipping it onto the edge of the table and sliding away without a word or a half look back at him. He’d eaten the whole damn thing, savored it, and caught your sassy, little smirk after he’d finished. He’d wanted to bend you over the counter and spank your ass until you cried after that. He bets you’d taste as sweet as that pie, that if he slapped your cunt enough times he could get it red as a cherry. He bets you’d like that – that you’d like it a little rough, a little dirty, a little mean. You might look like an angel, but Joel’s seen the way you look at him, the way you follow him with your eyes, leaning against the counter, chin cupped in your small palm watching him eat his eggs and drink his coffee.

You want him.

But Joel is frightened – frightened and cowardly and not right, and as much as you look like an angel, he also worries you might have the ability to entice him into very, very bad things – to provoke him into depravity, even. There is a part of him, large or small given the day and the mood and the weather that he walks in here on, that has the rotten half of his mind whispering at the not-so-rotten half that he wants to defile and debase you, and that he’s pretty sure you’d like it if he did. He wants to fuck you full of his come and then watch it leak out of your used, gaping hole. Then he wants to lick you clean, kiss it all better so that he can do it all over again.

The first few times he’d stopped at your diner, he’d pretended he hadn’t even noticed you, would lie to himself in his mind and tell himself that he had no interest in a little thing like you. He had no interest in women, in making connections, in having conversations. Occasionally… well– no, not occasionally. Twice, it had happened twice now, when the urge had struck, the itch had become too persistent, and his hand not enough, he’d gotten a hooker. The first time he’d shut down completely, lost his hard on and not been able to finish. The second time… he’d finished. He might’ve even made the woman come, he hadn’t bothered to ask, but he thought he might have. Then he’d gone back to his truck and cried great heaving sobs. Like he’d said… not right, he wasn’t right anymore. Couldn’t even fuck a whore without blubbering like a baby. He’d wondered if perhaps his grief had made him impotent. That’d be funny. That type of funny thing that is also a humiliation… you know the sort?

But after a while, the lie had become too much of a farce, even for his own mind. He knew, from that first moment he’d walked in, and you’d spun around, a bright smile and chirpy, little voice telling him to sit anywhere you’d like, be right with you, mister, that he’d taken notice. More than notice. He’d put you in his pocket that day and had carried you with him in some way since. Like a stone chosen off the beach, washed up by the tide and deposited in the sand just for him to come across, or maybe like a fucking infection, like the plague, for he did not want this. He did not want to think of you. He did not want to think of anyone or anything. He wanted to be alone and without anything or anyone for the rest of his life. If he did not have anyone, if he remained alone, then he could never again experience that loss which was not truly a loss, but something much worse and devastating, and even, perhaps, a little hilarious, in that way that a hilarious thing can also sometimes be humiliating and shameful… there it is. A loss that is not a loss for it is a thing so devastating it becomes something else entirely. A humiliation to one’s very existence, a decimation, emaciation, all the things, all the things, and nothing at the same time.

His mind was wont to ramblings, on occasion now. Perhaps, incoherence, was the better word. Anxiety, as well, panic, tears. Couldn’t even fuck a hooker without weeping, howling, a few sobs.

He had wandered so far, and sometimes he thought, I want to go home, but of course, that home no longer existed. It had been put in the ground two years ago and lost forever. The dissatisfaction of constant ennui. He could, perhaps, return to the geographical place, but nothing familiar would remain. He couldn’t live with the memory, he couldn’t live away from it. It was like it had simply ceased to exist that day that she’d died, and every moment since that moment was just a series of moments filled with a yearning for some place that no longer existed. He didn’t think he’d ever again feel at home anywhere.

And yet…

He turns back to look at you.

“How did they die? Your family.”

“Home invasion – murdered. He never found me, hid in the boiler closet.”

“Little rabbit.”

“Hmm,” a huff of a laugh, “Maybe. Someone once said I was lucky. Pretty fucked up, no?”

“Do you feel lucky?”

“Never. Angry – that I’d been left behind.”

“Yeah…”

“Alone.”

“Are you alone?”

You turn back to him. Inspect him. He watches the slant of your eyes take in his hair, his face, wrinkled, haggard, his chest, his arms – he feels a flush flare beneath his ribs, then back up to his eyes. He wonders if you’ve ever been fucked before. You’re young – but he can’t imagine how you wouldn’t have been. He thinks he’d do anything in this moment to get between your thighs, but also, he hopes you haven’t, hopes you could be all his, only his, his his. Mine.

He hopes he won’t cry if he gets the chance.

“Entirely,” you say finally.

“I had– have– ” shakes his head, “I have, I guess, a brother. Tommy. But the last time I saw him… I was horrible.” They seldom saw each other now – lie – they never saw each other now. Truth, Joel. We’re telling the truth now.

You laugh lightly, shrug, “Happens.”

“Sure…”

“What’d you do to him?”

“Ah, just couldn’t get a handle on myself after everything. Things got bad enough eventually, and we fought… a lot. Violently. I was violent. One morning I got out of hand, terrible – one of my biggest regrets. We hurt each other with our words and our fists, and in that way only two people who know each other too well can. He cracked my ribs, gave me half his orange in the evening, afterwards – said our apologies. He was gone the next day. Haven’t heard from him since. I just got to be too much for him,” he says again, needs to reiterate it, make sure you understand that he is too much and too dark, too unmanageable – ugly. That you should not be sat here with him. That he has a violence within him, and that you should probably run as fast and as far as you can, but that he cannot promise he will not follow. “I had…” he is ashamed of this part, surprising for he sometimes wonders if he still possesses the heart to feel shame, “I had a problem with drink for a while – not anymore, though,” he says quickly. “I promise, not anymore.” He should not be promising you anything. “I got control of it – knew it was making it all worse rather than better. Felt like I was trapped underwater with my damn ghosts – that … What's that thing called when – when sick people get like – like trapped inside themselves or somethin’? You ever heard’a that?”

“Locked-in syndrome.”

“Yeah– yeah. I read about that once or heard it somewhere – that’s what it felt like when I was drinkin’ – fuckin’ terrible. Let it go after a while… but by that time… Tommy was gone, done with me. I was – dunno… like some sort of demon or somethin’ – somethin’ bad.” He huffs a small, derisive laugh, looks at you with that ridiculously charming, crooked half smile.

That laugh sparks a kindling of anger inside of you for him. This is a broken, angry, creature of a man, you think. Something fractured – not whole, and he must be handled with care and gentleness. “How could he just leave you?

“Didn't give him a choice. Sometimes people deserve to be left.”

“I wouldn’t have.” That sobers him, wipes the smile right off his handsome face. You think of the invisible giants hurting this man in some unimaginable fashion; of the endless tenderness coiled up inside of him and how the crushing of that tenderness – the death of it – has given way to what may be considered madness. Because after all these months of watching him, of him watching you, you can see it, recognize that tenderness for what it is, but also the madness, for it is impossible to ignore if you’re really looking. Soft marrow at the center of a hard man.

“I did other things… worse things.”

“Try me.”

“I tried to kill myself.”

You whistle, long and low. You actually had not been expecting that one, at least, not the admittance of it, “You’re just full of truths,” for looking at him – the sort of man he’s built as, the thought that he could be felled by anything, even his own hand, is a little hard to believe.

“Feels like a sort of confessional in this–”

“Shithole–”

“Diner–”

Your voices overlap. You both laugh. You think you quite like the sound of your voices intermingling one on top of the other.

“What happened?”

“Flinched–”

“I flinch all the time.”

“Have you ever thought about killing yourself?”

You hum, tilt your head side to side on your neck as if you’re letting the thought slide from ear to ear within your skull. “Perhaps only the peripheral idea of it, but never with much imagination or dedication. I don’t think I have that much to kill myself over, you know?”

“Your family?”

“Not really – it’s sort of become just this… this thing that happened once. I don’t feel much ownership over it anymore. Don’t know why, exactly.”

“Sure, that’s how I feel about it sometimes too. That belongs to a different man now – like– like some actor or a facsimile, and I just look in on it as if from a distance. Enjoy the sight of someone else's suffering…” He shakes his head, “That doesn’t make sense.”

“No, no, I understand. Something to do in the way that a tragedy can be compelling to watch. You can let go, let go of your awareness of yourself and experience it in a way you’d never do so in the present moment.”

“A dissociation.”

“Yes. Why would you want to go and relive the basest parts of yourself all alone, over and over again? Not likely.”

“But it was me.”

“A dissociation,” you repeat, smile.

“Yeah,” he pauses, turns the coffee cup round and round with the slow spin of his wrist as if to dissolve the remains of the grounds you know the shitty machine has left deposited at the bottom. There is a small dusting of golden brown hair covering his wrist and disappearing up his forearm beneath his flannel. You want to taste it, follow the trail to places unknown. “Not so well adjusted, us two,” And he laughs then. A real laugh. He lets you have a real laugh of his, and it is powerful – special.

“Well… no.” Of course not. “I don’t think either of us could ever claim that.”

“Bet you’ve never been bad a single day in your life, have you?”

You cock your head, let your eyes slide from him to peer out the dark window. His lonely semi is parked under the single flare of light out there. The evening has sunk into a deep blue, the hue of mourning, of melancholy, and the pavement is wet with evening rainfall.

You'd heard that some trucks had spaces behind the seats where truckers could put a bed, have a place to rest. You wonder if he’ll take you back there and fuck you in his little bunk. And honesty is a fickle thing when discussing a topic like this, isn't it? There’s a depravity about him, and you can’t tell if the truth or the lie would placate him – incite him – more. To be similar in such a way as that which he’s imagining. A little bit of both, then. After all, intent holds weight – imagination, desire, it has a mass to it that can, if enough pressure is exerted upon it, be transformed into something else.

“Not yet,” you tell him, sliding your gaze back to meet his, “Haven’t had a chance – but there’s still time.”

“What would you like to do?” He wants to take a bite out of that soft flesh you’re encased in, draw blood.

“Something depraved?” You’re taunting him – trying to provoke. It makes him slightly angry, but also hard. You should know what it is you’re toying with here.

He frowns at you, at the lilting song of your words trying to beguile him into doing whatever it is you think you want him to do to you. “What is it that you think you want here? You don’t know what I was, how I lived. Shouldn’t be sat here with me, little girl,” he scoffs. “I was– was not– I don’t fucking know, not a man. I’m not, I’m not. Not a person anymore, just this thing that continues to exist. I should not have been expected to survive. This should mean something to you too. You also have no one. You’re alone too. You’re alone in the world. You know what it feels like to only live in the winter.”

You’re quiet for a long moment, and then you say: “I think I’ve come to quite like the winter.” And at that he knows he’s taking you for himself, whether you agree in the end or not. You’re going to be his.

But he knows he must also let this roiling anger, this depraved hunger settle before he lays hands on you. Like this, in this state, he’d be too rough, break you, nothing compunctious about him or his jaggedness. He excuses himself for a smoke, your only response simply more of that inciting silence – more thoughts of cracked skulls and a cherry red cunt and tears after failed trysts with someone who doesn’t even know his name. He’s fucking embarrassing. What would Tommy say if he knew Joel couldn’t even get it up for a paid fuck anymore? He’d laugh in his face, never let him live it down. He misses his brother very much. He misses lots of things.

He’s sucking on his Red under the awning of the diner’s entrance, imagining what it’ll be like to suck on your little clit, when he hears them.

“She’s usually out about midnight. We’ll snag her then.” Grating, guttural voice.

“But I get to fuck ‘er first. This was my idea so I go first.”

“Yeah, whatever. S’only happenin’ ‘cause of me. Too fuckin’ stupid to see the plan through after all these months of watchin’ ‘er.”

“Fuck off.” Silence, and then almost with giddy elation: “We gonna kill her too?” Something cold and terrifying settles within Joel.

A beat, “Should we?”

“Dunno, man. Might be fun, huh? Never done it before.”

“She’s fuckin’ pretty,” the voice draws the vowel out in a high pitched, sacharine whine. “Got the face of an angel.” Joel’s angel, his, his, only his.

He’s got his Bowie in a sheath on the back of his belt. Perhaps, this would be a useful exercise in release. After he’s dispelled his excess energy he can come back and touch you, take you.

“Can’t wait to taste that cunt.” His cunt.

“Seen her tits, man? Fucking round and bouncy. Wanna make ‘em bleed.” And there’s only one avenue of consequence after that. After all, this is not the first time Joel’s done this.

His most well kept secret.

Sometimes, when the itch cannot be eased, abated, by his hand or a fuck or a drink or any of the other readily available vices, he turns to this. Only when the straits were dire. Only when he saw no other recourse. Only after his daughter was dead and in the ground and his brother gone away from him

But sometimes… sometimes it’s just fun. Sometimes it’s useful for a man to do that thing that he really feels he wants to do, if only to enjoy himself, if only to let go of some of that suffocating tension. If only to keep vermin like this away from an angel like you.

“We’ll chill in the woods for a while, wait the little thing out, yeah?” Joel edges his way towards the edge of the building closer to them, peeks a lone eye around the corner. Two men, middle aged. Not a problem. Not for a man like him.

He waits for them to make their way to the edge of the tree-line, watches them disappear into the gloom. He looks back into the diner through the murky windows. The warm glow of the overhead lamps washing you in a hue of golden light that brings out all the warm goodness in you he’ll take for himself once he’s snuffed out this issue.

No one’s going to touch you but him. No one’s going to hurt you but him.

As he rounds the corner of the diner there’s a piece of metal pipe propped up against the building by the dumpsters. Very nice.

He goes after them.

At the edge of the tree-line, under a swaying, low hanging branch, there is a tiny unfledged bird, helplessly twitching its way towards death in a puddle. He pauses to watch its struggle, gathers his skin about him, tightens his seams – prepares to gorge. He watches the inch by inch pilgrimage towards its last breath, then stillness. He feels so much older than his years, like he’s lived a thousand terrible years, watched a thousand terrible deaths. But there is a buoyancy about him, as well. Filled with a saccharine sweet fizz of sticky anticipation. He’s going to taste your cunt after this is done.

He moves into the gloom. He’s going to kill them for you, and his cock is hard at the thought.

Stepping beneath the canopy of the trees, into that cold, damp darkness, he sees the absolute truth of the world. On the heels of two men who’d do you harm, he knows that he’d failed to save someone he cared about once, he’d not be bested by failure a second time. Darkness implacable, the crushing black vacuum of their overheard words buzzing in his head like flies, of the harm they’d do you. Two hunted animals moving away from a creature much darker than they could even imagine, scurrying on borrowed time. What most moves him is that the things they’d do to you are not so dissimilar to the things he plans to do to you, as well. The only difference being that after he’s done defiling you, he’ll keep you for himself, with all the care and gentleness a little thing like you so deserves.

You press your ear to the cracked open door leading to the back of the building. It’s not the first time those two’ve talked their filth regarding you. The murdering is new, though. You’d not thought they were smart or inventive enough to come up with an actual kill plot. Rape enough of a hardball for minds as shallow and small as those two’ve got.

You’d never really considered them much of a threat. Or maybe you’d just never really cared enough to pay them much attention. But as you watch the broad, rippling expanse of Joel’s muscled back stalk after them, his pause at the tree-line to look down at something on the ground, you think he must be more in the vein of taking a stupid man’s shit talk to heart than you’ve ever been.

He has a thick, forearms-length of steel pipe gripped in his huge fist, and there’s a wicked looking knife strapped to his belt on the back of his hip.

Interesting.

You look back at the empty diner, the lonely parking lot beyond the glass of the windows, only Joel’s semi still taking up residence on the wet pavement. You turn back to follow after the three men.

One you want, two you’re interested to see what fate awaits them.

For some reason, when you step outside, you’re expecting there to be snow on the ground, but there is none.

You move across the pavement towards the forest-line, and the pilgrimage towards the verdant darkness feels very much like your one-way ticket out of this forlornness you’ve been trapped in your whole life. You’ve been stuck in this small town for so long, for too long. One man had already tried to forcibly evict you, had taken your entire family with him, maybe this one, maybe Joel, would do so in a way you’d more likely enjoy.

There’s been a steady, faint drizzle all day long, and the puddles of rain look like holes in the dark pavement, apertures into some other realm that glide past underground. You wonder if you stepped through if you’d disappear below into some other place. You wonder if he’d be able to find you even in that unknown other.

You cross the line into darkness.

The familiar terror of silence – you don’t seem to find it here. There is only the sound of your rushing blood, the cadence of his voice rumbling through your psyche, firing your neurons up into a frenzy. There is a twisting heat low in your pelvis, dampness between your thighs. What’s he going to do? Why’s he going to do it?Is it for me? Is it for me? It’s for you.

You let out a low whistle between your teeth and move beyond the trees. There is a giddiness about the darkness of the wood – the motley of shadows, the aroma of mushroom rot.

The familiar terror of silence. Perhaps, that is what they are experiencing now. The great horror of being set upon by a beast more terrifying than anything they could have ever conjured up on their own.

That infinite tenderness from before, that acute madness – it coalesces in the gap in the trees as you come upon the three men.

Joel has already started on the first. He murders almost tenderly. With great care, but infused with an aroma of agitated frenzy that seems flavored in the same notes of erotic buzzing that hums beneath your own skin. There is blood and viscera splattered on his face and clothes, in his hair. That great hunting knife embedded in the throat of the first man. The body lays facing you now, eyes open, shocked at his own death. Funny. Perhaps, that’s how they would have liked you to have ended up once they were through with you.

Oh, how the tune changes when the monster is on your side.

What are you? Be a creature. Be a creature. Be a creature!

You take Joel in. Thick, massive frame. You love his hair, it was one of the first things you’d noticed, thick dark curls streaked with the silver veins of his age and experience. Something that promised of care and knowledge and patience. His patchy beard with the heart shaped gap in it, you’re going to write your name into that space. His powerful arms, muscles coiled tight, his shirt stretched tight across his broad shoulders as he brings the steel pipe up above his head, pauses to look down at his next victim.

“We won’t bother her anymore, never again – p– please, please, I swear,” the man on the ground begs and cries. There are tears and snot bubbling down his ruddy, pocketed face.

Joel is silent and terrifying and glorious above him, and then a small nod: “That’s alright… I believe you.” The metal comes down in a whistling arc, makes contact.

Flesh and blood splatter, the sound of it is pulpy and wet and vindicating. He starts with the man’s knees, then his head, caved in like the shell of an egg, the yolk spilling out like vermilion drool.

He heaves silently above the man that would have done you harm. Makes the threat go away.

You step forward, cunt pulsing and wet and eager for him. When he’s gotten his fill of bludgeoning he turns slowly back towards you, as if he’d known the entire time that you’d been stood there watching.

And the look on his face, it makes something electrifying and sticky buzz up your spine and ooze down your veins. You shift back on your heels

He shakes his head, his eyes are huge, pupils blown wide. “Don’t run,” he says slowly. If you hadn’t just watched him murder two men in cold blood – no, in your defense, he saved you, he protected you, fizzy heart full of satisfaction – you’d say he almost looks a little doe eyed.

A hollow pounding begins in his heart, as if it had remained silent for the past two years and was only now taking notice of its own silence. His cock, hard enough to burst, angry and throbbing beneath the confines of his blood soaked jeans. Fuck this scum laying on the ground beside him, look at what he has infront of him. Nothing else matters but you. A goddamned angel. Damned for he’s found you now and nothing good can come of this. He takes a step towards you, and you match him with one backwards, away from him, his blood starts to howl in his veins. Different to the humming frenzy that had filled him as he did his murdering. This is hot and viscous and ravenous, and he knows he’ll get to keep his catch once he’s gorged himself on it. He knows he’ll get to keep you once he’s caught you.

You take two more nervous little, quick steps away from him. Your eyes are slightly manic, face flushed, frame jittery, excited. A rabbit that knows it’s about to be caught. He watches the pause of your limbs as they fill with coiled energy, getting ready to make the bound and leap towards escape. He lunges, goes in for the kill, teeth bared, talons brandished.

Faster than you can even comprehend, he lunges, takes you to the ground with one massive, powerful shoulder to the vulnerable, soft of your belly, one huge paw cradled at the back of your skull to protect you from the hard ground. Your spine hits the cold, wet earth, the breath knocked out of you. You think you let out an animal noise, high pitched and supplicant. A thing that knows it’s been caught and is soon to be devoured. Your limbs scramble against the dirt, heels digging into the ground for purchase, you feel the loss of one of your shoes, as you try to get away or to crawl closer, who can be sure. A spider caught in the web or a larger, hungrier arachnid. He sets the huge heaviness of his muscular weight over your much smaller frame, one strong hand caged around the column of your throat, the other pushing your chest into the earth as he shoves his hips into the cradle of your own, forcing your thighs apart and your skirt to pool at your waist. You feel the stretch of the center plaque of your tights as his wide breadth settles between your legs, making room to take you for himself. You bring your own hands up to the wrist holding your throat and dig your nails into the skin there. You can feel the light smattering of hair covering his forearm beneath your soft palms, the cold, wet dirt beneath you, the searing stretch of the inner muscles of your thighs spread wide for him, the damp of the air surrounding the two of you. He leans forwards, pressing you down into the ground, and you have the fleeting thought that you want to transfuse yourself into the earth, into him.

He pauses then to look down at you, appreciating the gloriousness of his catch. “Caught ya.” And he’s filled with an exuberance, a sort of victory. Look at what he’s snared – all for himself.

You try and struggle again, if only to see the flare of annoyance in his eyes. It makes your cunt tight and achy. Even more than it already is. There’s a part of you that thinks you want him slightly angry – rough or mean. That you might like it even more if it hurts. Be kind enough to be cruel about it, you want to beg him. He leans forward to press his nose to your cheek, drags the cold vermillioned flush of it along your jaw, down the line of your throat, bites harsh and painful at your collarbone then over the peak of your breast.

“Are you a virgin?” He whispers into your skin. It sounds very much like a threat.

“Yes.”

“Saved this cunt all for me.” And it is not a question. Yes, you moan anyways. Let him know. Let him know that this defiling is a gift you’re granting him. He sits up on his haunches between your thighs, his hands sliding down to press on your lower belly and digs his fingers into the center of your tights and pulls, ripping a hold in them for his pillaging. You try and press your knees shut at the feel of the frigid air on your sensitive inner thighs, dig your nails into the ground above your head to try and drag yourself away from him.

He digs his own fingers harshly into your flesh, his nails biting painfully into the soft skin of your thighs and ass and brings you back towards him. There’ll be streaks of pain left in his wake after this. Bad little rabbit. He smacks the inside of your thigh, watches the smooth flesh ripple for him. You let out a warbled, angry screech, little nails still trying to claw yourself away from him. He laughs then, a little mean, condescending. “Fight harder, little baby. This is pretty pathetic.” He rips your thighs apart, keep your fuckin’ legs open for me, his hands slick with the blood of his victims slide up the back of your thighs, anchoring his palms beneath the damp creases of your knees to press you open and wide for him, slaps your cunt, hard, over the soaking gusset of your panties.

“Who the fuck’re you wearin’ this tiny little thong for?” he growls. It’s white lace, with a sweet, little pink bow adorning the front. “Me? Wrapped yourself up all nice and pretty for me?” Your little foot sneaks up under his armpit and tries to push with, what he’s sure is all your valiant might, at his chest, trying to unseat him from his conquering position above you, but he takes your ankle in a vice like grip, bites harshly into the meat of your calf so that an animal squeal of pain is clawed out of your throat at the same time that he slots his fingers under the damp center of your panties. “Sing as loud as you want, sweetheart. No one’s gonna hear you out here.” He can feel the soaking wet seam of your cunt against the backs of his knuckles, and he rips them clean off you. The sound of the last remaining barrier of protection of your cunt against his ravaging being decimated has you going shock still – prey that knows it’s caught and has decided to give up. Good, this is how he wants you. Your big, wet eyes look up at him as he flings the lace towards the still steaming dead bodies. That’s all they’ll get of you. The rest is only his. Mine, mine, fucking mine.

You let your arms go limp above your head, soft and pliant and ready for ravaging, melting into the earth.

He presses your knees back and up, letting the red blossom of your wet cunt bloom for him. It’s slick and swollen, and he knows when he shoves his cock inside it’ll be burning hot. “Look at this gorgeous virgin pussy, baby. All for me. Only for me…” he murmurs, hypnotized, mesmerized. He drags the back of his knuckles over your slit, uses his thumbs to spread your lips apart, admires the swollen nub of your clit. You’re just as hungry for him as he is for you. Messy, eager little whore. He moves to undo his belt and free his aching length. Huge and brutish, thick veins pulsing just beneath the thin skin. He’s going to split you in half, break you, mold you in his image.

He spits right onto your soaked folds, watches the thick glob of saliva slide down to mingle with your own leaking slick. He’s not even going to make you come first. Little virgin cunt and he’s not going to even bother getting you ready – just gonna shove the whole, unforgiving length of himself inside of you. Force you to take it. He fists his thick fist around himself, jacks his cock once, twice, squeezing at the bulbous head so that a trickle of precum seeps out of the slit. He presses his head to your clit, slides down to give you a small threat of pressure at your opening. When he looks back up at your face your eyes flutter shut, a look of pure contented submission washing over the gorgeous planes of you.

“Not gonna be gentle, baby. Don’t got it in me.” He notches the fat head at the slick mouth of your entrance and crams his cock inside of you in one go, meets that thin barrier that says you still belong to yourself and rips through it. Mine now. No reprieve, no respite. And God, the feel of it, cleaved in half, scorching hot, filled to the brim and never deep enough. He is a rabid, snarling beast of a man as he hits the very end of you, grinds his cockhead at the mouth of your womb. You let out a warbled, pained moan, little fingers coming up to claw at his throat and chest with kitten-strength, down to dig into his thick thighs as he pins you down, and you tilt your hips to let him in deeper or escape him, he doesn't know. He doesn't care. He pulls his hips back and forces himself back in, too thick cock wedged into the too tight space. “Christ, goddamn tight fuckin’ pussy – made for me,” he grits through bared teeth.

He fucks you raw and cruel, and he needs you to just lay limp and still and take it.

And you do. And he does not cry this time.

He sets a brutal pace, throbs deep in your belly at every pause as he grinds at your cervix. It must be painful for you, perhaps, but the flush in your cheeks, the fever in your eyes, the ripple of your cunt around his driving length tells him you also like it. “What a good girl, taking my big cock,” he coos. You preen, tilt your hips this time in supplication he’s sure, hitch your feet higher along his sides. There are tears running back down your temples and into your hairline. His cock makes you cry. If he could, he’d split your throat and drink, he would. But he cannot, so he’ll split your cunt instead. He thrusts into the hilt, complete negligence for care, for gentleness lost in the dark wood, for the desperate necessity of feeling your virgins blood coating his cock. Your protestations lost to the louder song for more, for harder, for deeper

Joel, Joel, Joel.

He’s going to listen to you sing his name for the rest of his life.

He feels unhinged, a thread picked at too many times, spun loose, unraveled and frayed. That edge that separates good and evil – his bloody fingers clamp down hard on the edge of your jaw, forces you to open for him, and he spits into your mouth – direct, dirty … warm. “Lemme see…” he rumbles, and you stick your tongue out for his inspection. Once he nods, pleased and smug and conquering, you close and rub the slick of his saliva onto the roof of your mouth with your tongue, savor the taste of him. This was the taste that you’d longed for… that which teaches you what that professed edge really is. Is he good, is he evil – he’d just killed two men, you’d watched him, cunt wet at the sight of it. Albeit to protect you… sure – but does it even matter? You swallow his spit down. Probably not.

He is huge and life altering inside of you. Your virginity scoured away on his invading length.

He leans forward, hand clamped around your jaw to pierce you with his manic gaze, like his cock pierces your cunt. He smells like the forest and sweat and power. “Little fuckin’ tease,” he grits, “Bringing me cherry pie like that all the time – fuckin’ provoking me. You just wanted me to pop your cherry for you. Didn’t you, little girl?” All you can do is nod dumbly and take what he gives you. He hooks one of your knees over his elbow, the other propped over his shoulder, foot bobbing limply at each slam of his hips. He has you bent entirely in half, cunt splayed wide open for him to fuck down into the deep, devastating end of you. Your vision goes blurry, black stars streaking across the back of your eyelids. All you see is him. Perhaps he’s all that exists now. Maybe you’re just as dead as the two bodies laying beside the two of you. You wonder peripherally what the sight of the four of you must look like. Joel’s hulking form fucking you like an animal into the dirt. You open your eyes to look up at him, there’s blood splatter across his face, in his hair. His skin is burning hot against yours. You think that perhaps you’ll have scorch marks in the shape of his fingers in your skin after he’s done with you. Two dead, brutalized bodies cooling beside the place where the two of you are fucking.

“Can feel ya tightening up, baby. Gonna come all over my cock.”

He does something to change the angle, and it fucking hurts. “Too much,” you beg, try to push him back weakly, but your cunt pulls sharp and tight, and then your muscles are rippling around him, womb contracting painfully as your orgasms blinds you with its sudden intensity.

“Don’t care,” he growls back. “Do not fucking push me away.” No, he must not care. Prey doesn’t decide how it’s felled, after all.

He pulls out and back then, suddenly, slaps your cunt harshly, once, twice. You mewl, high and shocked, writhing around in the dirt. He grabs you by the hips and flips you so fast you’re left disoriented, pulling your ass up, up, up.

“Fuck, you’re so fuckin’ pretty,” he croons, bends to bite down on the meat of your asscheek, and then notches back at your gaping, fluttering hole, orgasm still running through you, and pushes back in. You’re soaking wet, slick and fucked open by him and the taking is much easier this time. You feel his thumb press down on your asshole, “Gonna take this too. Gonna have every part of you, every piece. Gonna swallow you whole.” All you do is arch your back further, cheek smushed into the dirt, fingers digging into the cool earth for purchase, for salvation.

The sight of you stretched around his thick base, so slick he feels you dripping down his balls and further below, into the bloody earth. There’s a red tinge of your own blood coating his skin, and he’s going to come. He’s going to fill you up with his spend and fuck it deep into you until it takes. Until no matter how far you want to run, he’ll be with you, always. He lets his head fall back on his neck and stares up at the dark canopy of the trees, groans low and deep.“You’re gonna be my little hole now,” he promises, presses one large palm into the small of your back to deepen the angle and fuck down into you. “Gonna take you with me and fill you up whenever I feel like it. My gorgeous little cumslut.” The ramming of his hips starts to grow sloppy and stuttered, close to the edge now. Victory is so, so near.

You start to claw at the dirt and wiggle again. Little knees chafed raw and scrambling against the hard ground trying to get away. He slaps your ass hard, hopes there’ll be the print of his hand to appreciate later.

“Not inside, not inside – not – no birth control,” you stutter, beg.

“I’m not fuckin’ pulling out.” He twists a cruel and unyielding hand into the back of your hair and presses your face harshly into the ground. Your eyes pinch and tears seep and mingle into the blood and dirt beneath you. “Gonna pump you raw and full. You don’t gotta worry about anythin’ anymore, baby. Gonna take care of you,” he grits and you press yourself harder back into him. There is an existential seesaw inside of you – a volleying of your wants – you want him to hurt you, to force you, to take care of you and keep you, all at the same time.

“Promise – promise me you won’t leave me,” you cry and beg because really, that’s all you want. All you’ve ever wanted. For someone to stay, for someone to never leave, no matter what.

“I promise – fuckin’ swear.” And you go loose and passive again at that – his to do with as he will. Nothing else really matters after all that.

He senses the change. The loosening of your muscles into capitulation. He stops his thrusting and grinds, strums at your clit. “Oh fuck, you want me to fill you up? And what happens if I do? What happens if it takes? Want me to get you fuckin’ pregnant?” Starts to fuck into you again, “I think you do.”

Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care.

“You’re mine. Fucking mine.” He says it again and again and again, yes, yes, yes, lets himself fall forward, anchored above you with one strong arm as he presses as deep as he can physically go and starts to fill your pulsing cunt with his come, the heat of his spend inciting you to roll into one more throbbing orgasm. He brings his face down close to yours, open your eyes, little thing, lemme see you. The fluttering of your lashes, sweaty, dirt-streaked face, and you are seraphic, the wet crimson heat of your blood pounding beneath the delicate membrane of your skin. Gorgeous, perfect, conquered and his.

“Fucked full’a me now,” he whispers, presses a soft kiss to the tender skin of your eyelid. You nuzzle into him, and then look up at him with the warmest, most vibrant gaze he’s ever seen. Fucking pleased and sated.

“They wanted me, but only you get to have me now,” you whisper. “How does that make you feel?” Provoking, provoking again.

“Like I fucking own you.” He grinds his still spitting cock further, feels the pull of your muscles milk him deeper.

He lets his weight fall partially over you, too heavy for the full mass of himself. You are, after all, a delicate thing, and he must remember to handle you with care, occasionally. He feels the pulsing and quivering of your cunt around his softening cock, and the two of you settle to lay there in the dirt, bodies still dead, virginity scoured and stolen, and stare at each other.

“Have you ever been in love?” you whisper, dragging the tip of one little finger, whisper soft, over the arch of his brow, the slope of his nose.

“I feel a little in love with ya right now,” he confesses, and you press that finger against the seam of his mouth, begging for entrance, and then inside, against the flat of his tongue to inspect the wet gleam of it. It’ll be inside of you soon enough, you should take a look at that which you’ll be writhing against in due time.

“Good. That was my plan all along.” Smug, conniving little creature.

Once it’s full dark, he packs you into his truck, buckles your seatbelt for you, tucks a blanket around your dirty knees and drives off as if he hadn’t just murdered two men and taken your virginity with their blood still hot on his skin. He goes for miles and miles, eventually finds a dark, secluded spot to park the truck for the night. He takes you into the back bunk and fucks you like you’d wanted him to, on your side, one leg slung over his shoulder, hand gripping the lush of your ass to pull you onto his impaling cock, watches your ass bounce against his thrusts. A demanded play with it, lemme see ya push it back in, as he watches himself drip out of your messy hole. Eats your cunt until you cry. Afterwards, the two of you lay, naked and damp, facing each other, tracing the lines of one another in the quiet dark.

Sometimes he’s worried he’s blood hungry – or pain hungry. Starving for something he doesn’t have a name for. But he thinks that, perhaps, he can use your name to fill in the blank space now. He’d always felt as if his devotion was a punishment to the receiver. After all, everyone Joel has ever loved has left him. But as he looks at you, there’s something in your eyes that tells him that perhaps, you’ll remain. Perhaps, he can compel you to, force you to. Perhaps, he can anchor you to himself, and in turn, give you everything.

“Are you a ghost?” he asks.

“No. Are you?”

“Sometimes I think I am.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re like a fuckin’ angel or somethin’. What were you doin’ out here in this wasteland?” He asks you again.

“Maybe I was waiting for you.” This answer he likes.

He’s quiet for a long time after that – taking you in, cataloging you, memorizing you. His fingers ghosting over your face, your hair, strumming the fan of your lashes. Later he asks: How do you remember the memory of someone else? How do you keep them when they’ve gone somewhere entirely unreachable?

“Because you love them,” you tell him.

“That’s enough?”

“Of course. Will you ever forget that you loved her?”

“Never.”

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

#my writing #joel miller #the last of us #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller/you #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fic #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller imagine

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jnnul · 10 months

Text

ready for love

PAIRING ▸ lee jeno x fem!reader (ft. tbz's juyeon)

GENRES ▸ fluff, non!idol au, college au, slice of life, friends to lovers but also...it’s complicated?

WARNINGS ▸ uhh swearing, drinking (but legally), mentions of infidelity, there was supposed to be so much more but it just turned into a fluff piece sooo..., y/n is indecisive and jeno is stupid, they're a match made in heaven 🫶🏽, jeno is the loverboy of the century towards the end, they make out and a few allusions to sex but no graphics, is it just me or is that header really blurry

SUMMARY ▸ a boy who has never taken a relationship seriously. a girl who is seriously over relationships. when they end up finding each other, will they let their ideas of what a relationship should be like ruin their relationship before it even starts?

PLAYLIST ▸ ready for love - blackpink, lovin’ me - fifty fifty, siren - taeyeon, island - youha, hate that - key & taeyeon

WORD COUNT ▸ 19.5k words

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ oh hey it's that one fic i've been writing since july! which reminds me - if that ending looks familiar, it's because technically, this was supposed to come out right after that timestamp did oops.

as always, feedback, comments, etc. GREATLY encourage writers! if you felt any sort of way (in a good or bad way!) about this fic, pls leave feedback!

far too easy. a couple of lingering stares. a coincidental request on social media. a few well-placed messages. one date later and...done. he was in. hook, line, and sinker.

it was almost getting predictable. at first, lee jeno just wanted to have a little fun. it was never anything serious - and it definitely wasn't always about sex. truly. as distrustful as men had made themselves out to be within the past few thousands of years, jeno truly wasn't thinking with his dick when he got into relationships.

it was just about having fun. he just wanted to get to know people, do sohing romantic just for the experience, and maybe, get to know their body if the relationship felt so inclined.

there was never any delusion about what a relationship with jeno was like. it was two months, if you lasted that long, and every second of it made you feel alive like you never had before. but the honeymoon stage would pass and jeno would lose interest and soon, there would be a heartbroken girl left behind, even though she knew exactly what she was getting herself into.

and it wasn't as though they could really get mad at him. he was a sweetheart through and through and he would continue to say hi if they ever saw each other around and he had definitely saved a couple exes from some ugly encounters. jeno never meant to hurt anyone; it just happened soimes because he was such a good guy.

at least, that’s what you understood of your best friend. from his nights of drunken confessions and the few encounters you’d had with his ‘girlfriends’, you had surmised that jeno lee was just meant to be a serial casual dater.

you, quite frankly, were on the opposite end of the spectrum. after a few too many boyfriends who had turned out to be grade a douchebags, you had effectively sworn off men.

dating was just far too hard. the 'did he notice me?' stage where you dress up a little prettier than normal. and then the internal panic when they request you on instagram. the casual talking stage where you've already accidentally planned out the wedding. the date where you choose to move past all of the blatant red flags you see. and then the relationship, when the red flags become red banners the size of antarctica because goddamnit, how did you miss the fact that this man was a literal freudian case study.

so whenever jeno would introduce his newest girlfriend or go on about his many adventures (including the details about the not-so-family-friendly aspects), you couldn't help but feel a little pang of jealousy because where the hell was jeno finding such amazing relationships? and why the hell isn't he taking them seriously?

you're sure you couldn't even count the number of sweet girls you knew would've been perfect to take home to his mother you had been introduced to before they were gone the next week.

"and that's why i think you're an insufferable brat," you grumble, pointing a stick of celery at him threateningly. jeno snorts slightly, redirecting your celery to the hummus sitting next to where you were perched on his kitchen counter.

"you've been saying that for as long as we've been friends," he says, pouring a spoonful of soy sauce into the rice for the fried rice he was preparing for dinner.

"three years too many," you say, squinting your eyes at him suspiciously. "how have we actually stayed friends for three years when you're so...wishy-washy?"

jeno's roommate, na jaemin, rubs his eyes as he stumbles into the kitchen, saluting you sarcastically as he reaches into the fridge to grab an entire bowl of strawberries.

"what a burn, y/n. wishy-washy. yeah, i'll bet that really did a number on him, didn't it, jeno my boy?" jaemin snorts, pouting when he quite nearly drops the bowl of strawberries on his foot.

he also very nearly escapes decapitation by celery stick, ducking from your brutal aim.

"at least i don't have a mommy kink," you snide, salvaging what was left of your celery snack.

jaemin jabs a strawberry in your general direction with a look of indignant betrayal on his face.

"i thought we agreed to never speak of what was revealed during balkan night," jaemin hissed. "you promised, y/n!"

"i was crossing my fingers," you shrug, placating your best friend with an olive branch of a silly smile when he swears vengence by strawberry assault a second time.

"whatever," jaemin grumbles as he slinks back to the darkness of his room. jeno just shakes his head fondly, tossing in the vegetables the two of you had just chopped up into the fried rice.

"why do you always feel the need to rag on him like that?" jeno says, mixing the vegetables into the rice.

"why do you always feel the need to avoid taking a relationship seriously?" you counter, hopping down from your perch to throw out the now empty hummus container.

"you know, anyone hearing this conversation right now would think that you were the one not taking relationships not seriously instead of me," he says calmly, taking a spoonful of rice. he blows on it before reaching out to you, letting you taste-test the fried rice. you hum, sifting through the ingredients in the fridge as you analyze what the missing ingredient was. your eyes land on a small plastic container with finely chopped garlic inside, the realization clicking in your head.

"just because i'm a little youthful and you have the personality of a grandpa doesn't mean that you have to be the one who takes relationships too seriously," you say, sprinkling the garlic into the fried rice. jeno hands you the wooden spatula and lets you take over the cooking process as he finds three bowls for the three of you.

"whatever helps you sleep at night," jeno says with a soft chuckle.

"speaking of relationships though, i'm not going to be leeching off of you for dinner tonight," you say casually, offering a spoonful to jeno this time to let him taste your shared creation.

he flashes you a happy eye smile, retreating into the hallway to call jaemin out of his room for lunch.

"date?" jeno says, a strange look in his eye as he hands you your spoon (you had a preference for only eating with the singular small spoon in the entire apartment for some reason) with a knowing smile.

"somewhat? it's a double date but i'm only going for jimin because she really really likes the guy and she's afraid she's going to fuck it up if it's just the two of them," you explain, giving him a thumbs up for the successful food collaboration.

"do you know who it's with?" jaemin pipes up, seemingly refreshed after consuming an inhumane amount of strawberries.

you furrow your eyebrows, trying to recollect the name of the guy jimin mentioned that jaehyun was bringing before shaking your head.

"i think his name was jayeon? yeonju? juyeon? i don't know, i don't really remember. all i know is that jaehyun better be head over fucking heels for jimin by the end of the night," you say in between bites.

"juyeon? lee juyeon?" jaemin says suddenly, his spoon clattering as he drops it in his bowl. jeno and jaemin exchange a look that you don't miss and you definitely don't like.

"am i missing sohing here? do you guys know him?" you ask, the worry lines on your forehead having become near permanent. jeno shrugs, pushing his food around in an uncharacteristically hesitant manner.

"i mean i just heard that he was a bit of a heartbreaker when he was in college but i don't really think that it was that big of a deal," jaemin says finally. you roll your eyes, puffing out your chest sarcastically.

"i'm a big girl guys, don't worry. i can handle myself," you say, patting jeno's shoulder comfortingly as you move to wash your bowl. "and besides, i'm not actually going there to find the love of my life; i'm just going there to support jimin."

"just be careful, y/n." jeno gives you a quick little side-hug before disappearing into the living room to turn on some tv. you turn to jaemin but your question dies on your tongue when you see that jaemin is already staring at you with an unreadable expression.

"what's up with him?" you ask, when jaemin sighs, getting up to wash his dishes.

"jeno's worried for you," he says. you huff, watching jaemin put his washed bowl into the dishwasher.

"i get that, dipshit. what i don't get is why!" you exclaim, wincing when you realize that you're much louder than you had intended.

"because juyeon's just like jeno."

it's all jaemin says but it's all he needs to say because now, you finally understand.

+++

"now remember, i'm only coming with you for you, okay? if you ever want to just be with jaehyun by yourself, let me know and i'll be more than happy to head on my way out," you whisper to jimin as you flash a bright smile at jaehyun, who approaches the both of you with a dimpled smile as he tucks his car keys into his pocket.

"y/n! it's so good to see you after so long," jaehyun says, pulling you in for a friendly side hug.

"i know," you say, squeezing quickly before letting go. "can you believe it's already been a month since renjun's party?"

jaehyun furrows his eyebrows, shuffling so that he was standing next to jimin. "no, really? has it already been a month?"

he doesn't wait for you to answer, turning to jimin almost immediately. "it's been a month since i met you? why does it feel like i've known you my entire life?"

it takes all you have to turn to the side before fake gagging, unable to help the cringe that runs through your body from the cheesiness, jimin fighting back a giggle, but you can see that her cheeks are bright red.

"jae, for your sake and the beautiful ladies', i'm gonna have to pretend like you never said that," a deep voice says from behind you. the man steps into the light and you're sure that your eyes are about to fall out of their socket.

juyeon is one of the most attractive men you've ever seen. long, long legs that lead up to broad shoulders, beautiful eyes and lips that would make kylie jenner jealous. his dark hair is slicked back and he holds himself with a humble, quiet confidence that makes you ready to fall to your knees instantly. he turns to you and his cool demeanor is instantly broken when he smiles, his face glowing in the faint lights of the restaurant.

"hi, i'm juyeon," he says, sticking his hand out for you to shake. you stare at it for a moment before taking it.

"y/n. it's nice to meet you," you say dreamily, before coming to your senses and retracting your hand. you were here for jimin and jimin only. juyeon and his beautiful face would have to stay in the friend zone - especially if what jaemin had warned you about was true.

but just because you couldn't purchase doesn't mean you couldn't window shop.

"y/n," juyeon drawls, letting your name roll off of his tongue. "a pretty name for a pretty girl."

jimin can barely stifle a giggle at your dazed expression, elbowing you in the rib cage. you shake your head slightly, composing yourself once more. how in hell were you supposed to confine this man to the friend zone if everything he said threatened your very sanity?

"well, they say that you should never keep a pretty woman waiting," you say with coy smile, gesturing towards the restaurant. "shall we head inside?"

juyeon mock-bows while jaehyun opens the door and says, "ladies first."

you blow juyeon a kiss with a teasing smile, linking arms with jimin and sauntering into the restaurant. juvenile? perhaps. but where was the fun in being adult all the time?

the four of you make your way to where there's a receptionist standing behind a booth, jaehyun stating his name for the reservation.

"right this way, ladies and gentlemen," the receptionist says, gathering a handful of menus and leading you to your table.

"so jaehyun tells me you are a business major," juyeon says, falling in step beside you. you hum, shaking your head slightly.

"i was a business major; i double majored in finance and economics, but i graduated two months ago," you explain, thanking the waiter as you take your seat at the table. juyeon takes the seat next to you and jimin takes the seat on the other side so that you were sat directly across from jaehyun.

you're about to turn to jimin and say something only to find her enraptured by some fascinating conversation that her and jaehyun seemed to be having, turning back with a knowing smile.

"i'm sorry, i was under the impression that you were still in school since it's only march," juyeon says, handing you one of the menus the waiter had left on the table.

"i graduated early because of the overlap between my majors. i was required to keep up my grades for my scholarship anyway so i was able to build up credits fairly quickly," you explain, trying to ignore the spark of electricity that you feel when juyeon's fingers linger on yours.

"oh, so you were quite the academic," he says, running a hand through his hair. you determinedly stare at the menu, forcing down the hot flash that runs through your body when juyeon catches you watching.

"you could say so," you nod, scanning the menu. "how about you? what did you major in when you were in school?"

"i was your direct senior," juyeon begins, smiling when he sees the confusion on your face. "i was a finance major in college."

"no way! that's so interesting. where do you work now?" you ask once you put down the menu to meet his eyes. maybe jaemin and jeno were just being overprotective? it wouldn't be the first time they steered you away from heartbreak but juyeon seemed like such a sweet and genuine guy.

because juyeon's just like jeno.

that statement is enough to bring you back to your senses as you focus on what juyeon is saying, jimin and jaehyun still debating the difference between computer engineering and computer science (their respective majors) and which one was better.

nerds.

"i was at amazon up until last summer but i recently switched to a new company. it's a pretty small company but they specialize in cleaning the ocean of plastic and recycling the plastic for 3D printing. it's very niche but i didn't want to just be another finance bro that just worked for the sake of money, you know? i wanted to work with a good consciousness."

maybe curving juyeon from claiming a place in your already fragile heart would be a little more difficult than you expected. kind, environmentally aware and a chose ethical work? juyeon was already better than approximately 90% of your exes.

"how about you? have you started working yet? the market is pretty brutal for freshly graduated f&e people, from what my friends tell me." you nod, internally composing yourself and steeling yourself a little bit more to keep from falling into juyeon's charms.

just like jeno. the reminder is harsh, but it works like magic as you feel the butterflies in your stomach beginning to dissapate.

"it certainly is a lot more competitive than i think a lot of people anticipated. thankfully, i was able to connect to a sponsor during one of the scholarship banquets and was offered a position for right after school," you explained and juyeon's eyes turn from mild and observing to full of respect as he nods, almost approvingly.

"which company?" he asks, taking a sip of his water.

"i actually am working in the finance department at patagonia..."

+++

the night progresses almost too smoothly. once the food had come out, jaehyun and jimin finally seemed to come out of the bubble they were in and the conversation flowed so well, it was almost as though the four of you had known each other for years.

it was clear that jaehyun and juyeon were close, having met each other at work and instantly clicking. the easy back and forth between them allowed you and jimin relax a little more, allowing the conversation to turn to less formal subjects.

you find out that juyeon has a dog, much to your dismay.

"y/n loves dogs!" jimin exclaims, and you can feel your heart's walls crack a little further. there were many things you could handle - a cute boy with a dog? that was a little out of the realm of control.

"really? oh you'd love ray then - he's a big dog but he's got a lot of love. sort of a gentle giant," juyeon says, his eyes twinkling as he pulls out his phone to show you his wallpaper. it's a picture of him and ray curled up next to each other, sleeping in bed, both of them in the same exact position as they snored away.

"i swear, him and ray are the same soul in two different bodies. i've seen this guy have full on conversations with his dog. which would be weird but it kinda just works for them somehow. i kinda think that ray genuinely does understand juyeon," jaehyun snorts, nodding at juyeon's wallpaper. "that was when ray was still a puppy and he would copy every single thing that juyeon did."

juyeon shrugs, smiling as he tucks his phone back into his pocket. "not much has changed there, if i'm being honest."

you're about to say something about meeting ray when your phone rings abruptly, rudely interrupting the conversation. you frown as you flip your phone open, looking at the contact profile on the screen. jeno?

"hello?" you say as you answer the phone, pointing to the restroom as you excuse yourself from the table. from the corner of your eye, you can see the waiter coming with the bill for your table and you vaguely register the fact that only two cards are being put on the table (jaehyun's and juyeon's) as you make your way somewhere a little more private.

"hellooo? y/nnnn-ie? you stilllll at your, huh, date?" jeno slurs into your phone and you hear someone in the background, presumably jaemin, trying to convince jeno to stop himself from saying or doing something stupid.

"yes, jeno, i'm still at my date. that you interrupted, by the way," you say with a frustrated sigh. you check your watch and realize that it's only 9:30 PM and jeno does not sound like he's been taking it easy on the alcohol. "why are you drinking jen?"

"whattttt, so now i'm a shitty lover and i can't, heh, drink?" jeno grumbles into the phone and it's clear from the sudden silence in the background that jaemin has completely giving up on wrestling jeno's phone out of his hand. you had firsthand experience with drunk jeno - he turned into the hulk.

"jen, if you called me in the middle of my date to go off the rails about how you're a lonely fucker, i'm going to kill you," you hiss, smiling at the lady who comes into the restroom as you weren't threatening your best friend with murder.

"I'M NOT A LONELY FUCKER!"

oh, so this part jeno could say without hiccuping or slurring his words. fantastic. you sigh, switching your phone to the other ear as you wash your hands, getting ready to leave the restroom. there's a pregnant pause where no one says anything but you can hear the top gun theme song in the background so you know jeno's on the line.

"if - if i change, will you not go out with juyeon?" jeno mutters finally, just as you're leaving the restroom. "if i finally start getting serious about relationships, will you not go out with him? will you come home?"

you pause at that. jeno's always been the protective type. for all of his own playboy (even if technically he wasn't trying to be a playboy) charm, jeno genuinely wasn't very happy when you dated people. he wouldn't be rude to them and he certainly would never force you to break up with them but every time he would run into them, regardless of how long you had dated them, he always had something to say.

he looks like he jerks off to weird porn. definitely something about shampoo, a hot girl, and way too much viagra.

he has a small dick.

he makes his girlfriends lose weight even though he has a beer belly.

i'm not even gonna lie to you - i just hate the fact that he's balding.

most of the reasons that jeno gave you were kinda stupid. but ultimately, he was usually right about which people to avoid and even if he said it was because they were ugly and balding, it was usually because he knew that they weren't kind people on the inside.

it was because you just didn't have a great self-image, jeno used to say. if you saw yourself the way the rest of us - the way i see you, you'd never even give some of these assholes a chance, y/n. think of it as playboy experience about how to find the people actually worth your time.

but he had never said anything like this before. for all of the hazy comments and strange strength jeno developed when he was drunk, he had never said anything like this to you before. mostly because jaemin was really good at protecting his roommate from making stupid decisions but it was clear that even jaemin couldn't stop this.

"jen, you sound crazy right now," you say, rubbing your forehead. you step out of the restroom to see juyeon waiting at the table alone, as jimin and jaehyun seemingly already left together. "i don't really know what you're trying to say and quite frankly, i have no clue why you're acting like this. ask jaemin to make sure you're drinking a lot more water and we'll talk about this in the morning, alright?"

jeno doesn't say anything but from the shuffling in the background, you realize that jaemin has finally rose from his slump and was signaling something to jeno. good. maybe jaemin would be able to understand why the fuck jeno was acting like this.

there's an exchange of words, mostly jaemin berating jeno to hand over the phone as you hear a loud thump in the background before jaemin is speaking.

"hey, y/n it's me," jaemin says. it's clear that he's been drinking too but jaemin isn't too much of a drinker so he still sounds pretty levelheaded as he speaks.

"what's up with jeno, jaemin? why is he acting like that?" you ask, making your way over to the table slowly. you realize that juyeon is holding onto your coat and suddenly, you're not really sure about what to do. you don't know what it is about the simple fact that juyeon is holding your coat but the entire thing seems a little domestic. like the two of you actually were on a date.

"y/n, i'm gonna be so honest with you, i think it's best if you have some distance from jeno for a while. i think he's just getting in his head about stuff he shouldn't be and really, i think the only way he's gonna get over it or figure out how to talk to you about it if he has some distance."

how perfect. you sigh, running your hand through your hair as you smile at juyeon, who helps you put your coat over your shoulders, the scent of his cologne filling up your lungs. you decide that if it was distance that jeno wanted, it was distance jeno was going to get. quite frankly, this wasn't the first time jeno had randomly pulled away from you, even if it was the first time he had finally come close to clueing you into why.

it was clear that jeno didn't like you dating people - especially not juyeon. maybe even to the extent of jeno changing his own playboy ways to convince you otherwise of interacting with juyeon.

you had considered the fact that jeno might be interested in you romantically or that maybe he was jealous for your affections. but every time you thought that, jeno would come back from his faraway space with a new girl and a genuine twinkle in his eye and suddenly, everything was back to normal.

jeno simply was an overprotective person, you decided. and he would do whatever he thought was right to make sure that the people around him didn't get hurt.

it really did check out, honestly.

jeno was equally overprotective of everyone in his life because getting that close to him in the first place was a feat within itself. once you made it past that original barrier, however, he would be willing to give his life if he thought it would help even the slightest.

but...even so. this was weird.

either way, juyeon was opening the passenger door to his car and you were aimlessly climbing into it so any and all thoughts about jeno would have to wait until you made it down this slippery slope first. the last thing you needed in the morning was the honest to god gripping panic of doing the walk of shame.

juyeon doesn't seem like the type to expect a lady to put out because he bought her dinner but you can never be too careful. he seems to notice your apprehension because he asks you for your address upfront, raising three fingers in an oath.

"i promise to conduct no funny business and i will take you home safe and sound, y/n," he says solemnly, and the way his eyes sparkle in the light of the moon is enough to make your resolve melt a little bit as you laugh softly.

"alright juyeon. since you promised no funny business," you quip lightly, entering your address on the navigation screen next to the steering wheel.

juyeon squints at your address, which is fifteen minutes away, before looking at you strangely. "are you sure this is the right address? my building is right next door! i would've seen you at some point, and trust me, i'd never forget a face like yours."

"uh, yeah, this is my address. i'm usually never home though, since i'm always either with jimin or my friends jaemin and jeno," you say, watching as juyeon sets the car in reverse to pull out of the parking spot. his arm lifts, as though he were going to put it behind the headrest of your seat to do the classic flirting move to reverse. he sets it back down when he sees you staring at the screen (which had a rearview camera feed on it), realizing that it would be dumb to try and make a move in such a cliché way.

"jeno? jeno lee?" juyeon asks as you guys pull out of the parking spot. you glance at him sideways, wondering if he were going to offer the same cautionary tale that jaemin and jeno had presented to you.

"yeah. he's one of my best friends. do you know him?" you ask, already presuming the answer.

juyeon is silent, as though he's weighing options in his mind. should he be honest with you? should he preserve your feelings?

"i know of him. i don't know him all that well," juyeon says finally, and you know that juyeon has decided to take the third option. neutrality. and while you're tempted on asking him to expand, you really don't know him well enough to do that.

so you just leave the topic aside and wait for him to start a different conversation.

he does soon enough, but you know that his heart isn't in it anymore. you engage in polite smalltalk until he pulls up to your apartment complex. you thank him for driving you and are about to step out of the car when juyeon suddenly touches your wrist gently, afraid to make rude or rough gestures.

you pause, half out of the car as you turn to him with a quizzical smile.

"i had a good time getting to know you today, y/n. and i know that it was just an excuse for those two to go on a date without making it weird but i really did have a good time getting to know you. i hope that i didn't make a bad impression at the end." his eyes are shining under the dim lighting of the few rooms that are still lit up in your apartment complex.

you smile at him gently, shaking your head to assure him. "you didn't make a bad impression. i had a good time getting to know you too."

you're ready to step out of the car once more when juyeon's fingers on your wrist wrap around them, this time a little bit more firm on claiming your attention.

"i - i want to see you again. i've honestly never connected this well with someone before. would you be open to that?" juyeon asks. you pause for a moment before giving in. how could you say no to him when he was looking at you with such big, brown eyes with so much hope hidden in them?

but even as you give juyeon your number, you can practically hear the bright red warning signs in your mind - and for some reason, jeno was the one screaming every single one of those signs.

"good night y/n," juyeon says, his smile every inch as heartbreakingly charming as the moment you knew he'd be bad for you.

you offer a tight, cautious smile in return. "good night juyeon."

+++

for someone who was fiercely overprotective of his friends, jeno had a strange tendency of self-sabotaging his relationships with them. not all of them - mostly just you. he didn't know what it was about you but somehow, he always just seemed to be saying the wrong things at the wrong time.

jaemin seems to think that it's because jeno has feelings for you (which he most definitely does not) (at all) (for real).

it wasn't as though jeno didn't like when you went on dates. in fact, he liked to think that he was rather supportive. it was just that you had a tendency to pick out all of the shittiest men in seoul to date and quite frankly, jeno hated it.

and you knew that. you'd been dealing with jeno's strange tendencies for three years now. he knew that you knew that he'd call you by next week and everything would be back to normal. that's usually how it went when you went on a particularly serious date on any level. strange set of coincidences that jeno only seemed to fuck up the worst right before or after a date you were raving about.

huh.

"i'm telling you jeno, you have got to tell her the way you feel about her," jaemin says, tossing a water bottle at jeno. they're sitting on the floor in front of the tv, watching money heist halfheartedly. terrible show to be their 'let's talk about our feelings' show but jaemin and jeno never could have a conversation like that without some level of violent scheming occurring in the background.

"i don't feel any way about y/n, jaemin. honestly, it's getting really fucking annoying that you keep saying that i do," jeno says, digging his chopsticks into his chinese takeout food. jaemin rolls his eyes, sitting down next to jeno with his own box of takeout.

"i swear to god. why did you call her then? why did you call her on her date last night?" jaemin asks. jeno shrugs, setting his food down before sighing.

"i don't know, okay? i just...you know what happened with juyeon. i just can't imagine her going through something like that," jeno says softly. jaemin looks at him before clearing his throat, forcing jeno to look at him square in the eyes.

"look, i know that you and juyeon don't have the greatest past but you have got to let her find her person. who knows! maybe juyeon's changed in the last three years. you literally don't know him anymore. and besides, this isn't about juyeon and you know it. you did this when she got with daniel, and then sunghoon, and then even doyoung." jaemin shakes his head, trying to get jeno to understand his own feelings. "you're blind to it but every time she actually feels good about someone, you somehow need to take a break from her. why?"

jeno doesn't actually have the answer to that question. why, indeed, is the question of the night.

later that night, when jaemin has turned in (or rather, announced that he was going to sleep, only to sit in bed and occupy their shared netflix account for hours), jeno pulls out his phone and searches up three words.

we need space.

he searches in his messages and cringes when he sees the number of outgoing texts that have space (as in the number of times he's broken up with someone over text) in them. he filters all of the other people out except for you and it pisses him off that jaemin is right.

may 2020. the first time jeno had asked you for some space, when you'd asked daniel to be your boyfriend.

august 2021. the second time you guys had taken some space, when you'd gone on your first date with sunghoon.

september 2022. the third time that you had had to take a break from each other. when jeno had introduced you to doyoung with his own hands.

realistically, jeno knew that jaemin was right. and with the evidence staring at him so incriminatingly, there was no way to refute the accusations.

but as much as jeno had dated around, he still didn't know what or who he was looking for. sure he was attracted to you as a person and your, uh, physicality - but that didn't mean that you were the one for him. and if jeno were to pursue something with you that made him realize that you truly weren't what he was looking for after all, not only would he be losing you as a partner but he'd be losing you as a best friend too.

so he continues in the toxic cycle of taking a break from you every time he feels as though his feelings are getting too high in his chest for him to contain them and never giving you or jaemin an explanation of why.

jeno knew it was wrong. he knew that his life would be so much easier if he just came clean and you fell one way or another on the scale of 'already dated' and 'haven't dated yet' like most of the girls on campus. but it was different with you.

it'd always been different with you.

so jeno rolls over, and goes to bed, dreaming of you and juyeon holding hands on your first date alone. he's never had such a restless night of sleep in his life.

+++

you know that you're being a bad friend to jimin when she's pouting at you swirling your straw in your macchiato instead of listening to her rambles.

"come on, y/n. it's been three days. you know that jeno gets like this - it's not like this is new right?" jimin says, covering your hand with both of hers, blinking at you curiously.

you smile and shake your head. "yeah. i'm sorry. this is supposed to be about you and i'm just getting in my head about this shit."

jimin tuts, eyebrows furrowing in mock anger. "that's not what i mean and you know it. i'll talk about jaehyun whether you're listening or not and you and i both know that. i just - i guess i'm not sure why you're always so hung up over jeno doing this when you know that he's gonna do it."

"you're right. it's not new. and i'm sorry that it keeps coming up when i really hate that he does this but i just wish he would talk to me instead of shutting me out every time that something like this happens. it's just him and jaemin cooped up and talking to each other for a week before they go back to being normal. and i get it. they're guys. they need a break and they need to do guy things and take a break from girls or whatever the fuck straight boys do. but this is getting out of hand and ridiculous."

but you catch yourself, shaking your head once more as you focus on jimin. "thank you for letting me get that out of my system. now tell me what you were saying about jaehyun. i feel like i've lost my best friend to some random guy for the past three days!"

jimin eyes you for a moment longer (and you know that she's not going to let this go) but decides to take mercy on you.

"well, jaehyun and i have been doing really well, honestly! we've seen each other every single day for the last three days - which isn't that hard considering that we've been having sex all day in every square inch of his apartment." jimin sees the scandalized look on your face before laughing. "don't worry, he lives alone and we've actually been going on non-sexual dates too. we connect in more ways than one if you get what i mean."

you slap jimin's arm incredulously, looking around the cute little café that you were sitting in to make sure that no one was listening. no one was, of course, given that it was 11:30 am on a monday but that was besides the point.

"oh my god. so are you guys going to make it official or what?" you ask, leaning forward on your steepled fingers. jimin shrugs, leaning back in her chair languidly.

"i don't know. i mean, i really like our chemistry and i like where this is going but i'm not going to label it. i'm definitely not going to be the one to pop the 'what are we' question - that's gotta be him," jimin says. "even though i am so incredibly head over heels for him. so i would like to be his girlfriend. for realsies."

she adds on the last part almost as an afterthought when she sees your unbelieving face.

"i mean it! i really want to be more than just a situationship but i really can't be the one to initiate that. i'm tired of always having to express interest in others. i attract; i don't chase," jimin says with a catty smile and you can't help but grin at that.

maybe jeno was really onto something. girl time was amazing. maybe that's why jeno needed some space from you.

"i agree. and you know what, i don't want to knock it but that honestly doesn't seem all that strange, considering that your location has consistently been showing that you're at jaehyun's place for the past 72 hours," you say, laughing at her mischievously when she returns the favor with a slap to your arm.

"i don't know. yeah. anyway. speaking of jaehyun, or not really him, but his friend - not the point! jaehyun mentioned that you gave juyeon your number? and that you've been kinda talking?" jimin says, and now it's your turn to blush.

"no - i mean, yes. i did give him my number but it's honestly not like that. he seems great and all but jeno and jaemin seemed really spooked when i mentioned him. i trust them when it comes to boys. especially with my shitty taste in them," you say thoughtfully and jimin can't help but agree with that.

she checks her phone and groans, starting to shuffle her things together as she prepares to leave. "this has been so good but i have to get to class and you know how much of a pain in the ass professor joo is."

you also start to gather your belongings, slurping down the leftovers of your macchiato. "yeah. i think that my early lunch break is coming to an end anyway. i've got a meeting at 6 pm but we're still on for dinner and drinks this friday, right?"

jimin nods distractedly as she checks her phone to see if jaehyun had texted her. he hadn't. in the past four hours. she clicks her phone shut and looks at you with a determined look in her eyes.

"yes. for sure. you and i have a date this friday and i don't want you to cancel, you hear me? and do not let those investors keep my baby from me like they did last time," jimin says, wagging her pointer finger at you threateningly. you roll your eyes, pressing a kiss to her cheek as the two of you make your way out of the café.

"i hear you. no more investors past 7 pm on a friday," you say, raising your hands in surrender when jimin squints her eyes at you. she side hugs you before checking the time once more (therefore realizing that professor joo wasn't above calling her out in the middle of class) and scurrying off to snu, a block down from the café you were previously in.

you sigh, shaking your head fondly as you turn in the opposite direction to head to work.

+++

turns out, friday seems to be a very popular night. not only do you have back to back meetings from 4 pm to 7 pm, but juyeon and jimin have texted you multiple times to confirm or (try) to make plans for friday night.

and honestly you didn't really want to go out. in between the radio silence between you, jeno, jaemin (who only really communicated in really stupid tiktoks back and forth), juyeon's suave maneuvering you into agreeing to a raincheck to saturday for the date, and jimin lamenting the fact that jaehyun hadn't brought up the 'what are we' conversation, there was so much going on.

all you needed were your friends, chinese takeout, and a little bit of jane the virgin. or other soapy dramas to take your mind off of everything.

but you had promised jimin and you'd be damned if you were going to bail on your friend when she was already not feeling well.

and besides, you refused to be a corporate slave who canceled on her friends because she was married to her job. that's not why you had chosen this job. and that's definitely why you had decided to reject pre-med as a sophomore in college.

so you find yourself taking shots with jimin in her kitchen and...jaehyun and juyeon.

when you had walked into jimin's apartment with nachos and shooters of pink whitney to pregame, you really weren't expecting to be face to face with juyeon - or jaehyun, honestly, given that jimin had been so heartbroken over the fact that jaehyun hadn't initiated the conversation yet.

not to mention the fact that she had made sure that the two of you were going out in the first place because of the whole jaehyun fiasco. so when you come face to face with the last person on the planet who should be in jimin's apartment, you're more than a little confused.

"oh, hey y/n. long time no see," jaehyun says with an easy smile, dimples showing that he had no clue that you knew that your best friend was waiting on a kind of serious conversation with him. you manage a tight smile before pulling shooters out of your purse, putting all four of them down on the counter in front of you.

"yeah. i thought it'd be a little longer though. jimin, i thought we were having a girls night?" you ask, eyes flashing at her when you turn out of view from jaehyun and juyeon. jimin just shrugs helplessly as juyeon steps in.

"don't blame her. i was the one who asked if we could tag along for the night. i promise we won't cause any trouble," juyeon says, and you turn to look at him, only to see him looking straight at jaehyun. his eyes dart between jaehyun and jimin before finally landing on you and you take the hint.

"oh. no worries. yeah, no worries at all, actually. hey, you know what i actually wanted to confirm something about tomorrow's plans with you if i could steal you for a couple seconds?" you say, leaving no room for denial as you wrap your arm in his and walk the both of you to the balcony, closing the door behind you.

"thank you for understanding - jaehyun wants to talk to jimin today about making things official but he's been so nervous about it that he's been putting it off. i figured that it would be better for me to come with him to make sure he doesn't chicken out. and catch you guys before you leave so that he doesn't sit and ferment in his feelings any longer," juyeon explains slowly, sure to refrain from turning around to see how things were going inside.

you lean over the metal bars of the balcony, the cold sinking into your skin in a refreshing way, the april air finally warming up enough to go out without needing a literal winter jacket.

"ahh. good idea. don't tell her i told you this but she was worried that he really wasn't into her," you say. juyeon snorts, a sound that's almost unbecoming from a man so handsome.

"isn't into her? he's head over heels for her. i don't think it's taken him more than thirty minutes to get into a relationship with someone if he wanted to. the fact that he took over a week to figure out his feelings means that he's serious. more serious than i've ever seen him." juyeon seems thoughtful as he trails off, letting his words sit on his tongue in a way that almost feels like he can truly feel the weight of the words.

"hm. or is just unsure of how he feels," you say, and juyeon looks at you strangely, turning so that he was leaning on the railing, his gaze fixated on you.

"are you really that cynical about men?" he asks chidingly, and you shrug.

"yeah. i mean. i don't know. i'm best friends with two of them so i know first hand how fucked up men can be. trust me, i pray to god every day for more patience before i fuck jeno or jaemin up for good," you say, and you can feel juyeon's presence grow cold at the mention of your best friends.

when you look at him though, he has nothing but warmth in his eyes and he smiles at you. "i will admit that there are a lot of messed up things that guys have done but it's not fair to categorize all men due to the faults of a few."

"uh-huh. and when men turn into heartbreakers after getting fucked over by one girl...it's okay?" you say, raising an eyebrow and you can feel juyeon trying to physically retract his statement.

"no. no. it's definitely not okay to hurt other people because you've been hurt. but give us some credit, okay? some of us are trying our best," juyeon says, and you watch as his eyes fall to your lips before dragging them upwards again.

"some of us are just trying to find our other half."

you're silent for a moment, and the moment is all you need to push off of the railings and turn to juyeon with a sad smile. "look juyeon, you're a great guy and i hate to nip things in the bud - especially with someone i get along so well with. but my friends are the most important people in my life. so i don't know what happened between you, jeno, or jaemin but i know that if it really came down to it, they take precedence."

juyeon nods, like he'd been expecting you to say as much. how, you don't understand, given that your reasoning had come out of pretty much left field. and for no real reason too. but men are predictable, easy to read, and all it takes is one moment to understand their intentions.

"yeah. i know. i figured you'd pick them. not that i'm trying to guilt you for that or that i expect you to pick me or anything but i still tried my best, you know," juyeon says casually, giving you a thinly suppressed heartbroken smile. you melt slightly as you turn to him, giving him a half shrug.

"i'm sorry. i'm sure your other half would be so lucky to have you," you say gently. you look at your phone, where jimin has texted you saying that she's going to have to bail on girls night as her and jaehyun had decided to stay in for the night. juyeon seemingly gets a similar text because when you look back inside to the apartment, jaehyun is holding hands with jimin, who uses her free hand to wave sheepishly at you as they recede backwards where the bedroom was.

"i guess we've overstayed our welcome," juyeon says with a laugh, opening the balcony door as the two of you make your way back inside to grab any personal belongings and leave before you witnessed something that would end up scarring you forever.

you eye the shooters and then exchange a look with juyeon.

“i know we’re not - whatever but honestly, i think that you’re good company and this kind of night doesn’t deserve go wasted,” you say, grabbing the shooters and juyeon’s hand and dragging him out of jimin’s apartment when you hear the very telltale sign of a bedroom door shutting down the hall.

juyeon takes one look at the shooters in your hand and the glint in your eyes before taking the two of the little bottles you offer to him.

“i can’t believe i’m doing this right now,” juyeon mutters under his breath, but his smile is lighthearted.

“what, grown men can’t drink pink whitney?” you ask, throwing a shooter back and immediately regretting the fact that you don’t have chasers with you. you may not be an amateur on the night scene but alcohol still always needed a chaser.

“no,” juyeon says, knocking back both of them a little too smoothly. “i meant taking shots with the girl who rejected me in front of her best friend’s apartment where her best friend and my best friend are fucking.”

you look at him, searching for any sense of genuine discontentedness but the way that juyeon’s eyes curve into teasing crescents convince you otherwise.

it would be so easy to choose him. so incredibly easy. but jeno’s face flashes through your mind and you find yourself taking a step back, shaking your head when juyeon looks at you questioningly.

“to the club!”

+++

there are two things that you learn about juyeon by the time you’re another two shots deep: a) he is an absolute gentleman - not just to you, but to the other people around the two of you as well. b) he is a very flirtatious drunk.

in fact, he manages the very big, very linebacker looking bouncer to let him into the club even though his name wasn’t on the list with nothing but a charming smile and an absolute inability to keep from flirting with everything and anything in sight.

which is funny to watch, especially from the other side of the bouncer, because every time juyeon says something particularly risqué, you can see the bouncer’s ears go bright red before he finally relents and lets juyeon in.

but it’s somehow less funny when he’s using those lines on you. it somehow makes your head dizzy and it makes you forget why you turned him down in the first place. you’re half-convinced that this had been juyeon’s plan all along. to turn on the charm to the max so that when you’re under the lights (that honestly might invoke epilepsy; why the fuck were they flying around the place like that), you forget all about jeno.

it’s a bad decision, you repeat to yourself as you watch juyeon make his way through the crowd to where you’re standing in an isolated, somewhat calmer corner. jeno and jaemin warned you against him for a reason. protect your peace, y/n.

and even while you repeat that to yourself over and over again, when juyeon’s hand holds yours precariously as he pulls you into the growing mess of bodies, you find it harder and harder to convince yourself that that was the truth. god, he looks good.

his hair has fallen messily across his forehead, contrasting the way it had been carefully gelled back before. he’s rolled up the sleeves of his button up to reveal his forearms, and you feel no matter than a man as your eyes trail the depths that planes of his chest promise from where they peek out of his half unbuttoned shirt.

you’re vaguely aware that there are various people waiting for you to either make a move or to push him away once and for all. it felt like every single person in the club was fixated upon the two of you - do you want him or not? because you’re holding up the fucking line. for you and your friend.

and so you take the plunge.

you move his hand from where it was innocently resting on your wrist and place it on the small of your back, smiling when juyeon takes the hint and draws you closer to him so that your chest is pressed against his.

“hey beautiful,” juyeon breathes as he looks down at you, almost in disbelief. “what are you doing here?”

you know, even tipsy, that he’s looking for a real answer. and you don’t want to play him - you don’t want to add to the list of heartbreak.

“i’m looking for someone to keep me company tonight,” you say and look up at him through your lashes, a coy smile playing on your lips when juyeon’s breath falters as you do so. “just for the night though. you know anyone who might interested?”

juyeon pulls you impossibly closer and you register the copious amounts of men (for you) and women (for him) that are turning away from the two of you, more than a little disappointed.

“yeah, i might know someone.”

and with that, he spins you so that your back is pressed against his front, his arms caging you in protectively when he sees that a man is looking at you like he genuinely wants to eat you up.

you can feel your self-control slipping further and further away from you as the two of you just let the music fill you up, forgetting about your inhibitions as long as you had this music and him.

it’s too perfect though, and you realize as much when you make eye contact with jeno fucking lee across the club. right before he dips his head to whisper in some girl’s ear.

jaemin is right next to him, his arm laying casually on another girl and you can see the sheer panic in his eyes when he sees you, and then the confusion when he realizes just who you’re pressed up against. you watch as he leans over to whisper (yell; you’re sure that no one can whisper in an establishment threatening to break the sound barrier) something in jeno’s ear but he’s firmly shut down when jeno waves him off.

you scoff at that, turning around the pair of you around so that juyeon’s back was to the two idiots that you call your friends, now facing the dj booth.

the song switches to a much more upbeat song that you don’t recognize and you take it as your cue to push any and all thoughts of your friends out of your mind. you choose to give no apologies for the way that you spend your time - especially if your friends chose to give you no explanation for their behavior.

if they didn’t need to explain themselves, neither do you.

and it works for a while. for a while, all you can think of is the warmth that fills your body. from the alcohol, the heat of juyeon’s body pressed against yours, or even the excitement of the atmosphere; all if it is just so intoxicating.

you forget all about the fact act jeno and jaemin are just a few feet away, actively avoiding you (and doing a poor job of doing so) until juyeon spins you around, looking deep into your eyes in a way that makes you feel, heat rising to your cheeks as you watch his lips move.

“i know that you don’t want - honestly, whatever it is that you don’t want - but jeno and jaemin are here and you haven’t pushed me off of you. so i’m going to shoot my shot for one last time, y/n. and if you reject me this time, i think that we should go our separate ways,” juyeon says, his voice soft and gentle and yet somehow, you can hear every word he says with perfect clarity.

you honestly don’t know what to say. juyeon had caught you in a bad moment with jeno and jaemin. more specifically, jeno. you didn’t want that to cloud your judgement though. you had known juyeon for a total of maybe a week. you had known jeno and jaemin for years and for those years, their opinions on the men in your life had very rarely been wrong.

and yet, the boy that they had warned you against was pressed up against you and those two were on the other side of the club, arms wrapped around girls you knew they would forget about by the morning.

you sigh, stepping back from juyeon, the sheer ridiculousness of the situation making you sober up more than you want to. you hear the beat drop to ‘kiss me better’ by rihanna in the background building up and it seems like everything in the universe is just pushing you to give juyeon a chance.

but juyeon understand what you mean when you step away from him and he gives you one last, longing look before smiling, gently tugging you forward so that the two of you can make your way to a less crowded area.

“you wanna go home?” juyeon asks. you know that he’s asking for his own sake, almost as though he was asking for permission to get with someone else to nurse him through his rejection if you wouldn’t. but he’s a gentleman and he wouldn’t leave you for the wolves and so he asks you if you want to go home instead.

“yeah. i want to go home.”

juyeon nods, already pulling out his phone. “let me call you an uber. and y/n? i’m not upset. i’m just glad that i know i did everything i could. jeno’s a lucky guy for you to care this much about what he says and thinks.”

you want to disagree with him. he’s my friend. of course his opinions matter. sorry. it’s not personal. i actually liked spending time with you.

but even as these thoughts battle in your mind, you find yourself unable to say any of the words out loud.

jimin was your friend but that stopped you very rarely from doing whatever you wanted to do in the end. jaemin would often yell at you for your terrible affinity for working yourself to the bone and you brushed his concern to the side every time. but it was different with jeno. it had always been different with jeno.

you’re too drunk to think about the implications of any of that though so you just smile once again, leaning up to press a chaste kiss to juyeon’s cheek.

“you’re so good, juyeon. regardless of what anyone says.”

and with that, you step into the uber that has reached the club in record time and head home.

+++

you’re not surprised by the text you get from jimin in the morning. or the one from jaemin. in fact, there are only two texts that surprise you when you manage to finally look at your phone with clear enough eyes.

jiminy cricket: OMG i’m so sorry abt last night love!! heard you went out w juyeon tho ;) we need to debrief fr

jaejaeminna: sorry i didn’t get a chance to say hi before you left

juyeon lee: did you get home safe?

ur mom (jeno): can we talk?

you respond to jimin with a quick for sure, girlie! before stepping into the shower, electing to ignore the rest of the messages in your phone. your roommate, jessica, a girl that you barely interacted with, given that she was usually at her boyfriend’s place or you were at jeno’s or jimin’s had kindly left extra pancakes that she had clearly made before she dashed out of the house.

you munch on them slowly, sending her a message of profound gratitude as you try to digest the events of last night (as well as the delicious pancakes), making sure to tousle your hair every so often to get it to dry faster.

first, jimin and jaehyun had clearly made things somewhat official (or at least were on the same page) which meant that you probably wouldn’t have to try and help jimin decipher what that entire situation was. a win, really. second, you and juyeon had gone clubbing together and had shared more than one or two intimate moments. third, you shot him down once and for all. fourth, he still called you an uber and made sure you made it home safe. fifth, you saw jeno and jaemin at the club and neither of them said anything to you.

this was officially the longest that you had gone without speaking to jeno - or even jaemin.

even the stupid tiktok’s had faded away to nothingness by the end of last week from jaemin, which meant that something was so incredibly wrong, it wasn’t even funny.

also, jeno never said can we talk.

it was usually a much more casual wanna get chinese? or even a bring your stupid ass over here cause jaemin misses you. that was more his speed in his form of apology or trying to make it clear to you that the two of you were back to normal now. he’d never acknowledge the two or three days of radio silence, electing to just pretend that they never happened in the first place.

so going from not talking at all to suddenly such a loaded question was new and kind of surreal for you. not to mention that jaemin’s last text to you was also indicative that something was seriously off between the three of you. the text before that had been a tiktok of a man sitting in a car yelling, “it’s the way you act!” and now it was that he didn’t say hi at the club.

you sigh, debating all of your options carefully.

you were obviously going to have to talk to jeno about the situation at some point. and honestly, you were going to have to have a serious conversation about the fact that he would do this every so often because it’s getting way too much for you to handle. it wasn’t as though you were doing something wrong - jaemin would call you out on your behavior, even if jeno didn’t.

you were left to decipher what exactly it was that had jeno in such a pissy mood and you would have to try and figure out what it is on your own because he’s a grown man that doesn’t know what communication meant. for someone who always warned you against the toxicity of men, he was doing a pretty great job of showing you exactly why to avoid them.

pushing all thoughts of jeno and everything else to the side, you decide to take the day as a self-care day for yourself. lord knows that with everything you had going on, self-care was the one thing you desperately needed. of many things, really, but taking a walk and soul food was going to have to do.

you’re just putting on a face mask (one of the korean ones that you had had to sell your left foot to pay the shipping for) when your doorbell rings and you hate the way that you already know who’s at the door even before you step to the entryway, where the monitor is to see who is buzzing for you.

you’re greeted by jeno’s face, alone, looking worse for the wear as he ruffles his hair, shifting from foot to foot as he waits for you to either let him in or at least press the intercom to speak with him. you’re trying to make a decision and you know that decision, as trivial as it seems, would be what would set up your friendship with him in the future.

were you really going to give him another chance? even as he continued to mess up this hard?

you don’t say anything in the intercom but the faint buzzing noise that echoes in the monitor is response enough as jeno opens the door that has opened once you pressed the button, effectively solidifying your decision.

he was jeno. your jeno. you couldn’t just not listen to what he had to say.

the time that jeno takes to make it to the fourth floor where your apartment was seemed to have stretched on for eternity. you weren’t sure the last time that jeno had been in here (last weekend) but suddenly everything in the apartment was just too messy.

you panic and rush to clean everything in sight before you pause awkwardly. this is just jeno. the same boy who had come over and thrown up on your birthday after drinking too much at your party. the same boy who would be sitting in his room screaming into his headset as he played video games, having no regard for you and jaemin spending quality quiet time together.

and he was also the boy who asked for space when you needed him the most.

so you put down your weapon of choice (a swiffer mop) and wait for the eventual knock at the door that finally comes about a half second later. you take a deep breath before opening the door, coming face to face with your ‘best friend’ of the past three years.

the little monitor had done the damage little justice. the eyeballs under jeno’s eyes were deep and purple, with his cheekbones protruding a little more than you remember them to, and his gaze deep and sorrowful.

but somehow, you could look past all of that because your gaze is caught by something else - the purple and very telling hickey on his neck. he’s clearly made an attempt to cover it up with what you assume is whatever foundation you might have left at their place on the nights that you’re too lazy to come home before work. the attempt isn’t all that successful, given that your foundation is about three hundred shades too dark for his skin (which is as pale as a ghost around this time of year) but you appreciate the effort.

not really.

jeno looks uncharacteristically shy as he stands in the living room, having switched out his shoes for his slippers that he bought specifically for your apartment once him and jaemin started coming over more often. they usually fought over ‘jeno’s’ slippers (they had peaches on them while ‘jaemin’s’ had ducks) but jaemin usually conceded to jeno.

usually, he’d be sprawled out on the sofa with little more than a half-hearted ‘hey’ and bags of chinese takeout on the kitchen counter but you see none of that now. now, he looked like a lost puppy, shuffling awkwardly to stand next to the couch.

it would almost be funny if it weren’t for the fact that the two of you haven’t spoken in a week. or the hickey.

“has it ever occurred to you that we might act like more than friends?”

the question is sudden, breaking your nostalgia and bringing your train of thought to a screeching halt.

“excuse me?” your voice is calmer than you thought it would be in your head as you spin on your heel to look at jeno in the eye. he licks his lips, a nervous habit that he’d picked up from you, but his eyes don’t shift from yours, decidedly steady. he’s thought this for a while, you realize belatedly. it was just a question of how long and what that really meant.

“i mean you leave your foundation at my place and i buy slippers for yours. i can’t stand olives but when we get pizza, i get olives anyway so that you can pick them off of my slices and eat them. you don’t know your left from right but you still drive forty-five minutes down and back to the bakery to get iced lemon poundcake every time i’m upset.

“i can’t stand it when you meet a decent guy for once in your life and i go off the radar but we - i can’t spend more than a few days away from you. so, i’m always showing up at your apartment with chinese food when the last thing i want to do is hear about you raving about your new date who has a job at amazon and wears real rolex watches while i’m still eating instant ramen and trying to get a grip on life.

“the worst part is that i think i’ve always known. even last night, i was falling into my old pattern of using people to get over you, y/n. in between trying to figure out why i couldn’t click with anyone else besides you and trying to figure out why i feel so empty every time i feel like you’re slipping away from me, i think i figured it out. sure, i hate juyeon because of who he is and what he’s done in the past but i hate him even more because he used to be just like me. and now he’s changed so much and become such a good person. the fact that he’s the bigger, better, older, stronger version of me with his life together freaks me out so much because what if you replace me with him? and then i lose the one person i think i’ve ever properly fallen for and one of my best friends all in one go? and it’s all so selfish but when i have ever tried to hide myself from you, y/n?”

your mind is spinning. jeno is heaving by the end of his rambling. you can’t seem to find your grip on reality. everything is just wrong. it’s all wrong. everything is wrong. what?

jeno lee. playboy extraordinaire. mr. couldn’t be tied down. the boy who came home with a new broken heart in his jar of hearts that he hid deep inside his mind so he wouldn’t have to think of the unintentional consequences of having an unavailable pool of love.

and here he was, standing next to the couch in the living room, looking at you with so much anger, confusion, and sheer love in his eyes that you’re almost upset with yourself that you hadn’t seen it sooner. had he always looked at you like that?

you don’t know what to say though. you can’t even tell if he’s still talking, by the way that the blood is rushing in your head like an unforgiving tsunami has broken loose. you can’t hear anything, much too preoccupied with your own thoughts to even think of listening to his.

you vaguely register the fact that you and jeno are somehow sitting on opposite ends of the couch, a good entire seat away from each other. that was good, at least. you’re sure that your legs would’ve given out on you at some point if you had remained standing.

“why do you hate juyeon so much?”

the question doesn’t seem to faze him as much as you wished it would. what was it with men and not being stunned by the most random questions or thoughts you can come up with? it somewhat frustrated you that you couldn’t stun them with the same shock factor that they seemed to utilize on you.

jeno sighs, raking a hand through his messy hair as he struggles to come up with the right words to say. or honestly, any non-stupid words.

“juyeon was actually one of the reasons why i came to snu in the first place. he was kind of like my mentor - a guy that i looked up to a lot in high school. he was one of my older friend’s roommate so when i came to check out snu, he toured me around and showed me his entire lifestyle. i was a senior in high school back then and he was just a sophomore but i swear, i’d never clicked with someone that fast before.

“he’s always been super smart and incredibly charming. and back when i met him, as a stupid senior in high school, i thought that everything that he had was what i wanted. he had a new girl at his apartment any time he wanted and always seemed like he had the entire college wrapped around his finger.” jeno gets up, looking frustrated as he starts pacing back and forth between the walls of the living room of the apartment.

“long story short, i caught him making out with my girlfriend at the time over the summer between high school and college. and it all came crashing down. in hindsight, maybe i shouldn’t have hated him nearly as much as i did but the fact that i couldn’t see that he had no qualms of getting with anyone who wanted to get with him hurt me. everything i had idolized came crashing down when i saw the two of them.”

jeno stops pacing, looking down at his hands, rough and raw from the biting winds outside. “it just - it just hurt y/n. and it made it so incredibly easy to just not believe in love anymore. and then i met you and you came into college looking for the one and it was just so hard not to believe in love. when you said you were going out with juyeon, it took me back to the darkest parts of my past mentally. ridiculous? weak? yeah. i know. but i couldn’t help it.”

“it’s not weak or ridiculous, jeno,” you say gently, finding your voice once more. “i’m just hurt that you didn’t tell me before. i mean, i thought i was your best friend!”

jeno laughs drily, a grating sound that tugs at your heart strings. “but he’s gone clean, y/n. he’s everything that i couldn’t be and so much more. he’s near perfect. i couldn’t stop you from finding ‘the one’ that you’ve been dreaming about since i’ve known you. even if that meant that i finally had to let the past go. even if it meant that i had to give up on being able to love you.”

you can’t help the tears that spring to your eyes. “jeno…”

jeno shakes his head, looking at you with watery eyes, dragging his red hands across them roughly. “stop. i don’t need pity. i just…i just wanted clarity. have you always thought of me as a friend? was i making up everything in my head? did - did i imagine that we could’ve had something this whole time?”

you’re at a loss for words. jeno wasn’t wrong. you’d gone to the ends of the earth to make jeno happy. any time he was upset, you’d drop everything to go get that goddamn lemon cake. you couldn’t go more than a week without him. even if the entire world went to shit, you’d always thought that you and jeno would go down together, fighting side by side. if it really came down to choosing between your friends, some part of you knew that you’d always choose jeno before jaemin or jimin.

and some part of you wonders if you’d always had that much affection for him.

“i don’t know,” you say honestly. jeno’s face falls, and an awkward silence falls between the two of you, with his feet pointed to the door and muscles tensed to move. you know that if you don’t come up with the words to say something that’ll convince him to stay, you’ll have given him no reason to. you know he’s going to leave.

no matter what, you cannot lose jeno, you realize. he’s the one part of your life that cannot leave. he’s the person that buys slippers for your house. he’s the boy who can’t stand when he has to compete for your attention. he’s the man who’s shoulder you cry on when your heart suffers even the smallest scratch.

he’s your jeno.

“i don’t know,” you begin, rushing to continue when you see jeno’s crestfallen expression. “but it’s all so sudden, jeno. you’ve been thinking about your feelings for a long while. i’ve honestly never considered the possibility of - of us being more than friends. of being together. maybe i’ve had feelings for you this whole time without knowing. maybe my ‘one’ has been you this whole time. maybe we’re better off as friends! i don’t know anything.”

jeno’s breath catches as he realizes what the hidden implication in your words is.

“but i’m willing to find out if you are.”

+++

after the enlightening conversation that you’d had with jeno that morning, you’d made plans with him to go on a proper date on wednesday, a day that you had nothing but boring meetings and jeno only had two classes. the two of you had decided to first go on the date and then try to figure out how you felt about each other from there.

you’d also taken it upon yourself to curve juyeon once and for all. he was a great guy and you were sure that he’d be a great person to whoever he’s meant to be with but after reminding him that you were distinctly uninterested (and apologizing if you’d insinuated that you wanted to see him as an anything after that night), you’d deleted his number and all thoughts of him from your mind.

jaemin had been equally easy to make up with. you understood - after all, jaemin was jeno’s friend first and foremost. even if he didn’t necessarily agree with jeno and his tendencies, being his friend first meant that he had to prioritize jeno and his feelings. he was relieved to hear that jeno had finally grown the balls (verbatim) to confess the painstaking secret that he had been holding onto for the past three years.

“three years? he’s liked me since he met me? and you never said anything, jaemin?” you say incredulously, thanking the barista with a quick smile before grabbing your coffee, rushing to beat the morning sidewalk traffic as you walk to office.

jaemin’s face on your screen is mostly covered by his covers - a sign that he’s either skipping a class (ancient world history) or avoiding some work that he has to do. it was both, but he would concede neither to you.

“it wasn’t my place to say anything,” jaemin says finally, and you finally look at him properly through the little facetime box, watching him drag his hand over his face. he looks as though he’s aged about ten years in the time that you haven’t seen him - which was only a few days ago, technically.

“and besides, you saw us at the club. did it look like jeno was exercising any type of common sense? clearly not. he wasn’t ready to listen to the truth, no matter who was delivering it. so there was no point in trying to make him to his senses,” jaemin continues, wrapping his blanket around himself a little tighter. “it didn’t help that his coping mechanism thus far has been to just run away from his issues, forget they exist, and then use a distraction to pretend that he was never affected by it in the first place.”

you sigh. this much was obvious to you as well. the day that jeno had come over, that had been one of the first things that you had confronted him about. he had presented a similar explanation then as jaemin was now but even if he didn’t say anything, you knew that was the truth.

“that reminds me - jimin texted me this morning asking if you were okay. have you talked to her since friday night?” jaemin asks and you groan. in all of this mess, you had completely neglected to debrief jimin and fill her in on everything that was happening.

“oh shit, i completely forgot to call her,” you say, swiping into the company building, smiling as you pass a familiar face. “i’ll talk to her tonight.”

“yeah. she seemed kinda worried. apparently juyeon told jaehyun that you two had cut it off for good and told him about you seeing jeno and i at the club. i guess jaehyun went and told jimin,” he says sullenly. you roll your eyes at his dramatics.

“just because you’re the only one getting no action doesn’t mean that you have to be jealous of jimin,” you say.

“no - what? no! it’s not that. i’m single by choice, thank you very much. i could have a hundred girls lining up for me if i wanted,” he says, clearly miffed. you stifle a laugh; it was so easy to rile men up. “but it’s like a violation of bro code. jaehyun knows that jeno doesn’t fuck with juyeon and he also knows that jimin is one of your best friends. like what did he think? that jimin wouldn’t tell jeno and i or that she wouldn’t talk to you about it?”

you blink, completely lost. “i swear to god, i think guys have more complex interpersonal links than girls do. i followed like maybe 20% of what you said.”

jaemin sticks his tongue out at you childishly. “whatever. don’t you have a job to do?”

“don’t you have a class that you’re paying thousands of dollars to take to go to?”

“touché.”

with that, jaemin ends the call but even as you finally sit down in your little glass office, you know that he’s absolutely not going to go to that class. it didn’t help that you’d taken the class last semester and had handed him your notes. at this point, he basically only went to take the tests - after studying your notes for maybe 10 minutes right before.

you’re about to call jaemin again to make sure that he actually gets up to go to class when there’s a knock on the glass of your office.

“y/n? someone’s ordered breakfast for you,” haerin, an underpaid and quite frankly undervalued intern at your office, says. she’s holding a little pastry box and a straw without any coffee. “the person who dropped it off said that he figured you’d already have coffee but you probably forgot the straw.”

you don’t even need to hear the name of your mystery courier boy because you already know who it is.

jeno.

+++

“he brought you breakfast? to your office?” jimin asks incredulously. you had called her soon after haerin had handed you the breakfast (with your favorite pastry inside the box). you seriously needed to hear a girl’s perspective on all of this, even if it was coming from the most romantic person you knew.

“yeah. i mean he’s done it before - like during my first couple of weeks of working, remember how stressed i was? he bought me lunch and dropped it off at the office, back when i was just an intern running around and didn’t have time to go and get it myself.” you blink, looking at jimin worriedly. “that’s not weird, is it?”

jimin ponders for a moment before shaking her head. “i mean you guys were best friends. i’d do it for you. but i don’t know. i feel like guys and girls who are just friends are more like siblings and i feel like girls who are really close are basically like a married couple.”

“why do you and jaemin always say weird shit that confuses me?”

“no - it’s like…like with a truly platonic set of girl and guy friends, they’re always doing sibling-like things. for example, i think i’ve seen you nearly give jaemin a black eye for taking a bite out of your pizza. but if i wanted a bite of your pizza, you’d probably honestly give me the whole slice. i don’t know, but it’s a dynamic that i’ve seen with all of my female friends compared to my guy friends. but you and jeno have never been like that.”

“i have most definitely tried to fight jeno over pizza. i’m sure i’ve fought him over much less, to be honest,” you say and jimin shrugs.

“i’m not here to make you feel one way or another about him. your feelings are yours to figure out. but as an outsider looking in, even if you were to fight him about something stupid like that, it was because that’s how you guys talked to each other. it’s not like you’re actually going to rip that pizza away from him. in the end, if he really wanted it, you’d concede to him. you don’t really do that for siblings. it’s charged in a different way.

“i’d give up my life for my older sister. but if she even looks at me the wrong way, i’m ready to pull out her hair. or my younger brother? he genuinely gets pleasure out of making me have to redo my entire skincare routine because he switched around all of the labels. would he send me breakfast to my office just because? fuck no. would he give me his kidney in a heartbeat? hell yeah.”

jimin looks down before looking up at you once more. “and even if none of that was true, you don’t look at jeno like you look at jaemin.”

this startles you out of your own attempts of running parallels between what jimin was describing and how you and jaemin were or how you and jeno were.

“what do you mean? how do i look at jeno?” you say, your voice coming out shockingly soft and confused.

“you know how you were kicking yourself about not realizing how jeno looks at you? yeah. that’s how i feel looking at you looking at jeno. i didn’t want to say anything to you about it. honestly, mostly because i hated seeing you get down every time he would just disappear from your life. i don’t know that as your friend, i should be encouraging you at all. but he makes you more happy than i’ve seen anyone else make you,” jimin says. “and that’s reason enough for me to be happy for you. to tell you what you don’t realize yourself. even when you dated other people, you always looked at them differently than you looked at jeno.”

“how do i look at jeno, jimin.” it’s not a question and both you and jimin know that you know the answer to what you’re truly asking.

“you look at him like you’re finally ready to love. like you’re realizing again that maybe jeno was the one you’d been waiting for every time.”

+++

your first date with jeno had been a full course of a dumpster fire with a side of natural disaster.

after your (jimin induced) realization that maybe you’d actually had feelings for jeno longer you’d thought, you find yourself going through the day as if you were on autopilot. jeno sends you breakfast on tuesday and wednesday morning as well, although he doesn’t mention a word of it when the two of you are texting.

at least nothing had changed there, thus far. he still sent you those stupid reaction memes that he found on pinterest and never failed to make fun of your typos in the group chat with you, jaemin, jeno, and now jimin.

you hadn’t seen him since friday night but by the time wednesday rolls around, you wish that you had a little bit more time. you’re still reeling from your newfound enlightenment and some childish, hidden romantic side of you wants to bask in the uncertainty and the almost juvenile way that your heart beats a little faster whenever you think of the date tonight.

the two of you had decided that you were going to try and approach it as a truly romantic date, rather than the quick food runs that you were used to with him. which meant you were going to have to clean up and put on a dress - a sight that you’re sure jeno was truly not used to seeing after so long of you lounging around his apartment in sweats all day.

since this was the first proper date you were going on (you insisted that the date with juyeon didn’t count, since you had only gone with the intention of being a good friend to jimin.) in a good while, you’d called in the big guns for reinforcement. the only reinforcements you had, but that was besides the point.

“i still don’t get why you’re curling your hair. it looks so pretty naturally,” jimin laments, setting down the section of hair that she was working as she moves onto the next.

“i know. it’s kinda silly but i wanna feel cute - like i wanna look feminine and feel cute when i see jeno. it’s stupid and i swear it goes against everything feminism has taught me but i just want to feel and look like my inner girly-girl has been begging me to,” you explain, pouting when you catch jimin laughing through the reflection of the vanity mirror where you were sitting.

“baby, that’s not silly at all. and it doesn’t go against feminism to want to dress up and look cute! reminder: feminism is about empowering other women and helping everyone have the freedom to choose what they want for themselves. whether that’s dressing up cute or being a stay-at-home mom or being a working woman or some combination of all of the above and then some,” jimin says and then there’s a wicked glint in her eyes. “it’s also very feminist to get men to do your bidding, i think. and hey, if you have to put on a little black dress to do that, then i’m all for it.”

“you sound absolutely ridiculous,” you scoff, but a little smile tugs at the corner of your lips anyway.

“speaking of little black dresses, you’re wearing a matching set underneath, right?” jimin teases. you swat at her with your free hand that wasn’t applying glitter to your inner eye. “i’m holding a hot iron, you psycho!”

“jimin! i’m not going to have sex on the first date. not that i’m above it but jeno is different,” you say and jimin unfortunately catches the underlying longing tone in your words.

“oh he’s different, is he? girl, where having you been hiding all these feelings for so long?” she says and you find yourself not being able to come up with a rebuttal. honestly, you didn’t know how either of you had been so blind to your feelings for each other. and suddenly, a cold rush of fear runs down your spine.

you twist in your chair, ignoring jimin’s protest that she was almost done with your hair. “wait. you don’t think that this is a mistake, right? like what if he thinks that he has feelings for me but it’s been the chase this whole time. or what if we just don’t click like we think we will? what if i lose my friend and the person that i think i’ve liked for longer than i’d like to admit in one go.”

jimin’s expression turns serious at that. “y/n, you’ve only had a week to figure out your feelings. it’s okay if you want to raincheck and then go on the date when you’re more sure of how you feel, if that’s what you want.”

“that’s not what i want. i think that i actually have liked him for longer than i think. it’s just been so hard to realize that because he’s always been with someone and i’ve always been waiting for the one. it just scares me to think that maybe the one that i’ve been looking for is someone who actually doesn’t think that i’m the one, you know? i don’t know if i could live with losing him.” you blink furiously, willing yourself to not let a single tear fall and ruin all of your hard work for the past couple of hours.

“trust me, y/n, if you’re sure about your feelings and if he really is the one, then everything will work out. have a little faith in the universe.” no sooner does jimin say this, the buzzer rings and you and jimin look at each other in panic.

“it’s still 5:50! he said he was coming at 6:00!” you exclaim and jimin rushes to finish your hair. “you have to distract him! i still have to put my dress on!”

“oh my good lord, i forgot about that. okay, you focus on getting ready, i’m running!” jimin says, cursing when she trips over the cord to the curling iron as she’s running to open the door for jeno.

you shimmy out of your pajamas in hurried movements as you hear jimin say that jeno could come up but that the elevator was broken so he’d have to come up by stairs.

“there’s no sign that says the elevator is broken though,” you hear jeno say as you’re caught in one of the legs of your pajamas, shaking it off wildly as jimin tries to come up with a random explanation on why exactly the elevator had no sign.

“yeah, it actually just broke. like right now. like it was so recent that they didn’t have a chance to put a sign up yet. in fact, i bet that we’re in a space-time pocket and time just moves faster for you and slower for people inside. maybe this building is narnia or something,” jimin says. the room is silent for a moment before you hear the sound of the elevator dinging and you wince, your movements no doubt mirrored by jimin.

you can already see jeno’s amused smirk as jimin says that the elevators must’ve been repaired by the aliens in the space-time pocket. but they were living in a speed that was faster than human senses.

you’d seriously have to buy her a drink when this date was over, you think to yourself as you struggle to zip up the back of the dress. you don’t think that you’ve heard jimin pull out that much utter bullshit in one breath before.

you have heard jaemin say something similar before though, so it made sense that jeno was neither fazed nor taking her seriously. not that anyone could take that seriously, anyway.

you’ve finally managed to contort your body in the right position to zip up the dress when you hear the door open and jeno saying something to jimin.

“i know i’m early. and i know she’s definitely not ready. but i found these earrings in my apartment and i figured that she’d want to wear these. if i know her at all, she’s wearing black and she always says that she loves to wear these earrings with her black outfits.”

you open the door just slightly for jimin to slip into your bedroom and deposit the earrings in your hands.

“how do i look?” you whisper, waiting for jimin’s reaction with bated breath.

jimin smiles at you and wraps you up in a tight hug, careful not to wrinkle the silky fabric of your dress.

“like a dream.”

that works for you and you take a deep breath before opening to door to see jeno. it’s just jeno, you remind yourself. and although it’s not just jeno because you don’t know if he’s ever been just jeno to you, the words serve as a good reminder.

he’s jeno. your jeno. not someone to be afraid of. someone who’s seen every side of you and still wants to see more sides.

you walk into the living room, where jeno is sitting on the couch, scrolling through his phone (tiktok, as you can tell by sounds of football highlights). there’s a bouquet of flowers, gardenias, laying across his lap and he’s clearly cleaned himself well. he’s wearing a black button down and rolled up the sleeves to reveal the tattoo that he’d gotten halfway through freshman year.

it’s a tattoo of jeno’s favorite quote from his favorite movie, chappie. you are made for good.

he introduced you to the movie early into your friendship, and had been thrilled when he realized that you liked as much as he did. in fact, the same quote that he had gotten tattooed on his forearm was the one that you had custom-made for your phone case. huh.

how long had you and jeno been doing things like this? since the very beginning, you balk.

“you look beautiful.” jeno’s voice is low, softer than you remember and your instinct is to counter him and say that you always look beautiful but he looks a little too sweet under the light of skylights for you to find it in yourself to do so.

“thank you.” you lean closer, eyes crinkling into a smile when you recognize the cologne that jeno was wearing. “is that the cologne i got you in sophomore year?”

jeno nods and smiles with you. “jaemin said that my normal one was too…fuckboy.”

“the sauvage one? hell yeah, it is. i think that most girls have a trauma response to that cologne at this point,” you say, and suddenly everything is so simple again. it’s your jeno, after all.

“it’s a good thing i listened to jaemin, then.”

you cock your head and you’re vaguely sure that he means more than just his cologne choices.

“yeah, i guess it was.”

+++

pretty much everything from there went completely wrong. for one, jeno’s car (which was infamous for coming up with the most random issues at the worst times) had decided to blare with just about every warning known to man almost as soon as the two of you sit in the car.

by the time that jaemin arrives to where the two of you had pulled over to take the car to the car dealership, jimin offering her car instead, the two of you were already about thirty minutes late to your reservation.

it had taken a lot of persuasion on jeno’s end to convince the restaurant to let the two of you sit and eat anyway, although you were past half an hour late for your reservation. as if that weren’t enough, the restaurant refused to accommodate for your dietary restrictions (even though they promised that they did on their website!), causing you to only be able to order an overpriced caesar salad with maybe three vegetables and too much vinegar.

then, as you were leaving, you found out that the valet had parked pretty much on the other side of the country. and it was pouring rain. to the extent that your phone had gone off about three times with warnings that there was a flood watch in seoul.

which meant that jeno had had to book it to run to get the car and pull it up to the front of the restaurant, where you were waiting, shivering even with jeno’s jacket around your shoulders. and due to the layout of the restaurant’s front, you were forced to run in the run in the rain anyway to dive into the passenger seat of jimin’s car.

and yet, even with all of this, you couldn’t help but laugh. the date was perfect. every time something occurred, jeno handled it with ease, allowing you to just turn off your brain and let him take care of everything for you. he would always turn to you with a silly smile and another story of how the two of you always seemed to find yourselves in the most unbelievable situations.

through all of this, you finally understand what you had been thinking that you wanted this whole time in your wait for the one. not someone who made sure that everything was perfect and that the date was always planned out to the t.

no, it was someone who made you feel like you were having a good time, even when everything was going to shit.

you look at jeno, recounting some story about how jaemin and him had snuck into a wedding once to eat food after days of cooking instant ramen in their dorm in freshman year, laughing so hard that you could barely hear the pelting rain outside. and seeing him smile like that, feeling yourself smile like that, just because you knew that he was smiling, your heart finally felt at ease.

definitely not a platonic type of love, you decide.

“hey, you okay?” jeno asks, eyes trained on the road in front of him as he navigates to your apartment. “you seem kind of checked out.”

you smile, shaking your head. “yeah. i’m all good. i was…i was just thinking about how stupid i’d been to think that i’d been looking everywhere but right in front of me for ‘the one’ when i didn’t even know what i wanted.”

“yeah? what do you want?” jeno says, his grip on the steering wheel growing tighter as he waits nervously for your answer. you look at him and jeno has to fight himself to keep looking at the road when he wants nothing but to look at you and commit this vision of you to memory.

your glinting earrings and your twinkling eyes under the seoul night sky. your drenched dress and jeno’s jacket across your lap. your wet hair that still somehow looked sexy as you flipped it over your shoulder. your soft smile and seeing you finally look at him the way that he’d been looking at you this whole time. he wants to capture it all within his mind and never forget the way you were looking at him now.

“i want someone to make me feel like that even the stupidest situations were easy to overcome when i’m with them,” you say softly.

jeno pauses at that, heart beating a little too fast to be good for him. a smile tugs at his lips, no matter how stoic he tries to look. “oh? does this mean you think this date was a success?”

“i think this date was an utter flop,” you say drily and jeno rolls his eyes at that. “but i think my date was pretty great. i’m not going to lie, i’m still a little hungry though.”

“i still can’t believe that they gave you a bowl of lettuce and charged like $30 for that,” jeno says, shaking his fist dramatically. “i’m going to write a scathing yelp review.”

“i mean i didn’t have to pay so that yelp review’s all yours,” you say before turning to him with a sly smirk. “aren’t you going to ask what i’m hungry for though?”

“what do you mean? what are you hungry for?” he asks, turning onto your street.

“ramen. wanna eat ramen and go?”

jeno has to use all of his self-will to keep from hydroplaning as he pulls into your apartment complex. “y/n. you want me to eat ramen and go?”

“yeah. i meant that literally though. you wanna eat ramen and then maybe ramen?” you ask, batting your eyelashes innocently at him as he parks jimin’s car in your designated parking spot.

“uh, isn’t jimin at your place?” jeno asks, feeling his heart skip a beat when you shake your head no.

“jaehyun’s apartment is like two complexes down so she just walked over. why? you don’t want to eat ramen with me?” you say, faking a sullen pout. jeno rushes to correct himself, resting his hand on your thigh gently.

“look, y/n, i think that you’re incredibly attractive and i really like you. but that’s - that’s my issue. i like you so much that i don’t want to make you feel like i was trying to get in your pants and then do something that you or i regret. and i know that you’re probably just saying that to get a rise out of me but hear me when i say that i want to take things slow. for your sake, not mine.

“i’ve been thinking about my feelings for so long and i’ve been thinking about how in love with you i am for longer than you might think. to me, sex would kinda just be the next step in taking our relationship to the next level. but i know you. you’ve really only been thinking about this about us for the past week or so. i don’t want to make you feel like you’re obligated to like me if we sleep together. i know that sex isn’t just sex for girls; or maybe it is but isn’t for you, no matter how much you tell me otherwise. and i honestly don’t know where i’m going with any of this but y/n, my feelings for you are true.

“i want to take things slow because if we take that next step, i want it to be when you’re sure. when you’re sure of how you feel for me. maybe i’m not the one for you, y/n. and as much it kills me to say that, it’s a very real possibility. you deserve someone who’d bring down the moon and gift it to you if that’s what you wanted. and i know that i would do that for you. but i need you to believe that too. wholeheartedly. i’ll wait for you for as long as you need. you’re my person, y/n. i’ve waited three years - granted, three very controversial years - for you. i’ll wait three more if that’s what you need.”

you’d said the ramen thing very jokingly, only half-serious about your proposition. but hearing jeno now, you’re happy that you had. you’re not sure that jeno would’ve told you how felt about you and just how deep his feelings ran for you if you hadn’t. he was right, of course. he knew you better than anyone else, after all.

so you kiss him on the cheek good night and open the passenger side door.

you’re about to close the door behind you, ready to bid him goodbye for the night when you lean down to say something to him.

“thank you for waiting for me, jeno.”

+++

turns out, romantic jeno is just like just friends jeno. mostly because you don’t think that you’ve ever truly been just friends. he’s quiet, teases you at any given moment, and listens to you recount even the most boring stories about work.

you went on a couple more dates with all of the formalities before slowly growing more casual with each other once more. neither of you had brought up the topic of physical touch after that night but lately, it was getting harder and harder to find places on jeno’s face to kiss besides his lips.

not to mention that you’d caught jeno’s lingering gaze on your lips (among other things) more and more often. so, just like everything else in your relationship, your first kiss was completely unexpected.

jeno had come over with chinese takeout, since the two of you (honestly, you had made the decision and jeno was just along for the ride) had decided to start the indiana jones franchise together.

you didn’t know what it was. the tousled hair? the way his arm was casually tugging you into to his side, covering your entire side as you cuddled closer into him? the way he was only a breath away from you? the look in eyes when he tears his eyes away from to look at you with the sweetest gaze?

everything. all of the above. you lean up to peck him swiftly on the lips.

jeno freezes, eyes going round as his entire face turns bright red. it was hard to think that just two months ago, jeno had been walking around with a girl on either side of him at a frat party, the promise of a good night hidden in his smile when he looks like a deer caught in headlights at the slightest sign of physical touch.

“did - did you just kiss me?” he stutters, and you shrug playfully, looking back the movie in front of you. he shifts you so that you’re facing him, unable to look away as he turns to face you.

“i thought we’re taking it slow?” he asks and you smile coyly.

“a month and a half of dating wasn’t enough to convince you that i actually like you the way that you like me, jeno?”

that’s all jeno needs to hear because no sooner do you say this does jeno dip his head to press his lips to yours, gentle and undemanding. he’s soft and careful, almost as if he were afraid that you were going to disappear if he chased after you too hard.

but you’d been waiting long enough and this was jeno so you pull away from him, a horde of butterflies settling in your stomach when he chases after your lips, eyes still closed, as if he couldn’t bear to part from them.

“jeno, i’m going to do something and you have got to tell me if you want me to stop, okay?” you whisper against his lips softly and jeno nods, opening his eyes so that you can see the look of absolute love and trust in them.

you get up and hook your leg over both of his so that you were effectively sitting on his lap, poised dangerously so that you could part from him at the slightest sign of discomfort. it never comes, though because as soon as you do this, jeno pulls you in closer so that his chest was pressed flush against yours.

“are you sure?” he says, confirming for the last time as you see the last strings of his resolve snap.

“god, jeno, i love you. now please just kiss me.”

his lips are pressed against yours the second the words leave your mouth, a little rougher and more insistent than last time. his arms are wrapped around your back and waist, eyes closed and you lose yourself in the feeling of being so close to him.

needless to say, that night had been a long night.

+++

“i look like an idiot,” your boyfriend complains, checking himself out in the mirror of your vanity anyway. you giggle, pressing a kiss to his temple so that you don’t mess up his make-up, carefully dodging the stray glare that he offers you.

“you look beautiful, jeno. and besides, this is for a good cause, remember?” you remind him as you make sure that your costume looks good as well.

“i don’t remember what me dressing up as a spandex wearing animated character has to do with changing the world, but alright,” jeno grumbles, shifting uncomfortably as his ‘uniform’ seems to cling to all the wrong places.

“you say that now but you and i both know that the moment you see those kids at the hospital, you’re a sucker. tell me you aren’t going to practice your mr. incredible in the car,” you say cheekily, and jeno is unable to refute that. ever since you and him have been dating, you have often dragged him to events such as these.

at first, they were rather simple things, almost as if you were testing the waters with jeno. for example, when the two of you went on a date to a zoo in the beginning of your relationship, you casually mentioned that many zoos that didn’t treat their animals with love and respect.

then, soon after, you asked him to sign a ‘take down unethical zoo practices!’ petition. and then from there, jeno found himself at a protest to rally for the rights of beluga whales.

not that jeno had anything against whales (he actually came to be quite passionate about the mistreatment of them the more he went to these events), but the fact that you took the world’s issues to be your issues was simultaneously your biggest character flaw and strength.

and he loved you all the more for it.

“you know who you are?” jeno says, swiveling around in the chair to mean mug you. “you’re woo young woo from that one kdrama. and i’m that poor unsuspecting boyfriend who wants to spend time with his girlfriend but ends up at a whale protest anyway. that’s what cute girls like you and her do; you get our attention, make us fall in love, and then ba-bam! you use us as a bodyguard and backpack carrier at protests and rallies!”

you roll your eyes, leaning down so that you were now eye level with jeno, the both of you lovingly aware that the banter between the two of you was not a symbol of actual annoyance but rather, mutual appreciation. you, for having so much empathy. jeno, for being so patient.

your heart swells when jeno looks at you with such loving eyes, trust and admiration swimming behind his façade of annoyance. you lean forward, pressing your lips to his, involuntarily smiling when you feel jeno’s lips curve upwards as well.

he hums softly, pulling you close so that you’re practically sitting on his lap. gentle and strong. a little callous, but only so that the butterflies in your stomach seem to be rebelling against the confines of your stomach, as if they too want to be showered in the love of your kindhearted and wonderful boyfriend.

you want to melt into his embrace, as you usually do whenever you’re near jeno, but your phone buzzes and you sigh, pulling away from your boyfriend reluctantly.

“that’s jaemin. he’s asking, and i quote, ‘what the fuck are you guys doing i’ll whoop your ass if you don’t come soon i hate this fucking gru costume and the kids keep asking where you are’. you think we should get going maybe?” you say, raising your eyebrows at the series (of rather graphic) of emojis that depict you and jeno conveniently being pushed off a cliff.

jeno snorts at his best friend’s antics, his touch lingering on your waist as he leaves to go start the car. he waits for you to finish responding (with a threatening message of your own) before extending his arm without even looking, waiting for the comforting weight of you clinging to his arm as the two of you leave your shared home, walking into the buttery evening.

it truly couldn’t get much better than this.

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