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gyuswhore · 8 days

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Statistically Speaking...

part of the svt TA collab

kim mingyu x reader

word count: 21k

contains: TA! mingyu, fluff, smut [minors DNI], angst, statistics, ur honour they're stupid for one another, descriptions of stress exhaustion and burnout, academic burden, disagreements, mingyu is smart as hell, shitting on bad professors, smut but its a surprise [gyu gets his soul sucked while he's reciting statistical models I mean what]

words of conviction from @highvern: Kim Mingyu, total asshole , 1-800-HOT N DUMB , THEYRE IN LOVE MINGYU SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU LOSER , sick fucking freak , i know when you wrote this you put your head in your hands , OHHHM YW GOD

synopsis: In all your years of academic endurance, you’ve never failed. A 100% success rate, despite you cutting it close at times. However, the line graph that is your life starts tanking somewhere around the time you began taking this hellsent Statistics in Psychological Research class. With a professor that wouldn’t know his ass from his head, and an overworked, overenthusiastic, and overcaptivating TA, it couldn't possibly get any worse than this. However, statistically speaking,…it could.

[a/n]: this fic is set in the same universe as @highvern's wonu fic endpoint [to be released], some insight for wonu's pov is included here as is some of Mingyu's pov in cam's fic if you'd like to see more about what happens in the gaps!!

I want to start by thanking everyone who chose to be part of this collab fic and for being the reason cam and I were able to open up @camandemstudios in the first place. everyone's been so kind and cooperative and I still cant believe we managed to convince such amazing writers to join us on this collab journey 🥹 I love u guys

Thanking my wife camothy @highvern for brainstorming with me since day one and for betaing for me. @seokgyuu and @miabebe for also looking over the doc and reassuring me. I'm for sure forgetting someone and I'm really sorry about that, know that I appreciate you just as much 🤍

on that note, I hope you guys enjoy this fic, im HELLA nervous for some reason so plsplspls remember to reblog and send me feedback on how you liked it, I will love you forever <333

masterlist

Monday

A normal person would’ve cried. Perhaps even sued the entire institution for all it was worth. Burn down the world, if it came to it.

But as you stare at the tiny 37/100 on your screen, you feel…nothing.

You could’ve said you saw it coming, which you did, but something about blaming someone else for an exam you took was beginning to feel a little manipulative.

Clicking off the student portal, you huff loudly, five in the morning too early for you to begin breaking down over a grade that was completely unreflective of what you were taught.

Or maybe it was, because as you count one, two, three hours till your dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, you can only hope you’ll hold back from spitting in your professor’s coffee. But alas, you can only shut your laptop harder than necessary for what it costs and push the grade out of your mind.

You were tired enough to sleep for a couple more hours, and you take it as an opportunity to spite the entire course by giving just as many fucks as your professor did.

Which was little to none.

That was a lie—on your part anyway. Because you continue to show up, and probably will until you can put this course and all of its trauma behind you. Even now as you feel the inclining beat of your pulse sitting in the white lecture hall, you know this is all but you versus the universe.

Dr. Cho might as well have wheeled himself into the room on a skateboard with the way he struts into the room.

He’s wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and jeans of a matching finish that do not fit him properly. There’s pins in every last colour on this earth, littering the front of his jacket with sayings that toe the silver controversial lining. There was one that said Vote for John F. Kennedy, another plain black one with I Eat Kids, and of course, the blaring Cunt written in cursive, pink sparkly letters.

This man that’s pushing into his 60s stands before his slightly wilted class in his crocs, hands on his hips as he heaves a long breath.

“I have to say, not the turn out I was expecting on that last report.”

He’s talking about the report you coincidentally failed, the same one you were pushed into with little to no direction and a deadline tighter than any you’ve had to bully yourself through.

“All I can say is to read through the feedback I’ve given and try a little harder next time.” His voice is somewhere bordering comical exasperation. Feedback that consisted of sparing ‘?’’s and ‘no’’s with zero further explanation. He could say more, but you’ve learned that he simply chooses to not.

Besides the man that drones in the front of the room, there’s another person in the other corner of the lecture hall. He’s hunched over a giant pile of papers, sifting through each and every one with a pen in his other hand.

The TA doing a mundane task is somehow more interesting than whatever seminars of disappointment your professor was giving. He’s crossing something out on every single leaf of paper that he flicks through, and you vaguely wonder if those were today’s worksheets.

“...and post hoc tests last week, we can start on Bayesian today. Mingyu will be handing out the tutorial papers.”

The poor TA looks like he thought he’d have more time, snapping his head up to look at the professor with an expression of pure incredulousness. He staggers for a moment before he’s flicking past the pages even faster somehow, striking out what seems like the same instruction in the giant pile of papers meant for an entire lecture hall. There’s a rustle as about a hundred laptops are being pulled out and booted up, waiting for the worksheets to land on the desks.

You hear the familiar warble of papers being passed out and you watch as the TA pulls chunks of sheets out of the giant stack in his arms to slam down onto the front tables.

“Pass it down, please… pass it down, please…”

There’s a voice that calls from one of the front seats, “What formula is the sheet talking about?”

Mingyu looks startled as he snaps back to look at the blaring empty whiteboard. In the midst of passing papers, you watch him sprint to the rolling whiteboards, pulling one of the giant flats of white over to the other side, the mechanism slamming into place with a louder than comfortable slam. It reveals another whiteboard underneath with the detestably long formula already written (and the one you’d have to figure out yourself).

The professor remains with his chin in his hands behind his laptop, unphased.

By the time you’ve registered the foreign symbols on the board, one of the tutorial papers has made it into your hands.

Sure enough, there’s a quick line across one of the steps with a thick black marker.

Blinking hard, you attempt to pull yourself into the zone, staring at the white sheet with words that are barely stringing themselves together. Nothing out of the ordinary, especially as you lift your head to find hunched shoulders and furrowed brows all around.

There’s one person that’s zipping back and forth, just like there always is.

You watch as Mingyu hunches over certain laptops and whispers in rapid explanation before moving on to the next, a looming sense of dizziness that trails behind him as he shoots up the stairs to the back rows to help someone else.

There’s a brief consideration to raise your own hand to ask for help, but one look at his disoriented gaze and the amount of hands that shoot up by the second, you guess it wasn’t going to help.

Back you go, hunched over the same wretched paper as everyone else, and praying for some divine revelation.

Tuesday

Divine revelation did not come to you, but the good sense to make use of office hours did.

So here you are, a printed copy of your supposedly horrid assignment and a pack of multicolour pens in your tote, and determination in your stride, you make your way to the department building.

You’ve double, triple, quadruple checked the times to ensure you don’t dip in at the wrong moment, swiping open your phone to re-check the room number yet again.

Standing outside the door, you knock with mustered confidence, waiting for something akin to an affirmative from the other side of the door.

Nothing.

You knock again.

Silence.

You glance around the empty hall before grasping onto the cool brass handle of the door, wrenching it open just a peep. Poking your head in, you find the room…empty.

The chairs and tables that usually buzz with discussing students lay barren as you step into the room. Moving to look at the front of the room, you inhale sharply as you realise the professor’s desk has been occupied this entire time.

Except he’s asleep.

No, that’s not the professor.

Moving closer, you watch the way his back rises and falls ever so slowly, head resting on his arm as his hand hangs limp off the table. Whipping your head around with more attention this time, you attempt to find an explanation written on the walls. But there’s none, even in the papers that litter the table he rests his head on.

You don’t need to see his face to know it’s the TA. But as you stand in the empty room, clutching the straps of your tote, you aren’t quite sure what to do.

Another glance around the table and you realise his laptop remains on, the screen yet to sleep. Before the obvious issue of a blatant invasion of privacy can befall you, you take a step forward to take a peek.

It’s his schedule, a million colours blaring on the screen in a colour coded regard with barely any white spaces. It doesn’t take long to find his time slot for right now, red with importance.

Glancing down, the man remains fast asleep, pen still in hand as it inks a faint line on the page. You look around the room for the nth time, taking constant glances back at his laptop that tells you he’s actively missing something right now. Clearing your throat, you hunch over a tad bit.

“Um, excuse me.” He hardly moves. So you try a little louder, hunching over his sleeping form even further. “Excuse me.”

You could’ve sworn you heard a snore.

Out of instinct, you bring a hand forward to his shoulder, shaking ever so slightly as you call for him again. “Excuse me!”

There’s a sharp inhale and he shoots up quicker than you can back away, ensuring you get an entire back’s worth of force as he bumps into you, hard.

“Wh–ow!” The noise is collective, yelps and thuds as you both back away from each other.

“W–what’re you doing here?” he asks, hair still ruffled and eyes barely open as he stands at the table. There’s a bright yellow sticky note on his right cheek, ink scribbled on in something you can’t decipher.

“Um, it’s office—”

His eyes land on the same screen you were peering into just before and it looks like his life flashes before his eyes, widening at the sight as he slams around the table looking for something.

“I have to go,” he announces, gripping onto an unstrapped watch as he registers the time, his other hand shoving his laptop and a few papers into a dark messenger bag.

“Wait, isn’t it still office hours?” you call out as he whizzes past you.

He’s swinging his bag over his shoulder and half tripping to the door as he calls out, “Wednesdays and Thursdays.”

“But—”

“It’s on the portal.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it—” he pauses as he exhales loudly, closing his eyes and bringing a hand to rub across his tired face. “I’ll double check. But it’s Wednesdays and Thursdays from now on. You can wait till I get back if you really want help.”

“How—”

A loud slam! of the door.

“—long…”

You’re left draped in silence yet again, the echoes of the slammed door ringing in your startled ears. It all happened too fast for you to process, blinking rapidly as you registered that you were now alone in the room.

He said he’d be back, but left you with no indication as to when. By the looks of his god awful schedule, it looked like he had something else to attend to right after whatever it was he buggered off to right now.

Fingers clenched into a fist, you consider your options. You could wait, sit on one of the desks and try to get some work done until he gets back.

The universe gives you your answer as the door opens with a loud creak in the empty lecture hall. It’s another professor who looks quite startled to find an overenthusiastic student already present for class.

She stares before craning to look at the room number outside the door, “Am I in the right room?”

“Uh, yes! I was just leaving,” you buffer out, moving to shuffle out immediately.

You’re halfway out the door when you hear another call of an “Excuse me!”

“Are these your papers?” The professor’s full arms are up as she gestures to the still littered table.

The No is ready on your lips. Until it isn’t.

Later on, you’d consider how you left that room with an armful of papers that did not belong to you. How you’d ducked under the table to ensure you’d gotten everything, down to the leather strap watch with the cracked clock face.

But as you stare at the stack of files and sheets that lay on your desk at home, you only know of the decent act that you’d committed.

And nothing of the hourglass you’d just turned over.

Wednesday

In your Sent box are three emails sent on three separate days, all asking the same recurring question, all responding with the same recurring reply.

I wanted to confirm the days and times for office hours. I’m aware it’s on the portal but I’d like to reconfirm.

Regards, YN

Dear YN,

Wednesdays and Thursdays. 4 to 6 PM.

Kim Mingyu, T.A.

So there you were on a Wednesday afternoon, 3:59 PM sharp, outside the lecture hall where office hours have always been. With the same tote hung on your shoulders, with the same printed assignment and pack of multicolour pens, and a separated stack of files and folders, you wrench the door open with bated breath.

The blended murmur of the usual hustle and bustle of the appointment reassures you first, the sight of scattered students of familiar faces reassures you second. And most of all, a conscious TA that sits at the professor’s desk, speaking to another student over a laptop screen.

The man does nothing to acknowledge your arrival, continuing above the babble of students that occupy the chairs and the discussion. It isn’t too full, but considerably busy nonetheless despite how early you’ve swooped in.

There’s a brief consideration whether this was in the TA’s job description at all, craning your neck to take a full sweep of the room to find a sparing glimpse of the man who should be here. The professor and his loud fashion choices are nowhere to be found.

The sigh you let out is heavy and full of an emotion you cannot possibly begin to unpack, taking a seat on one of the unoccupied chairs to slump against. Shoulders sagging, you feel every fibre of your being screaming against your better judgement to pull out some work and to be productive while you wait. Reading over your failed assignment for the nth time, the same one that seemed to be some sick form of rage bait.

You pull a couple things out so as to not look awkward sitting and staring into nothing on an empty desk, uncapping your pen and pulling up your sleeves like there was business to be done. Which there was, but none of which you wished to entertain.

People watching, you realise, is a lot easier when most of the room is preoccupied with whatever it is they’re doing, too busy to notice your blank stares.

The faces are familiar, none of which are people you’ve interacted with before but classmates nonetheless. The room is full of shaking legs, spinning pens and hunched backs, not an un-scrunched brow in sight. There’s a particular gaggle of girls somewhere around the front, their tables suggesting a work environment but between the whispers, giggles and glances to the front of the room, you assume there’s one thing in common the both of you weren’t doing.

Speaking of the front of the room, your matched glance finds you face to face with the student at the main table in the middle of pushing himself off his seat. Your reaction is immediate, hand coming over to slam against the flat of your bag to find the lost straps, moving out of your seat as you keep your eyes on the front of the room.

Bad luck must be a lover, because you realise quickly that somebody’s already beat you to it. Before you even noticed the first’s intentions to. The student stands beside the chair ready to keep it warm as the previous occupant leaves.

Slamming back down on your own seat, you realise very quickly that trying to get an audience with this TA was going to be harder than you anticipated. There’s multiple other sounds of frustration around the room, and you doubt the slowly increasing pool of students was going to help anyone’s time management.

Realising you needed to be a little more tactical if you didn’t want to sit here for the next month and half, you find an empty spot near the gaggle of girls you’d noticed before. It was right up front, just enough for you to hear when the conversation would begin to conclude at the main table.

Once again, the TA doesn’t seem to notice any of the hustle and bustle of the room as his mouth continues to move rapidly, eyes on the question as he invests himself in his explanation.

It was unfortunate that the only remaining seat was right next to the louder than necessary group, but you take it as a blessing anyway. It’s then that the one right next to you turns to stage-whisper to you.

“Are you here to see him?”

You don’t expect a conversation, ears straining to eavesdrop on the other conversation in front of you to find your cue. You snap to look at her in surprise. “Pardon?”

“Are you here to see him? Mingyu?”

“Uh—” Wasn’t everybody? “Yeah, I had a couple things I wanted to clear out.”

The revelation makes her shoulders drop as she lets out a loud sigh, “God, I can never get anything this professor says. I've been here nearly every week trying to figure it all out.”

“Yeah he’s a bit…unorthodox.”

“He’s unorthodox too.” She looks over to the main table towards the TA, chin in her hands as she gazes. “A face like that is rare.”

It wasn’t that she was wrong, it didn’t take more than a glance to convince yourself that Mingyu was possibly one of the more attractive people you’d meet in your lifetime. But the appeal lasted for all of five minutes for you, flitting away when you noticed that he dragged along a very…overwrought… suggestion wherever he went.

It was clear he was stressed seemingly all year round, nearly just as relaxed as your professor seemed to be.

But Mingyu was attractive. And you realise how much of a fool you’d sound if you admitted to anything other than such.

“It is. His willpower’s somehow even rarer,” you add. “Don’t know how he does it.”

“God, tell me about it. Forget getting his number, trying to have more than a three sentence exchange with him without some statistical nonsense involved is near impossible.” Her face has fallen, a tight little frown on her face as she irritates herself with some other memory.

Taking a glance down at her notes, you find the printed sheet littered with glitter gel pen ink lining the edges, doodles of stars and hearts and small anime characters next to p values and z scores.

There’s a distinct sound of a chair screeching, and it’s like a large GAME OVER sign is hanging above your head.

You jerk in your seat, like you could jump over the table and land in the emptying seat with some god-given stroke of luck, like the person already standing next to the chair wouldn’t hold a lifelong grudge against the insane girl with an unnatural acclimation to statistics.

Although, nothing was more unnatural than the way this TA seemed to know more than the professor. Or you were just really behind.

Alas, you don’t tumble over the table or kick back your chair, merely making a forceful motion in your seat, palms itching terribly as you watch the girl with her open laptop balanced in her arms move to take a seat.

You were preoccupied, hence you do not notice that the TA has also noticed you.

Suddenly, the girl looks startled as she’s told to wait.

“She’s been waiting nearly a week, I really hope you don’t mind,” you hear him say, voice strained as you turn to look at him. His hands are outstretched to motion towards you a few feet across from him.

For whatever reason, you had no thought that he might’ve remembered you. Something about his half asleep state when he’d spoken to you, perhaps he might’ve thought he dreamt it. Or he’d just forgotten it altogether.

The girl glances at you, and her shoulders sag a little as she nods in formality.

“Thank you.”

It comes out of both of you, snapping to look at each other hardly a moment as you go back to smiling at the retreating student.

“You can come right after her,” he reassures, his own upturned mouth tired and fading.

Never have you felt more awkward trying to come around the elongated student tables.

You pause at first, staring at the table in front of you like it was worth trying to climb over or even crawl under it to get to the desk. Another moment of eye contact as he stares at your unmoving form with a blank look, and the heat pools your skin.

Staggering for a moment, you end up moving past your chair and walking the way round anyway, the screeching of the chairs only nurturing the existing budding humiliation for no apparent reason.

It only gets worse when you sit across from him finally, backside barely touching the plastic before realising you’d forgotten your bag in your seat.

Mid smile in a timid greeting when you make a sound resembling something of an “Oh!” as you spring back up immediately. It’s easier to reach for your bag over the table you were sitting on, reaching across to grab it off your vacated seat.

The girl you were sitting next to just before makes a motion like she’s trying to help and you have to remind yourself to smile at her as you retreat.

Mingyu has the very beginnings of an amused expression on his face once you’ve finally made yourself comfortable across from him, clearing your throat just for something to do.

“Right. How can I help you?”

Pulling out your printed assignment, you bring out the sheets of stapled paper to the centre of the table, writing facing him.

One look at the sparse format of the cover page, he blows a full mouth of air at the sight of recognition. Without you having to say a thing, he flicks to the very last page, finding the rubric printed on a separate page.

“It’s a 37,” you inform him like he couldn’t see the bold 37/100 in the bottom Total cell.

“Do you think you deserved a better grade?” he asks. It would have sounded direct, an accusation even. But he asks with an intonation of genuinity, like he actually wanted to know.

It stumps you regardless.

“Well…I know I can do better, at least,” you decide to answer.

“You’re here, which means you’re at least willing to try. That’s a start,” he murmurs. His eyes are laser focused on the sheet beneath him, holding it open as his eyes move faster across the page than you can keep up with. Somehow talking to you while taking in the words on the paper.

“I remember marking this,” he says, looking up to address you. “Your concepts are nearly there, but your structure and presentation was off.”

“You marked them?”

He raises his brow, “I hope that wasn’t an accusation. I need to stick to the rubric.”

“I thought the professor marked the lab reports.”

“He’s…supposed to.” There’s a forced reservedness in his voice. “I mark them and he puts in his comments if he has any. But I’m not sure you’d fare any better than this if it was him behind that pen either.”

Every question that floated in memorisation, from the form and structure, to the nitty gritties of the data presentation, all evaporate as you realise you’re at a loss for words.

Even more embarrassingly, you feel tears prick the back of your eyes. You don’t have an explanation, but it’s somehow easier to feel helpless in front of the man that’s meant to help you. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“That’s alright,” he says as reassurance, though it sounds awfully rehearsed. Like he has to say it everyday. “We’ll work through it.”

He lets out a big sigh, adjusting in his chair and running a hand through his hair. The motion has you noticing the dishevelled nature of the mop on his head, un-uniformed and sticking out at certain places, yet still somehow cohesive with his look. His shoulders are straight and taut, fingers working as they fiddle and flick the pen in his hand.

Despite it all, his shirt is ruffled and creased, unbuttoned at the first couple steps. The buttons are misaligned, one side of his collar higher on his neck than the other. It takes an effort to not reach over and fix it for him.

“Lab reports can be quite tricky if you aren’t sure what you’re doing. Did you refer to the tutorial?”

You mean the one that did nothing to help? “Yes.”

“You got those bits right, format and whatnot. But—”

“It was a lump of writing about subheadings and word counts,” you say plainly.

Mingyu lips are in a tight line. “Well, yes, but it helps—”

“I know the results are supposed to go in the results section. I don’t need a PDF to tell me that,” you cut him off. Your voice is reserved, and you hope it comes off as a point across and not a complaint. Although it was a complaint. “I want to know why the entire section was ruled off as incorrect when we were never properly taught how to write it in the first place.”

“Dr. Cho—”

“Is no help.”

“I understand—”

“He can’t even mark his own papers. I’m quite sure that’s not in your job description. It’s supposed to be him here. Not you.”

It’s silent. There was nothing in your voice that suggested you wished to pick a fight, on the contrary, quite calm and matter of fact. Mingyu’s fingernails are going white as his grip on his pen and paper grow stronger.

“And yet, we continue to show up. Because we do what we must.” He raises his head in control, a small smile on his face, eyebrows unnaturally raised. “And, better that I’m here rather than no one at all. I can help you too.”

Help, he did.

Mingyu had made it quite clear his time with you was limited, but by the end of the near 25 minute session, nearly every inch of your printed assignment was covered in a rainbow of notes and corrections, additional papers and post-it notes pasted on the back as you remain careful to not lose them as you slip the stack in your bag.

You only remember when you spot the segregated file of papers in your bag.

“I almost forgot,” you say, slipping the files and tidbits out and in front of him.

“Where did you find this?” he asks sharply, eyes widening as sees the familiar blue.

“You left them at the desk of the lecture hall last week,” you say, before quickly adding, “There was a class right after you left. I took them off the professor’s hands before they got lost. Thought it might be important.”

“I’ve been looking all over for these,” he says as he goes through the pages and files. Random sticky tabs and highlighted regions across the pages. The leather strap watch with the broken clock face remains on top, and he picks it up. He looks up to you with wide, sparkling eyes and a smile that feels genuine. “Thank you.”

You flush for some reason, “O–of course, couldn’t just leave them there.”

Pausing, you wonder if you should make the next comment, the words tumbling out before you can make a decision. “Maybe don’t run out of rooms still half asleep.”

By the grace of God, he laughs, “No, you’re right. I should be careful.”

It isn’t till you’re pushing yourself out of your chair that he continues. “You can come in at 3:30 tomorrow.”

“Pardon?”

He’s stood up as well. “I have a free thirty minutes before office hours formally start. I can help you out a little more without the crowd.”

Feet planted on the ground, there’s not much you can do but stare. “Um, sure. I can come in a little early.”

He nods casually, “Thanks again for the papers. And the watch.”

You smile, “No problem.”

Thursday

True to your punctual nature, you make yourself known at exactly 3:29 PM.

Mingyu is at the desk, conscious and on the phone, eyes closed as he rests his face on his fist.

“I don’t know if I can make time for that—no, I understand, sir,”

Another pause as the noise from his speakers fill his ears, his rubbing over his face a little harsher than you doubt he’s entirely comfortable with.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

His phone hits the table with a heartbreaking thud, both hands covering his face as he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes.

“Light on your feet or something? I can never tell when you come in,” he startles when he notices you.

Sheepish smile on your face, you move to sit down. “Sorry.”

You know it’s invasive, and you also know you might be asking him to break some unknown university code of conduct, but curiosity takes charge as you ask a casual question. “Important call?”

“Uh, yeah, um, just work stuff,” he states, shaking his head swiftly like he’s trying to shake the thought out of his mind.

There’s a pause while you're slipping your papers and laptop out of your bag, during which he seems to have decided to divulge a little more.

“It was Dr. Cho. More stuff for me to do,” he says. “As always.”

“Does he do anything other than show up to class?” you ask through a snort.

“Of course he does. He cusses out every article he doesn’t agree with, is anything but objective and…the occasional relay of blatant misinformation.”

For the record, you’d never really heard Mingyu speak at all for the months he’d been TA-ing for the semester. It was small whispers of choice words in a vague voice, the distant murmur as he exchanged with the professor too far for you to hear.

The voice of the seemingly quiet and diligent TA was never known to you, not until yesterday as he explained statistical models and the flaws of your data presentation.

Passionately too. Incredulous for a discipline so dry and unapproachable.

That being said, something about the grit in his voice as he positively sneered through his teeth, badmouthing his professor—it was something you couldn’t quite believe he was capable of.

“I’m sorry you have to put up with him.”

Once again, by whatever stone of tolerance the universe bestowed in his heart, you watch him sigh and smile, “Anything for that recommendation. And the pay too, I suppose. Besides, he’s done a lot for the area, can’t discredit him entirely.”

With your eyebrows raised, he seems to catch your expression. He pants out a laugh, and your stomach lurches as you watch it reach his eyes, teeth on display, a lurch in his chest; a true laugh.

Raising his hands in surrender, he responds, “I’m stuck.”

There’s nothing you can do to stop the smile that reaches your own face, turning your laptop screen towards him with the JASP software display. “I am too. Help.”

Help, he does.

Monday

Mingyu ended up giving you an entire hour on that Thursday.

The thirty minutes before office hours began soared by like they were nothing, and you were ready to take your leave the minute students began to scatter in as the clock hit a swift four. Except he kept going, another 30 minutes in deep concentration as he retaught you nearly everything from scratch.

Perhaps his proven determination to ensure you don’t tragically fail is what prompted you to do this, standing at the till of your regular coffee shop as you ask, “Make that two, please.”

It might also be important to mention the 7:30 AM on the dial on a bright Monday morning as you walked into your slightly less dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, knowing there would only be one other person insane enough to get to the lecture hall this early.

Something isn’t right.

Mingyu is in a position all too familiar to you and everyone else who shares this class, hunched over something or the other in deep focus. The sun pours in through the lifted blinds, the lights of the class turned off as natural light does more than enough of the job.

It also shows you a blaring hot pink post-it note on his face, all too familiar to a previous interaction you’ve had with him.

He notices you before you need to announce yourself, brows separating as he recognises you in the doorway. “‘Morning!”

“...Morning.”

“You’re early,” he comments, straightening his back with a hand behind him for support as you approach.

“Figured we both needed this,” you hand him a tray with his cup of coffee, eyes still trained on his lower cheek with the paper stuck to it. “It’s a latte with no sugar, but I added a couple packets on the side anyway. Just in case.”

“O–oh, thank you. And you’re right I did need this.”

Now that you’re closer, the scrawled writing on the post-it note is clearer.

To Do:

Call mom

Shoot myself

“You, um—” It’s alarmingly difficult for you to say it, despite the words being so simple. Hey! You got a lil’ something on your face.

But all you do is dumbly point to your own cheek, eyes trained on the loud piece of paper that tells more than he might like the world to know.

There’s a loud slap of his hand on his own cheek as he crumples the paper in his hands, bringing it forward to see. “For fuck’s sake.”

“It’s okay! I wanna…shoot myself too sometimes.”

What the fuck?

“I mean!” you correct louder than you anticipated, before covering with a laugh. “It’s okay, it happens. Good thing I caught it before someone else did.”

It’s all the more petrifying when your voice echoes across the blatantly empty lecture hall, reverberating like it was a punishment for you and your horrid lack of volume control. Meeting his eyes feels like a sin right now, so you keep them downcast and pray he doesn’t try to sabotage your education.

“Good thing it was just you. Yeah.”

Just you.

“Anyways, I think I’m done with prepping for class. Do you wanna squeeze in twenty minutes of ANOVA?”

“Have you seen the time?”

“Not a morning person?”

“Nope!”

“And yet it’s 7:40 on a Monday morning and you’re absurdly early.” His brows are raised as he pulls around the professor's chair to bring it to you.

“Do you want the coffee or not?” you ask, watching as he drags another chair for himself.

The both of you sit away from the professors table, coffees in hand as you watch Mingyu run a hand through his hair.

He gives you a crooked grin,“I apologise.”

“To be fair,” he continues. “I’m not much of a morning person either.”

You narrow your eyes the slightest bit as Mingyu takes a sip of his unsweetened coffee, “I’m starting to think no money’s worth this job.”

Mingyu snorts, coffee suspended in his full cheeks. He swallows with much difficulty before answering, “You’re right. Not sure why I’m still here either. I could get an offer from another professor.”

“And that isn’t happening because…?”

Elbows on his knees, Mingyu swirls his capless coffee cup, the beige liquid moving in a growing tornado. “I like Dr. Cho.”

“You—”

“I know,” he laughs loud, a deep, echoing sound that shakes in your ears. “I know. I sound like a lunatic.”

“I don’t know about lunacy, but insanity can have its reasons.”

“Another would argue that insanity was the very absence of reason.”

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“Excuse me for doing my job.”

He takes another sip of his coffee, and you ask again, “No, but really. I can’t imagine this man having too many redeeming qualities as an educator.”

Mingyu lifts his chin as he presses his lips together. “When I was in my first year, there was this other class I had where we had to write a lab report for the first time.”

“PSYCH101?”

“That’s the one. I’d never written one before, but I liked statistics enough to do a little more digging than what the assignment called for. I ended up finding one of Dr. Cho’s studies, read the entire thing, word for word. I was up all night reading nearly everything he’d published, some of ‘em before any of us were even born.”

“Oh. So you’re a fan.”

“Everyone tells you to never meet your idols,” he snickers. “He’s done amazing things, but I guess he pays for it with his flawed personality.”

“I’m sorry it had to be you,” you half joke.

Mingyu looks at you sheepishly, “That might also be my own fault.”

“Don’t tell me you offered.”

“I might as well have. All my assignments referenced his work the most. I was always talking to him about upcoming research after class, and it was like he was a different person. Forget differing opinions, some of what he was saying was just…plain incorrect. He welcomed the argument though, and I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true. He was always emailing me extra resources which…I’m pretty sure he isn’t supposed to do. Only reason I did so well in his class was because I taught myself.”

He sighs a loud sigh, straightening his back, “I guess he liked me more than I thought, because next thing I know I’m getting a call over the summer telling me I have a job.”

“Did he…have a TA when you were in his class?”

“Four.”

“Four?!”

“Two at a time. All of ‘em quit at some point. Said they didn’t want the recommendation or the pay.”

“Would he…not give you a recommendation anyway? You said he liked you.”

Mingyu shakes his head solemnly, “He’s a tough cookie, everyone in the field knows that. If you’ve impressed him, you’ve impressed everyone.”

You take a moment to really absorb everything you’ve just learned. “That’s a sucky position you’re in.”

“Tell me about it. But it’s okay. Three—three and a half more months to go? This isn’t even the worst of it, I’m just dreading study week when I’m gonna have to handle all the crying.”

You wince as he mentions something even remotely close to exam season, still barely at a stage where you can accept you’d be alright with this class.

“I know you’re not nearly as qualified or experienced as him, but I think you could take over his class.”

“Ever heard of barriers to entry? I’d be ruined if I wanted a career in this.”

You roll your eyes playfully, “All I’m saying is I’ve learned more from you in barely a couple hours combined than the last two months I’ve spent cursing this very lecture hall.”

If you weren’t lying to yourself, you could’ve sworn you saw a blush creep up his face, and paired with his shy laugh and hand at the back of his neck, you can’t help but bite back your own smile.

“If I can help you then it’s worth losing myself.”

Your heart is in your fucking throat.

“I’m glad when students tell me that,” he continues, utterly oblivious to the landslide happening in your digestive tract. “Makes me feel like I’m doing something right.”

“You’re—” you swallow thickly because you sound like a toad. “You’re doing more than just something right. You’re saving us therapy and an extra semester.”

He laughs at that, and you wish he’d let you breathe.

“Feels like I’m doing something wrong sometimes,” he huffs. “My friend’s a TA too and he’s got himself a girlfriend on top of everything else he’s got going on.”

He goes on, “Do you know how many times I need to ask people to quit twirling their hair? To look at the page and not my face? Asking for my number, I have an email for a reason, for fuck’s sake—”

Mingyu is cut off because you’re laughing, hand to mouth as your shoulders shake through your sniggering. “W–what?”

“I’m sorry,” you hiccup. “It’s just…It sounds like you don’t know what you look like.”

“What’s wrong with how I look?” he frowns.

“Nothing!” you exclaim. “But that’s the problem isn’t it.”

Mingyu doesn’t seem to buy it, even through your coaxing as you attempt to explain to him that he is, in fact, desirable.

“Can’t possibly be enough to distract people,” he huffs in earnest, still hung up on the students he can’t get through to.

“Majority of the class would beg to differ.”

There’s a pause as he registers what you imply.

After a few moments, he drops his head, opening his mouth, “Would… you also—”

There’s a loud creak of the door as you hear the immediate noises of shuffling feet and chattering mouths, as low and tired as they sounded. Turning back to look at Mingyu, he’s already jumped out of his seat, wrist to face as he checks the time on the same leather strap watch you returned.

“That’s our cue,” you breathe, pushing your chair back behind the professor’s desk as you manoeuvre around Mingyu who’s suddenly frantic.

Of course you realise there’s people other than just the two of you in the room, heightened in seats that are designed to ensure they can absorb every detail that goes on right where you stand in the front of the room.

But you feel the soft of Mingyu’s shirt over his wrist as you give him a gentle squeeze despite it all, barely enough pressure. Half your index finger brushes the skin of his hand, just enough to register how cold your fingertips are and how warm his body is.

“Relax,” you whisper. “You’ll be better off without all the panic.”

You don’t see his face as you brush past him and up to your seat, looking up to see him disappear somewhere in the corner hunched over another stack of papers. The next time you see Mingyu’s face is when the professor arrives and has begun his regularly scheduled tomfoolery, and realise all the age that can accumulate in the span of five minutes.

Thursday

Midterm season is nothing you’ve ever really had to worry about.

Something about the halfway point did make it obvious that the clock was ticking, but danger was far enough away to prevent the ultimate breakdowns reserved for the peak seasons.

Except this class isn’t ordinary, and it’s all you’re able to worry about all semester. And as Dr. Cho in his Thrasher vest announces the date for the in class midterm, the glass once half empty, suddenly looks very half full.

“I’m not ready.”

“You’re more ready than anyone else in class.”

“How do you know that?”

Mingyu stares at you blankly, “If I don’t know that, then who else does?”

You have tears in your eyes, which is embarrassing enough since this is the second time you’ve teared up in front of him, but also because you’re in a library following Mingyu around like a lost duck because he insists on putting the books he borrowed back onto the shelves himself after registering the return.

“But I don’t feel like I’m ready,” you whine, turning the corner as he searches for the last spot to place his final book.

“You’ll realise just how ready you are when all those hieroglyphs on the page start to make sense to you,” he grunts the last bit out as he reaches on his tippy toes to shove the book back up.

Dusting his hands off, he adjusts his shirt before turning to you, “You only feel that way because I’ve been giving you harder problems to work on. You’re past the level you need to be at right now. Trust me, you’re more than prepared.”

“But—”

“Listen,” he waves to the librarian as you both leave the library, your eyes still glistening as you fiddle with your sleeves. “It’s only the midterm—”

“Only the—”

“If this goes wrong, I’m just gonna have to work you harder for the real thing. Even though I know it won’t go wrong because I said so.”

You fall into silence as he walks you towards the coffee shop across the courtyard.

“I’m assuming…” you start.

“Hm?” he looks over to you.

“I’m assuming you can’t hint at what’s on the paper.”

Mingyu barks out a laugh of disbelief, “You assume correct. I’m not going through hell with this job just to lose it because of a paper leak.”

“But it’s just the midterm,” you mumble, not even close to remotely audible.

“What did you say?” Mingyu smirks.

“Nothing,” you huff.

“You know, I’m a little offended you don’t trust me.”

“Who said I didn’t.”

“Well then, stop being such a worrywart.”

There must be something written on your face, because as you pass Mingyu standing at the door he keeps open for you, entering into the coffee shop with fallen shoulders, he seems to change his mind.

He brings you a coffee, sits you down, and gives you something else you need. “I made the paper. Every question. And I taught you. Every concept. So I definitely know you’re gonna be fine.”

In that moment, with the large glass walls of the warm coffee shop, the afternoon sun comfortably resting on every last object of the room, you don’t see it illuminate anything other than the man before you.

Perhaps you're being dramatic at the revelation, but you don’t take anything into account as you note Mingyu’s eyes and how they sparkle like they were gifted from the centre of a flaming volcano, brown and polished more than any jewel or stone you’d ever seen. Reaching out to touch him, you know you’d feel nothing but smooth stone, the indentations only possible by a being beyond what you could comprehend.

He’d given you more than just reassurance, and at times, his timing makes it feel like he was sent from the heavens itself, just for you.

You sniffle.

His hands brush over yours as he hands you a napkin, and even more so, cover your own as he takes your freezing fingertips into his own palm, the contact burning you like hot coal.

You know he’s real. And you don’t know why quite just yet, but that reassurance is enough to give you calm.

Monday

You were alright, but it seems that Mingyu seemed to disintegrate right after he was done reassuring you to the moon and Saturn and Jupiter and back.

It’s midterm day, and as always on every Monday morning, you enter the empty lecture hall with two warm coffees in your hand, ready for whatever shitshow you’d have to perform for today.

It seems Mingyu must defect from at least one regular string of behaviour to remain as Mingyu, who on this occasion, stands before you in a baby blue polo sweater.

Except you only know that because you can see the unique collar, but it might also be important that his back is turned towards you.

“Morning, champ,” he gruffs, nothing encouraging about his voice in the slightest.

Your breath hitches when you finally see his face, eyes sunken in and face pale. His lips are chapped and peeling, eyes half closed.

“Why’re you looking at me like that, why has everyone been looking at me like that?” he huffs in one long, rapid question.

“Um, I mean,” you stare at his shirt that’s backwards. And inside out. “I can’t tell if that’s a choice or a mistake.”

Looking down at his front, he looks back up, “What?”

“Your collar is…not at your collar, Mingyu. And your shirt’s inside out.”

Hand at his nape, he reaches his fingers down and finds the unmistakable starched planes of his collar, eyes closing at the realisation. He’s immediately pulling his arms out of the shirt with his eyes still closed like it’d all disappear if he keeps them like that.

“Wait!” you exclaim before he strips entirely, scrambling to put your coffees down to push him out of the room towards the restrooms. “Do you wanna strip for the CCTVs?”

You only hear him sigh as he moves out and into the hall, doors closed behind him.

You’ve nearly forgotten about the midterm at this point, your concern now growing in a completely different direction. By the time Mingyu returns, he’s blabbing about wondering why everyone he ran into since he left home was giving him the strangest looks, and then something about you always swooping in to save him before the real bout of disaster strikes.

It’s hard for you to listen to him when you’re more worried about him passing out, his face doing him no favours to reassure you that he wasn’t a breathing corpse.

“Mingyu…did you sleep at all?”

“Hm?” His eyes are glazed over and unfocused.

“Sleep? Rest?”

“Oh,” he frowns. “Not really. I had emails coming in all night.”

“And you were replying?”

“It's the midterm today,” he responds flatly, like it should’ve been enough explanation.

You almost don’t believe him. “Doesn’t mean you stay up to answer something that should’ve been cleared out beforehand!”

“Couldn’t just leave them to fend for themselves,” he dramatises.

“Yes, you could!” Your voice comes out louder than you expected, eyes wide as you realise what he’s doing to himself. “You barely look human and it’s only the midterm.”

“What’re you trying to say?”

“I don’t know if this job is really worth as much as you think it is.”

Mingyu’s jaw is clenched, fists tight as he releases them to grip paper weight on the desk, knuckles white. “I can’t get anywhere if I don’t—”

“Mingyu, please. This isn’t good for you.”

He says your name. Declarative, almost like a warning. “If you think this job isn’t worth it then you just don’t know.”

“Mingyu—”

“No, you don’t, because I’ve seen how good of a job I’ve been doing.”

“You have, you’ve been amazing but—”

Mingyu’s own voice is raised, a hard impenetrable floor to the words he spills. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You look like a corpse!”

And then he’s getting out of his chair with so much force it almost knocks it backwards, “Why on earth do you care so much? So what if I look like a corpse, if I‘m doing my job?”

It might’ve been better if he knocked the chair right into you, your breath dissipating in your chest like it never existed. His face is morphed in an expression of exasperation your anxieties fear the most, every line on his face committed to irritation and anger.

Why on earth do you care so much?

Right. Why do you?

“Are you asking me that?”

“What?”

“Are you asking me why I care?”

Mingyu only sighs, shoulders dropping and eyes closed. Like so many times before, you watch run a hand through his hair, except this time he yanks on the strands harder than ever before.

His eyes are bloodshot.

“I have to get the exam pack.”

Marching out the door in front of your own eyes, you’re left with a feeling that’s right in the back of your throat, curling and whirling into something you wish you could hack and gag out. Gripping the corner of the professor’s desk, you feel the peeling wood cut into your skin.

There’s a draft, the delayed slam of the door has only hit its wind now, a delayed reaction. It’s like it registers in your mind as you feel strands of your hair shift, the clarity that comes with it.

Delusive. Chimeric. Cruel.

Everything you’d subjected upon yourself. A whimsical fantasy between pages of logic and numbers, a story that simply didn’t fit where the laws wouldn’t allow it.

The null hypothesis of your most elaborate nightmares.

Monday

Your favourite commonplace box, where your mother once placed all her most prized jewels, had a finicky latch.

It wasn’t broken, simply worn in from years of opening and closing. It took a few tries to get it shut. Simply pressing down with pressure didn’t work; you had to open it again, press down on the individual elements of the latch and then try again.

You were never satisfied until you heard the distinct click of the latch fixing itself, the box closed and ready for you to hook your lock through.

Earlier on in your undergraduate career, you remember a professor talking about the effects of external factors on the mind, how they can sometimes cause it to ‘shut down’ when overwhelmed or stressed.

It’s happened to you on many a occasion; like when you stayed up too late on a school night to watch a documentary about the Stanford prison experiment, or when you’d neglect food or water on busier days, or when you’d stop paying attention in class because you were too preoccupied thinking about Taco Tuesday.

Regardless, you’d found a way to recognise when your brain would fall into some strange kahoots with daydreams, or whatever was bothering you, and learned ways to give yourself a reset.

Pressuring and forcing the attention wouldn’t work, just like how the latch wouldn’t fit when you’d do the same with your beloved old box. So you’d take a walk, drink something cold, spray yourself with a garden hose, or even take a nap altogether. Opening yourself up, so the latch can finally click.

On the morning of your midterm, when you’d ensured your brain was in optimal condition for the exam you knew would be one of the worse ones you’ll have to take, you were sure the only external force that could ruin your vibe was from God himself.

Having been so preoccupied with your mind and its functions, you’d seemed to have forgotten where your heart had wandered off to.

Somebody else might consider it a minor disagreement; an anxious squabble if you will. But your breakfast in your throat was enough reason to deem what happened that morning much more than that. At least for you.

“Pass it on, please…pass it on, please.”

The sound of his voice is tectonic. Rattling in your head like a superior force had slammed into your skull like a padded hammer to a gong.

You hated it. You hated everything. You hated yourself. And as the midterm paper reaches you with your pen in your clawed fingers, the first three questions already making perfect sense, you realise you hated Kim Mingyu the most.

That was a lie. You were lying to yourself, yet again.

Because it was quite the opposite. You couldn’t hate him.

As you drift past every question of conditional experiments and screenshots of data and tables on a software, you hardly remember what you circle and what you don’t. Hardly remember what words you picked for the short answers and labels. You hardly remember taking the steps down from your seat to the front of the room, where the professor sat scrolling through his Skateboarders [!MEN ONLY!] facebook group, placing your paper down and leaving the classroom.

Throughout your years of living, you’d learned what you needed to get your brain out of its clouded muffle, to refocus when you needed it.

Everything. You tried everything.

But on that day, when it mattered most, your latch never clicked.

It’s Wednesday.

You order lunch from the Italian place a few streets down. Ravioli; it’s safe and you know you’ll like it.

Savouring it is easy in front of another true crime show. You pull a lone soft drink from your fridge, one that your friend left weeks ago. It tastes just as bad as the last time you tasted it from someone else’s cup, but you drink it anyway, the empty can now in your trash.

It’s 3:30 PM, and you sit at your desk. It’s strange. It feels like you’re missing something, which in ways, you are. But as you pull your laptop from your nightstand instead of out of your bag, you slow your movements.

The papers are the same. But you read them anyway.

Parameter estimation: Make inferences on characteristics of the population, including distributions of the variables and the effect of one variable over another.

It’s accursed the way the universe won’t let you live.

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, estimation cannot be perfect.

Estimation cannot be perfect.

[_]

It’s Thursday

Class. Eat. Drink. Work.

Hypothesis testing: Determine whether null hypothesis is rejected or not after data observation.

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, no null hypothesis in bayesian approach!!

[_]

It’s Friday

Eat. Drink. Work.

Latent means to have meaning but is yet to be manifested. The greek letters are placeholder values for values yet unknown.

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue; values that you will find out

[_]

It’s Saturday

Eat. Drink. Work.

P(A|B) = [P(B|A)P(A)

——————

P(B)

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;

it gets less complicated

promise :/

[_]

It’s Sunday.

Eat. Drink. Work.

The page is blurry. Your eyes hurt.

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;

you’ve got this!!! < 3

You give up.

It’s Monday.

8:14 AM.

You barely glance at the front of the room; swift turn to the left and right up the steps. Dr. Cho’s outfit almost goes unnoticed by you, tamer than most. Bright Barbie pink with large polka dots, untucked into too tight white jeans. His crocs are sparkly, at least that’s what the twinkle from up here looks like.

He’s insulting another author, the man’s ProQuest journal article open for the world to see like a mediaeval scandal.

There’s another person next to the whiteboards, back to the wall, hands clasped in front of him. His hair is messy, shooting lasers into the carpet as he rocks the slightest bit, listening to the professor rip this author to shreds.

An hour later, you’re staring into the JASP software like it was written in a different language.

Glancing next to you, the boy in the spongebob hoodie is playing sharkboy and lavagirl by himself. On your other side, the girl has the same thing as you open on her laptop, her pen occupied with drawing about a hundred tiny gojos on a bright pink sticky note.

Bright pink sticky note.

You snap your gaze back to your screen quickly after that.

9:58 AM. You start packing up, shoving everything into your bag.

Dr. Cho doesn’t even notice you slip out of the room, hardly a minute to the end of the lecture.

In the hallway, you take your first real breath in two hours.

It’s Tuesday.

You’ve come down with something, head heavy as you feel yourself burn up. Skipping class is easy when you sleep through your alarm and every phone call from a friend asking where you are.

They drop by, armed with medicine and soup. You almost feel better.

It’s silent after they leave, and you realise in that moment how much you hate it.

Opening your laptop for the first time in over 24 hours, you turn on a random podcast to play in the background, needing something to fill the air before you lose it entirely.

The screen lands right where you left on the incredulous data presentation, unsolved tutorial paper crumpled between the screen and keyboard like a wilted leaf.

Hot, scalding tears sting your eyeballs when you realise there was nowhere to turn to.

It’s Wednesday.

After a long day of doing nothing, still sick from whatever plagued your body, you go to bed earlier than usual.

It’s Thursday.

Walking out of class, your mind is empty. You’re still sniffling, still achey, but better than you were. The shawl wrapped around you is warm, and your hood covers the cold tips of your ears.

This other class makes you feel better about yourself, especially when the content is digestible and so is the professor. The TA feels like a mere accessory in the room, something you’ve learned to appreciate.

With your gaze lowered, you only see midriffs as you walk out the classroom into the busy hallway.

It happens in an instant, the flash of a clenched hand as the owner walks by in quick stride. An unmistakable leather strap watch with a broken clock face on the wrist.

You freeze like you’ve been caught.

The hard bump of someone coming out the room behind you is welcomed, the annoyed “Hey!” knocking you back to earth before you could even exit the dimension.

You’re off centre. But it’s fine.

It’s Monday.

“Midterm results are out Tuesday morning. If you have any questions I’ll be sitting at office hours on Wednesday and Thursday, four to six in the evening. Or you could send me an email, either’s fine.”

Dr. Cho isn’t here. Something you only found out when the pitt sank in your stomach as Mingyu cleared his throat at the full hour.

You want to leave, not caring about how strange it’d look if you did. Not caring about how he would definitely notice if you did. You want him to shut up, to stop talking, for anything to halt the way his voice infiltrates your entire being, talking about things you don’t understand but more familiar than anything else.

Mingyu’s voice is hoarse, and you loathe the way you can tell the difference.

It’s Tuesday.

Midterm Results for Statistics in Psychological Research.

— 92/100

It’s Wednesday.

4:10 PM. It’s almost too much for you. Almost.

The screech of the door is loud, the slam of the handle’s rebound even more so. The room doesn’t so much as glance at you at the door, the half full seats preoccupied with more important things.

The front desk perks up immediately, eyes shooting towards the door for the nth time that day, like he was expecting someone that never seemed to show up.

It’s ironic, you think, how Mingyu never seemed to notice you walk into the room for the many months you’ve walked in just for him. And now, as you walk in fists clenched and jaw set, eyes wild and burning, he’s breaking away from a student to look at the door before you even come into view.

“Did you feel bad?” you spit.

“What?” he whispers. He seems to come around, glancing back before continuing, “Can we talk? Please.”

“Answer the question, Mingyu,” you snap. You don’t care there’s a confused student sitting right across from the both of you, his slot interrupted by your barge. “Did you feel so bad you had to give me something I didn’t earn?”

He’s stood up now, half confused. “Is this about the midterm—”

“I did not get a ninety two, I know I didn’t,” you grit. “Whatever happened before that stupid paper made sure I wouldn’t.”

Mingyu says your name and the sound makes you want to vomit. “What makes you think I’d do something like that?”

“I don’t know, maybe because I fucked up because of you?” you announce, louder than before.

The world disappeared, your tunnel vision pointed at Mingyu’s face that wears an expression you cannot even begin to read. The unbecoming tears in your eyes are of a type of unadulterated rage you’ve felt only a few times before. Your heart is going about a million miles a breath, everything else only triggering an added bout of infuriated tremble in the forefront of your emotions. Nothing makes sense.

Mingyu pushes back his chair in silence, stalking over to a large cupboard in the corner of the room. He shuffles around for a minute before returning.

There’s a packet being thrust into your fists when he reaches you. He does not meet your eyes.

A bright red 92/100 marks the front page.

“Here. It was all you, if you can’t believe me.”

It’s a careful mark, unmistakable lines and curves of the nine and the two.

Reality is slow to sink in, but for some reason it’s only making you angrier. The paper curls under the pressure of your fingertips. You don’t open the packet. You refuse to flick through the pages.

Because you know you’ve lost.

It’s Thursday. And it’s full of regret.

There’s a sickness in you, from that dreaded day, something beyond what affects your body temperature and your energy. It’s in your mind, flooding the nerves that swim through every crevice and cave of your brain, a physical venom that does the opposite of kill but also the opposite of letting you live.

There’s a feeling in you, that even if you were to open your mouth, unhinge your jaw, try to scream as loud as your throat would allow, there would be no sound. Something like a horrible dream, that you need to screw your eyes tight shut to fall out of. Except you aren’t waking up from this one.

In a coffee shop, where Mingyu held your hand in a reassurance you now bleed for, you were sure he was real. Real like some deiform image; too good to be true.

In your bed, dry tears on your face, midterm packet sifted through that showed you absolutely everything that you did right, thanks to him. He feels too real. Real like a cloud of obsidian that follows you everywhere, like the sad that’s been sleeping with you every night.

If there was a way to hate someone more than a human limit, you’ve crossed it with the resentment you’ve now fostered for yourself.

Barging into office hours like that, accusing him on a basis of nothing but your own dangerously stewed thoughts. If there was a hope of salvaged parts, you took a hammer to it in disregard; tearing it to ribbons that lay at your feet.

It’s Friday.

At least it was. It bled into Saturday before you realised the 3:23 AM on the dial.

Two weeks of no help and you already feel lightyears behind. The hour is getting to you, and you feel the frustration pool into tears, that turn into full fledged sobs. You’re crying over Bayesian inference and it’s somehow more pressing than any other emotion you’ve ever felt.

Impossible numbers on your data sheets taunt you, not a single reference to if it was a button you clicked wrong or if you were playing a fool’s game altogether.

Ding! You pick up your phone, the weight of it is enough gravity to pull you back to earth.

[Mingyu]: switch to bF10

[Mingyu]: you’ve been pulling numbers from bF01

It’s immediate the way your eyes dart towards your lit screen, clicking off tables to get to the drop down menu you need. And there on the left, two tiny buttons, one clicked on bF01.

With shaking fingers, you move your cursor to hover over the tiny bF10, anticipating. You click. It takes a moment for the numbers to change, but they do. The nominal values turn into something you can actually work with.

Something akin to a tut leaves you, hidden in the breath of another sob. It’s stupid, unreasonable, absurd. Your fingers hover over your phone, shaking as tears drop onto the screen, faster than before.

Do you not miss me?

Do you not want me around?

Talk to me

I miss you

Please talk to me

“I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true.”

Mingyu is a product of his personality. You can only imagine he’s helped because he saw you struggling in class, heard from someone else, or perhaps, he just knew the very thing you’d make blunders out of.

The reasons come to you, that Mingyu is a product of his personality. Then why does it hurt? Why does it feel like the knife’s twisted a full 360, that despite the way you accused him of the thing that would strip him of everything he’s bruised himself for, he helps you. The very thing that caused this rift in the first place.

There’s a reason for that, and it is again, that Mingyu is a product of his personality.

It’s Saturday.

Perhaps you relied on your olfactory senses to remain calm, because you always knew you could count on a coffee shop to forever and always smell the same.

The universe seems to want to ruin that for you too.

“Latte, please,” you voice. “Iced.”

“We have a one plus one for the week! Would you like to receive another latte?” The lady taking your order looks no older than 17, a pep in her voice.

“Um, no thank you. Just one, please.”

She looks taken aback, a reasonable reaction to anyone turning down a free drink. But you couldn’t bring yourself to walk home with two cups in hand.

You’re plucking a napkin from the pickup counter when you hear his name.

“...that he manipulated her grade because they were hooking up.”

“He has time to hook up?”

“I remember hearing about that! She barged in during office hours and asked why he fixed her grade or something.”

“A ninety two? In that class? Oh, they were definitely fooling around with each other.”

“Whatever, at least we know he’ll entertain you if he likes you enough. I’m just glad those two are over so I can swoop in.”

There’s an eruption of giggles. You press your head down further.

“Unless he flirts in variables.”

“All is forgiven when you’re born with a face like that.”

Another explosion of giddy laughter, through which your drink is slid across the counter towards you, like it was waiting for you to hear the damning evidence before you could leave. You grab it anyway, grip tighter than usual.

Turning around, your eyes search, finding a group of people that sit in smiles and in various states of trust-falls.

There she is, the girl you sat with on the first day you attended office hours, the one with the glitter gel pen doodles on her notes and her blatant fawns over the TA you slipped under just as easily.

She locks eyes with you and her face falls, eyes widening the slightest bit in recognition.

Pressing your lips into a smile, you hope it doesn’t look as menacing as you feel. You don’t wait for a response before you walk out the large glass doors.

It’s Sunday.

It seems every sip of water you’ve taken during the week has been used up in all the tears you’ve seemed to be shedding. By the bucketload.

Alas, even blurry and puffy eyed, you pour over statistical formulas anyway, running on no energy and all antagonism. It’s another tutorial sheet left incomplete, a single question taking a pour that lasts in at least an hour of struggle.

Reading the same question for the nth time, your palms press into your temples as you stare lasers into the paper, like the revelation would come to you if you stared it down hard enough. It doesn’t make sense, the commands you’ve toggled on and off identical to the instructions on the page.

Hence the question begs why the data was coming out like someone pressed the ultimate on a number generator.

With a heat of unreasonable embarrassment, you find yourself checking your selection in one of the drop down menus, switching to bF01 and back just to see the difference. It does nothing to help, and you can’t help but feel a little relieved it wasn’t that particular snag.

The library is as silent as it could possibly be on a Sunday morning, near empty as you occupy the mostly vacant seats. The librarian is having her own day off, as you could swear she’s playing computer games behind the counter instead of actual work.

The only noise in the room is your own breathing, and that seems to be enough to mess with your concentration. You’re going cross eyed staring at the page for so long, the words doubling and disappearing before going back to normal.

Bayesian inference…z scores…null hypothesis…

Wait.

It’s like you can see it in front of your eyes right now, the scribble of someone else’s dark blue on your notes.

no null hypothesis in bayesian approach

Bayesian approaches don’t use null hypotheses. And z scores are in…

“Oh my god, this is a t test,” you whisper to yourself in disbelief. Immediately, you’re scrambling to shake your laptop out of its sleep, switching over to a t test to redo everything, following the instructions on the same data set.

And there it was…a clear 0.067 under the p value.

In a moment of questioning, you laugh out a breathy sound, the absurdity of it all becoming too real. T tests were the first thing you learned, the foundation to all your statistical knowledge. Coming so far, and it took you days to realise the instructions under a Bayesian approach were for a different realm entirely.

It was stupid of you. But in this difficult aftermath you can’t help but feel victorious. Laughing to yourself quietly in this empty library.

When the initial adrenaline fades and you’ve double, triple checked to ensure you were right, you can only stare at the tiny mail button in your shortcuts on the screen. It was clearly an error, one that was given out to nearly a hundred students.

The first step was clicking, your inbox coming to life as you drift towards the big blue button with the readily available NEW MAIL. So you click.

There’s an attached file in the email you draft.

The tutorial paper has titled t test instructions as a Bayesian approach. Just wanted to point it out and ask if I could receive a corrected version.

Regards, YN

It’s almost like you’re trying to remember how it feels like when you type an experimental m in the To bar. His name pops up immediately, email address typed out in full, full name clear on top as a regular contact.

You don’t need a suggestion to remember, his email came easier to you than your own.

But you don’t email him, backspacing till it’s empty once again.

Dr. Cho’s email sits in that place instead, a first for you.

SEND.

You don’t expect him to reply on a Sunday, in fact, you aren’t sure if he’s going to respond at all. You’ve already shut your laptop, half out of your seat in an attempt to pack up. You’re forced to consider.

Would it be terrible to go back and cc him as well?

A spiteful part of you might find joy in correcting him for a change. The rational part of you wants to actually finish the tutorial before tomorrow’s class when you’d have to tackle another beast for the rest of the week.

Sitting back down, you move without thinking. Your mind is still cooking up possibilities as you swing your screen open once again, still weighing as you click back into your inbox.

There’s a new email in your sent box after you’re done, a copy of the one you sent your professor, the same attachment and the same question; word for word. The only difference, a more familiar name in the address bar.

Before you can chicken out, you slam your laptop shut for the actual last time, shoving everything into your bag before the speeding thoughts can infiltrate your mind's barrier. You’re out the door before you know it, ready to be done with this.

You’re afraid if you put a hand to your stomach it’d be met with kicks and punches, especially with the way you feel the aggressive cartwheels slashing away at your insides. The butterflies are making it to the end of your food pipe, and you briefly wonder if you need to break into a sprint to make it to a safe throwing up zone. Your entire being jolts as you feel a buzz in your hands, a loud click that signifies a new email in your inbox.

Right there, in the middle of the sidewalk, you stop.

The grip you have on your phone is unyielding, your fingers beginning to hurt from the pressure. There’s no way to tell if you’re shaking or not, but you bring your phone to your face anyway. The screen flips on, a lone notification on the screen.

RE: Tutorial Error from Kim Mingyu

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since you sent that email, the library still in sight from where you stand. At the same time, it’s almost funny you expected any different from him.

The kicks and punches in your stomach halt, the cartwheels have calmed, the butterflies have fallen asleep. The grip on your phone has loosened, and it’s like every nerve in your body went from on fire to serenity in a whiplash inducing shift.

Clicking on the notification, the email opens.

Noted. I have another tutorial sheet for you if you want it. I’ll be in the room where office hours are held for the rest of the morning.

Kim Mingyu, T.A.

There was no way he didn’t have a softcopy he could send you in less than a minute, and you’re sure he knew you’d realise that too. You should scoff, be upset, roll your eyes.

But instead, you find your feet making a 180, turning around to go right back to where you came from. You walk, eyes still half trained on the email, reading and rereading as you walk back onto campus, towards the building you’d once considered a second home.

You walk, and walk and walk, in through the doors, up the stairs and then another set of them, you take a left and look up. The hallway is empty, the door on the right coming into view as you slow your steps significantly.

Closer and closer, you realise the light surrounding it is brighter than usual. The door is open, and you can see the empty rows of tables and chairs, set neatly against one another. It’s strange, you’ve never seen it wide open before.

Walking even closer, you can see the beginnings of the professor’s desk come into view, and it only takes you one more step forward.

Standing in the doorway now, you find yourself in the direct path of the sun that pours in through the open windows. It’s warm, but just enough to combat the cooling weather.

The desk up front is occupied, as it always is.

Mingyu is only in a t-shirt and trousers, glasses perched on his nose as he scrawls away on the paper in front of him. His laptop is turned on, screen facing the door where you stand, his inbox open and available even on the weekend.

It wasn’t that you were waiting for him to notice, but you found yourself inadvertently taking your time looking at him. Every other situation, you’d done your absolute best to avoid your eyes grazing over him at all costs, hardly drifting over his form before flitting away. You never did it on purpose, but it was more like you were unconsciously protecting yourself.

Like looking at him would only make the ache in your heart worse.

If that was the case, you would’ve been right. There’s a tug in your chest, and in that moment, it all comes flooding in like a gate destroyed.

Mingyu looks up and sees you in the doorway, standing immobile. He sets his pen down, taking his glasses off. There’s the smallest hint of a smile on his face as he greets you, “‘Morning.”

You take it as your cue to move forward, stepping foot into the patch of sun slowly. “‘Morning.”

You reach the desk, standing in front of him, the only thing blocking you being the littered table with files, papers and stationary; the trench between you both.

It’s so silent it tears at your insides, gripping the strap of your bag to have something to do.

“I, uh, double checked when I saw the email. You were right, nobody noticed in class either.” There’s an airiness in his voice, like he might be struggling just as much as you are right now.

He clears his throat when you don’t respond, looking back down at his workspace like he was looking for something. He finds a paper from some stack, handing it over to you.

“Thanks,” you hoarse. It’s the same tutorial you had, except the instructions had been crossed out, replaced by a list of handwritten instructions instead, detailed in their annotation. You recognise it, because of course you’d recognise his handwriting.

“I didn’t have time to print one out right now. I’ll probably send a corrected copy to everyone tonight,” he explains.

“That’s alright.” You look up, lips pressed together, eyebrows forced into a regular position on your face. Nodding, you thank him once again. “Thanks again. I’ll…get going.”

Every fibre in your body screams at you to turn back around, hollering profanities at your inability to deal with this. You’re already halfway to the door though, and your pride’s already deemed it too late.

Please stop me, please stop me, please stop me, please just say something and stop me—

There it is. Your name, from his mouth, in his beautiful voice.

Turning back around is the easiest thing you’ve ever done.

Mingyu has stood up from his seat, out from behind the desk. He looks like he wasn’t expecting you to turn back. “Can we talk?”

And then he’s pulling out the chair he was sitting on, presenting it like a piece offering. If you heard correctly, you could’ve sworn you heard his voice break the slightest bit when he pressed, “Please?”

So there you were, in a position all too familiar as you sit across from the man that’s haunted you for the past weeks, trying to keep your chest from falling in.

“I guess I should start with an apology,” he’s fidgeting with his own fingers. “I don’t need to give you excuses about stress or exhaustion because…”

He closes his eyes, trying to find the words. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you. You were only trying to help and I was too preoccupied with myself to notice. I’m sorry I spoke to you like that when you didn’t deserve it.”

For about the millionth time, you realise you’re tearing up again. He continues. “And then…right before the midterm too. You were right, I did feel horrible. But I swear that grade was all you, I didn’t touch those numbers.”

He really didn’t, because the papers he had thrust into your hands on that fateful day in this very room proved that you earned that mark. You wince regardless.

“I thought I could apologise before the exam started but I couldn’t find you, and then you were gone right after. I didn’t text or call because I was sure I’d fucked it all up.”

“I’m sorry too. For barging in in front of everyone and basically accusing you. I wasn’t thinking straight.” You look up from your lap, wet lashes and all. “I really hope you didn’t get into any trouble.”

“I–no, I didn’t.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“I promise I didn’t.” He locked eyes with you when he said that, hoping you’d believe him. You nod slowly.

“It wasn’t even that bad, what you said,” you sniffled.

He scoffs at that, “I’d beg to differ.”

“I would’ve gotten over it,” you continue, bracing yourself to admit to something you’ve had trouble admitting to yourself. “I should’ve gotten over it. I don’t know why it hurt so much, why watching you walk out felt so horrible. But I haven’t been acting like normal ever since, and I’m sorry for stretching this whole fiasco out into something that didn’t need to turn into…this!”

“You were hurt because I hurt you.”

“People have said worse things to me. And you were practically a zombie, I should’ve just left it for another time. It was a little bit my fault too. But…yeah.”

There’s a silence as you try to remind yourself to breathe. You speak up again. “I just want us to go back to normal. I’ve missed you. Alot.”

“Me too. The go back to normal bit. And the…missed you bit.”

Mingyu’s half smiling when you look up, biting your lip hard as you try to keep a smile of your own at bay. “I’d thought if I gave up and admitted I was struggling that day, that’d be admitting defeat. That you’d think I…couldn’t do it.”

Why on earth do you care so much? It rings in your ears.

You sound light when you say it though, knowing now it wasn’t what he meant.“Since when are we on caring terms?”

Mingyu cringes. "We are. I am, at least, if you aren't anymore, which is fine. I care about you. A lot."

It’s hard to not let out a laugh. He looks half constipated as he tries to navigate his words.

“Oh well I’d hope you’d care, since you’re my TA and all.”

“Not in a TA way.”

“Tutor way.”

“Um.”

“Friend way? A human way?”

“No.”

You both know you’re being obtuse on purpose, and you aren’t sure why. Maybe you just like to watch him squirm.

“You know what?” he rasps.

“What?”

Your answer comes in the form of Mingyu lurching to grab the legs of your chair, pulling the wheels to crash into him where he sits. You’re not expecting it, the clashing legs causing you to swerve forward, hands on Mingyu’s lap.

And then his hand is on the back of your neck, and his lips placed on your own.

You’re stiff as a board, brain computing the fact that Mingyu is kissing you in a classroom.

It’s short, hardly a few moments before he pulls away. “Does that clear things up?”

There’s nothing you can do but blink at him, the reality of it all settles in. “Hm.”

He laughs at your half dazed state. It’s a purely instinctual part of you that speaks after this. “Maybe one more time. To make sure.”

Mingyu doesn’t even wait to laugh again as he wastes no time, putting his mouth on yours properly this time. There’s more of a drive in you this time, moving your mouth against his and he keeps your head close.

The ecstasy is slow but sure to build in your stomach. Mingyu is kissing you. Mingyu is sitting with you and kissing you so good you’re already half faint.

His mouth tastes like coffee and remnants of berry, a combination you can’t believe you could enjoy this much. Licking into his mouth, you let your tongue drag over his, like the tactile would convince you this wasn’t some too vivid fever dream.

He pulls away for a moment, but hardly so as his lips remain pressed onto yours.

“For the record,” he pants. “I love that you care. And I hope you’ll keep caring. Because I don’t think I can handle it if you walk away after this.”

Mouth back on his own, you decide there’s only one way to convince him you weren’t going anywhere without dragging him with you.

MINGYU'S APARTMENT IS CLEANER than you expected. You aren’t sure what you were expecting, perhaps more mad scientist than anything else. But the most you find is a mug and plate in the sink, and a moderately crowded study desk, which is to be expected.

Mingyu decided to abandon his work for the day to spend it with you, to which you contest that it was Sunday anyway. His response is making you change into something comfortable of his so you could laze on his couch.

Like you would run away if he didn’t, Mingyu keeps his arms around you in a tight hold, fingers curling around your shoulders as you lay on top of him. Your head rests directly over his heart, his cheek and lips taking turns to occupy the top of your head.

You fill him in on everything, and realise the most eventful weeks you’ve spent were actually quite uneventful in hindsight. He feels up your cheek and forehead when you tell him you got sick at one point, to which you have to reassure him it was either something going around or stress that you subjected on yourself.

“I went to a frat party,” Mingyu mumbles into your forehead. “For Halloween.”

The information has you shifting to look up at him in bewilderment, “You went to a frat party?”

He snorts, “Dressed up for it too.”

“Oh my god,” you voice in mild horror. “Do I wanna know?”

“Wonwoo and I matched,” he hums as he pulls out his phone, scrolling his gallery to look for pictures. “I was Mario, he was Luigi.”

“How adorable.”

He only gives you a look and shoves the phone in your face. By some grace of god they aren’t wearing moustaches, but the distinct red and green outfits are enough to give you enough recognition.

“Thing 1 and Thing 2 were also possible contenders,” he informs.

“That might’ve been a little better.”

“What’s wrong with Mario?” he asks sharply.

“Nothing. But I do hope you weren’t sporting an Italian accent throughout that.”

“I was,” he pushes. “A horrible one too.”

You give him the satisfaction of an eye roll.

“You could’ve gone as Peach. We could’ve matched.”

“I don’t know if I’d wanna wear any available Peach costumes during Halloween time.” You crinkle your nose as you think of all the racy costumes that unearth every October.

“Maybe in private,” he says with an insufferable smile on his face.

Placing your hands flat on his chest, you rest your chin and look up at him. “I’m not sure I want to interrupt whatever you two have going on.”

“Who?”

“You and Wonwoo, you’re practically married.”

Mingyu laughs out loud, and you can feel the rumble in his chest against your hands, his body moving against your own that’s stuck to him. “Not with whatever he has going on with his girl.”

“Oh right,” you frown in remembrance. “What happened to not understanding how he does it?”

“Hm?”

“He’s a TA too. Probably just as busy as you. You said you didn’t know how he could juggle a relationship and his job at the same time.”

His eyes spark in remembrance, pausing for a moment. “I may owe him an apology.”

“Do you?”

Mingyu frowns, “Actually no I don’t. I don’t think he and his lady are doing too well right now. He’s been insufferable lately.”

“Is it because of the TA-ing?”

“I never know with those two,” he sighs.

There’s silence once again, in the midst of which Mingyu leans over to kiss you a few times, soft and lingering. Like he’s trying to familiarise himself with the shape of your mouth, the tactile feeling of kissing you.

“Do you…know about us?” There’s hesitancy in the way you ask. But you can’t help but ask anyway.

Mingyu thinks for a moment, and it has your heart beating out of your chest. “I know that I want us to be concrete. That I wanna work around whatever life throws at us. You can decide what to call it, but I know I’m in it for the long run.”

“I’m glad you’re smarter than your husband,” you smile.

He only rolls his eyes, “He’s only good at one kind of chemistry.”

“D’you think they’ll be okay?”

“Oh yeah,” he assures. “They’re just going through a…rough patch.”

“Like we did?”

“If you’re asking me, I’d say they’re being a little more stupid about it.”

The snort that leaves you is unanimous with his own. He continues, “They’ll be okay though.”

“I hope so. I’d like to go on double dates with my boyfriend’s husband’s girlfriend.” You start giggling in the middle of your sentence, too ridiculous even for you to voice.

“This is getting weird,” Mingyu breathes.

You only hum against his mouth, “Do I have to take your husband's blessing before we can move forward?”

“For fuck’s sake.”

You’re both laughing again, a sound that comes from your stomachs, true and uncontrollable. For a moment, you can’t help but be conscious of how light you feel, how happy you feel with his scent infiltrating your nostrils, his presence known where his fingertips touch you.

“I did the sticky note thing again too,” Mingyu says into the silence, and there’s nothing you can do to stop the fit of giggles that erupt all over again.

“Said something worse this time,” he continues as you laugh into his chest. “Accept that you’ll die alone or some other shit like that.”

There’s comfort in this moment. In your giggles and in your tears, in his voice and in his affection. His lips are another sanctuary you’ve found, and perhaps even another way to make your dreaded latch click.

Nose nuzzled in his cheek, the feeling of his skin so soft against yours, fingers at his chin where a slight stubble grows, you relax in ways you cannot comprehend.

MINGYU'S LIPS BECOME A feeling you’ve grown dangerously accustomed to.

It isn’t that he has them on you too much, regardless of what an outsider might suggest; to you they simply aren’t on you enough.

The following Monday went as usual, for you anyway. You weren’t avoiding Mingyu this time, and you were grateful for it. It was two hours of following him with your eyes as he darted around the room. You could hardly constitute it as not paying attention when Dr. Cho was preoccupied with explaining every reason he hates JASP over SPSS, but also ultimately, hates them both.

You don’t even notice his loud outfit (overalls and a neon green sweater underneath), happy to watch Mingyu flit about and whisper incoherent explanations to students.

The tutorial paper is barely looked at by you, because you know your boyfriend will be happy to help you out later at his place.

You’re barely through the door that night when he gets a hold of you, tight grip across your waist as you’re catapulted into his arms, door slammed shut behind you.

Bag still on your shoulders and your shoes still on, Mingyu’s slammed his mouth onto yours before you can take a proper breath. You stumble, squealing through the kiss as you realise you aren’t escaping the iron grip he’s got on your face.

Somehow between it all, you manage to slip your bag off to let it drop to the floor of his doorway, shoes kicked off one after the other as he leads you inside, littering the way.

“You aren’t actually paying attention in class anyway,” he breathes against your mouth before kissing you again. “So why don’t you sit in the back where you don’t distract me.”

“Who says I’m not paying attention.” You open your as your back lands on the couch, looking at him as he looms overhead.

“You’re paying attention to me.”

“It was in my job description when I signed up for the girlfriend position.”

He’s all over you now, hands at your sides, mouth underneath your earlobes as he husks, “Was letting me take you in front of the entire class also a clause? Because if this goes on I might have to take up on that.”

If you didn’t know any better you would’ve assumed he’d been possessed, everything about his behaviour screaming the opposite of the well behaved, restrained man you’ve been accustomed to. The fact that he’s whispering directly into your ears isn’t helping either, a conspicuous shiver dragging across your spine.

It lands with precision, right at your core. You’re too hot to tell, but there isn’t a doubt you’ve begun to pool.

There’s a ding in the background.

He’s suckling underneath your ear, his hands roaming in ways that would smear your reputation altogether.

Another ding.

He’s reached your mouth once again, groping your right breast lightly. Like he’s testing the waters.

Ding.

Mingyu makes a noise of annoyance, the other hand trailing underneath your shirt.

His ringtone blares throughout the room, whoever the caller was having reached wit’s end.

“Gyu…” you whisper.

“Ignore it,” he growls. The ringing has stopped.

He ducks underneath to kiss at your stomach, lifting your shirt oh so slowly. He goes higher, and higher and higher, leaving a trail of kisses at the skin, taking deep breaths as he drags his mouth over your torso.

His phone begins to ring again.

Your head is spinning, your senses overcome. If you weren’t sure before, the air of wetness between your legs is definitely obvious now.

He brings a hand to your centre, pushing inwards at your jean clad core. You exhale sharply yet shakily.

The ringing stops.

Mingyu makes a gumbled sound that you can’t quite make out, too preoccupied with the way your shirt is now up past your bra, at which Mingyu has taken to leaving open mouthed kisses to your cleavage.

There’s a ding.

“Mingyu, I really think—”

His phone begins to ring again.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he curses, rearing his head like an interrupted animal, wet mouthed and bleary eyed. He looks at his buzzing phone on the floor in an accusatory glare, like he wants to chuck it out the window and go right back to burrowing into your chest.

“You should answer.”

He looks irritated as he takes his phone in his hands, and you find a flash of Dr. Cho’s name on the screen. “It’s eleven O’clock.”

“It might be important.”

“The last time he did this he asked where his peacock feather pen was,” he grunts as he silences his phone.

You laugh, running a soothing hand through Mingyu’s hair, a tiny attempt to calm him down. Pulling your shirt down, you attempt to sit up.

Mingyu makes a noise of denial, attempting to stick his face into your now clothed chest, knocking you back down, “Nooooo, I’m gonna ignore him.”

“He’s not going to leave you alone,” you sing quietly, running your nails across his scalp lightly, holding his head to your chest. You place your cheek on his head, playing with his ear.

As if to prove your point, Mingyu’s phone begins to ring again, and he groans at the prospect.

“Go on.”

He swipes to answer it. A loud sigh and then a tired, “Hello?”

His volume is bumped up enough for you to make out what’s being said on the other line. “Where have you been?”

“It’s nearly eleven, sir. I was in bed.”

“My flash drive won’t open up on my computer.”

You have to stifle a snort.

“Is it…plugged in?”

“Of course it is, I’m not an idiot.”

“Is it showing up on your files?”

“Disk…is not…formatted.”

“Erm, it might be corrupted.”

“How did that happen?”

“Did you download something off the internet onto it?”

“Hardly matters, I need the attendance sheet on it!”

Your fingers are massaging Mingyu’s temples as you feel him tense on top of you.

“Your attendance sheet is on the teacher’s portal,” Mingyu grits before adding, “sir.”

“...I have other things on there too.”

Mingyu exhales ever so quietly and you tighten your hold on him a smidge. “This sounds like something tech support could help with.”

“Why can’t you help?” he asks sharply.

“I…I don’t know how, sir.”

There’s a noise of indignation from the other end, and you can’t help but keep from laughing.

Mingyu sighs into the phone, this time doing nothing to hide it. “I’ll take it to tech support for you tomorrow. And I’ll send you a direct link for the attendance sheet for Monday and Tuesday’s classes.”

The line beeps shut. Mingyu brings the phone for you both to see the professor’s hung up as soon as the words left Mingyu’s mouth.

“Wow,” you whisper into the silence, the weight of Mingyu’s head heavier on your chest. “Not even a thank you.”

“Absent father behaviour,” Mingyu grumbles as he moves his face to burrow into your shirt.

It’s a bad joke, but you laugh anyway.

“Will I be an asshole if I say I’m not in the mood anymore?” he murmurs.

“Absolutely not. Everything sucked right back in the minute I heard his voice on the line.”

“Gross,” he comments, but he’s laughing too.

“Should we call it a night?” he asks, rearing his head.

Nodding, you rise with him. By the time you’ve reached the bedroom, you’ve already begun taking off your accessories, fiddling with your bracelet as you voice.

“I need a shower.”

Mingyu throws you a towel and a t-shirt, which you catch and move towards the bathroom. Halfway through the door, you sneak a look at him fiddling with his belt.

“Do you wanna come in too?”

Mingyu looks at you peering through the door frame. You’ve never seen anyone leap across the room as quickly as in that moment.

THE FOLLOWING DAYS WERE just as eventful as that phone call, Mingyu running around as the midterm low passed and the line creeped up towards finals season.

Perhaps it was better that you stopped attending office hours, because the room seems to become increasingly packed as the days progressed.

You only ever saw Mingyu in the wee hours of the night at his place, where he begged you to camp out till the end of the semester so he “doesn’t move to insanity”. It might even be better for you, going about your day as usual, without the usual added distraction of a partner.

Coming home to him was easier, where he could clear up your doubts while in ratty pyjamas and starfished across the bed, where you could find solace in Mingyu’s chest without prying eyes when the information became like filling an already stuffed junk drawer.

It was a Friday night, you’re alone at Mingyu’s place sitting cross legged on the floor. The table in front of you is pouring over the final question of this week’s tutorial paper, everything seemingly whizzing right past the top of your head.

Despite that, as Mingyu stumbles inside past eleven, you know you shouldn’t ask him for a thing.

Tired was a look on Mingyu you’d gotten quite used to, so you’ve learned to not comment and simply let him fall into the couch cushions with all his weight.

His face is parallel to yours as he closes his eyes with a light groan in greeting. Moving forward, you kiss the flutter of his eyelids softly, down to the apple of his cheeks, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth.

Your fingers run through his tangled and distressed hair as he mumbles against your mouth. “Did you finish the tutorial paper?”

You huff in mild annoyance, that despite his state he still thinks about work. “Not yet. One last question and I’m done.”

He hums and waits a moment before reopening his eyes. With a loud groan he’s pushing himself off the couch, sliding off of it to sit with you on the uncomfortable floor. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

“I can figure it out myself, Gyu.”

“You would’ve been done by now if you could,” he answers. It’s annoying that he says it but he’s also right.

Mingyu holds the paper a mere inch from his eyes, the sight almost comical if he also didn’t look an inch from passing out.

He mumbles the question as he reads, “It’s nothing, just worded weird. Toggle this off and move this to mixed factors and you’re done.”

The toggles are done for you, and Mingyu takes the liberty crossing he question off with a pen he finds on the table.

“Did you get everything else?” he asks in earnest.

“Hm? I think so.”

“Good.” And then he’s throwing his head back to rest it on the couch cushions behind him, breathing slowly.

He’s in a navy sweater, collar of his undershirt peeking through the top. Your gaze leads up further, to the exposed area of his throat—clean, tan and naked. You realise this might not be a good time, but it’s only natural your mind cooks up other ways to translate your helplessness as you watch your boyfriend push himself to the brink. Release is never a bad idea.

Besides, it’s a Friday night. No reason to not.

“Gyu,” you shuffle closer.

Lolling his head to look over at you, he answers in a small voice, “Yeah?”

You put on the guiltiest face you can muster, complete with darting eyes and fidgeting fingers. “D’you think…d’you think you can go over post hoc tests again?”

“Post hoc?” He furrowed his eyebrows. You bite the inside of your cheek, having blurted the first plausible model you could think of to ask him. It’s an older bit of the syllabus, something you should already be well versed in.

Not that you care what he thinks right now, he’d figure out why you were asking anyway.

“Post hoc, um,” he rubs a hand over his face as if to jog his memory.

Shifting forward, you plaster you front onto his side. He thinks nothing of it.

“Analysis tool after you’ve already run the data,” he begins.

Placing your chin on his shoulder, you let your nose nuzzle against his cheek. Trailing up, your lips find the shell of his ear.

“Results have to be…they have to be…” He falters when your hand reaches his front, running across the expanse of his clothes stomach, nails digging ever so slightly as you reach his abdomen. You continue to place open mouthed kisses at the space of neck you can reach.

“Hm? Has to be what?”

“Statistically significant,” he breathes when your palms reach the tops of his thighs. “To run a post hoc test.”

His trousers are less barrier inducing than regular jeans, something you’re both grateful for as you begin to palm his clothed bulge. “Results of what, baby?”

“For the love of—”

“Go on,” you whisper in his ear. “Please.”

One flick and his trousers are unbutton, pulling them aside as the zipper pulls open. You're pushing down his boxers when he answers you. “ANOVA.”

“What’s that again?”

“You little shit.”

You move your mouth forward to kiss him.

“Analysis of variance.”

You hum against the column of his throat at that, his half hard member in your hands. Light touches, that’s all they are, running the pads of your fingers across the pulsing length, coaxing him into full length.

“What’s it for though? We already got our results.” Bending forward, you stick your tongue to kitten lick at his tip. Mingyu hisses, hips shifting. Your tongue swirls around the tip, pushing into the skin on the head where he’s most sensitive.

“Ugh, fuck, for um,” he falters as you begin to suck at his head, tongue running over each hollow of your cheeks.

“For…for…” His chest is moving up and down in quick breathes, every sound from his mouth coming from a deep rumble in his stomach.

Letting go of his cock, you continue to pump him with your hand as you gaze up at him from your position. “For? Keep talking, baby.”

“For…To identify groups,” he grunts out. He lets out a louder moan when you place your mouth back on him, going past his tip and taking as much as you can of him into your mouth. “Identify…the differences, shit, hmph.”

He takes a loud breath before speeding through it again, “Identify which groups actually differ, oh my god.”

The bit of him that you can’t fit on your mouth is being pumped by your hands, fingers pushing into him like you were trying to indent them on the base of his cock. A glance upwards and you find his head thrown back, hands coming to tangle in your hair. His thumb caresses the side of your cheek.

“How many groups?” you ask, before diving back in.

“Three,” he chokes out. “Three or more, oh I’m gonna cum, fuck don’t stop, holy shit.”

Both of his hands are at your head, guiding you as you suck him harder, faster, more tongue digging into his slit. You hum against his dick on purpose, making sure it’s coarse enough to get the reaction you want.

You succeed, because immediately after you hear Mingyu rip out the loudest moan you’ve ever heard, his grip on your strands harder than ever. He cums into your mouth, hips stuttering as you place your entire weight on him to keep him in place.

You let some of it dribble out your mouth and back over his softening dick like a hot coating, sucking him through shooting spurts of cum that land on your tongue.

When you emerge from underneath, Mingyu looks like he got the soul sucked out of him; eyes closed, stuttered breaths raking through his entire body, a light sheen of the beginnings of sweat that glisten in the low light of the room.

Reaching for the tissue box and water bottle on the table, you soak the napkins and bring them to clean him up. He whines when the cold tissues touch him where he’s most sensitive right now, you want to kiss him but account for the cum that is actively stuck to the walls of your mouth.

You leave for a few minutes, much to Mingyu’s hoarse protests. He’s almost on all fours, hands on the floors as you promise to be back. By the time you’ve hauled his tired ass into bed, you’re just as ready to knock out as the half asleep man beside you.

Mingyu’s face is plastered into your neck, arms and legs thrown over your form as he hugs you close to him.

“I might love you,” he says into the darkness. A secret, just for you and the walls to hear.

You hide the way your heart absolutely leaps, conceal the way your hands tighten around his form into an affectionate caress, hold your breath to prevent the inevitable hitch.

I might love you too.

You hide that as well. For now.

Smiling into the skin of his temples, you sigh.

“Feel free.”

[Mingyu]: class ended early

[Mingyu]: be there in 5

[You]: ???

[You]: wdym ended early

[You]: kim did u end class early to come home

Your response comes in the form of the front door lock jiggling loudly. You’d stayed the night at his place, knowing you didn’t have anything to do but study by yourself. Sickly as you were, you doubt you could sit through two hours of even more statistics.

He’d left you in bed with a kiss, needing to be extra early since Dr. Cho decided to dump the last crucial few weeks leading up to finals season entirely on his TA. As much as there was on Mingyu’s already overflowing plate now, you couldn’t deny the elated feeling of your attendance being taken care of regardless of whether you show up to class or not.

A very real violation, but no one truly notes one skipped student in the midst of hundreds. Besides, the bag under Mingyu’s pretty eyes might be enough for anyone to have mercy and let the supposed mistake slide.

As Mingyu walks into the room, shoes flying and back dumped on the floor, he finds you still half clothed with leftover sleep in your eyes, standing in the middle of the living space like you were lost.

He drops his things to come and drown you in his arms, loud kisses all over your face as you talk. “You’re getting too comfortable with this job.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t possibly expect me to teach a bunch of half asleep idiots when my woman is all alone at home, sickly and cold without me.”

You grumble wordlessly as you feel him check your temperature with the back of his hand. “How’s the congestion?”

“Bad,” you respond nasally. “I can’t find my Afrin.”

“It’s on the bedside table, baby.”

“No, it’s not.”

Still wrapped in his hold, Mingyu begins to take steps forward that lead towards the bed, pushing you to walk backwards.

“I’m not awake enough to navigate,” you sniff.

“I’ve got you,” he lowtones, pushing backwards slowly.

The back of your knees hit the bed and you let yourself fall back into the unmade sheets. You crawl back under the covers as Mingyu navigates between used tissues, water bottles and pills on the bedside table. But no sign of your nasal spray.

You have to breathe through your mouth and you hate it, but you send a remark his way anyway. “Told you.”

Mingyu bends down and emerges with a familiar red capped bottle. He stares at you while you stare at it, choosing to simply snatch it from his presenting hands and be done with it.

“Good thing I came back early, hm?”

“Shut up.”

He leaps over your form to claim the spot in bed right next to you, still fully clothed as he burrows under the covers next to you.

There’s nothing flattering about the way you stick the nozzle up your nostrils and sniff hard, but the gleam in your boyfriend’s eyes might as well suggest you were trying to get him to look at you like that.

“Are you gonna keep doing this till finals?” you ask throatily, shifting under the covers.

“Teaching during class time is just extended office hours, I’m gonna go insane if I keep going like this. Probably just today. Or…once more if I feel it.”

“Didn’t you say you were gonna extend office hours to Fridays too?”

Mingyu moulded himself against you, giving warmth to your shivering body even under thick blankets.

It seems throughout the course of your relationship, your time with Mingyu is either spent laying down or in the process of doing so. Not that you mind, you’ve found that remaining horizontal was what worked best for someone like Mingyu who seemed to want to fuse with your very being whenever you were together.

“Ugh, not this week. Do not have the patience.”

“I’m proud of you,” you say, eyes closed, already on the highway to dreamland.

“Thank you, I do think I’ve been very brave.” Even while slipping into dreamland, you find the good sense to find his nipple through his sweater and give it a hard pinch. He jerks away in a yelp, clutching his chest.

“What’s that for?!”

You ignore him and simply run your hand over the area you just attacked. “You’ve gotten better at knowing when to slow down. I’m proud of you.”

You’re too far gone to make out what he answers you with, but with the hot breath against your already warm forehead, you decide it's more than enough for you.

MINGYU DOES IT FOR the fourth time, but this time round he’s smart enough to not tell you.

It’s the Friday before finals week officially begins, and you remain in your own place for once to crack down on the last bits of syllabus you want to go over, away from your extremely distracting boyfriend.

There’s a text when you check your phone after a couple hours of hyperfocus, and you narrow your eyes at the notification.

It’s Wonwoo’s (actual) girlfriend, and she’s sent you nothing but a picture of both of your men on Wonwoo’s living room floor, thoroughly occupied with the floored expanse of sheets, pillows and cushions.

It’s a pillow fort.

Your boyfriend is building a pillow fort in his not-husband’s living room mere days before the final exam for the most dreaded course of the semester. All while he’s actively meant to be available for office hours.

You want to laugh. The man that stayed up multiple nights to answer stupid questions in emails, is now less than concerned about the pandemonium that is probably ensuing in the department building. It isn’t that you’re upset, because this was what you wanted from him. To learn to take a break when it was needed. But you would also prefer he’d time them a little better.

Inevitably, you text him, but not before sending an encouraging text to your girlfriend-in-law for putting up with the both of them all by herself.

[You]: where are you

[Mingyu]: where im meant to be?

[You]: office hours?

[Mingyu]: mhm

[You]: are u and ur husband conducting them under a pillow fort in his house

You imagine him sending Wonwoo’s girlfriend a betrayed look. Perhaps even throw a frilled throw pillow in her unassuming direction.

[Mingyu]: DONT KILL ME

You let him suffer in your silence, clicking your phone off and leaving it somewhere you won’t be tempted to look.

Besides, it wasn’t long before there was an incessant banging at your door that you ended up needing to get up to open. He looks so timid, the face of an innocent perpetrator that waltzes into your space.

“I’m sorry,” he begins, following you to your desk like a lost duckling.

“Whatever for?”

“For lying.”

You snort as you sift through tutorial sheets, “Might wanna take that up to the poor hopeless student that thought you were their last hope.”

Mingyu’s head sinks to your shoulder where you sit at your desk. “God.”

“Him too.”

In another few moments, his arms have come around to cage you into your desk where you’re sat, hands placed on the table as he towers over the top of your head, mouth to crown.

“Rumour has it,” he starts.

You make a face. “Now you’ve joined in on gossip? Maybe I have steered you wrong.”

He ignores you valiantly as his mouth drops lower, down to the beginnings of the tips of your ears. You can smell him. He smells good.

“That a textbook recitation is all it takes to get you all bothered down there.”

Lifting your head from its craned position over your papers, you stare straight ahead. Blank and unassuming.

“Take a hike, Kim.”

“...Sorry.”

NO MATTER HOW FAKE annoyed you were at your boyfriend, you cannot possibly credit anyone else for how smooth your finals had gone.

Not a single tear, hack or whine. Your meals were on time, your sleep schedule the healthiest it’s been for months. You even managed a movie night break in the midst of it all. A record for you.

The very first thing you do after walking out of the exam hall, stretching and sighing, you find Mingyu waiting with nervous eyes.

“Well?” he asks, eyes wide and lips pulled into his teeth.

You merely grab for his hand and pull him out of the crowded hall and past a few familiar turns.

“For the record I didn’t want some of the questions on there,” he yaps as he follows behind your stalks. “Hard ones weren’t mine. I promise I’m not a sadist.”

Then, in an un-CCTV’d corner, marked by the broken, empty vending machine, you round up on him. In seconds you’ve pulled him down to meet your lips in an eager, full kiss.

In the moments your lips remain intact, you can feel all the horrid statistical knowledge you’d gathered over the months slip out the cracks and crevices, relieving you.

Mingyu is careful to let you pull away first, eyes sticky to open when you do. There’s a smile on your face. “It went great.”

A strong tug against your waist and you’re suddenly pressed into Mingyu’s all too familiar hold, so everloving tight you can hardly breathe. His lips are smacking and pressing into your skin, all over your face, neck and hands. Anywhere he could possibly reach.

There wasn’t much he could do standing in a huddled corner at nine in the morning on a Tuesday, where anyone could pass by and question what in the high school was going on. But there was more than enough Mingyu could do behind closed doors.

In true Mingyu fashion, he’s begun to grope in every way you love the minute the lock clicks shut of his apartment, every fibre of both of your beings giddy and jumpy, giggles erupting from your tired mouths. You haven’t been touched in ages, always too tired to do anything even when you would find the time.

It isn’t remotely strange that you're wet from only a few kisses and hot breaths against your neck. Although Mingyu’s hands haven’t been modest either, already reaching your clothed cunt as you fall into bed.

He says it was your reward, for doing so good, his illustrious mouth suctioned onto your naked core, moving and grinding in ways you can more than just appreciate.

His tongue is nothing below made for you, like he knows exactly when to flick his tongue, graze his teeth and all but suck the daylights out of you. It’s marvellous, even more so as you realise he won’t stop. One, two, three mind blowing orgasms later, your legs still shake around his head as you cry out for him to stop.

Not that he was going to listen, as he did not the last fifteen times you tried, simply pushing a finger into your abused hole to chuck you into yet another climax. You’re sobbing, trembling, sweating; but also half hearted in your attempts to stop him.

By the time he’s relented, you’re sure you won’t feel a thing down there for at least a week. If Mingyu will even let you go untouched for that long.

But as you’re finally able to catch your long lost breath in bed, and Mingyu has curled up right beside you, like he always does, you let the finality of it all sink in. You were done. And so was he. And you could now begin to experience a Mingyu that wasn’t exhausted, stressed or tired. Even now, the long indented layers of fatigue begin to melt away, revealing a less strained man.

Mingyu was beautiful either way.

“Are you okay?” he asks you, his fingers tracing your features.

The pads of his fingers glide across your eyelids, down the slope of your nose, tracing the outline of your lips. You kiss his fingers as they reach you there, hand coming up to hold his wrists. You kiss the tips of his fingers, down to the palm of his hand. Eyes closed, you keep your lips there.

“More than okay,” you mumble.

“Good. Thought I lost you there.”

Stretching unceremoniously, you drape yourself over his naked form, head on his shoulder. “You’re not losing me. Not after being the sole reason I pass this devil’s module.”

“Is that all it takes? Make sure you don’t fail?”

“And give head like that.” It’s a half joke. “But also be Kim Mingyu comma TA.”

He mimics you between a breathy laugh, “Comma TA. Not anymore, I guess.”

“How happy are you?”

“Still have to grade the last set of papers. But I got what I wanted.”

“The recommendation? You deserve it.”

“That, and not having to be in Dr. Cho’s presence every other day. And you.”

You kiss his shoulder. “Look at you. All grown up with your big boy grad school on the horizon.”

“Not just yet.”

“You’ll get there too. If you can power through this hellsent semester, you can power through anything grad school applications throw.”

Mingyu shifts where he lays, taking a turn to lie on his side to face you. The afternoon sun peeks from behind his form, his outline made of pure gold. His breath is in your face as he talks, and there’s comfort in the air it penetrates.

“I only powered through this because of you. I hope you know that.” He’s smiling.

“Girlfriend duties,” you quote solemnly.

“I mean it. I knew I was walking into disaster with how this stupid job was going, all that work was just a distraction. I didn’t wanna believe this was a bad idea. And then you walked in.”

You cup his face and pout, “Oh, my damsel in distress.”

“Hm, my knight in shining armour,” he giggles. “Galloped in and saved me from myself.”

“You saved me too. From the world and its horrible creations.”

“I’ll start talking in formulas if this keeps up.”

You can only grumble in mild annoyance.

“I’m glad I asked you to come in early that day,” he says.

“I’m glad I was a good samaritan and gathered all your stuff that day.” You grin.

Mingyu leans in and kisses you. It’s soft, slow, and drips of the romance he’s trying to bring into the conversation. His lips are bliss, the feeling of him is bliss.

It’s almost scary how easily you’ve been able to give yourself to him. How quickly he’s placed himself in every nook and cranny of your heart. With his tired eyes and stronger than himself smile, the hand he extended in ways beyond you could ever explain to him. It’s terrifying when you realise what remains on the tip of your tongue, ready and bursting.

But it’s true, and you can only pray it remains that way. Because in that moment, naked and tangled between Mingyu’s limbs, his heart in your ears, your hands on his being, you just know.

“I think I might love you too.”

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arolesbianism · 1 year

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Good news I realized that there actually is a sekai character who could fit Mase while also having their own interesting spin on his story. Bad news the parent issue still exists. Good news I found a loophole to that. Bad news the loophole was remembering Mase wasn't adopted in a very legal manner. Anyways sorry An

#rat rambles #sekai posting #yknow what Im just gonna slap a sloppy tag onto this au #🥚#cause eg. like eternal gales. idk man just roll with it #so with that everyone has at least been loosely assigned 🎉#I still might end up switching out nene but I have enough of a design idea for her that Im willing to attempt to commit #this unfortunately does mean that theres no one from l/n or mmj in this au but those are the sacrifices that must be made #look its not My fault that most of 25ji just happen to fit oh so nicely into eternal gales #also god mizuki is literally just 2 steps removed from being just sier its stupid no wonder I love them sm #biggest diference is that mizuki has good parents who love them lol #also the degree to which theyre both out but thats more complicated #but yeah sier and mizuki could be besties in another life but alas they live in both different worlds and different conturies #wait I just realized if Im using the mase parents loophole does that mean that an would know french in this au too #oh god thats scary french an isnt real she cant hurt me #also I must make it known I thought of this all last night and it made me so sad I slept like shit #that sorry an is genuine man </3

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renjunphile · 5 months

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for the rest of ours ᡣ𐭩 song eunseok

୨♡୧ WORD COUNT: 13.4k ୨♡୧ PAIRING: riize's song eunseok x female!reader ୨♡୧ TAGS & WARNINGS: chaebol heirs!au, rich kids!au, one sided enemies to lovers!au, arranged marriage!au, angsty at the start, overall fluff, reader is selfish and mean to eunseok for a good chunk of the story, brief unrequited love but y/n is an unreliable narrator tbh, second chance romance, she fell first but he fell harder trope, drinking, partying, non linear narrative

୨♡୧ SYNOPSIS: you find song eunseok to be utterly and despicably insufferable. too bad he's your fiancé since birth! and there was nothing you could do about it!

୨♡୧ NOTES: OHHHH im having such an intense eunseok rot that i had to write the most gut wrenching and nonsensical piece that becomes to sickeningly fluffy at the end. theyre just so in love with each other and there's literally no plot at all!!!!!!!!!!! lowkey one of the worst pieces i've written in recent times since i rushed it but i will edit and add scenes and plot in the future :> but for now, enjoy! ♡ i.b let my by zayn at the end :)

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

It may be disturbing for some and horrifying to say, but your eyes hadn't even fully formed in the womb to open and your limbs weren't even well defined enough to have joints when your life was signed off to another's. For goodness' sake, it had barely even been a month since your tiny, minuscule heart started beating! What would the Song's have done if you grew up ugly?

You sighed to yourself, muttering under your breath how Korea's third richest family should be grateful you were akin to art in anyone's eyes. You were looking through the dusty photo albums that the housekeeper found while tidying the primary study of the mansion, and you grimaced at the photos of your fiancé that appeared from even the very first page.

It was bad enough that you were engaged before you were born, but did he really have to attend your birth? He probably didn't even have memories then! But there it was, under your fingertips: a perfectly preserved photo of a 3-month old Eunseok bundled up in sleep suit being posed next to where the nurses placed you after they literally just took you out of your mother. You don't even think the umbilical cord had been cut yet.

"Y/N, Mr. Song is outside," your favourite housekeeper coos at you from the double doors going into the study. You give her a terse smile and stand up from your father's office chair, straightening your silk gown before taking her hand as she helped you down the marble stairs of your home.

You roll your eyes (mostly to yourself, but you didn't mind if he noticed) as you saw his car parked at the bottom of the stairs leading to your front door.

"You can't even be bothered to come and collect me? Or open the door for me?" you sneer as soon as you settled yourself into the passenger seat.

"Well hello to you too, my lovely wife," Eunseok smirks, immediately revving and setting off around the fountain of your courtyard.

"I'm not your wife," you snap, deciding to ignore when the word 'yet' seems to slip under his breath, "But seriously Eunseok? This car? I'm going to look so stupid trying to get out of this car in my dress and heels. Why do you love sitting on the floor so much?"

Eunseok has an extensive car range. One that any car junkie would envy, but Song Eunseok knew nothing about cars. He just had them because he could. This car was a sports car where you had to sit in such a ridiculous position just so the car could look cool on the outside.

"It's white!" he defends himself, slightly whining in a cute way to which you swallow down a positive reaction. His eyes flicker over to you momentarily and his tongue traces across his bottom lip, "You look gorgeous, by the way. Very bridal."

You're wearing a white silk dress that looks like it's made for your body. It's draped so beautifully around your hips and hugs every part that needs to be accentuated. You loved this dress the second you saw it in Paris, but you never thought then that it would be used for this occasion.

"Just shut up and drive," you quip. It takes a few moments of silence for you to feel bad even though his expression remains neutral and you sigh, "I guess you don't look too bad."

"Aw, I knew you were in love with me!" he teases again, a phrase he liked to use every time you said something to him that wasn't snarky, sarcastic or an insult.

You choose not to reply, instead taking in the bright lights of Seoul as he pulls into a main road. You haven't been back in a while, holing yourself up in your penthouse in Manhattan, but you always loved the sight of home.

"But seriously, Y/N," Eunseok coughs to get your attention, his voice dropping down low and suddenly serious, "This actually might be your last chance to back out of this. Just say the word and I'll turn this car around and take you straight to Incheon and you can run away around the world long enough until they find me a new bride."

You turn to look at him, perplexed by his words, "And you? You actually want to get hitched off to some random?"

Eunseok shrugs, not meeting your eyes, "You're not some random. I've known you since you were born. I've known you'd be my wife since the day I could understand what that meant. But if I have to find a replacement because you don't want to do it anymore, I will."

"Gee, ever the gentleman," you deadpan, "I think want is a pretty strong word. I don't want to marry you, but I guess I will."

"You're not backing out? Not leaving me looking stupid up on the altar?" Eunseok taps his finger on the leather steering wheel.

You think about his words sincerely. There's really nothing more in the world that you'd love than to run away to a small little town on the southern coast of Italy- somewhere quaint and quiet where you'd find love and spend the rest of your days cooking, cleaning, baking and finding peace in the ocean. There's nothing more in the world that you want more than for someone to ask to marry you because they were in love with your soul and not having you by their side would be like torture in the cruelest form.

Alas, you're Kang Y/N of the powerful Kang family, the eldest child of your father and the next heir waiting to take over the conglomerate. And because you're Kang Y/N, the eldest daughter of the second richest family in Korea, you were contracted to marry the first son of the third richest family in Korea. After that, your companies would merge and you would overtake the Kim's as the sole ruler of the country.

"It's my duty," you swallow nervously as you begin to recognise the streets of where you were driving, signalling that you were soon approaching the venue, "It's fine, Eunseok."

"I wish it wasn't just fine. I wish this was what you wanted." he breathes out and your heart stops beating for a second before anger seeps in through the cracks of your heart.

"Do you think it's any girl's dream to marry someone that doesn't love them?"

Eunseok sighs as he presses on the breaks, moving through the lifted barrier where they had closed a portion of the street in anticipation for his car and your arrival. He twists his body to look at you, "Y/N-"

"It's fine, Eunseok," you grit your teeth as you repeat your words, eyes trained on the paparazzi camped out on the steps of the venue, eager to get a glimpse of you, "Let's just get this engagement party over with."

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

Song Eunseok had to follow you around the world like a lost puppy.

When you said that you wanted to go to that boarding school in Switzerland where only the richest sent their kids, Eunseok was in the seat next to you on that first class flight. When you said that you were going to Oxford to study for your undergraduate degree, Eunseok was tossing away his dream to study at Harvard to join you getting drunk at 18 under the grey British sky. When you said that you wanted to do your masters at Columbia so you could live in New York City, Eunseok was moving into the apartment across yours while he worked at the company his dad created in New York just for him to have something to do there.

If you said jump, Eunseok had to say how high?

That was just the name of the game considering the Song's had more to gain from this arrangement. Your family was richer. Your family was in a greater range of industries. Your family's money went back a lot further than the Song's. And you- you were the most stunning woman in Eunseok's eyes and because of him, you were stripped of your choice to fall in love. That's why the Song family gave you princess treatment from the second you were able to demand things.

You had protested until your vocal cords went raw when they found out that they were sending Eunseok to university with you. For years up until you turned 18, you had imagined finally getting away from Eunseok for once, even if just for 3 years. He had always talked about Harvard and with the grades to boot, you thought that you'd finally have an ocean separating you.

It certainly wasn't an easy fight at the airport as you threatened to drop out of university the second that you even stepped foot into the new country. All your father did was bat his eyelashes and give you a heartfelt, "Please, princess? Just do this for us."

The phrase 'just do this for us' nearly knocked you sick nowadays after over 2 decades of hearing it spew out of your father's mouth. Ultimately, yes, you were lucky to have such a loving family that never pushed anything evil or truly despicable onto you. This was the one thing they needed from you. They obliged every want and wish for the trade-off of giving your hand in marriage to the Song's first born son.

In June of your third year of university, a couple months out from your graduation, Eunseok turned up at your door completely drunk.

"What are you doing here?" your arms were crossed tightly, trying to cover as much of yourself as possible as you were clad in the smallest pyjamas for the British summer heat.

He grinned goofily up at you, eyes lazily fluttering open and closed, "Hi, Y/N. I'm drunk." He was leaning against the doorway, nearly making out with the frame.

"I can see that," you sniffed the air and grimaced, "And smell it. But what are you doing here?"

"Can't I visit my lovely fiancée on her 21st birthday?" he batted his long eyelashes sweetly at you, taking one step into the apartment. You gazed at him hesitantly, taking one step back.

"I don't think anyone would appreciate their fiancé turning up on their doorstep piss drunk at 2am," you spat, "If you truly wanted to wish me a happy birthday, you would have left me alone."

"I lost my keys," Eunseok groaned, "I didn't know where else to go."

It should be sweet that out of all the places he could have chosen to go to in the city, he went to yours. Instead, it made you feel angrier.

"Eunseok, stop bothering me," your words contrasted your actions as you pulled him into your apartment and locked the door behind him, "Go sleep in the spare bedroom and leave as soon as you wake up. I'm going out for breakfast with my friends tomorrow so lock the door behind you and keep the key with you 'til you see me next." You pulled the spare key out of the drawer and placed it in his pocket.

Like a pathetic dog, Eunseok followed behind you as you led him through the apartment your parents had bought for you.

"Can I sleep with you?" he murmured.

"In your dreams, Song," you retorted, stopping in front of the spare room door, "Plus, you stink like shit."

"Ah, it's okay," he sighed dreamily, resting his head against the door, "We have the rest of forever to sleep beside each other."

You let out a frustrated screech, shoving his chest, "Can you let me live in peace? Why do you have to keep reminding me?"

"In the hopes that one day the thought of it won't make you sick or angry," he replied, opening the door of the room.

Your strong gaze faltered, "What are you- in love with me?"

"No," Eunseok shook his head, "I could learn to though, if you wanted me to."

"The only thing I want from you is to be far away from me," you ran your hands through your hair to soothe yourself, "And even that you can't do."

"I'm sorry, Y/N. Thanks for letting me stay," Eunseok gave up on his tyranny and dropped his voice, "Happy birthday."

You muster up a near half-smile, turning to return to your bed where you'd be tossing and turning until your alarm went off, "Goodnight Eunseok."

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

The worst thing about your arrangement with Eunseok was that it was kept secret.

Of course, it was an open secret in your families and to the company- and there were always rumours about it since you two ended up always together around the world. But it wasn't like it was announced to the world at any point to protect the prospective merger happening when you and Eunseok came of age.

That made relationships very hard indeed. It always had to end in heartbreak, at least for the other person.

The two of you agreed that you could see other people if you wanted to, and you agreed on this the same day you had your very first heartbreak.

"Eunseok, can we talk?" you poked his side to catch his attention. Eunseok was bouncing his basketball up and down while he spoke with his friends just outside the school courts. It had been 2 months since you moved back to Korea after spending 3 years in Switzerland at boarding school, where you quickly became homesick. Eunseok followed you home immediately.

Your fiancé bid his friends goodbye and gave you a sweet smile, "Yeah of course. What's up?"

You led him to the adjacent square that was thankfully deserted and settled just under the bloomed cherry blossom tree in the middle, "Um."

Eunseok giggled at your hesitancy and pushed your hair behind your ear, "What is it?"

16 year old you blushed terrifically at that moment, highlighting your plump cheeks and shining eyes as Eunseok peered down at you.

"I know this is um, pretty stupid," you began, breaking his stare and looking down at your Prada loafers, "Well basically, my friend Jimin- you know Jimin?- she told me to-"

"Just say it, Y/N."

"I like you?"

It came out more of a question as you quirked your eyebrow up at your fiancé.

His eyes went wide, taking in a deep breath, "Y/N. You," he paused, "You like me?"

"Yeah," you exhaled, "Is that so bad? We're going to get married someday."

Eunseok looked around and noticed his friends turning the corner to the courtyard, presumably to look for him, "Look, Y/N, I'm sorry but I thought we were going to, you know, try experience life like how others do and meet people and do whatever we want to until they tell us we need to get married. I didn't think we were obliged to date."

Your eyes began to water and your lips began to quiver as sheer embarrassment sunk into your bones, "So what? You want to date around?"

Eunseok reached out to cup your face but you quickly took a step back, feeling humiliated and slightly bettayed, "I'm sorry Y/N. I didn't know you felt like this towards me. Look, can we talk later? I'll swing by your house after basketball practice, okay?"

From the ages of 0-16, you would say that you and Eunseok were close childhood friends. Even though you had no concept of marriage or love, your parents had forced the two of you to be together through every occasion with weekly play dates and attending the same schools. When you finally understood what being engaged to each other meant at around 12 years old, it made you swoon that you were going to spend the rest of your life with your best friend, who you'd always found endearingly cute. He became more handsome as the years went by and at 16, he was the object of all of your desires.

He was manly, he was protective, he was sporty and most of all, he treated you so well. He would run around town with you no question to go shopping and indulge you in all of your cravings even if you needed to have ice cream at 10pm in the dead of winter. He would take the train with you all around Switzerland to see different lakes and ski resorts. He would help you study in the library and pass you your favourite snacks whenever it seemed you were getting tired. He would give you his jacket on the breezy nights watching the local sports matches.

You were so blinded with your affection towards him that you had convinced yourself that he did those things because he liked you back. Because he wanted to treat his future wife well.

The day Eunseok stamped all over your little heart was the day you waged a one-sided war against him. Eventually, Eunseok began reciprocating your snarky attitude and the rest had been history.

You told your maids and house security to refuse entry to the grounds to Eunseok that night, but because of your parents' unconditional offer to Eunseok to make your house also his home, he had spent a good part of the night on the other side of your bedroom door trying to get you to open it so he could apologise. For a man you were once smitten for, it was easy to put on your headphones and drown him out until he got exhausted and left.

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

Eunseok opens the car door for you and offers out his hand. In the darkness of his car, you grimace slightly, but force yourself to take his hand and use your free hand to smooth your dress out as you exit the car. The flashes from the press are blinding and carry on all the way up to the bottom of the staircase leading into the venue your parents had hired for the evening.

You try to keep a pleasant smile on your face as Eunseok passes his keys to the valet men before wrapping his arms around your waist. It comes nearly naturally to him, from all the photos your parents had made you pose together in dating back a decade or two. But it's your first official public appearance together, so the flashes intensify and you're taken aback. Eunseok feels you stumble slightly and begins to lead you along the carpet rolled out up to the stairs.

There's shouting from every direction- asking where your dress was from, asking if you were dating, asking why you were with the 'rival' company's son all the time- nothing new to you. After you traverse up the stairs, the two of you turn around and give a small wave at the cameras. You feel Eunseok drop his head down to yours, so you nestle yourself into him a bit more. How sweet, you thought to yourself, pushing down the urge to throw up at all this fakeness.

"Last chance to run," Eunseok murmurs as the doorman opens the glass doors into the foyer.

"Are you begging me to?" you counter, "Why do you keep insisting I back out?"

"I'm not. I just feel guilty, so I'll make up a solution if you want to stop all of this," he whispers into your ear. To others, it's an endearing moment as you keep your face neutral.

"It is all your fault. You should feel guilty. I'm not doing this for you or your family, but for my family. If this is what they want, then I'll oblige," you nod your head firmly.

While Eunseok's family was definitely benefiting more from the merger, it did come with some advantages for your family too: less competition in the market, combined success superseding the current top conglomerate, and for your parents: the knowledge that their first born child was going to have someone that was born to and raised from a good and rich family- someone that would be able to take care of you no matter what and understand your life in a way no other civilian could.

You know that your parents' argument for you to marry this guy was weak- there were plenty of good, rich guys from other companies- but you had been happy with the arrangement at the start and by the time you were 16 and he was breaking your heart, the companies had already started slowly merging or putting the plans into place. It was honestly a shame to your parents that other than rejecting you, Eunseok really had no faults. He was always polite, always courteous and intelligent enough to take over the conglomerate with you when the time would come.

Eunseok drops his arm from your waist, instead sliding his finger between yours.

"Miss. Y/L/N, Mr. Song," your family's general assistant approaches you in the foyer with a tight smile, "The event is about to begin. Please follow me to the stage. Are your speeches prepared?"

"Mhm," you hum, tugging Eunseok with you behind your assistant, "The rest of the family are here?"

"Yes. They're waiting by the stage," she replies as nerves finally settle into your stomach. You suddenly can't even look at Eunseok anymore as the gravity of the situation clicks into your mind. After this, you were going to be officially engaged in front of the world and you were going to be his bride in no less than a year from now. There was no turning back anymore.

Eunseok has to shoot you a look to stop you shaking on the stage as your father and his begin their speeches about their company, and the new era and blah, blah, blah. You tune them out in order to focus on your breathing and make sure you don't barf the second you step up to the podium. After minutes of nonsense, you feel Eunseok place his hand on the small of your back, signalling you to take to the stand.

"Um," you began, suddenly losing all the lessons you had learned in your public speaking classes growing up, "Thank you all for joining us on this occassion. As my father said, we are transitioning into a new era of our company and as I take on the role of COO, we believe it's important to have good people by your side to support you. While my family and the Songs are joining together in business, we are also joining together in family," you look over at Eunseok, who gives you a reassuring nod, "Song Eunseok and I are to be wed in one year's time. We have been close friends and partners since we were born and I couldn't imagine anyone better suited to be by my side. We can go into this business partnership fully trusting each other and our companies and we would be grateful if you could give us your support. Thank you."

You step away from the podiums as gasps ring through the crowd. The business venture was nearly an open secret in the industry, but your relationship with Eunseok was based on rumours only, having never confirmed it. Now that you have, it would stir up all these new rumours- were you only getting married for the merger? Did you two actually love each other? What about all the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes that had been conniving to get even a bit of your or Eunseok's time to beg for your hand in marriage?

Eunseok takes his place beside you, wrapping his arm around your waist again as your families smile together for the pictures. The engagement party also doubled as a celebration for the merger, so at least all of the spotlight wasn't on you.

You're glad that your friends are here. They're all business heirs too, since like attracted like at your school. Your best friend Minjeong attacks you with a hug the second you step down from the stage.

"Ah, my best friend is getting married," she sighs dreamily into your ear, "You know what, Y/N, at least he's handsome. It's harder to hate someone when they look that good."

"Then you marry him," you chide, half-joking, "The problem has never been his looks. It's the situation."

"He doesn't hate you half as much as you hate him," Minjeong tuts, "And he's in the same situation. He never got a choice either."

You know deep down that she's right, but you're committed to making his life hell until the ends of the earth for breaking your heart. If anyone could say anything about you, it was that you could hold a grudge.

"Whose side are you on?" you prod her arm, but she rolls her eyes and links arms with you to join Eunseok and his friends.

"Happy engagement, lovebirds," Sungchan greets you with two kisses on your cheeks, "So excited to be at your wedding."

"I'm sitting you at the back," you retort, sticking your tongue out. You hated that Eunseok's friends were genuinely nice and funny people. It was so hard to distance yourself from Eunseok when your friendship groups had been deeply intertwined since you all could walk.

"Not when I'm a groomsman, right Eunseok-ie?" Sungchan swings his arm around his friend's shoulder, pulling him close, "Now tell me, who's the best man?"

Eunseok shoves his arm off, "You can just draw straws for it."

"I'll be the best man, hyung," Seunghan grins cheekily, "I'll make sure to give a really good speech, okay?"

"It's almost as if it's a real wedding," you smile bitterly, "Jeong, you'll be my maid of honour right?"

"You have to ask me properly," Minjeong whines, "We're going to do this wedding right, okay? My best friend will only get married once. I'm not letting you let your wedding planner do everything; we've been planning our dream weddings since we were 10 so we'll do it according to that."

"C'mon Y/N," Wonbin bumps his shoulder with yours, "We can make it fun. We know you'd rather not marry hyung, but he had always been the groom in all the weddings you'd plan when you were young. Now it's like a dream come true."

"Yah, Park Wonbin," Eunseok grits his teeth at his friend for bringing up the past. You wince at the reminder as Minjeong slaps his arm.

"Y/N, I think your mother is calling over you and Eunseok to dance," Shotaro calls for you softly, and you turn around to see your mother desperately signalling to you to join her on the dance floor.

"I'll see you guys later," you bid your friends a goodbye as you follow Eunseok into the crowd.

The night crawls by. It's nearly painful as you fake a smile with every passerby and acquaintance who congratulates you for your engagement. It feels like you're getting stabbed in the heart over and over again as everyone coos over how in love the two of you seem and how they always knew you were going to end up together. It crushes you as Eunseok leans down to your ear while you dance, apologising for how this was your life.

You get into his car after the party. The ride home is silent, apart from the noise of the city around you that seeps in even through the rolled up windows. Eunseok won't even dare breathe too loud in fear of making your life even less like what you had dreamed it to be.

He pulls up to your house and you make a quick move to unbuckle your seatbelt and open the door in one motion, but Eunseok wraps his hand around your wrist gently, bringing you back down.

"What is it now, Song?" you sigh in frustration, closing your eyes in defeat.

"I know this night has made your hatred for me 10 times worse," Eunseok begins, shuffling in his seat to reach into his inside pocket, "And I know that what we have isn't real to you, but I thought you at least deserved this."

Your eyes flutter open and you look over to him. He uncurls his clenched hand, unveiling a shiny ring in the middle of his palm. You bite back the gasp that bubbles up through your throat, and you reluctantly take the ring between your fingers without looking at him.

It's exactly your dream ring. It's what you imagined the love of your life to propose with when you were younger. It's what you wanted to be someone's physical manifestation of their love and devotion to you. That makes it all the worse when it comes from Eunseok.

"I remembered," Eunseok reads your mind, "When we went ring shopping when we were young for fun because you wanted to make sure I would propose with the right ring. I hope it's still what you want."

You can't bear to look at Eunseok at all, so you clench the ring in your hand and open the door, "Goodnight Eunseok. Thank you. Get home safely."

There's 100 steps between your front door and your bedroom. It takes what's left of your energy to hold back the sobs that threaten to escape prematurely. As soon as your bedroom door clicks shut, you collapse against your floor and break down in tears.

Why did Song Eunseok have to be such a good man? Why did you have to hate him? He was yours now, and that was what younger you wanted all along. Why were you taking it out on him? You had been holding onto a grudge for so long and he had been trying to make amends in private ever since, despite going along with your whole enemies thing for his own fun.

You hated how you knew that Song Eunseok could and would give you the life you wanted. You hated how all you wanted to do was love him like it was your choice and for him to love you back like it was his. But in this world, you were privileged enough to have everything you ever wanted, aside from the choice to love whoever you wanted to.

You hated how you didn't even have a choice in loving someone who didn't love you back.

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

You fought with Eunseok nearly every time that you saw him through your university years. You found problems in the way he positioned himself too close to you and problems in the way he would distance himself and act like strangers when you did complain about that. You found problems in the way he didn't talk to other girls despite rejecting you and found problems when he would go on dates after you said that.

In short, Song Eunseok was a problem to you.

Yizhuo was forcing shots into your hands and demanding that you downed them with her as you tried to tune back in to the party going on around you. You couldn't think of anything else the second that Song Eunseok walked through the door arm in arm with some girl.

It was the last party of your undergraduate university days, since exams had finished and you were going to graduate in just a couple of weeks. Someone had rented out some kind of manor in the outskirts of Oxford, dedicated for everyone to stay at and party for a weekend. You knew the organiser through a friend of a friend, but everyone that had been invited was someone you either knew personally or knew of. The spoilt brats community at your university was large, but tight.

You obliged Yizhuo's request and bitterly downed the drink, hissing as it burned through your tracts, "What is this? It tastes disgusting."

"Alcohol isn't made to taste nice," she tutted at you, following your line of sight before sighing, "I guess it's time to get you more so you don't have to be sober looking at that."

Minjeong shook her head on the other side of you, "I can't believe he would bring someone here. He knew you'd be here. So disrespectful."

You saw that Eunseok was about to turn, so you quickly spin away in order to avoid eye contact, "It doesn't matter to me. We're not dating."

"But he's your fiancé," Yizhuo stomped in defiance, "He should have some respect for you."

"Since he didn't want to date me, i'd rather him date other people. Then it just looks like he rejected me because he didn't like me as a person," you affirmed, taking another shot with Minjeong.

"Y/N, please. You were 16 when you confessed and 16 year old boys don't have the most mature outlook on life," Minjeong argued, coughing after the bitter shot, "I'm sure he's not stupid anymore. You grew up hot and he's practically tripping over his own feet trying to chase after you."

"He's not chasing me," you scoffed, "He brought a girl here."

"Oh, you're impossible, Y/N," Yizhuo cried out, beginning to slur, "What do you actually want that poor boy to do? Even I would be confused with the way you act."

Your best friends have been trying to knock sense into you since you turned 18 and Eunseok gave up his dream to study at Harvard to be with you in England. They had claimed that Eunseok realised his feelings for you and wanted to make up for rejecting you. You claimed that if that was his intention, he would have told you that by now instead of pestering you by inserting himself into your new life without reason.

"He can do whatever he wants," you turned your nose up, "I don't care about him."

"Well you better act that way. He's coming," Minjeong warned you, suddenly disappearing with Yizhuo and leaving you stranded with your fiancé walking towards you.

It honestly felt like the grim reaper floating over in slow motion before he came to collect your soul. You fought hard to control the grimace on your face as he stopped in front of you.

"Y/N," he greeted softly, leaning in to give you a hug. You stood still, but you don't push him away. You ignored the way your heart skipped a beat when he pressed his cheek gently against the top of your head.

"Eunseok,"

"How were exams? You're graduating this year, right?" his head is tilted at you, eyes focused into yours.

"Why are you even asking? I'm sure you know my plans for the next 10 years considering you're still following me around," you scoffed, "Does your new girl know you're moving to New York after graduation so you can stalk me while I do my masters?"

"Are you jealous?" he smirked suddenly, gentle demeanour disappearing, "She's just a friend."

"Does she know that? I don't care what you do, Song. I just feel bad for the poor girl whose heart you're going to break when you tell her you're engaged," you feigned nonchalance, pouring yourself another shot, "I guess it's my fault for telling you to have your fun and experience things since apparently you'll be so devoid of love when you get married."

"Y/N," he trailed off, grabbing the soju bottle that had appeared in your hands, "You know it's not like that. I didn't mean it like that when I reject-"

"Save it, Song," you rolled your eyes, "Your girl is coming. Don't go blaming me when time comes to break her heart."

You turned away in time and managed to snatch back your alcohol before arms wrap around Eunseok's and a high pitch voice squeals to him about how she lost him. You find Sungchan somewhere in the crowd and convince him to call you a taxi to take you back into the town where your apartment was. Before he could even confirm the booking, you had already disappeared into the crowd, the shots you had taken truly seeping into your blood and making your head spin.

You don't really remember what happened the rest of that night, but if you try hard enough, you can remember being tucked into a bed on the third floor, big eyes peering down at you as you tossed under the duvet, a hunched figure sat at the end of the bed on the floor and a soft voice singing you to a deep slumber.

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

"It's gorgeous, darling," your mother's voice takes you out of the focus mode you're in. The sunlight seeps through the stained glass, illuminating the sunroom at the back of your house. If you look down through the windows, you'd find the garden that your mother has been cultivating for decades. The rose garden with its arches and its vines was where you'd dreamed to get proposed to when you were young.

"You think so?" you showed her the sketch in full, turning the pad, "Do you think it's easy enough to create in real life?"

"We can make anything you want happen," your mother takes a seat in the lounge chair next to yours.

"Can you make Eunseok love me back?" you hum dejectedly, shading in the corset of what would be your wedding dress.

"He does, sweetheart. You just refuse to see it," your mother swiftly utters, and you stop your drawing, clenching the pencil tightly in your fist.

"Why does everyone say that?" you growl, "Everyone but Eunseok."

"Because you act like you hate him. You act like marrying him is the worst thing in the world. You act like there's nothing he could say or do that would bring him back into your favour despite you loving him all these years," your mother is lecturing you now, "He follows your lead, my darling. He will go to the ends of the earth for you and he always has. What more does he have to do for you to accept the way he shows his love? What more can he do to have your forgiveness?"

There's tears welling up in your eyes and your mother takes the drawing pad away from you to examine the dress you had envisioned. She carries on while you chew your lip and fight back the tears.

"You're going to be beautiful in this dress. One year's time will fly by, so make amends with Eunseok by then. Even if you don't go into this marriage as lovers, at least go into it as friends. That will make your life easier."

"I don't want to be friends," you grit out.

"Mhm, you want all or nothing. Why don't you ask him, then? He threw the ball in your court when he asked you if this marriage is what you want. Someone who doesn't love you or care about you wouldn't give you the option to run away to save yourself, you know?" you hate how insightful your mother is as she grabs your left hand, "This ring is beautiful, Y/N. He knows your heart like it's his."

"Cause it is his," you choke as the tears begin falling, "And he stamped all over it 8 years ago."

"He was just a young boy back then. He's followed you all over the world to be by your side ever since. He's sacrificed his own life to make your dreams come true. You have no choice but to marry each other, but he's been making choices to give you the life you wanted," she strokes your hair gently, "Can you give the boy a chance?"

Over the years, your parents had apologised to you for putting you in such a situation. They had told you that if you truly, inside your heart, didn't want to get married to Song Eunseok, they would call the whole thing off. The marriage was a way to ensure the merger wouldn't go awry by putting you and Eunseok as collateral if one side ever did try to betray the other. Tying the two of you together in marriage was a way to prevent either families from ruining the other.

You considered putting a stop to things more times than you could count on your fingers, but selfishly, you would imagine yourself on a rocking chair on a porch, hair grey and skin wrinkly and when you would look over to see who would be on the other chair, Eunseok was the only one you could imagine with you.

"But I've treated him so horribly all these years," you hiccup, trying to stop your crying, "There's no way that Eunseok would love someone like me."

"Because you won't let him," she stands up and places the drawing pad back in your lap, "Y/N, your father and I love you very much and all we want is your happiness. We haven't opposed this marriage despite how hard you've tried to push Eunseok away because we know that if you let him, he would make you truly happy. You're the only person stopping that happiness."

You ponder on her words for a while after she leaves, adding little details to your dress. For someone who was acting like this wedding was going to ruin their life, you sure were investing a lot of your free time into it. Maybe Minjeong had gotten into your head; unless you planned to divorce Eunseok (after the 5 year clause, per the contract), you were only going to get married once, so you should at least do it in your style.

Wonbin was right at your engagement party. You'd been planning your wedding since young. You knew exactly which flowers you wanted to adorn the aisle, which flavour of cake you wanted to eat, which song was going to play while you walked down the aisle, and whose eyes you wanted on you on the other side as you did. Eunseok had always been your dream man- he was your first crush, your first love and your first heartbreak all rolled up into one devastatingly handsome package. You imagined him in his crisp suit, laughing through his tears because you just looked so beautiful, and the thought of that takes you out of your fantasy and back into the room that was filled not with tears of happiness, but of silence.

You look down at the ring. The sun is hitting it perfectly, making the diamond shimmer in the beam. You slide it off and inspect the band for the first time, wondering what size he got since you didn't even know your size. Your heart stops when you first notice it. It's so small that if you blinked at that moment, you probably wouldn't have even noticed it and you would've lived the rest of your life not knowing it was there.

You run your nail against the engraving, your breath hitched as you read it.

To the one I'll always choose.

It's always been about choice. This whole time, it's been about your freedom to choose.

You and Eunseok weren't born with the privilege of choosing the one who was going to love you so hard that it would drive you crazy. You were instead born with a silver spoon in your mouth and a signed contract that because your family was going to have a girl first, that girl would be married to the Song's first born when the time came.

There was no question or argument about it. You grew up beside Eunseok knowing you were going to spend the rest of your life together, so you chose to learn everything about him. You chose to learn that he loved playing basketball with his friends and that he became silly and unserious when around them. You chose to learn that he doted on his much younger baby brother and that he would fight anyone and anything that could bring harm to him. You chose to learn that Eunseok had a soft heart that had its very own soft spot reserved just for you- one that grew bigger after your hatred for him did as well.

While you chose to hate Eunseok for rejecting you, he chose to stick by your side anyways. He chose to join you in Oxford, even if most of his friends went to America to study. He chose to live at the block just down the street from yours, so he could walk behind you to lectures and check that you were okay every day without overwhelming you. He chose to sleep on hard floors and wake up with kinks in his neck because he chose to sing you to sleep while you were drunk and then refused to leave to sleep in a nice bed so he could watch over you and protect you in your state. He chose to take on a job in New York for two years instead of joining his father's company straight out of business school so that you had someone to accompany you on your midnight walks through New York City. He chose to give you the choice to leave if marrying him was truly a burden you couldn't bear, because your happiness was the grand reward of the consequences that he would bear in your place.

When you chose to hate him, Eunseok let love grow in the emptiness that you left behind instead. He would choose you a million times over and over again until the day you'd finally see it. Your hatred for the situation stemmed from the fact that you thought your choices were stripped away in being arranged to marry. You wanted Eunseok to love you not because he had to, but because it was his choice to.

You were too blind by your rage to see that Eunseok had been choosing you over and over again not because of the arrangement, but in spite of it. That was the greatest love of them all.

On the next sunny day, Eunseok joins you on the bench in the middle of the rose garden. You'd been sketching up ideas on how you want the aisle to look like. You were thinking light flowers along the bottom with candles dispersed to illuminate it. In your dreams, you'd get married at sunset in a glass pavilion that could hold only your closest friends and families. As the sun started dipping, the candles would take over as the source of light and bathe everyone in a soft, golden glow. In your dreams, the light would reflect onto Eunseok's face, highlighting his sharp cheekbones and large, round eyes that were peering down into yours.

"What did you call me over for?" Eunseok sits on his hands and looks around. It's spring time and the garden is at its most vibrant and beautiful.

You hold out your hand in front of you, "I found the engraving on the ring."

Eunseok takes a sharp breath in, "Ah you did?"

"Did you not want me to see it?"

"I had just hoped that whenever you did see it, you would believe it," Eunseok whispered, "It's true, by the way."

"I know," your response has Eunseok turning his head so fast it almost gives him whiplash.

"You do?"

"Mhm. You chose to follow me around the world despite me hating you and you having to give up on your dream schools just so you could try to prove yourself to me. You chose to keep giving me gifts on birthdays when we were abroad since my family often couldn't make it. You always choose me. Why?"

"In part to make amends for the mistake I made when I was young pushing away your feelings like that without thought," Eunseok explained, "But for the most part because I care about you and I want to make the best of a bad situation we're in. I know that no one wants to be in an arranged marriage. I just wanted to show you that I could give you the life you wanted. That you could be happy with me."

Your heart aches at his words as you realise how truly misguided your perception of him was. You had thought that he was following you around to torment you and to remind you that you could never be free, but all this time, he was letting you live your dreams and staying by your side to show that he was supporting you.

"I've treated you so badly over the years and you still want to marry me?" you meet his eyes that have been trained on you since the moment he sat down.

Eunseok giggles and reaches up his warm palm to your cold face, "Hm, your words are harmless Y/N. You've shown your affection to me in other ways; I know you love me."

You roll your eyes and push his hand away, "In your dreams, Song."

"Mhm, actually in your dreams," Eunseok teases, "Considering you've been dreaming about marrying me for 10 years."

"And I don't know why. I must be sick in the head for that. Did you hit me in the head when we were young or something?" you retort, trying to move away from him.

Eunseok lets out a full-bodied laugh that sends butterflies through you instead of the burning rage that usually ensued whenever he was having fun in front of you. He stretched his arm around you behind the bench and pulled you closer to him, "Just admit it, Y/N. Everyone knows you've had a fat crush on me since we were teens and it's only ever grown. There's a very, very fine line between love and hate."

"I still hate you," you grumble, "This doesn't mean anything."

Eunseok drops his head down, pushing your head into his shoulder. Your first instinct is to recoil away and grimace, but Eunseok's grip on your shoulder is tight, so you try to relax in his hold.

"You'll always be my girl, Y/N. You just have to accept that."

You hum and watch the bees buzz around the rose garden, "I've always wanted the whole ordeal- the crushing, the pining, the courting, going on dates, having your firsts, moving in together, proposing how you want. I feel like that was taken away from me before I even knew what they were and even if we do those things, how would I know what's real and what's fake? What you're doing because of me and what you're doing because of the arrangement- that kind of stuff."

Eunseok's heartbeat is slow and strong, "The arrangement only brought us to each other. How can I make you believe that everything I do for you is because I want to?"

"How about we start with when you rejected me and left poor little 16 year old me heartbroken?"

Eunseok scoffs, "Y/N, I was stupid, okay? It was a mistake, I was young and I was too blind to see what was in front of me. You were still special to me back then and I have always cared for you, but I didn't know what I wanted back then. I grew up and haven't looked back since."

"And the girls you brought around at university?"

"Because you were demanding that I dated other people," Eunseok rolls his eyes, thinking about your past explosive arguments about relationships, "I just went on dates here and there, but never anything serious. I always let them know that I couldn't commit, but you know there was a line wrapping around Oxford wanting to date me."

You chuckle at that. Everyone was falling over their feet for the chance to get just a second of Song Eunseok's time, the same way he was doing to you. He was incredibly popular and girls would approach you to ask you to set them up, but you would always growl and send them on their way.

"You were only the most eligible bachelor because you're the son of the third richest family in Korea," you sneer, jokingly.

"And I'm handsome, charming, intelligent and kind," Eunseok lists off his traits on his fingers, "But everyone knows you've always had my heart."

"I don't know if I can believe that."

He shrugs simply beside you, "Doesn't matter. I can show you now."

"What?"

"We can date from now on. I'll show you how I feel. Then in one year's time, you'll be gladly getting married to me instead of having to be dragged up the aisle kicking and screaming by your family," he says it so casually that you question if the shocked reaction you're having is the abnormal one.

"Date?" you splutter out, completely bewildered, pulling away from him, "Us two? Now?"

"Why are you saying it like it's crazy? I basically just confessed to you," Eunseok crosses his arms in front of his chest and tilts his head in confusion, "Are you rejecting me? Is this payback?"

You wave your hand in dismissal, "Yah, you're really confusing me here, Eunseok. I don't know what I'm feeling right now."

He laughs again, and he's glad that he can finally laugh with you for the first time in years. He takes your hand between his and squeezes assuringly, "It's okay. We can figure it out together as we go. Just stay by my side, okay?"

You sigh into the breeze. The air was crisping up as the sky began to illuminate in visions of pink and purple. You look over at Eunseok and the reflection of the sun makes his eyes look iridescent. One thing you've always known about Eunseok is that with him, you felt safe, so you nod and squeeze his hand back, "Yeah."

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The first time you saw Eunseok again after your undergraduate graduation, it was in New York City at the end of summer.

You had spent the entire summer travelling nearly every country in Europe with your friends, while Eunseok was forced to come home and start learning how to actually work in his father's company before he started his role at the New York branch. You were glad to have this summer without him considering the two of you spent your summers together as children and as teens, your friendship groups overlapped so you also had to hang out with him.

There were endless boxes in your apartment since decorating your space was one of your life's great pleasures. The boxes were organised by room and had been shipped out from England at the start of the summer when you moved out. They'd been collecting dust, so all your windows were thrown open in the summer heat to air out the apartment and the dust. Of course you had AC, but there was something about the noise of the city traffic and the hustle and bustle travelling up to your apartment that made you feel like you were truly in the city.

The knock on your door made you groan instantly and you had to suppress the urge of banging your head into the coffee table you were decorating. You took small and slow steps to the front door, but the pattering on the door wasn't letting up.

"Already here to bother me on my first day? It's only been like 3 hours since I got off the plane," you sighed as you came face to face with your dreaded fiancé.

Eunseok rolled his eyes and pushed past your shoulders into your kitchen, "I know you missed me. I brought takeout since you probably haven't eaten and don't have any food yet." Eunseok held up a bag of his favourite Korean food in the city and placed it on your dining table, dishing out the styrofoam boxes.

He arrived in the city a week and a half before you did, moving into the apartment across the hall so he had been able to get himself settled into both his job and his city before you came to rain down terror on him.

"What makes you think I want to eat with you?"

"I bought it, so I'm gonna eat it. Up to you if you wanna starve or not," Eunseok shrugged, already making himself comfy in one of your expensive dining chairs. He took out some plastic cutlery from the bag and began to dig in to the beef bibimbap he had ordered for himself. There was another few boxes of food in the bag, all of which smelling amazing and instantly causing your stomach to grumble.

Sheepishly, you took the seat across from him and scavenged through the food. He had ordered you some tteokbokki and a stew with some rice. Either he knew you too well or it was a lucky guess. For the sake of your heart, you settled on the latter choice.

The two of you ate in silence for a while, not really looking up at each other and just staring passively at your food. Silence was few and far between when it came to you and Eunseok. It was always hushed arguing or full blown insulting between the two of you no matter where you went or how inappropriate it may have seemed to others. You were sure there were rumours that the two of you didn't always get on despite being photographed together so often, but your families' PR teams were experts in mangling all those 'rumours'.

You broke the silence first, "How's the new job?"

The heir in front of you coughs and looks at you strangely, as if he couldn't believe you would ask him that, "It's... work. Not horrible and met a couple friendly colleagues. Having this job does make me feel so grown up and responsible, though," after the initial shock of you initiating a conversation, Eunseok began blabbering about his new position at his family's company.

"Well then hopefully it makes you more mature," you snide.

Eunseok scoffed, "Trust me, Y/N, when I say that I'm the more mature one out of us. You'll find out what I mean one day."

"If you were mature enough, you'd know to oppose this crazy marriage with me," you turned your head away from him, feeling the anger bubble up again.

"And it's because I'm mature enough that I'm not," he shrugged, "Unlike you, I don't think this marriage will be the worst thing that can happen to me."

"I'm honoured," you retorted, "I don't know why you think that when all I've done is make your life difficult. Why would you think I can't continue for the rest of our lives?"

He smiled coyly at you, pushing a drink that appeared in the bag towards you, "You'll get tired, sweetheart. Then you'll fall in love with me."

You feel sick at how he's all entirely wrong. Despite that, you appreciate how he's always able to diffuse any tension between the two of you even if his words are always cocky and arrogant. z

You don't say anything to him for a long while. When you finished up your food in silence, he packed everything anyway and placed it in the correct bins. Wordlessly, he began to unpack your boxes with you, unwrapping everything bubble wrapped and placing it on the kitchen counters for you to organise. You would have protested this act of service, but he's right- fighting him all the time does get tiring.

In this light from the living room as the sun setting made your apartment glow and burst with light, Eunseok looks radiant. You hope he can't see you admiring him from the next room. It's almost as if you're a normal couple, moving into their first home and starting their new life together. It's a melancholy sight as you ponder the what if's.

He breaks down all of your boxes flat, humming to himself a song that you think you've heard at the end of parties when you'd be sat on someone's bedroom floor just talking or playing cards half-drunk. Eunseok turned his head towards you and you whipped your head away so fast it hurts your neck.

"You still have this?" he held up a mug that instantly flashed you back to 6 years ago. The mug is majority a light pink and wonky in places since you made it yourself from clay. It was a few months process making and painting the mug, but when you were 15 with the biggest crush on him, having a mug brandishing "Y/N + EUNSEOK" on it made you feel giddy inside.

"All my other mugs broke," you lied through your teeth, snatching it from his grip and placing it in a random empty cupboard, "My mother packed it for me when I moved to Oxford."

"Mhm, okay," you could tell he was smirking but you made yourself busy with the plates, "I'm gonna take the boxes down to the recycling. Do you want any more help?"

"I've had enough of you for today," you breathed out. Too much time with him truly drove you crazy, "But thanks."

"Anytime, princess. I'm just across the hall if you need me and I'll get your number whenever you get it set up." he wiped his hands on his jeans and have you that charming smile that made you fall in the first place.

You see him out wordlessly. You don't argue when he turns up the next day demanding for your number in case you ever needed anything from him (or if he wanted to come and bother you). You feign annoyance when one morning he's insisting that he ran out of coffee in his apartment and wanted some of yours. You leave him in your apartment because you were running late to class, but when you get home, you open the cupboard and try not to fall all over again when you see a matching, much lumpier, handmade blue mug that brandished the words "TO FOREVER <3" on it next to yours.

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You're tossing and turning in your seat as Eunseok shakes you gently. He laughs when you groan under your breath as he wakes you up, "Sit up. We're landing soon."

The sleep you got on the flight was long, but you still woke up incredibly tired since you kept getting woken up for meals. You were grateful that you could fly first class with separate seats and beds, otherwise you'd be much more groggy than you already were.

Buckling yourself in the seat next to Eunseok's, you yawn, "Eunseok, what the fuck is an engagement trip?"

"A trip celebrating our engagement, duh," he looks at you like you're stupid, so you shove him as hard as your tired body could muster, "Like a honeymoon but before. Never too many excuses to take a vacation. Plus, we're going to be busy this trip."

You've never taken a vacation with just Eunseok before. Sure, you've lived in three different countries together outside of Korea and gone on a couple of vacations as children and with a large group of friends, but never just the two of you with a purpose.

"I don't understand why our wedding planner couldn't just pick a venue for herself and call it a day. Why must we go all the way to Italy and do it ourselves?" you're up to your neck in work, but you couldn't protest when you found a week blocked off in your calendar by your assistant, telling you it was 'orders from above' AKA your father.

"It was my idea," he confesses with a shrug, "Won't it be nice if we actually like where we're getting married? If we chose it ourselves because we can see ourselves getting married there?"

It feels like your heart is clenching at the insinuations behind his words. He wants to get involved with your wedding planning, like it's a real wedding. You sniff and turn away from him. It is a real wedding, you remind yourself. You were going to get married legally and this wedding was real, no matter the intention behind it. No matter if you loved or hated each other, it was a real wedding.

"Yeah. Everywhere in Italy is nice so at leadt it'll be a good trip," the past couple of months since you've been officially engaged to Eunseok, you've been attempting to be nicer and hold back your retorts. You've made an effort to argue less and he's been trying to get on your good side. You've both been busy with work considering the news of the merger brought a whole new wave of problems, so you've had no time to interrogate his profession to "date" you. Thank gosh, because your heart would not be able to take that.

The plane lands soon enough and before you know it, you're in a private car going to your hotel. You were staying in Milan, but driving around Lake Como and Tuscany to tour the list of potential venues that your wedding planner had come up with. You were definitely going to be exhausted by the end of it.

The drive was relatively silent, just listening to music and looking out of the window, but when you arrive at the hotel, Eunseok opens the car door for you and snakes his arm around your waist as you walk up to the front desk, "Hello. We're checking in to the penthouse suite. For Song?"

The hotel clerk smiles sweetly, handing over your keys swiftly, "All ready for you both, Mr Song. Congratulations on your engagement."

You're spluttering a thank you with flushed cheeks as Eunseok drags you over to the elevator, "You told them?"

"I just wanted the free champagne that I assume will be up there," he grins cheekily and you roll your eyes. As if he couldn't afford it.

You are however delighted to find a small cake beside the bucket of ice cold champagne and you dig into the red velvet goodness as you watch Eunseok open up your suitcases and hang your clothes up in the master bedroom wardrobe meticulously. You're halfway into the cake when he drags his suitcases out of the room.

"Wait, where are you going?" you frown.

Eunseok snickers, "To the other bedroom? Why? Do you want me to stay with you?"

"Oh. I just didn't know there were two rooms." you say sheepishly.

Eunseok stops in his tracks, hand on his suitcase loosening, "So you went into this trip okay with the thought of sleeping with me? If so, I'll stay here with you then."

"No!" you call out, "Just- just shut up and go."

The smirk on his face is smug as he nods and continues his leave, "Alright, sweetheart, but let me know if you get nightmares and want company."

You bear the butter knife at him and he laughs melodically on his way out. You pop the champagne yourself and drown a glass down, hoping you'd be able to make it out the trip unscathed. He's running into the room with a pout after hearing the loud pop of the corkscrew, so you pour the both of you a glass and you clink them together as you chugged them back.

The days pass by similarly. You wake up and have breakfast together before embarking on a sleepy drive to a venue. You have lunch in endless terraces and gardens under the sun, basking in the heat and evaluating the venue you saw that morning. You both ooh and ahh at different venues that all look the same before you find a flaw in it that stops you from making the decision to host one of the most important days of your lives there. Some are too big, some too small, too pretentious, not pretty enough, the flowers aren't the ones you envisioned, the location too secluded or not enough. You always agree on the flaws of the venues and it's the penultimate full day when you make it to the final venue on the list.

"If I don't like this venue then I'm not marrying you," you huff in the car as it pulls up the driveway.

"Who knew wedding venues were so complicated?" Eunseok exhales in frustration, "Should we just get married in Seoul?"

You puff out your lips, "Italy was always my dream, but I was naive to the process."

Eunseok smiles and takes your hand, "I have faith in this one. At least I hope." The commitment he has to giving you your dream wedding despite it all is unwavering.

When you enter the final venue, you think that maybe it was the last on the list for a reason, since you're blown away every step you take through the grounds. The hallways to the main room is ornate and delicate at the same time, with pretty floral paintings wrapping the walls and big windows letting in the golden light. The room where your reception could be held is stunning with murals all over the walls and a dome ceiling that compliments it perfectly. It's neither too big, nor too small and there's little nooks and crannies for guests to nestle themselves in. You could see yourself in the middle, slow dancing with your head on your husband's shoulder.

"This is nice," Eunseok awes, coming up behind you with the grounds manager, "Very pretty."

You nod in agreement and ask to see the gardens, since you always wanted to get married outside in the sun. The manager gushes over the outside while she leads you out and your heart is pounding in anticipation. Eunseok probably guessed how giddy you were, because he joins you by your side and gives you a hopeful look.

"We're here. Most brides start from here and have the aisle straight down to the arch."

She throws open the double doors and you gasp in admiration at the sight in front of you. The stairs going down to the garden seen steep, but grand. You envision that your father could probably help you hobble down to the garden, where it was staged as a wedding venue. There's chairs laid out in rows, decorated in tulle and bows with an aisle adorned in flowers. At the end of the garden, there's an arch with vines wrapped around it and flowers creeping up. From where you were standing, you could see that this garden was actually on a balcony overlooking a lake that seemed to be glowing and sparkling as the slight wind caused some ripples on the surface

"I'll give you two some time to explore?" she proposes, to which Eunseok nods and wraps his hand around your wrist, tugging you down the stairs.

"First impressions?" he's looking around with blown out pupils as the two of you reach the bottom of the stairs and the beginning of the aisle.

"I like this one a lot," you shyly admit, "It's exactly what I imagined."

"I love it as well. Why don't you walk down the aisle and see how you feel. Imagine yourself on the day," he's taking off in front of you, running swiftly to the arch before you could even take a breath and get a word out.

At his antics, you let out a full-belly laugh and straighten out the ivory dress you happened to be wearing. You look down at the slip dress hitting your ankles and think it might be fate you chose to wear this specific dress on this specific day. You look up and find Eunseok suddenly frozen still at the other end, hands intertwined in front of him and his eyes trained solely on you.

When he notices that you meet his eyes, he gives you a gentle smile as he mouths to you, "Come here."

It takes you a few breaths to actually muster up the courage to follow his direction. You think that walking down a straight path shouldn't be such a big deal, but the thought that this could be the very steps you take to marry the same man at the end in less than a year's time strikes your heart.

The aisle is a soft and smooth stone, perfect for walking on in high heels. It's wide enough that a wedding dress wouldn't drag along the sides and knock over the flowers and long enough for anticipation to build as Eunseok gazes down at you from afar.

"Y/N," Eunseok calls over.

You take the first step and your breath catches in your throat. All you can look at is Eunseok now, with his shirt unbuttoned at the first three to expose some chest and his hair falling over his eyes. He keeps fidgeting with his fingers, as if he couldn't stand still and his lips are puckering and stretching as if he had much more to say.

The second step is easier than the first and the third one even more so. By the fifth step, Eunseok is chewing on his bottom lip and you're ridden with anticipation to meet him at the end.

With each step you take down the aisle, you're flashed back to all the crucial moments in your life with Song Eunseok so far.

You were sandbox best friends. You learned to walk together, and then ride bikes with each other. You learned to swim in the same swimming pool that still remained in your garden. You learned to ski and snowboard with each other in the blustery mountains of the alps. You were each other's first heartbreaks when you were teens. You took your first alcoholic drink together with your friends by the Han river, faces flushed red and hearts beating out of your chests at the prospect of getting caught. You got blackout drunk together for the first time during your first week of university. You posed together as you threw your graduation caps up in the air at the end of the three years. You chased each other around New York City, running around in blocks after he snatched your phone from your grasp when you would ignore him. You begrudgingly invited him to ride swan paddle boats with you in every lake and river around the city since he was the only person that would drop everything for you at a moment's notice. You would leave containers of home cooked food outside his doors when you noticed he was getting swamped with work, knowing he had the tendency to either order too much unhealthy takeout or stop eating altogether when busy.

With every step you take to meet Eunseok at the bottom of the aisle, you accept that Eunseok has been with you for every step of your life.

He's an arm's length away when you notice his eyes are glossier than usual. Eunseok refuses to break the stare between the two of you as you arrive in front of him, exactly where you would stand under the arch if you got married at this very space.

"Are you crying?" you whisper, afraid of your own voice.

He chortles and dabs at his eyes, "It's just the wind."

"Mhm," you hum, fighting back the smile threatening to expose your emotions, "What do you think?"

Eunseok takes a bold step towards you and closes the gap between your bodies. He's closer than you've ever had him and you can nearly feel his breath on your skin. It's making you dizzy but all you can do is keep your eyes on him.

"Eunseok," you murmur in a hushed tone.

His head is drifting closer down to yours, forehead nearly touching. If you moved your face even just by a centimetre, your noses would bump and you knew you wouldn't be able to stop yourself.

"Let's get married here," Eunseok nudges his face forwards. You have to stop yourself from pulling back even with the drumming in your chest, "You're going to look so beautiful. You do already."

"I like this place. Our parents would like it here too."

Eunseok's eyes flutter shut as he sighs and shakes his head gently, "No, let's get married here because we want to, not because our parents would like it. Let's get married because we want to."

"Eunseok," his name falls out of your mouth like it's the most sacred word you can say.

His forehead is still pressed against yours, his eyes squeezed tight and his palm comes up to make home on your cheek, "I love you. I always have."

Sincerity drips from his words and you know that this time, it's the real thing. It's the words you'd been dying to hear him say sincerely for a decade. It's the words that underlined every fight and argument you've had as adults. He finally and bravely bares his heart to you for the first time, still considerate as he always had been by giving you the choice to determine what will end up of the two of you.

There's something different about his profession of love after all you'd experienced together. Back then, when you confessed that you liked him, the world would probably say it was just some puppy love- a silly high school crush. Something that would fizzle over and dissolve when you would experience the real hardships of life and what it could throw at you. You think that a late confession carries a profound and heartfelt meaning like no other.

"Seok-"

He cuts you off before you could finish, pulling away from you and causing you to open your eyes, "I don't need an answer yet, Y/N. I just need you to know that I want to be with you. I want to be your boyfriend, your husband, your partner- whatever you want me to be. I want to make you only happy from now on, instead of angry or resentful. I want to be by your side and keep following you around the world. I want everything with you."

You've never felt more sure of anything else in the world when you bounce up on your tiptoes and capture his face between your hands, pressing your lips against his. It feels like every nerve ending in your body is on fire, but at the same time feeling relief as if this was the one thing in the world that could finally relieve you from all the anger and bitterness you had been displaying and trying to internalise for all these years. Deep down, you could never ever hate Song Eunseok, the boy who has had your heart since you were just young.

He's rigid for a split second while he processes your own confession, but he quickly regains enough composure to part his lips and deepen the kiss, moulding your lips to each other's. It's unlike anything he's ever felt before and he finally understood the real pleasure of kissing someone you really love. As he runs his tongue along your bottom lip, Eunseok knows that he could do this for the rest of his life.

"Song Eunseok, I love you too," your eyes are glistening with adoration as you pull away from his kiss, "Let's get married?"

When he finally looks you in the eye at the moment you give yourself back to him, he can't help the tears that finally break free from their barrier. He's laughing as he finally pulls you to his chest, wrapping his arms around your body in desperation of keeping you close to him. You nuzzle deeper into him and he tucks his head into your neck. His body is shaking with the laughter of relief and his heartstrings tug when he feels his shirt dampening at the exact spot where your face laid.

"You're the one I'll always choose to love," he coo's into your ear words that travel straight into your heart, "For the rest of my life, for the rest of yours."

You look down at your hand and breathe deeply as the ring glistens on your finger. The Italian sun makes it shine bright as the symbol of your love. You start thinking of what you want to engrave on the inside of the ring that you want to get him. You start thinking of the dress and suit you'll be wearing at this very spot soon enough. You're dreaming of the house you move into together and of the company you'll spearhead by each other's side. You fantasise over your future kids- the kids you hope will have his eyes and your nose. You yearn for the life you know Eunseok will give you and your heart is finally at peace, knowing it will always be him.

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

#eunseok #riize #riize au #eunseok au #song eunseok #riize fic #riize fanfic #riize x reader #eunseok x reader #eunseok fluff #riize fluff #riize angst #riize imagine #riize one shot #riize fic recs #eunseok fic recs #arranged marriage au

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azulpitlane · 9 months

Note

got love stuck part 3 please i’m begging it’s so good i need it

out of the woods I ln4

pairing: lando norris x reader, exbf! mason mount x reader summary: in which lando has to communicate his insecurities but is he too late? notes: ask and you shall receive, this one took a while cause I had it all written out then I hated it and started over😇but this is the last part!! i loved making this thank u for being so supportive considering part one was my first ever post!! now send some requests hehe part one, part two, masterlist

lando i fucked up, its too late

danny ric what do you mean its too late?

lando i texted her and no response she went to dinner with mason tonight they're probably still together right now

danny ric okay so you're jumping into conclusions AGAIN you have to have some faith in her mate and stop assuming the worst

lando she was with her ex after our breakup what am I suppose to do?

danny ric communicate, you muppet you can't just give up after one try

lando okay okay you're right, i was overthinking im booking the next flight to london

danny ric um i was thinking maybe a phone call?

lando too late, already booked it

dailymail

102,339 likes

dailymail Trouble in paradise? Singer Y/n Y/l/n and F1 driver Lando Norris reunited in London today. Onlookers claim the two were having a heated conversation about their relationship and it is unclear whether the two are currently together or not. Was this argument result of Y/l/n's infidelity? The singer was spotted twice within this month with ex boyfriend, Mason Mount. Read more on the singer's relationship timeline with Mount and Norris in our article linked in the bio.

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user yes lets just make assumptions that y/n is a cheater based on nothing🙄

user if lando took her back ill be so mad. shes so toxic

user you have no idea what shes like in real life? you're just basing your opinion on some stupid tabloid that constantly spreads misinformation on her

user WAR IS OVER (THEYRE STILL TOGETHER IDC WHAT ANYONE SAYS).

user YUP Y/N AND LANDO DEFENDER TIL I DIE user SAME IM CONVINCED SHE NEVER CHEATED IDC IDC

user this doesn't even look like a heated argument to me?? y'all be doing too much

user please let this be just a friendly conversation and her and mason got back together☹️

user its been a year, I think its time to move on from that relationship user yup!! shes clearly moved on y'all need to do it too user her relationship with lando has been messy from the start, she never had to deal with this drama with mason that's all im sayin

user this page is obsessed with y/n!! leave my girl aloneeee

yourusername

liked by landonorris, masonmount and 5,283,239 others

yourusername out of the woods out now.

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selenagomez on repeat already💙 liked by yourusername

user WAIT WHOS THE GUY IN THE LAST SLIDE

user HAS TO BE LANDO user praying its mase but I have a feeling its lando☹️

user the way these lyrics can apply to both mason or lando so we have no clue who its about🧍‍♀️

user and they both liked aghhhh!!!!

danielricciardo amazing song, so so proud liked by yourusername

francisca.cgomes can't stop listening im obsessed😍 liked by yourusername

user okay danny and the wags are all commenting this is a good sign for us lando and y/n defenders

alexandrasaintmleux you're so talented I love it!! liked by yourusername

user y/n dropping this after being seen with lando again, I think its time for us mason defenders to retire :(

landonorris

liked by danielricciardo, yourusername and 920,482 others

landonorris want you for worse or for better, would wait forever and ever tagged yourusername

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user YES WE CAN FINALLY SAY WAR IS OVER

user I KNEW IT YES

yourusername and that's how it works💙

user these are definitely song lyrics AHHHH user landos listened to the new album omfsgnks user new album is gonna be mix of love and breakup songs with the drama methinks

user MOM AND DAD ARE DONE FIGHTING

maxfewtrell sap

user careful lando, once a cheater always a cheater

user where is the proof of her cheating?? there literally is none user they literally broke up after she was seen with mason user give up this narrative already!! her and lando are clearly happy together so who cares

yourusername

liked by landonorris, carlossainz55 and 7,284,234 others

yourusername these past few weeks have felt like a crazy, emotional train wreck but there's nobody else I would've rather done it with than my best friend and lover💙 i usually never address anything like this but there are somethings that aren't easy to shake off especially when it comes to my relationship and my loyalty being questioned. there has never been somebody who has been so perfect for me and i would never trade this love for anybody elses. i could go on and on about it but i find it easier to communicate through music.

my new album is out tonight at midnight, it is a collection of songs written from last year to now. interpret the songs as you like but just know there is only one person im in love with right now.

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user OMFG WEVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS

user she just nicely told all mason x y/n supporters to stfu

user not only that but she beat the cheater allegations🙏

user THIS IS SO CUTE WHAT

user "would never trade this love for anybody elses" IMCRYIN

landonorris love you so so much, dont know what I would do without you

yourusername lan love u more🥹 user AWWW user nobody can be a mason x y/n fan after this cause they are too cute

landonorris this album is amazing, im so incredibly proud of you and everything you've been through liked by yourusername

carlossainz55 very excited for this one liked by yourusername

masonmount this was very well said, congrats on the new album!! liked by yourusername

user OMG? user in their besties era omdfsnkln user I knew they were just friends through all this!!!

user okay officially retiring the mason x y/n agenda..it was a good run

user def the end of an era but our girl is happy🫶

user now that the drama is over can we focus on how good this album is gonna be

user fr the drought is officially over

yourusername

liked by landonorris, yourbff and 3,232,325 others

yourusername the love for my new album has been insane, thank you guys so much!! so many records broken just on the first day of the release and i couldn't have done it without you guys💙

now it is time to hibernate for a little bit and spend some much needed time off with my loved ones so this is a lil goodbye... for now!

see ya later

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user NO COME BACK

user gave us some lando content before dipping, thank u mother

user she took 'I know places we won't be found' to a whole different level because nobody can find out where theyre vacationing

user good!! they need some privacy after this messy drama

landonorris got you all to myself now

maxfewtrell gross yourusername perv

kellypiquet ❤️‍🩹 liked by yourusername

user but will we see you at the paddock next season🥹

yourusername ofc!! catch me rooting for my babyyy

user what a crazy era. hopefully well get some performances and lando supporting after this break

landonorris will be front row at every show user wag and rockstar's bf. try not to say parents challenge omg user can't wait for the content of them supporting each other at races and concerts ahhh

yourbff pls dont make me an auntie soon im too young

yourusername okay im officially logging off.

tags: @jayrami3 @whoselly @roseseraj @saturnbloom77@landowecanbewc

#lando norris #lando norris fanfic #lando norris imagine #lando norris smau #lando norris x reader #lando norris x y/n #lando norris x you #f1 x reader #ln4 #f1 fanfic

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tyunn1ngz · 3 months

Text

soobin nsfw alphabet

cw: as ambigious as i could but could come off as afab!reader in some sections! no gender stated as always<3

a = aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

clingy!!!!! making sure ur alright, that nothing hurts, have u peed yet dont get urself an infection, do u need food or some water, u just want cuddles oh ok he can do that!!!!!!! its endearing despite overwhelming how much he cares :]

b = body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

his hands and ur wrists/neck and these go pretty hand in hand bc his obsession with both starts bc of how his hands look wrapped around different parts of u >_> !! becomes especially obsessed with how easily he can wrap his long fingers around ur wrists (although hes entirely too gentle everytime he does it in ur opinion) !

if u have tits he’d also be a very big fan of them!

c = cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

another one who cums a Lot. loves cumming inside u so much dont make him pull out </3 he will of course but u could b filled w his babies cmon :< even if u can’t get pregnant he will be acting like u can and it makes him so nasty

d = dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

RLY adores cumming in u and then clean it all up w his mouth, might feed it to u sometimes too, tongues tangled up w ur mingling tastes :p

e = experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

a little but everytime u would think its his first time, and he knows what he’s doing up until pleasure makes him stupid, and his most feral instincts take over :3c

f = favourite position (this goes without saying)

pretty standard w missionary, likes seeing ur face especially when he wraps his fingers around ur throat. if u have boobies hes also a fan of u riding him just so theyre in his face and he can have his mouth on them the whole time. even if u dont hes gonna b sucking and licking at ur chest w reckless abandon tbh he doesnt care . shrugs

g = goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

hes more serious but not too intense, its typically light hearted bc its just him rly caring for u ! <3

h = hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

generally well kept hes a manscaper or whatever but hes not that hairy to begin w. random but i want him to have heart pubes idk ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ

i = intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

very!!!!!! intimate!!!!!!! even when he’s rough this man is fucking u like he loves u (which granted, he does) holding u close while he rearranges ur insides and tells u ur the prettiest person hes ever seen .. sighs dreamily

j = jack off (masturbation headcanon)

if he cant be w u hes absolutely jerking off all the time and he loves it just as much as sex itself tbh. huge perv he cant help that his mind is always in dirty places and making his cock hard. who doesnt love jerking off sometimes ! hes real for that idgaf !

k = kink (one or more of their kinks)

breeding or pretty much anything to do with cumplay at all. overstimulation and edging probably big ones for him too!!! both giving and receiving ;3c

l = location (favorite places to do the do)

besides ur bedroom, the couch bc it means u can ride him, and the shower; despite how inconvenient and slippery it might get sometimes ＿|￣|○

m = motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

literally anything and everything u do will get him going. smth spills from ur mouth when u take a drink, hes hard. he gets even a tiny glimpse of under ur shirt, hes hard. he even remotely thinks abt kissing u a little deeper than whats usually chaste and hes hard. u name it, he’ll find some way to divert it in his mind to some perverse memory or fantasy

n = no (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

just nothing taboo, otherwise i don’t actually know what i’d say his turns off are … :S nothing to draw blood either

o = oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

not any particular preference— he loves using his tongue on u as much as he loves having his cock in ur mouth, so u ask him and he’ll probably just end up shrugging and tell u that he’d love both at the same time if u would ever 69 w him<3 although he does like seeing u struggle to take his big cock w tears in ur eyes, so maybe sometimes he leans a little one way than the other ʅ（◞‿◟）ʃ ！

p = pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

slow to start with so u can get used to the stretch of taking him, hes so big after all :((( soothing u with a shaky ‘is it too much, baby?’ before he fucks the absolute lights out of u when u give him the go ahead x_x

q = quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

loves a quickie bc he loves getting off like i have said a few times now ! obviously loves it more when he has time to savour and rly enjoy himself w u but he loves it all the same that he gets to giggle w u while u breathlessly do smth so dirty ✌︎('ω'✌︎ )

r = risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

yes and yes! risky to him sometimes is hotter and therefore best! ready to get caught by any of his members at anytime im afraid … poor guys … kinda …

s = stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

lasts a long time but its bc he tries and wants u to cum first, otherwise he’d blow his load so fast. edges himself if he really thinks hes abt to give in to his high. will go for as many rounds as u want and can handle bc again, always managing to make himself hard around u so !

t = toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

BIG fan of his fleshlight !!!! probably doesn’t own anything much else in terms of sex toys outside of that but thats all he probably needs anyway !!! jerking himself off w it when ur away, or fucking into it while u watch and say such dirty things to each other hnnnffff :(((((( ‘wish this was you, sweetheart. don’t you?’

u = unfair (how much they like to tease)

a crazy amount, but he makes it worth it bc u always get what u want in the end anyway, why not let him have a little fun w it? ur just so pretty when u beg a little <3

v = volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

louddd whimpers and the prettiest moans, and he practically hiccups when he gasps, he sounds sooooo pretty</3 tries his hardest to keep his volume down but u moan and it’s practically like a response the way he can’t help it :<

w = wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

wants (needs) to be pegged/topped at least once in his lifetime but has no idea how to ask for it which is crazy bc of how nasty he already is in bed. if u wanna bottom just say that, king! u have the ass for throwing it back!

x = x-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

ive seen the dick print tweets he is HUNG. end of talk thank u

y = yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

do i need to comment on this one or have we gotten the message yet … say hi hi hi hi 안녕하고 말할 만큼

take me high high high high 나를 좀 더 데려가 줘

z = zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

not so much tired as he is just satiated? ,,,so he’ll be pretty dozy but loves to chat w u after the fact. or at least he likes listening to you talk yk? he’ll give u hums of acknowledgment while u run ur hands thru his hair and pretty soon u’ll have him snoring away against ur chest lol<3

#txt smut #txt hard thoughts #soobin smut #soobin hard thoughts

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dollfaceksj · 1 year

Text

reminder | jjk (m) pt. 3

➥ PAIRING: jungkook x fem!reader

➥ SUMMARY: Whenever he flies back into town, your doorbell is the first he rings. When he has to fly out again, your bed is the last he lies in. However, you’re not stupid. You know your ex-boyfriend, that also happens to be an up-and-coming professional boxer, Jeon Jungkook, doesn’t come to you only. Unfortunately, you have no right to be jealous, not when you’re the one that ended the relationship.

➥ GENRE: angst ⋆ smut ⋆ bit of fluff ⋆ exes with benefits

➥ CATEGORY: three-shot

➥ WARNINGS: explicit sexual content, lots of arguing, angst so much angst, toxicity, strong language, jealous!jk, possessive!jk, reader gets a taste of her own medicine, slightly aggressive jk (not @ reader dw), cockblocker!yoongi, hater!yoongi, mean!yoongi, yoongi just cares about jungkook okay, another bts member cameo and he’s the only normal person in this frfr, a bit of jungkook pov, quick forgiveness bc they love each other so much guys like theyre such losers omg, mentions of.. THE NECKLACE… sorry in advance, oral sex (m. rec), unprotected sex (dont be dumb), rough love making, make-up sex, shirtless ck jk because why not…, kinda subby!jk for a moment… :D, creampie, mentions of edging, mentions of overstimulation, teasing, imo both reader and jk are extremely dumb in this tbh, minors DNI

➥ WORDCOUNT: 12.5k

a/n: ah. its the final part. i wanna take the time to thank you guys for loving this three-shot! the love reminder has received really did have me considering making it into a series (i really did) but honestly i think it’s best to keep it a three-shot. HOWEVER: i wanna write a lot of drabbles for it so look out for those!

a/n 2: ignore any mistakes u see or you are cloverphobic. not betaread.

⋆ TAGLIST ⋆

⇠ PREV. ⋆ MASTERLIST ⋆ NEXT ⇢

The distant thud of a car door slamming shut makes Jungkook jerk awake in his car. With a hiss, he slurps up the drool that had trickled down his chin from being knocked out and he shoots upright in his seat. He’s jetlagged as hell after flying out from Australia but he still insisted on seeing you first.

Unfortunately, when he knocked at your front door around 12AM, you weren’t home. Being his stubborn self, he decided to wait for your arrival in his car. He dropped Yoongi off at home and returned, parked in front of your door and waited.

But the sound of that car door slamming shut has pulled him out of his slumber. He looks out of the car window on his side, and there you are in the distance, dolled up and searching for your house keys in your clutch as you make your way to the front door.

Wearing a tight dress, hair did exactly the way you know Jungkook likes and from this angle he can’t see your face but without a doubt, he knows you’re absolutely gorgeous.

He takes his phone out of his pocket to check the time and the numbers on his lockscreen – which is a picture of his hand holding yours – tell him it’s 4:08AM. He’d been here for hours but all of it felt like minutes when he finally set his eyes on you again.

Right as he’s about to get out of his car, the figure of another person walks around the car you had just gotten out of. With a squint in his eyes, Jungkook tries to figure out who’s walking up to you right now.

A man, not much older than himself, holds you by your arm as he leads you to your front door. A frown creeps onto his brows when you don’t seem to have a reaction to this man touching you.

Jungkook watches as you keep digging into your purse, seemingly searching for your keys but that doesn’t matter to him anymore.

With a scowl on his pretty face, he silently gets out of his car and sneaks up on the both of you. He makes sure not to make any noise as he stands directly behind the unfamiliar man. Jungkook tilts his head to the side as he says, “She can handle the rest from here.”

He watches with a stern look in his eyes as you and the man slightly jump from the sudden interruption. Your head snaps in his direction and so does the man’s head next to you.

Jungkook can see the horror in your eyes as you come to the realization that it’s none other than Jeon Jungkook standing right next to you.

You’re staring at him like he’s grown a second head, Jungkook’s eyes trail your face and scan your features, committing it all to memory. Pupils dilated, a thin layer of sweat coating your forehead, lips swollen, remnants of lipstick smudged across your chin.

“Who’s this?” the unknown man asks you after the deafening silence that had settled around the three of you, a raise to his eyebrow as he turns his head to look at you.

You quickly compose yourself and clear your throat to speak but before you can answer, Jungkook butts in. “I’m Jungkook,” he says, cockily.

The man slowly nods to Jungkook’s introduction and opens his mouth to respond with his own name as he says, “Hoseok.”

Jungkook nods again after puffing out his chest with an air of arrogance and replying, “Nice to meet you, Hoseok. It’s awfully late, though. You should go home.”

Hoseok turns to look at you with a confused yet concerned look in his eyes, checking with you to see if it’s okay to leave you with this man named Jungkook.

You let a soft sigh push past your lips and give him a nod of reassurance. You place your hand on Hoseok’s bicep to wordlessly tell him it’s okay but he doesn’t look convinced. That’s when you say, “It’s fine, Hobi. Thank you for helping me get home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jungkook’s eye twitches at not only the nickname but at the fact that you’ve seemingly agreed to meet up with this man tomorrow. His gaze drops to your hand on Hoseok’s bicep and he rolls his eyes, fighting the urge to flex his own arms but quickly realizing how stupid he’s being.

Hoseok nods once he sees the sincere look in your eyes and slowly starts walking backwards whilst staring Jungkook down. Jungkook isn’t backing down, though, staring back head-on. Hoseok clicks his tongue and finally spins on his heels, making his way back to his car. He looks back one more time.

Jungkook hasn’t budged from where he was staring Hoseok down and Hoseok glances at you one last time before getting into his car and driving off.

Jungkook glares at the retreating vehicle until it has literally disappeared down the street.

With a frown on his face he turns to you but you avoid his gaze as you turn your keys in the keyhole, unlocking the door to your home. You don’t even hold the door open for Jungkook as you walk in, heels clicking against the tiles as you kick them off and make your way to your living room.

You toss your purse at the couch, watching as it tumbles to the ground with a loud clatter, spilling all its contents but you don’t seem to care as you turn to look at him once he closes the door behind him, in the midst of kicking his own shoes off.

“Why the hell are you here, Jungkook?”

His brows pinch together at your words, the urge to nibble on his bottom lip starting to creep up his spine. “What do you mean, why am I here?”

You stare at him for a moment longer with frustrated eyes and your lips pressed into a thin line, watching his every move but he isn’t budging an inch.

You shake your head as you start walking away from him but he quickly stops you, hand wrapping around your bicep as he tugs you back. “Y/N, speak.”

You glance down at his inked hand wrapped around your bicep and try to wiggle it out of his grasp but he doesn’t let you.

You scoff, “Seriously? I don’t fucking hear from you the entire two months you were in Australia and you have the nerve to come back and act like nothing has happened?”

Record scratch.

Jungkook can hear the cry threatening to spill from your throat and it stings him as bad as when he was punched in the mouth a week ago during a sparring match.

He’s usually gone for a week or two, never longer than that. Not only has he been gone for two months, he didn’t contact you at all while he was away.

He shakes his head, tugging you even closer to him. “You never hear from me when I’m gone, I always come back like nothing has happened! Why are you suddenly acting like it’s a big deal? We’ve been doing this for two years.”

You press your hands into his chest in an attempt to push him off but there’s no real strength behind it. “Because this time, it’s not the same!”

He quickly takes notice to your quickened breathing and the hurt in your eyes but he doesn’t comment on them and decides to stand his ground and defend his actions. “How is it not the same?”

The look of disbelief you give him has his heartbeat stuttering in its rhythm and his throat tightening as it starts drying out.

“Don’t act dumb, Jungkook,” you say, adding more strength behind your push against his chest.

He doesn’t budge nor respond, instead, he continues to stare you down with eyes that flicker with uncertainty and desperation.

You shake your head in disbelief again at his lack of response. “Last time was different. You know it was.”

Again, he has no rebuttal because he knows. He knows it was.

But Jungkook was scared. Terrified, even.

Before he reminds himself of how he’s felt the past two months, he changes the topic. “Who was that?” is all he asks.

Your brows pinch together as your eyes scan his face, dropping to his lips and catching the way he wets them with his tongue, a substitute for chewing on them. “What?” you ask him in confusion.

“Hoseok,” he pauses. “Who is he?” he asks, the face of the unfamiliar man flashing in his mind makes his blood boil all over again, fingers adjusting around your bicep to make sure you don’t slip from his grasp.

You can’t believe he’s deterring the conversation to this, apparent by the raise in your brows and the change in your pitch. “Are you serious?”

“Answer the fucking question, Y/N.” He closes the distance between you two, menacingly towering over you as he stares you down with his onyx eyes.

You huff in frustration and with a shake of your head, you reply, “He’s my friend.”

Jungkook nods to your words in mockery and then reaches up with his other hand, wetting his thumb with his tongue to wipe your chin clean of the makeup. “Friends follow you to your front door at 4AM with the same lipstick on their face that’s smudged across your chin?”

“Oh,” you begin with your eyes narrowed, “don’t you fucking start.” You wiggle your arm out of his grasp and this time he lets you, allowing you to make your way towards your bedroom. His presence is in your wake, following close behind you.

He ignores your words and as soon as the both of you enter your once-shared bedroom, he asks, “Did you fuck him?”

You groan, “No, Jungkook. I didn’t fuck him.” You start taking your jewelry off as you continue, “But friends do share New Year’s kisses.” You fully turn your back to him, tucking away your jewelry in their rightful place. “You didn’t even fucking wish me happy holidays.”

He sighs in exasperation, staring at the ceiling. He knows the fact that it’s New Years is why you’re dolled up, why you’re dressed like this, why you came home this late.

But that doesn’t make him hate it any less.

With a shake of his head, he says, “You know how busy I am, Y/N. There’s nothing more I would’ve wanted than to be here with you, you know that.” His tone has softened and he’s closing the gap between you two but he stops dead in his tracks when your head snaps in his direction.

“I’m not asking you to be here while you can’t. I know you can’t. I’m asking for at least a phone call.” You reach for the zipper on your dress right under your armpit, tugging it down to your hip. “Not even a text, are you fucking kidding me?”

He loudly exhales again, shaking his head as he throws it back and his gaze shifts up to the ceiling, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallows down what he really wants to say.

You bitterly chuckle as you eye the short distance between the two of you – he’s standing about two meters away. “Bet you had enough time for other people.”

Your accusating words make his eyebrows twitch and so, his response is immediate. “I didn’t fuck anyone.”

“Aht,” you say as you hold your hand up. “Don’t you fucking bullshit me,” you add, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

He shakes his head in disbelief, face turning to the side as his eyes shift to the wall on his left. He glares at the wall for a while, his hands on his hips and his bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

Then, he says, “Is he the one?”

Jungkook can tell by the way you sigh in exasperation that you’re fighting the urge to start yanking on your own hair.

“The one what?” you groan in annoyance as you start tugging your dress down your body, exposing your body in a matching underwear set and letting the dress pool at your feet before reaching for your bathrobe.

He rubs his face harshly as he adds, “The one you fucked.”

He’s still not looking at you but by your tone and heavened breathing, he knows you probably look like you want to bend over and scream until your vocal chords burst.

“I told you, I didn’t fuck–”

He immediately cuts you off. “I’m not talking about today. I’m talking about what you told me in the shower before I left for Australia,” he says. Then he repeats, “Did you fuck him?”

At that, you go quiet.

He closes his eyes at the silence, jaw clenching as you fidget with the ropes of your bathrobe and his own throat tightens at how you go speechless. You glance up at him with big eyes and a tremble in your chin.

At your lack of response, Jungkook finally looks at you, eyes dropping to your mouth, not missing the quiver in your pretty lips. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

You shrug your shoulders and finally find your voice after what seems like ages. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters.” He stomps the rest of the way over to you, menacingly towering over you. He adds, “I’m not buddy-buddy with the people I fuck.”

You tilt your chin to look up at him, brows knitted together and a scowl forming on your face. “Drop it, Jungkook,” you mumble, tying the bathrobe around your waist.

He closes whatever small distance is still in between you, his body pressed up against your arm before he leans down to directly say the next words into your ear, “Was he good? Did he fuck you good? Did he do the thing you like?”

You move your arm up, pressing your elbow against his chest in an attempt to push him off but he doesn’t budge an inch. “Stop it,” you warn.

He clicks his tongue and kisses his teeth with a loud smack, still not backing away from you. “Not so fun to be on the receiving end of that, is it?”

He’s right. You’ve been pestering him like that for years, always bringing up his sex life with other people to provoke him, to annoy him, out of your own selfishness. Why can’t he return the energy? Put you in that situation? Give you a taste of your own medicine?

You click your tongue in annoyance not only with him but yourself. Teasing him all those times has come back to directly bite you in the ass.

“Shut up, seriously.” You bump your shoulder into his as you make your way to the bathroom but he doesn’t let you get away that easily.

“Were you together? Or was it casual?” He follows close behind you as he continues to pester you.

“Jungkook.”

He doesn’t care about the warning tone in your voice or the scowl on your face. “I just wanna know. I wanna know if he knows I fucked you all those times too.”

You don’t even respond as you start taking your makeup off, ignoring Jungkook’s gaze through the reflection. He’s leaning against the doorframe, cockily staring at you through the mirror and you do your best to ignore him.

When it’s been quiet too long for his liking, he says, “Does he know you’ll always let me do whatever I want to you?” He begins to walk closer, closing the distance between you two until his chest is pressed up against your back and continues to menacingly stare at you through the mirror. “That you’ll never forget about me?”

You slam your makeup wipes down onto the sink with a loud thud, turning to face him. He’s completely pressed up against you at this point, caging you in between the sink and his own body.

You don’t even know what to say because that’s exactly how you’d talk to him ever since the break-up. You tilt your chin to look up at him. “Stop.”

He scoffs as he stares you down with intense eyes. He kisses his teeth with a loud smack and says, “Yeah, not so fun, is it?”

You ignore his provocations like he did yours all those times and move your elbows up to his chest, pushing past him to walk back into your room. Jungkook is aware that you’re constantly creating extra space between the two of you because his proximity will have you bending to his will.

He stays back this time, just quietly watching as you get ready for bed. He can’t ignore the sinking heart in his chest as your bottom lip quivers and your breath has gotten shaky, he can never be mean to you for long and he knows that.

He deeply sighs and shakes his head at his own antics. “Come here,” he mumbles as he makes his way to you.

You don’t respond, you just keep your back turned to him as you prepare your pillows and sheets.

He quietly sighs to himself as he wraps his arms around you from the back, halting you in your movements.

He turns your body to make you face him, his big hands firmly on your hips. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said those things.” He leans into the crook of your neck and nudges your ear with the tip of his nose. “You drive me crazy and it’s making me act a fool.”

Your arms stay limp by your side, your way of telling him you’re still mad at him but you turn your face slightly to give him more access to your neck like you’ll always do.

“I fucking hate how much I love you,” he whispers into the crook of your neck, pressing a soft kiss to your collarbones, fingers digging through the fabric of your bathrobe to grip your hips tightly.

You sigh softly at the sensation of his lips on your skin again, your hands coming up to squeeze his biceps. “You’re an asshole.”

“I know, baby.” His voice is muffled by your neck but you feel the smile on his lips against your skin. “Didn’t like the taste of your own medicine?”

You grunt in response, pinching his biceps which makes him hiss and chuckle before pulling away from your neck to glance down at you.

“Will you let me kiss you?” he asks you, thumbs rubbing circles into your hipbones as his pretty black eyes roam your features.

“No,” you reply, moving your hands up to his chest and rubbing circles through his shirt.

His lips pucker up in a childish pout but he doesn’t push it any further, your proximity is enough for him.

“What’s the magic word?” you say.

His chest puffs as he chuckles, shaking his head. “Will you let me kiss you, please?”

You huff like a little kid that’s just finished throwing a tantrum but you nod your head to his question nonetheless, hands moving up to cup his cheeks.

His face closes in on yours and he presses his lips to your attention-seeking ones. He melts into your kiss, hands traveling up your sides to hold your waist tightly.

It’s been too long since he last saw you, so kissing you feels like a thousand years ago. He makes the most of it as he tightly holds onto your waist as if you don’t have breakable bones, as if you’ll slip through his fingers, as if you’ll disappear into thin air.

He slowly pulls back from your kiss. “I have something to show you,” he says as he reaches for something in his pocket. His phone seems to be in the way so he takes it out of his pocket and hands it to you so you can hold it while he searches for what he so desperately wants to show you.

You glance down at the screen as it automatically lights up and your eyes mindlessly drop down to the 3 hours old notifications.

[1:02AM]

René (AUS)

Are you still at the same hotel? Want me to come over?

[1:04AM]

René (AUS)

Missed call (1)

He watches your face twist into confusion and pain as his own eyes drop to where you’re looking at, the realization dawning on him like he got hit by a fucking train.

Jungkook’s body tenses up under your touch. His other hand drops from your hip and your eyes slowly trail to look up at him.

In a panic, he quickly says, “I swear, it’s not what you think. I swea–”

You don’t let him finish as you slam his phone into his chest and directly stare into his concerned eyes. “Fuck you.”

The way you say it with so much venom in your voice knocks the air directly out of Jungkook’s lungs.

He can hear an imaginary record scratch when you point toward your door and say, “Get out.”

Jungkook is stunned.

You have never made him leave.

You have never told him to just get out.

And for some reason, the ‘get out’ hurts even more than the vicious ‘fuck you’.

“Y/N–”

“Out.”

Jungkook shakes his head, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “Don’t make me leave. Please.”

You immediately reply, “I want you to leave. Right now.”

He stares at the wall for a few moments as he gathers his thoughts. You stare at his side profile for a few seconds before you spin on your heels and head towards your bed.

As you plop down on your bed, you’re just in time to watch Jungkook dig in the pocket of his sweatpants and roughly throw something across the room, aimed right at the wall to your right.

You flinch at the clatter of a small box being smashed against the wall and turn to look at him with a frown etched onto your features.

He has never shown you any aggressiveness ever so you’re shocked at the sudden switch. “What the hell, Jungkook?”

He tugs on his long black locks before he quietly curses and turns, loudly stomping out of your room. The shuffling of him putting his shoes on reaches your ears and before you know it, the front door has been slammed shut.

Your hand sits on your chest, right over where your pounding heart is. You’re not scared of Jungkook and never will be but there’s a reason you don’t go to his matches. You don’t like seeing the boy with the entire galaxy in his eyes be aggressive, be angry, be consumed by hate.

When you’ve finally composed yourself, you take a few breaths to steady your ragged breathing. You deeply exhale and get up from your bed, walking over to the mini box and its spilled contents.

The small blue box is on its side, wide open and something shiny is sprawled out next to it.

Small tear shaped sapphire earrings that would fit perfectly with your estranged necklace.

The words – which you recognize as Jungkook’s handwriting – on the neon pink post-it that’s stuck to the inside of the lid shatters your heart into a million pieces.

‘Be my girlfriend (again)? :)’

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[6:30PM]

Hobi

I’m outside ^_^

You smile at your phone and apply your lip gloss as your finishing touch. With a final glance in the mirror, you give yourself a smile and a nod before heading into the hall and sliding your feet into your pumps.

You leave your home after locking up and quickly make your way down to the vehicle in front of your home before hopping into Hobi’s car, leaning over to give him a greeting hug.

“Hey, you okay?” he asks as he leans back and starts accelerating after you’ve closed the car door.

“Yeah. You?” you say as you buckle your seatbelt and open up the interior mirror above your head to check your makeup again.

“I’m fine.” He slows down in front of a red light and glances over at you. “What was all that about?”

“What?” you ask, already knowing what he’s talking about as you continue to check your teeth and waterline, ignoring the persistent lump that’s forming in your throat.

“Yesterday.” He returns his gaze to the road in front of him. “Well, more like this morning.”

You sigh and close the mirror, slouching in your seat as you glance over at him. “I’m sorry about that, Hoseok.”

Even if Hoseok was just helping you get inside, you feel bad about sending him away like that.

A chuckle leaves his mouth. “I know you are, I just thought I was seconds away from being decked in the mouth.”

You look out the window, pressing your lips together in an attempt at blending your gloss with your peachy nude lip combo.

“I know. Jungkook is just,” you pause, rubbing the scrunch between your brows.

He accelerates once the light jumps to green. “Is he the boxer?”

You merely hum in response, picking at the loose flesh around your manicured nails.

“You love him, right?” Hoseok’s question knocks the air right out of your lungs. The lump that had started forming in your throat has lodged down your esophagus and has unleashed a stream of lava that causes your heart to burn.

Your lack of response makes him nod his head, his hand coming to his jaw and rubbing his freshly shaven chin.

“And he certainly didn’t seem happy to see me,” he chuckles as he recalls the events of this morning.

“Yeah, well.” You nonchalantly shrug your shoulders. “He can’t just show up at my front door after two months of not talking to me.”

“Two months?” he repeats, leaning his left elbow against the window next to him and rubbing his chin with his hand whilst his other hand manages the gear shift and steering wheel.

You nod and cross your arms over your shoulders, adjusting the belt that’s digging into your neck.

He asks, “What was he doing for two months?”

You explain the events that happened two months ago, from Jungkook showing up to you telling him for the first time (again) that you love him. You explain the entire history between you and Jungkook, all the problems, all the love, all the pain, everything.

Hoseok knew you were still head over heels in love with an ex-boyfriend that also happened to be a professional boxer but he never pried. However, as he witnessed that embarrassing moment firsthand, you’re of the opinion that you owe him an explanation.

“Hm.” He thinks about what you just told him for a few moments, seemingly in deep thought. Unfortunately, you know Hoseok well enough to know when he wants to say something.

You turn your head to look at him, chest already tightening at the thought of him not agreeing with you. “You’ve got something to say.”

He looks at you for a moment before glancing back at the road. “I’m not sure you want to hear it.”

The raise in your brows indicates intrigue and surprise at his words. “Well, now you have to say it.”

He chuckles at the switch in your tone and parks in the theater’s parking lot before turning to look at you again. “To me, it just seems like he didn’t want to suffocate you again.”

“Suffocate me? He’s not going to suffocate me by texting me once in two months, Hobi.”

“No, I get that, and he is incredibly stupid for that but it seems to me like he’s so scared of losing you again that he didn’t want to ruin anything?” he explains, his point of view being a reminder that not everything may be what it initially seems to you.

You furrow your brows and part your lips to argue but Hoseok cuts you off before you can.

“What did he say after I left? Did he seem different?”

You think about it for a while. Yes, he did seem different, now that you think about it.

And then you’re reminded of Jungkook’s gift and his question. And at that, a surge of guilt spreads through your chest and starts bubbling up your throat.

“He, uh,” you start as you clear your throat, “he just asked who you were. The usual ex-boyfriend stuff. But he did kind of ask me to be his girlfriend again.”

He unbuckles his seatbelt and then turns to you. “So, I take it y’all made up, then.”

You shake your head, avoiding his gaze as you open up the mirror again to check if there’s anything in between your teeth to pretend you don’t care. “I told him to leave.”

“Why?” His brows are pinched together in confusion and you can see him aiming his frown at you in your peripheral vision.

You shrug your shoulders nonchalantly again, hoping to appear unbothered. “I saw his phone, one of his groupies texted him. Just wasn’t in the mood.”

“Did he text them or did they text him?”

You slowly turn to look at him as a frown climbs its way onto your brows. “What?”

Hoseok stares at your for a few moments in silence before repeating his question, “Did he text them?”

You idly blink at him, the image of Jungkook’s face when he swore it wasn’t what it looked like flashing in your mind. Fuck.

You quickly compose yourself and say, “I don’t know.”

Hoseok blinks at you for a few times with a slight pinch in his brows before slowly nodding. “Okay.”

“You want to say something again,” you groan loudly, rubbing the scrunch on your forehead to prepare yourself for what he has to say now.

Surprisingly, he chooses not to. “I’m not going to this time.” A chuckle leaves his mouth after he says that, shaking his head in the process. “Let’s go, the movie is about to start.”

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Australia, 1 week ago

With a big gulp, Jungkook slams his glass down onto the wooden surface of the bar he’s sitting at. He winces at the burning liquid sliding down his esophagus, bringing his hand up to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand as he pulls his phone out of his pocket.

He stares at his lockscreen, a smile creeping on his lips at the picture. His eyes trail your fingers and your hand, how well they fit in his.

With a tilt of his phone, he unlocks it using Face ID and opens the message app. He scrolls until he sees your name, it’s been over a year since either of you last texted each other. Like mentioned before, he always comes back unannounced and you always act like nothing has happened.

It’s how it’s been for two damn years.

His fingers slowly start hovering over your contact name. Should he text you? Should he not?

He shouldn’t. You told him the two of you would talk about it when he’s back. Maybe he’d scare you off if he were to text you right now.

Besides, he’d be back in town in five days anyways.

Right as he locks his phone again, he’s dragged out of his thoughts when a hand squeezes his bicep.

He snaps his head in the person’s direction.

“You gonna keep acting like you don’t see me?” Ashley – an ‘acquaintance’ of Jungkook’s – says as she tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear.

(Read: acquaintance meaning a person he’d usually fuck if he was back in their country.)

“Oh,” he mumbles, his arm tensing up under her touch. Not to flex his arm but because he doesn’t want her touching him. “Ashley, right?”

“Hm,�� she hums as she drops her hand from his arm, swiveling in her stool to face him, her knees pressed into the side of his thigh. “Doing anything tonight?”

He shakes his head as he continues to stare at the ice ball in his glass, his fingers fidgeting with the rim.

“Wanna do me?” she suggests, her feet making their way to rub up and down his calves in a teasing way.

He instantly regrets all the times he had her bent over his hotel couch, pounding into her from behind and kept his eyes shut to imagine he was fucking you.

He quietly exhales and rubs his eyes with the back of the knuckle of his index fingers as he looks for an excuse to reject her. “I don’t have any protection on me,” he mumbles, hoping she’ll get the hint.

Jungkook is responsible when it comes to his sex life. He’s quite literally always carrying protection. The only person he had ever fucked raw and would continue to do so are you.

So, these past two months he’d been walking around with nothing of the sort because he didn’t feel the need to. Now that there was that blossoming chance that he’d get back together with you, he’d wait for you.

He doesn’t want anyone else moaning his name, he doesn’t want to hold onto anyone else’s hips while pounding into them, he doesn’t want anyone but you.

“We could pass a nightshop on the way to my apartment,” she offers, her hand coming back to his bicep and sliding up his shoulder to his neck, the tips of her fingers playing with the ends of his hair.

The thought of anyone else touching him right now has goosebumps popping out of the upper layer of his skin and not in a good way.

“Let me use the restroom first,” he says as he gets up from his stool, subtly shrugging her hand off his neck in the meantime.

He looks her way for the first time since acknowledging her at the start and gives her the fakest smile he can muster. He walks around her and disappears in the sea of bodies that had started growing behind them.

He quietly makes his exit through a backdoor, standing in front of the building with his back to the door as it shuts loudly behind him. He tilts his head back and allows the infinite soft rain droplets to gently kiss his face and neck.

After a few more moments of enjoying the rain and distant booming music, he whistles at a taxi that he sees passing by and jogs toward it, hopping in the back before anyone else catches him.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

present

Damn Hoseok.

It just seems like he didn’t want to suffocate you again.

He’s so scared of losing you again that he didn’t want to ruin anything.

Did he text them?

Should you have heard him out?

You couldn’t even focus on that damn movie. Hoseok’s words and input kept clouding your mind, kept reminding you of maybe – just maybe – you were being unreasonable.

No, you’re not at fault for being upset that he didn’t say a word for two months.

You still think he’s an idiot for that.

Even if it’s been like that for the past two years. This time it was different and you’re not going to let anyone gaslight you into thinking it wasn’t.

But with how well you know his heart, his love, his passion for you, you should’ve known better. You don’t even know how long he’d been waiting in front of your door on New Years.

And there you were during New Years, opening up your front door with a man in your wake that had been in your (once Jungkook’s) bed.

You and Hoseok met at a party of a mutual friend one night and immediately hit it off. For the first time since Jungkook (about a year and a half after the break-up), you finally allowed yourself to let loose and do the thing Jungkook did to get his mind off of you.

You ended up having casual hook-ups with Hoseok, and goodness, was he amazing.

He fucked you good, touched you in the right places, said the right things, did everything right.

But he wasn’t him.

So, after about four months, you’d called it quits. Hoseok, being the amazing person he is, didn’t pry but insisted on staying friends and being there for you.

And that brings you back to the conversation you had with him in the car on your way to the movies.

He didn’t excuse Jungkook’s behavior but he made some good points, and damn him for that. Because now you can’t stop thinking about it. All of it. The worst being that Jungkook had planned to ask you to be his girlfriend again on New Years.

And thanks to all of that thinking, you find yourself in front of Min Yoongi’s front door a few days later.

Since you broke up with Jungkook, he never bothered to find a new place since he’s gone a lot. So, you assume he must be crashing at Yoongi’s when he’s not crashing at yours.

You raise your shaky fist and knock on the door.

A few seconds later, the sound of shuffling and keys jingling reach your ears and instantly sends a jolt of electricity up your spine. The door swings open and you make eye contact with his manager, his intense eyes make your heart almost implode within your ribs.

His frown at your presence almost stings. “What are you doing here?”

You look to the side as you swallow, hoping it helps you gather your courage. “Is Jungkook here?”

He scoffs, clearly unimpressed. “Why?”

“I need to talk to him.” You turn your head to look at him again, hoping you look as determined as you feel.

He dryly chuckles and shakes his head in disbelief. “So, you can kick him out at 4AM without hearing him out but he needs to hear you out because you’re the one that needs to talk now?”

You cross your arms over your chest to keep yourself from fidgeting and glance at the floor. “I want to apologize to him for that.”

“You want me to believe that?” He glances at his watch as if he’s unimpressed with your reasoning.

Gosh, why is he so stubborn?

Before you can even reply, he bitterly adds, “You need to quit playing with that boy’s feelings, Y/N.”

You finally look up at the older man, a quiver in your bottom lip and an imaginary bag of sand unleashing in your throat as your mouth dries out at his accusation. “I’m not playing with his feelings, Min,” you pause as you look away. “Please, just let me talk to him.”

“You can’t expect me to believe you came all the way out here just so you can apologize to him.” He slides his feet into his shoes, running a hand through his freshly cut hair.

He looks so nonchalant, as if what you’re saying is of absolutely no significance to him. The tightening in your chest tells you that you’re starting to lose your patience. “And why the fuck not?”

Yoongi’s eyebrows twitch as he takes a step closer to you, menacingly looming over you. You now know where Jungkook gets that from. “You could’ve texted him and he would come over in a heartbeat, you know that.”

“Let me stop you right there,” you say as you raise your hand, holding it up in front of his chest. “He’s not a fucking dog. I’m not going to text him so he can jump at every command. I know he would, which is why I took it upon myself to come here and personally apologize to him.”

Yoongi tilts his head to the side as he listens to your ramble, his arms crossed over his chest. You see the glimmer of something in his eyes but you can’t tell what it is, he’s always been too hard to read.

You drop your hand, wrapping it around the straps of the purse you’re holding in your sweaty palms to tug it over your shoulder. “So, will you let me?” you say after a few seconds of silence from Yoongi.

He narrows his eyes at you, still trying to read you and your intentions. But your sincerity is clear, evident by the fire in your eyes, your balled fists at your sides and the pinch in between your brows.

He takes a deep breath and steps aside to let you in. “Do what you want. I was about to leave anyway,” he mumbles as he slides his coat on and walks around you, heading out the front door.

He abruptly stops and turns to look at you one last time. “Don’t make him do anything stupid, Y/N. Or so, help me God.”

He stares you down as if he wants to obliterate you with a single blink of his eyes and with that, he leaves.

Jesus. What is his deal?

You clear your throat and compose yourself. You quietly close the door after he’s left, kicking your shoes off and make your way down the corridor, peeking into rooms until you find a door that’s shut. You try to open it but it’s locked so you quietly sigh before bringing your fist up and knocking softly on it.

“Can it wait ‘till tomorrow, hyung?” Jungkook’s groggy voice is muffled from behind the door.

Your chest tightens at his voice.

You shakily exhale as you drop your hand, your other hand still sitting on the door handle. “It’s me. Can we talk?”

Instant shuffling behind the closed door has butterflies eating your stomach from the inside out, your fingers tightly wrapped around the straps of your purse as you forcefully swallow down the bubble of panic that’s threatening to rush up your throat.

The door swings open and you’re met with bed hair, shirtless, sleepy Jungkook.

Your eyes drop down his figure but you quickly return them to his eyes, your lips pressed into a thin line.

His eyeballs are practically bulging out of his eye sockets at the sight of you here and his brows are dramatically pinched together but he quickly composes himself and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Why are you here?”

It stings, it does. You realize that asking him that day what he was doing at your place must’ve hurt this way. Burned this way. Stung this way.

“Jungkook,” you breathe out, your hands in front of your thighs with your fingers wrapped tightly around the straps of your purse as you swing it back and forth to distract yourself from the nerves creeping up on you.

He tilts his head to the side, parting his lips to answer your call but he closes his lips right away. The fact that he’s not replying is enough to have your heart stuttering in its rhythm, veins pulsating with fear. What if he tells you to get out like you did?

His silence makes you speak up and say, “I’m sorry.”

His expression doesn’t change but there’s a glint of surprise in his eyes. “For?”

“Everything.” Your reply is immediate.

He slowly crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re going to need to be more specific than that, Y/N,” he says with a stern tone in his voice that has your stomach twisting into a wringed out shirt.

You sigh as you watch him step backwards into the room again, leaving the door open for you, a wordless invitation.

He doesn’t even turn the light on, just goes back to sit on the bed but he reaches over to turn the flashlight of his phone on and turns his phone face down on the bed so it lights up some of the room.

You walk in and close the door behind you, looking around the room. You haven’t been here in a long time but not much has changed.

Your feet bring you to the foot of his bed, his eyes staring you down the entire time. “I’m sorry for sending you away and not hearing you out. I shouldn’t have done that.” You place your purse on his bed but stand in front of it still, anxiously fidgeting with the strap.

He continues to quietly stare at you which makes you continue, “I was,” you pause to sigh deeply, “I was upset because you didn’t talk to me.”

He exhales deeply and looks to the side, your eyes watching as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “You told me we’d talk about it when I was back.”

“I know I did but I thought I’d at least hear from you if it was going to last that long. I was waiting,” you explain, not missing the way Jungkook has nervously started nibbling on his bottom lip.

“I just thought that last time…” You shake your head as you continue, “I thought last time was different.”

He slowly nods as he returns the eye contact finally. “You’re right, it was,” he quietly says. “I’m sorry. I should have reached out. I was just scared you’d push me away again if I reached out to you just because you said–” he pauses as he glances at you and then turns his head to look away again, “those words. That you’d think I was too excited or something.”

Hoseok — a complete stranger to him — read Jungkook better than you. You should be fucking ashamed.

You gently rub your eyes to not mess up your eye makeup and then walk around the bed, moving to stand in front of him. He refuses to look at you, though, staring at his lap as if it’s playing a movie to him.

“Jungkook,” you start, “look at me.”

He slowly turns his head and tilts his chin to look up at you. If he notices the way your hand slightly hesitates before reaching out to him, he doesn’t show nor comment on it.

Your fingers delicately tuck his long black hair behind his ear, mindlessly playing with the shell of his ear.

“Will you hear me out this time?” he asks you, eyes twinkling with hope.

You shake your head. You don’t want to hear him out because he doesn’t owe you an explanation. “You don’t owe me anything, Jungkook. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

He wraps his fingers around your wrist as your own fingers play with his locks. “I want to. Will you let me?”

Your chest deflates as you deeply exhale at his stubbornness. “Okay.”

He reaches for his phone that he left face turned down on his nightstand and hands it to you. He’s telling you to check his phone to prove his innocence.

You shake your head as you push his phone away, you’re not that kind of person. You’re aware you and Jungkook don’t have the healthiest relationship but snooping in each other’s phones is something neither of you ever felt the need to do.

However, Jungkook is determined. “Just look at it,” he pleads.

Your eyes shift downwards as you curiously glance at the screen. It’s a text conversation between him and someone.

René.

You realize he’s showing you the full text conversation that you read last time and there are no replies from Jungkook at all.

[1:04AM]

René (AUS)

Why didn’t you tell me you were back in Australia? We could’ve gotten together and hung out!! Let me know when you’re back x

[1:06AM]

René (AUS)

Missed call (2)

You rub the scrunch between your brows and take a deep breath as the reality of the situation dawns on you. His words play on a continuous loop in your head.

I didn’t fuck anyone.

Jungkook had never denied it before. He would usually be quiet if you’d imply he’d been with someone. And if you think about it, that wasn’t even the part that made you upset. It was not hearing from him at all.

You push his phone back toward his chest when the text messages have mockingly stared at you long enough. “I’m sorry, Kook. I was such an ass.”

You continue, “This doesn’t change anything, I’m still a prick for not considering your feelings.”

He looks up at you through his pretty lashes, teeth chewing on his bottom lip which has reddened from all that nibbling.

You mindlessly press your thumb into his chin to make him release his bottom lip as you conclude, “Even if you did do whatever I thought it was you were doing, you have every right to. You don’t owe me a goddamn thing.”

“Just stop.” He shakes his head. “Don’t say that.”

You sigh as he dismisses your statements, he’s going to keep dismissing them so there’s no point in pressing him about it. “Well, I’m sorry. Are we good?” you ask as you tuck another lock of his hair behind his ear.

A soft smile stretches onto his pretty lips, his eyes glimmering like he’s holding the entire galaxy in his gaze, which is you. “Of course we are,” he says, eyelashes fluttering at you and if it was any quieter, you could probably hear the blinking of his eyelids. “Did you come all the way out here to apologize?” he adds, his voice quiet and uncertain.

No, you didn’t.

You slowly nod, sliding your fingers to his earlobe and down his jaw, rubbing his chin with your thumb. “I did.”

He nods his head and you notice the scrunch in his nose for a split second, a habit he has when he becomes emotional. Becoming emotional is the last thing you need right now so you avert your gaze to your purse on his mattress. “When will I see you again?” he quietly asks.

“You know where I live,” you say, telling him he’s always welcome whenever he needs you. You drop your hand from his face and reach for your purse, slinging it over your shoulder as you head towards the door again. The sound of him following behind you reaches your ears, letting you know he at least wants to walk you out.

It’s a direct parallel of whenever you walk him out of your house.

However, you change your mind and decide that right now is the best time to respond to his unanswered question.

“Actually,” you say as you turn on your heels, “I came for one more thing.” You take his phone out of his hand to use his flashlight.

He halts in his steps behind you and raises his brows, eyes shifting to your hands as you pull out a box from your purse.

You hold it out to him, shaking it slightly when it takes him too long to take from your hands. A frown sits on his brows for a moment but he takes it into his hands nonetheless, opening it to look inside of it.

It’s your estranged necklace, the one he gave you three years ago.

He glances up at you, his pretty eyes once full of love and hope now full of hurt and despair. His misunderstanding squeezes your heart until you almost can’t breathe under his pained gaze.

“You’re giving this back to me?” he asks, voice so small and barely loud enough to be heard.

You shake your head. “I’m asking you to help put it on me.” You turn the flashlight around to aim it at your face, allowing him to finally see the tear-shaped sapphire earrings he got you hanging from your earlobes for the first time since you walked in.

It had been dark in the room so he never noticed you wearing them until this very moment.

His eyes jump from your right ear to your left, the reality of the situation dawning on him like a pile of bricks. The smile that suddenly stretches onto his lips singlehandedly glues all the pieces of your broken heart together again.

He can’t contain his wide smile, fingers scrambling as he takes it out of the box. He throws the unimportant box somewhere on his bed and unclasps the necklace, wrapping the chain around your neck from the front, never breaking eye contact with you as his fingers fasten the chain behind your neck. He adjusts the pretty necklace around your neck and reaches up to play with the earring in your right ear.

You can’t help but smile at his giddy reaction, your fingers coming up to fidget with the pendant.

His hand drops from your earlobe to his side, fingers pinching at the fabric of his swears. “Is this a yes?”

(Read: He’s referring to the question he wrote on the post-it note.)

You shrug your shoulders with a smug grin and add, “Clearly it’s not a no.”

A soft chuckle leaves his mouth as he shakes his head at your teasing. His hands reach out and hold your waist, pulling you closer to him and your heart jolts in between your lungs at his proximity. He nudges your nose with his and respectfully drops his hands to your hips.

“Will you let me kiss you?”

The two of you giggle when you realize you’ve both asked each other the same question in unison. You bring your hands up to cup his face and press your lips to his.

He pulls you closer, closing the distance between the two of you as he tilts his head. His hands squeeze your hips and you hum into the kiss, moving your hands behind his neck so you can wrap your arms around his neck.

You pull away slowly and move to cup his cheeks, rubbing the apple of his burning cheek with your thumb.

“Stay the night. We’ll talk some more in the morning,” he says carefully, hoping you’ll agree.

You tilt your head to the side as his offer reaches your ears, a thinking pout on your lips before you part them to say, “I don’t think Min Yoongi would appreciate me staying over. He hates my guts.”

He stares at you for a moment longer and then glances at the wall. He knows you’re right. “He doesn’t hate y–”

You cut him off. “Yes, he does.”

“He hates what I let the relationship do to me. It’s not anything against you.” He tries to reason but you can’t forget the way Yoongi looks at you like he wishes you would just disappear into thin air.

He must’ve noticed the uncertainty in your expression. “I’ll lock the door,” he adds as he nods over your shoulder at the door.

“What are we, teenagers?” you laugh, rubbing his chest to make him look at you and he does.

He kisses his teeth after being in deep thought. “Okay, then just stay for a little while.” He pulls you down onto his bed, making you let out a surprised yelp.

You fall on top of him, hands still on his chest. You glance down at him and he’s got a shit-eating grin on his lips. He whimpers when you bring your hand down to slap his chest before you roll off of him to take your jacket off.

You toss the article of clothing somewhere across the room and your attention is disrupted when he wraps his hand around your wrist to pull you down and back into his embrace.

He pulls your back flat into his chest, arm hooked around your waist and his lips pressed into the back of your neck. He inhales through his nose and presses a soft kiss to your shoulder blade.

“I missed you so much.” He leaves a trail of kisses from your shoulder to your neck, not paying any mind to the goosebumps that he’s awakening directly under the soft flesh of his lips.

You hum in response and let your eyes flutter close. “I haven’t had sex in months so if you don’t stop kissing me right now, I’ll ride you for three hours.”

He chuckles and pulls away to say, “Aren’t we moving too fast?”

You roll your eyes at his stupid joke as you wiggle out of his grasp and sit up, your gaze shifting to him next to you, eyes scanning his cocky face. “You fucked me for two years, Jungkook.”

“Still.” He rolls onto his back to be able to look at you better and moves his hands up to place the back of his head on top of his palms, allowing you to look at the clear outline of his biceps and triceps. He adds, “We just started dating, you horndog.”

“Right,” you say as you mockingly nod your head and get up from his bed, starting to head out of his room. “Guess I’ll just ask Hoseok.”

By the time the ruffling of his sheets have reached your ears, you haven’t even made it halfway through the room. Jungkook drags you back by your bicep, pulling you backwards into the room. You let out a quiet shriek when he spins you in one swift motion, hooks his hands around your thighs and lifts you onto the dresser.

He wedges himself in between your thighs, pulling you to the edge of the dresser and holding you tightly by your waist, fingers draped over your ribcage. “You just love exploring my limits, don’t you?”

You chuckle and reach up to tuck his beautiful hair behind his ears with both hands. “You’re hot when you’re jealous.”

He shakes his head with a smile stretched onto lips, wrapping his arm around the perimeter of your waist to push your chest flat into his. “Yeah? I could also just text René right now,” he says as he shrugs his shoulders before adding, “ask what she’s wearing.”

Your face twists into a scowl as you press your hands into his chest in an attempt to push him off but there’s no strength behind the push because you don’t want to push him off and luckily, Jungkook is not budging.

You huff and wrap your arms around his neck, pressing your lips to his jaw and leaving a trail of soft kisses on his honey skin. “You could but you won’t.” Your breath tickles him, apparent by how quickly you can get goosebumps to pop out of his skin.

“Hm,” he hums nonchalantly and tilts his head to give you more access. He adds, “You sound awfully confident.”

“Yep,” you retort right away, dropping your arms and placing your hands on top of the dresser, leaning back on them as you look at him. “Want me to show you how confident I am?”

He cocks his eyebrows and tilts his head to the side, contemplating your words. “And how would you show me?”

You blink at him, fluttering your eyelashes innocently as you push him back and hop off the dresser. You turn him around and press his back into the dresser.

You slowly sink down, squatting in front of him and caging his calves in between your thighs in the process.

You look up at him with an innocent twinkle in your eyes as you reach for the waistband of his sweats, waiting for him to give you the green light.

“Shit,” he breathes out before eagerly nodding.

A soft giggle pushes past your lips as you start tugging his sweats down his legs and letting them pool at his ankles. You’re faced with his black Calvin Klein boxers and fuck, does he look good.

You tuck your fingers under the hem of his CK boxers and slowly tug them down his legs as well. His dick isn’t hard yet but it’s slowly growing.

You place your hands on the outer-sides of his bare thighs and move your head downwards to take the head of his dick into your mouth without using your hands, pretty eyes still staring into his.

He curses quietly and places one of his hands on your head, staring down at you to watch your every move.

You keep your eyes glued to him, lashes kissing your brows with the same innocent glimmer in your pretty eyes. You continue to move your head down his shaft, feeling it harden in your mouth and grow heavy with blood on your tongue.

His dick starts rapidly inflating in your mouth but you’ve already completely lathered it in your saliva, making it easier for you to pump his base as you continue to suck on the first few inches of his hardened dick.

You slide your tongue down his shaft, tracing one of the veins down to his balls as you gently suck on them whilst pumping his shaft, your eyes never breaking the intense lock you have his gaze in.

He winces in sensitivity and his thighs tense in pleasure as you continue to suck on his balls, your thumb gracefully rubbing over the head of his dick every time your hand makes it up his shaft.

“Quit teasing me,” he demands but it comes out in a pleading tone, his hips slightly jerking as he tries to fight the urge to thrust into your hand.

“Quit teasing me, what?” you press a kiss to the side of his shaft, eyes menacingly mocking him as you refuse to look anywhere else. You love when Jungkook submits to you because he rarely does.

He grunts in annoyance. “Quit teasing me, please.” His hand on your head gently strokes your cranium, hopeful that you’ll comply.

But you have other plans.

You haven’t taken him into your mouth since you’ve started teasing because the moment you do, he’ll make you eat your own shit by mercilessly fucking your throat. And you’re in need of teasing him some more before you let that happen.

You lick a wet stripe up the downside of his dick ‘till you make it to his tip, collecting all the precum that had started oozing out of his dick onto your tongue. You teasingly lick all around the head, the tip of your tongue sliding in between his slit which makes him hiss.

“Y/N,” he warns, trying to sound stern but his mouth betrays him when a soft, desperate moan pushes past his lips right after he says your name.

You simply hum in response. He can sound stern all he wants to but you’re the one in control, not him.

One of your hands abandons his thigh, letting the cold air hit the warm spot on his skin that your hand has left and you bring it up to massage his balls, tongue still wickedly teasing his slit.

You innocently blink up at him as you start pressing kisses to his tip, the precum sticking to your lips as you leave a sloppy trail of kisses down his shaft.

“Y/N, please,” he whimpers.

The moment his plea reaches your ears, you part your lips wide enough for him to fit through but you don’t move. It’s a wordless invitation for him to come use your mouth however he pleases.

He gets the memo right away and doesn’t waste any time to slide right into your mouth, holding your head in place as he thrusts into your mouth, groaning when the head of his dick slams into your soft palate.

You blink your tears away but it’s useless as he continues to assault the back of your throat, tears uncontrollably spilling from your eyes and rolling down your hot cheeks, ruining your makeup in the process.

You tap his thigh twice and he understands, halting his thrusts and glancing down at you to check. Once you take his dick back into your mouth and move your own head down his shaft again after catching your breath, he throws his head back and lets you suck him off to the best of your abilities.

Your makeup has undoubtedly smudged all over your face but you don’t mind, not when Jungkook loves it. You gracefully move your mouth down his dick, committing the feeling of his hardened shaft effortlessly sliding over your tongue to memory.

He moans and groans a few more times and that tells you he’s nearing his orgasm. But just as you’re about to speed up, he stops you.

“I want to cum inside of you,” he tells you before sliding out of your sloppy mouth.

You try to catch your breath and nod as you wipe your chin and mouth with the back of your hand before rising to your feet.

“I don’t like that I’m completely naked and you’re fully clothed.” He reminds you that you are – in fact – fully clothed and he is – in fact – buttnaked.

“I don’t know, seems kind of fair to me.” You shrug your shoulders once you tug your shirt off and throw it somewhere in the room. You bring your fingers up to right under your eyes to try and clean up some of the makeup stains on your hot cheeks. “‘Cause aren’t you a pervert, anyway?”

He scoffs as he crosses his arms. “I’m the pervert?”

He takes a breath to continue his argument but it’s abruptly cut off when you unclasp your bra and toss it at him, watching as it gracefully drapes over his shoulder.

His eyes drop down to your chest as if he’s forgotten you even have eyes before his hands wrap around your waist and push you toward his bed with a quickness.

You let yourself fall back against the soft mattress but you can barely enjoy the feeling before his fingers tug your pants down your legs. You prop yourself up on your elbows and watch as he mindlessly tugs your jeans off your ankles, angrily tossing it aside.

A soft giggle leaves your lips as you watch him be passive aggressive with your pants but not for long when his eyes shift to yours.

“Something funny?” he quips, eyes dropping down to the only piece of fabric that’s hindering what he wants to do to you.

You glance down at your panties before back up at him. Your hand travels down your stomach to your pelvis, slowly sliding your panties to the side, allowing him to see what a mess he’s made between your legs.

His tongue peeks out at the corner of his lips, sliding along his bottom lip as he eyes your attention-seeking sex. He hooks his fingers around your panties and slides them down your legs, tugging them off your ankles and tossing them somewhere on the floor over his shoulder.

He hunches over and positions his mouth right above your pussy before spitting on it, watching your legs jerk as he rubs it into your already soaked sex with his fingers. He knows you like it and he’s right, it drives you up the fucking wall every time he does.

He straightens his back and positions himself at your sticky sex, rubbing the head of his dick up and down your wet slit.

He wastes no time as he looks into your eyes when he pushes in, watching your face and how your eyes widen, your mouth falls open, your body jerks.

“Jungkook.” His name leaves your mouth in a desperate moan as he bottoms out, his brows furrowed and his bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

He lets out a low grunt and after a while of adjusting to the feeling of being inside of you again, he starts thrusting into you.

Your eyes shift to where you’re connected, intently watching how his dick disappears in and out of you. A pathetic moan falls from your lips, a surprised yelp following directly after when he grabs a handful of your breast, massaging it in his palm as he fucks into you.

His hips speed up in pace, the sound of his skin slamming into yours has your eyes rolling back and your arms give out, making you fall back against the mattress, sprawled out in front of him again.

He lets go of your breast and pushes one of your legs back, hooking it around his arm to keep it in place and mercilessly starts pounding into you, face hovering right over yours. “You’re so beautiful.”

Your eyes flutter open at his words, the only thing you can think about now is the stretching in your walls and his beautiful face in front of yours.

“You belong to me, don’t you?” he muses, face closing in on your neck as he presses soft kisses to your sweaty skin. The soft whines and whimpers leaving your mouth makes him fuck you harder yet gentler, full of love yet full of hate, want but also need.

You gather your breath to answer his question, in the mood to tease him now that he’s finally yours again. “No.”

Teasing each other is your love language.

His hips slow down and his face appears in front of yours again with a frown. His jet black eyes staring you down makes you want to sink into his mattress and disappear off the face of the Earth. He arrogantly clicks his tongue as he says, “Is that so?”

“Mhm,” you hum, closing your eyes as you move your hands up to the back of his neck to play with his hair, twirling his locks around your fingers.

He mockingly nods at your teasing. “You know damn well no one else fucks you like I do.” His thrusts get harsher, eyes dropping to your breasts bouncing from the momentum of his pounding.

You whimper at the switch, the rough pounding makes the wetness squelch extra loud and you’ve made a disgusting mess against his sex with your slick.

“You know, Hoseok was pretty goo–”

“But who’s the one fucking you right now?”

His rebuttal has you dead silent aside from the occasional, pathetic moans and heavy breathing. You open your eyes and the first thing you’re met with are his own, black and frustrated.

“The love of my life.”

Your reply to him has his hips stuttering in their rhythm, the corners of his lips twitching as he tries to fight the smile threatening to creep onto his lips. In order to hide his smile, he starts leaning down and presses his lips against yours in a sweet kiss, a stark contrast to the rough pounding of his hips.

Make-up sex really is the best.

You decide it’s enough teasing and wrap your legs around his waist, caging him in between your thighs as you pull him even closer. “I love you so much,” you mumble against his lips, arms wrapped around his neck to fully keep him trapped in your embrace.

He nods at the words, his pelvis still repeatedly slamming into yours. His hips slow down but the power behind them never subsides, the rough pounding has all your nerve endings set alight and your thighs jerk violently when the head of his dick barely grazes your cervix with each thrust.

“I’m gonna cum,” he mumbles against your lips, allowing you to lick into his mouth. You clench around his dick, walls wrapping tightly around him. He groans into your mouth, it’s your way of milking him of every drop and he knows it.

“Harder,” you moan once he pulls away from your lips, his brows knitting together as he complies, roughly slamming his hips into yours.

His breath is getting heavier by the second and his dick twitches in between your walls, alerting you that he’s seconds away from his climax. “I love you so much,” he mumbles as he ejaculates, painting your insides with his cum.

He keeps thrusting and lets long groans and moans leave his lips as he fucks his load into you, your soft whimpers in his ear are the cherry on top that drives him insane.

He gives you a couple more thrusts before he fully comes to a halt, face buried in the crook of your neck.

The synced heavy breathing, his proximity, the reality of the situation, it all has tears pricking in your eyes.

He slowly lifts his head off your shoulder, eyes searching yours. “You haven’t cum yet, hm?”

You shake your head in response.

“Remember when you teased me while sucking my dick 20 minutes ago?” he asks as he unhooks your legs from his waist.

Your breath hitches in your throat as you listen to him, already knowing where this is headed.

“Get ready,” is all he says.

He pulls out and drags you all the way to the edge of his bed, forcefully shoving his fingers into your mouth while the other wastes no time traveling to your sex and beginning its torturous assault on your sensitive clit.

Your throat is ruined from the screams you’ve let out when he continues to edge and overstimulate you for the next 30 minutes, watching in satisfaction as you writhe and squirm under his touch.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

You wrap the towel around your frame as you leave his bathroom, eyes glued to him as he’s staring at the ceiling before his eyes shift to you. He turns on his side and props his head up on one hand, a smile on his lips as he watches you dig into his dresser for something to wear.

“When do you leave again?” you ask quietly as you pull out a pair of his sweats.

He stares at your back for a moment longer before answering, “Next Thursday.”

(Read: For context, it’s Friday right now.)

Your hands find one of his bigger shirts and you pull it out, placing it next to the sweats you chose on top of the dresser.

You continue, “Where are you going?”

He thinks about his answer for a few seconds. “Brazil,” he says. This conversation happens every time and yet he answers like it’s the first time you’re asking him these questions.

You slowly nod as you consider asking him what you want to ask him.

“How long will you be staying there?” you ask as you drop your towel and slide his sweats and shirt on, ditching your bra and underwear.

He looks up at you as he says, “I’m not sure, probably a week or two.”

Your feet slowly take you to him and you take your seat on his bed right next to him.

You nod your head in understanding again before you reach out to tuck his hair behind his ear, addicted to the way his soft hair feels against your skin.

“Will you let me come with you?”

Your question has him perking up like a cartoon character, lips twitching, eyes wide, ears expanding.

Ever since you met him, you had never flown out with him anywhere. You love change but you also love the comfort of your own home.

But love is about compromise, is it not?

He instantly shoots up in his bed and lunges at you, wrapping his arms tightly around your frame, face buried in your hair. He deeply inhales, his arms almost crushing your ribs, his pounding heart beating against your chest.

His breath has gotten shaky but you can tell that he’s fighting the urge to bawl in your presence. And eventually, he finally finds the voice that abandoned him in his time of need.

“I would love that.”

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