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jvnbkow71wh · 1 year
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trixclibrarian · 5 months
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moonjxsung · 3 months
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Begged & Borrowed
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Copyright Ⓒ 2023 by Moonjxsung
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner. Doing so will result in a legal takedown per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is subject to legal action.
Pairing: Lee Minho x fem reader
W/c: 30.2k
Warnings: infidelity, drinking, smoking, use of pet names, unprotected sex, breast/nipple play, dry humping, clitoral stimulation
Synopsis: A turn of events causes you and your longtime best friend Minho to confront your true feelings for each other- except you’re already getting married to somebody else.
[this work was based off a request from “🌷” anon - thank you for requesting!]
18+. Mdni!
For as long as Minho has remembered, he’s been in a constant state of grieving. But no one’s passed, nor is there any reason to believe something should happen. Nonetheless, the feeling remains, a cruel reminder of the phenomenon when it hits him suddenly, eating away at his thoughts and boring into his flesh.
Like a seed planted deep in his body, one that suddenly sprouted, and won’t stop growing, and growing. And in his mind, this grieving takes its form in viridian hues of ivy, thin stringy stems that wrap around his bones and constrict him to a life lived within the cage of his own body. Rubbery leaves of green with venules that mirror his own veins and seem to mock him as they replace what’s left of him. And Minho can do nothing except coexist with this heavy sense of grieving, let the ivy strangle him in its unsuspecting embrace and rob him of his last breaths. He’s still in there, trapped somewhere, breathing in labored breaths and stiff at the limbs. But he can’t breathe, and he fears one day this grieving is going to kill him.
*
Minho exhales deeply, balancing a small cardboard box which houses a white cylindrical cake in his hands, his eyes darting nervously over the crowd inside. There seem to be 20, maybe 30 people, already acquainted with the space, chatting amongst themselves with glasses of champagne in hand. He’s tried your cell phone twice, to no avail- of course he knows you’re probably making your rounds, chatting with guests and double checking the hors d’oeuvres are to your liking. But he tries one more time just in case, bringing the phone up to his ear and letting it ring once, twice, three times- voicemail.
There’s no way around this but to go inside and socialize for the next hour, Minho’s personal idea of hell on earth. He grips the box a little firmer with one hand, using the other to slip his cell phone back into his pocket and make sure he can access it easily, just in case he needs to look busy. And with one more deep sigh, he begins the journey inside, mentally preparing to pretend as though he cares about any of this.
The venue interior is spacious, and admittedly a breathtaking view at this proximity, much to Minho’s stubborn dismay. Round white tables line the wooden floors, wrapped in velvety cream tablecloths and glowing in the dim lightning of tea candles. Similar cream-colored lanterns line the ceilings in neat rows, parallel to the strings of bohemian bulb lights that serve more as decoration than to actually brighten the place. And by the marble wall fountain at the back of the open space, there’s you, all dressed up and chatting enthusiastically with a group of women. Minho pauses for a moment, not yet proceeding, as he takes in the sight of your elegant appearance. Your figure is hugged delicately by a slim-fitting dress, a pair of strappy heels complementing the loose curls and simple makeup you sport. And he sighs again, feeling as though this is all going to be in vain the second he approaches you.
Yet he doesn’t even have to- you spot him from across the room first, whispering something in another woman’s ear before making your way toward him, an enchanted smile on your face and such purpose in your step as you near him. Minho’s heart quickens in his chest the way it always does when he’s around you, though his demeanor seems to relax fully once you’re in front of him, your arms extending for a hug as he shoots you a saccharine smile and pulls you into his embrace.
“You made it!” You exclaim enthusiastically, your arms wrapping around the broad shoulders he flaunts under his white collared button-up. He smells familiar, a comforting mix between fabric softener and his musky cologne, and it brings you right back to your days spent alongside him in college, catching late-night movies together and hitting up all your favorite fast food joints.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” Minho replies sweetly. He chuckles a little as he speaks, lost in the striking glow of your eyes at this proximity, your long eyelashes fluttering as you smile in response and nod.
“Thank god you’re here,” you voice, glancing around the room inconspicuously. “I think Jung’s friends have had one too many shots. And I asked for pink flowers on the centerpieces- do these look pink to you?”
You gesture to the bouquets of very magenta floral arrangements, shaking your head as Minho laughs in response.
“Hey, remember this is just to celebrate everything being finalized. You can get nit-picky when the wedding rolls around- for now, let’s just enjoy the magenta flowers.”
You smile up at him, always endeared at the way Minho finds the good in everything. He has a special way of taking your fears or reservations and making them seem so insignificant in contrast to the world around you. And he’s been that way for as long as you can remember, quick to fix things and stay by your side through the hardships whenever they crept up on you.
Like the time your car got impounded and he walked nearly two hours with you to get it back because neither of you could afford a taxi. Or the time your holiday office party was all but sleep-inducing, and he didn’t hesitate to drop what he was doing to take you out for burgers, instead.
And of course, being by your side throughout this very burdening wedding process. Minho’s the first person who got the news of the engagement when it happened, nearly shattering the dish he washed during a session of old cartoon reruns and fast food while you were out at dinner with Jung. And it was the last thing he’d expected, too, remembering how the week prior was spent lending a kindly ear to you as you ranted about Jung’s stubbornness and his poor temperament.
“Married?” He’d spoken into the phone, like the proposition of getting an engagement ring implied literally anything else.
And when you saw him again an entire week later, the marquis diamond hugged by delicate prongs and a sterling silver band around your fourth finger confirmed the words, as if your excitement over the phone hadn’t done so already. At first Minho was angry, declining invitations to hang out and forcing himself to stay asleep so as not to feel the sheer pain and regret that came with the news. What does she even see in him? He’d asked himself a dozen times a minute, mapping out the factors you complained about to him and weighing them against the likelihood that you’d actually follow through with this wedding.
He’s messy. He doesn’t like spending money on fancy dinners, so sometimes we’ll only do sides. My parents think he’s a little arrogant and when he’s with his friends, it’s like I don’t exist.
All signs point to negative. There’s no way you’d actually follow through with marrying Jung- at least not if it’s up to you. Maybe you had stars in your eyes, couldn’t say no to the sparkly ring and had thought back to the first date when he first got down on one knee. That has to be why you said yes.
The prospect of marrying him contractually is a headache when Minho thinks about it- and that’s not even inclusive of the idea that comes with spending the rest of your life cooped up in a house with him, with children and in-laws. It would mean years of him talking back to you, undermining you and rubbing his superiority complex in your face. Minho isn’t sure he could stick around for a lifetime of that.
At least he wasn’t sure before- and now, with just two months out till the wedding, Minho is panicking. It feels like some race against time to knock an ounce of sense into you, but the stars in your eyes are still there when he catches you glancing at your ring, or moved by Jung’s actions that scream the bare minimum.
“Did you see the champagne glasses? They’re iridescent! Jung got them just for tonight.”
Maybe that’s what you see in him. His noble trait of picking iridescent champagne glasses over clear ones.
“Cool,” Minho responds, giving you a small nod.
“What’s in the box?” You ask, gesturing to the small white box in Minho’s hands still.
“Oh, just a little something,” Minho replies a little softly, watching as you slowly lift the thin cardboard lid and peer inside. And the smile that grows on your face makes everything worth it again.
“From our favorite bakery? Minho! That place is so expensive, you shouldn’t have!”
“It’s a special evening,” Minho replies with a smile, watching as you admire the intricate icing display for a moment. White fondant ribbons and candy pearls line the frosted surface which enreathes decadent layers of chocolate- all your favorites. As Minho begins to close the box, he’s rudely interrupted by a finger prodding itself into the dessert, swiping across the frosting and moving the carefully placed cake toppers into complete disarray.
“Is this chocolate?” A voice asks from behind Minho, coming forward to sprawl an arm over your shoulders and lick the frosting off his finger. “Damn, that’s good!”
And Minho can practically feel every ounce of hope in his body dissipate as he watches you giggle enthusiastically.
“Hi, Jung,” Minho says flatly, observing your destroyed cake briefly before shutting the box again.
“What’s up, man? Thanks for the cake. Hey, wedding’s in two months- I hope you have your tux ready!”
Minho responds with a thin-lipped smile, not saying anything as Jung laughs loud enough to fill the awkward silence amongst the three of you.
“What do you say we go cut some real cake?” Jung asks, turning to face you as his grip around your shoulders tightens.
You smile back at him, turning to Minho and cocking your head toward the table by the wall fountain.
“You wanna join? We got a variety of pastries, too. There’s those little cream puffs you like, and macarons from the French bakery.”
Minho extends his arms, passing the box of cake to you and giving you both a small bow.
“I actually just stopped by to gift you the cake. I have a work thing really early tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving?” You question, a small pout on your face as Jung scans the room around you, desperate to ditch the two of you, but also stubborn about maintaining his dominance in front of Minho.
“We’ll catch up soon,” Minho replies, trying his best to convey a smile that will make it seem like nothing’s bothersome.
“Okay, okay,” you respond, separating from Jung’s hold on you and pulling Minho in for another hug.
“Thanks for the cake, anyway. I’m still glad you stopped by.”
“Of course,” Minho says, averting his gaze from Jung. “And congrats on finally getting all the wedding plans finalized. That’s a really big deal.”
“She’ll be hitched in two months!” Jung chimes in loudly from behind you. “And then we’ll be on an island celebrating married life!”
Minho just nods at him, shooting him the same thin-lipped smile and bowing to both of you.
“Catch you later,” he says, finally pivoting to exit the way he entered. And he can still hear Jung’s obnoxious laughter from halfway across the room.
*
Fridays were always your designated days with Minho. In college, they meant movie nights and greasy takeout food. Post-graduation, they involved bars and gossiping about your entry level positions and your bosses. And after Jung came into the picture, they quickly became every other Friday, which soon turned to Sunday brunch on a monthly basis, which then transitioned to catching up over the phone or in brief passing. Jung made sure you were always busy doing something with him, his arm slung possessively around your shoulders and speaking far too loudly about your relationship for the whole world to hear.
Minho began to ditch the Friday group dates when Jung started inquiring about his own relationship status, getting drunk off one-too-many jägermeisters and slurring questions and demands about when he’d finally bring a girl to the function. And Minho never had the heart to tell you why he stopped showing- he simply conjured intricate excuses for every instance you invited him out.
I have a headache. I have an early day tomorrow. The cats are lonely these days.
Of course, perhaps Jung could see right through him into the green leaves of ivy that enwreathed his bones and swallowed him whole with this grieving. Grieving for you, grieving for himself, grieving for this life he knew was bound to come to a close the minute Jung made his move. Which Jung did, practically setting the relationship in stone so that Minho would now be subject to a lifetime of his offensive slurred speeches and unsettling presence. And although the grieving grew heavier after the engagement, it’s always been there, perhaps even longer than Jung’s even been in the picture.
“Jung said no male strippers at the bachelorette party, which is a bummer if you ask me. But we are having an open bar, so I’ll be too drunk to care about naked men anyway.”
Minho chuckles softly, bringing the straw in his iced coffee up to his lips and taking a sip from the corner of his mouth.
“But he’s having strippers at his bachelor party, isn’t he?”
You shrug casually, brushing off the question as you take a sip of your coffee, too.
“I don’t really care, either way. I mean we’ll be getting married regardless, so he can look at whoever he wants. I just need him to show up in a tux on the day of, and stand at the end of the aisle crying when I come to meet him.”
Minho doesn’t reply, a string of questions circling his mind, which he chooses not to ask in order to maintain the peaceful silence that now falls over you both. It’s one of the only days this month you two have been able to get some time alone, although it did require Minho taking off work early and you lying to Jung about your whereabouts. You find yourselves at the coffee shop you’ve been meeting at since your college days, an iced americano in Minho’s grasp and a latte in yours.
As Minho takes in his surroundings, everything feels vastly different than it used to- the distance between you two feels much greater, like there are miles separating the beverages you consume at this proximity to each other. The baristas don’t shoot you curious looks like they used to when they were certain you two were an item. And the shiny ring on your finger makes an appearance every sip you take, glistening under the beams of sun that dance through the windows and fall over your enthusiastic figure.
“What are you up to this weekend?” You ask finally, meeting his shy gaze as he taps his fingers on the wooden surface of the table.
Minho shrugs, toying with the lobe of his ear as he thinks of a random commitment to voice back to you.
“Oh, you know,” he stutters. “Moving stuff.”
And he’s completely unsure, himself, of what the words imply as they escape his lips.
“Moving stuff? To where? Where are you moving?”
“I’m not moving,” he emphasizes. “Just… moving stuff. Things. I want to rearrange some picture frames. And maybe reorganize my bookshelf.”
You sigh in response, a small smile tugging at your lips as Minho does his best to maintain the bogus narrative.
“Minho, you never leave the house anymore. Why don’t you go out with Jung or something? He’s doing a golf thing with some of-”
“No, thank you,” he interrupts quickly. “I’m not a golfer.”
And you sigh again, cocking your head at him.
“Okay, mister ‘moving stuff.’ Will you at least call me when you’re done moving your stuff and your things?”
“I’ll call you,” Minho reaffirms.
“I mean it. I’m gonna call you when I get home from the party and you better not be asleep on the couch again.”
“I promise to answer,” he echoes.
You smile at him again, and Minho mirrors the action with a small smile of his own, his skewed teeth exposing from behind his plump lips as he grins sheepishly.
“Moving stuff,” you repeat, mocking his excuse.
“Moving stuff and things,” he emphasizes, chuckling lightly across from you.
*
Bachelorette parties are supposed to be one of two things: freeing, and cathartic. Luckily for you, yours checks both boxes, the two-day retreat to a luxury hotel in the city providing ample time to relax, and the shots you down at the open bar in your venue fulfilling the cathartic part of it. Your girlfriends shower you in presents, ranging from expensive dining sets and clothes, to humorous sex toys for you and Jung to try on your honeymoon. Even the bartenders join in on your two nights of dancing, parading your event with handmade signs and getting everyone in the bar to sing to you. And for the first time since the stress-inducing year of planning has begun, you feel excited, ready for your new life as a bride alongside Jung.
Husband and wife have a nice ring to it, you think to yourself, as you kick off your shoes and lie back on the thick white duvet of the hotel bed. And though you’re still a little tipsy, you keep your promise, selecting Minho’s contact in your phone and giving him a ring. The phone rings once, twice and then three times, before you conclude he’s definitely fallen asleep on the couch again, probably while moving around his stuff and his things. But you’re proven wrong on the fourth ring, a gentle click echoing in your ears as you hear him press the phone to his ear and speak in a tired voice.
“Hello?”
“You’re asleep on the couch, aren’t you?”
“…no,” he responds, after a short pause.
“You’re so predictable,” you chuckle back at him, shaking your head as you sigh into the phone.
“How was the bachelorette party?” He inquires, sitting up on the couch he definitely wasn’t asleep on, to speak a little clearer into the receiver.
“It was amazing,” you reply with a dreamy sigh. “We did karaoke, and danced and even the bartenders were wishing me good luck. It was like something from college.”
“I’m glad,” Minho responds, nervously picking at the hem of his ratty old t-shirt.
“I’m a little drunk,” you say with a gentle laugh. “But I couldn’t help but wish you were there. The girls are great, of course, but I feel like bars were our thing.”
Minho blinks nervously a few times, pondering your words and keeping his gaze locked on the array of neatly-placed picture frames on the wall across him.
“Yeah,” he settles on replying, his breath hitching in the back of his throat.
“Do you miss me?” You query, twirling a strand of hair around your finger. And Minho can’t comprehend what’s got you acting like this, flirting with him in the phone line while Jung isn’t around.
“I do,” he responds after a brief pause.
“I’m serious, Minho. As your best friend, I’d hope that you miss me sometimes.”
There it is- the clarification is enough for him to exhale the deep breath he’s been holding in all this time.
“Yeah,” he says again. “I miss you, as a friend. And I’m glad the night was enjoyable.”
“You hate bars,” you say to him. “But you used to let me drag you out to them. I miss you.”
And he nods on the other end, repressing the real emotions that eat away at him like, you might see them over the phone if he feels too deeply.
“I miss you, too. Get some sleep, okay? We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Yeah, yeah,” you say sarcastically. “Goodnight. Thanks for answering.”
“Sure thing,” Minho replies before ending the call. And the room is eerily quiet now that he’s awake, the clock on the living room wall ticking with the passing seconds, as the ivy in his chest constricts a little tighter now.
*
Jung’s bachelor party is nothing short of insufferable. It’s loud, it’s rowdy, and it’s neither relaxing nor cathartic. Unless you define the two as getting lap dances in a smoke-filled limousine driving down the freeway a million miles a minute.
Minho sits quietly on one side, refusing every advance from the female strippers as they flaunt their beautifully-sculpted breasts in his face and dance to the loud rap music. He pretends to use his phone, having no service in this part of town, and yet still resorting to switching frantically between the compass feature and the weather app. And then he tips each stripper a generous amount, apologizing to them profusely as he gets off at the first stop and orders a cab. Where exactly the limousine is taking them, he doesn’t even care to know. Jung questions no part of it, not even having wanted to invite Minho in the first place. And while Minho waits for his taxi, he calls you, frantically wishing he could remind you Jung’s possibly the worst person you could have chosen to marry.
“Hi Minho,” you speak into the phone, shuffling about on your end as you tend to some household work. “I thought you didn’t get reception wherever you were going?”
“I found a way,” he responds, lying through his teeth.
You narrow your eyes, pausing your work to listen in to the phone call a little more closely.
“Minho, did you… leave?” You question, taking note of the way there’s not a sound in the background of the call- not Jung’s booming laughter, nor any music of any kind.
“No,” he says quickly, and you let out a deep sigh.
“Now you’re lying,” you remark.
“I’m not-”
“You’re talking in short responses, and I can’t see you but I know you’re doing that blinking thing. Why would you leave?”
Unfortunately for Minho, you know him like the back of your hand, always quick to clock when he’s lying to you through his nervous habits. The same habits you’ve studied since your days together in college, and ones he’s never been able to stop doing no matter how hard he tries. Minho lets out a deep sigh and runs a hand through his hair.
“Look, it’s just not my scene, okay? I’m still going to the wedding, it’s not like ditching a bachelor party is going to ruin your marriage.”
You shake your head and pinch the bridge of your nose in annoyance.
“What am I going to do with you? Why are you so opposed to just bonding with him?”
“I’m not!” Minho exclaims. “He wanted to go swimming. I can’t swim.”
Another lie.
“Look,” you begin. Would you just come over if you’re not going? We can talk about it here.”
Minho nods eagerly, the idea of spending time by your side sounding much more appealing than a weekend with Jung.
“I’m just waiting on a taxi,” he says. “I’ll be there soon.”
And when he hangs up, you stare briefly at the contact phone of you two, running your fingertips over the dimly lit screen. It’s an older photo, of you guys in college out at a bar, Minho smiling enthusiastically and giving you a piggy-back ride. And although it’s still Minho, it doesn’t feel anything like the version of him you know now.
*
“I don’t want this to set the precedent for the rest of our relationship.”
“Don’t want what to set a precedent?” Minho questions back.
“This! You running away from Jung every chance you get so that we’re only able to bond when he’s not around! You’re my best friend, Min. Why can’t you guys just make it work so that I don’t have to divide my time between the two of you like this?”
“You had no problem learning to divide it when we were in college,” Minho says frustratedly. “Now that you’re engaged it’s like I’m engaged to him, too. I don’t like the guy, okay? Whatever we make of that as friends isn’t in my hands, but it also doesn’t mean I’m gonna jump at the chance to go golfing with him every weekend.”
You’re quiet for a moment, his frustrated speech circling your mind as he remains sprawled out on your couch. He’s right, to some degree- you know very well that the two of them never got along well. And try as you might, they’re just incompatible in every way possible. Jung’s loud, he’s stubborn, he’ll never say no to a social outing and he’ll only make an effort to get along with someone for a finite amount of time before he’s disregarding their existence, much like he does Minho’s. And Minho is quiet, soft-spoken, only social when it comes to you and takes his stance on a person just minutes after meeting them. They’ve already reached the stubborn conclusion that they despise each other, and at this point in your life, there’s little you can do to change it.
“I just want to know things are okay between us,” you remark.
“Things are okay between us.”
“We haven’t had a proper hangout in months, Minho. I get married in a few weeks and then I’m afraid we just won’t see each other.”
Minho seems to understand the seriousness in your tone, sitting up from the couch to finally meet your gaze. You look disheartened, an expression Minho is used to seeing when you try to set him up with a date or when he can’t make it out to an event. But this time it seems like it has more weight to it, the way you sag your shoulders as you slouch over one of the barstools in the kitchen, completely terrified at the prospect of losing your best friend.
“I’ll tell you what,” Minho breaks the silence. “How about we plan something, just us? It’ll be like old times, and we don’t have to worry about Jung or your friends or anyone. Just for a weekend.”
You meet his gaze, too, promptly glancing at the ceiling as you think over his proposal.
“I don’t know, Jung probably wouldn’t like it-”
“This is exactly what I mean!” Minho interjects. “Everything you do is based on what Jung likes or doesn’t like. We used to go out together all the time- if you only want to hang out when he’s around then yeah, things might be a little different from here on out.”
And the words pierce through you like a dagger, yet again filling your mind with all the regrets that will come with shutting him out for the purposes of pleasing Jung. Minho is right- he’s been your best friend for years. Jung might be your future spouse, but that doesn’t mean your relationship with him has to be any more important than the lifelong commitment you’ve made to your best friend, too.
“Where would we go?” You ask reluctantly.
Minho shrugs casually, lying back down on the couch with his hands behind his head.
“Anything,” he responds. “Your pick.”
And you think over his offer again, mentally mapping out your schedule at work and what you guys might be able to do on a quick weekend together.
“Camping,” you say suddenly, straightening your posture.
“You hate camping,” Minho retorts, chuckling lightly.
“Yeah, but you love camping. I’m just doing this to spend time with you, Min. I already spent my weekend in the city. Let’s do something you like and we can have an old friend trip like we used to.”
Minho can’t help the grin that tugs at his lips, endeared by the way you always let him drag you to his favorite places just like you used to drag him. And he knows you’re a city girl through and through- you’ve always been very vocally opposed to accompanying him on his camping excursions. But maybe going together, you’ll have some change of heart if it means you won’t have to listen to Jung share all of his unwarranted opinions.
“Let’s do it,” Minho says confidently. “You’re gonna love it.”
“I’m only doing this for you,” you reply with a smile. “I still maintain that I’m going to hate it.”
*
A yoga retreat.
Jung is made to believe you’re at a yoga retreat, three hours out from your shared apartment, with a close girlfriend you haven’t seen in months.
And maybe it’s because he genuinely believes you, or he simply doesn’t care, but he doesn’t press you for any information about the event, sending you off with a chaste kiss and turning his attention back to the sports he watches on television. He doesn’t even inquire about why you fail to bring your yoga mat, leaving it folded neatly in the closet of your bedroom alongside all your workout clothes.
You do pack warm clothes, blankets and even a matching set of flashlights for when it gets pitch dark like you know the mountains do at night. And as you make your way to Minho’s house with your backpack slung over your shoulders, you’re actually a little excited, the idea of getting some fresh air sounding like a well-deserved treat after the week you’ve had in the city.
“Well aren’t you all ready to go camping,” you say to Minho in an amused tone, admiring the outfit he’s put together for the occasion. He sports a simple white t-shirt and a loose-fitting pair of jeans, coupled with a black cap he wears backwards over his brown hair. He looks a lot simpler than usual- in fact, you’re not sure you’ve ever seen Minho in a cap before today.
“You look nice,” you voice to Minho, as he loads his duffel bag in the trunk of the car.
“Me?” He questions, furrowing his brows in genuine confusion. “I’m just dressed for comfort.”
“Yes, you. That cap looks good on you. God forbid I compliment my best friend.”
He chuckles lightly, helping you load your backpack into his car and closing the trunk when he’s finished.
“Ready?” Minho asks, turning to you with a small smile.
“Ready,” you echo, climbing into the passenger seat beside him.
The drive to the campsite is just over an hour long, taking Minho’s vehicle through narrow paths of dirt roads surrounded by trees. The treacherous drive doesn’t seem to faze him at all, as he keeps just one hand on the wheel, while the other rests casually on the car console. You can tell he’s done this drive a number of times before, judging by the way he needs no form of navigation and doesn’t stop to read the directional signs at any point.
“Do we need to pitch a tent when we get there?” You ask, and Minho laughs in response.
“That’s how I can tell you’ve never come here before.”
“What?” You reply with a chuckle of your own. “It’s a totally valid question.”
“Yeah, maybe if we were on Survivor. There’s tents all over the campsite. And picnic tables, and bathrooms and I think there’s a gift shop somewhere.”
You nod at his response, a little more intrigued now that you know it’s not going to be as hands-on as you thought. And when he pulls into the parking lot, he’s right- there are cabins that span the perimeter of the parking lot, presumably bathrooms and information centers about the place.
Minho puts the car into park as he helps you gather your bags, and then you both enter the cabin closest to you, being greeted by an older woman who sits at an information booth.
“Welcome!” She exclaims in a cheerful tone. “Are you folks staying overnight?”
“Yes,” Minho answers, hoisting his duffel bag further up his shoulder. “We’ll be here for two nights.”
“Wonderful!” she replies, gathering a thin stack of pamphlets. She uncaps a red pen, circling a little graphic that indicates a tent, and then slides it over to Minho along the counter.
“You two will occupy this location here- it’s just a few minutes up the hill there. The bathroom is attached to the unit, and there are a few clean towels in the drawers there.”
She slides him two more pamphlets, gesturing to their titles and keeping her gaze on the infographics.
“There’s a guide on plants to avoid, and some wildlife you might run into. Any questions?”
Minho shakes his head, stuffing the pamphlet into his pocket and giving her a small nod.
“No, thank you,” he says, looking over at you.
And the woman shoots you a smile now, gesturing to your hand.
“That is a beautiful ring,” she states, clasping a hand over her heart emotionally.
“Thank you,” you reply with a smile. “I’m getting married.”
She laughs lightly, shooting Minho a thumbs up.
“Enjoy it while you can!”
You’re quick to shake your head at her, taking a step away from Minho.
“Oh god, no, he’s not my fiancé. He’s just a friend.”
And Minho takes a step away, too, giving her a nod.
“We’re just longtime friends,” he echoes your words.
“My apologies,” the woman is quick to say. “Enjoy your stay regardless.”
*
“It never ends,” you say to Minho as you exit. “I can’t believe people still think we’re a couple when we go out.”
“It’s just a common equation,” Minho responds. “Two people. Engagement ring. Camping trip.”
“I know,” you emphasize. “It’s just so weird being so close to my own marriage and still having to tell people we’re not a couple.”
Minho swallows nervously, not entertaining the discussion any further as he takes your aversion to the idea of it as answer enough.
“It’s just up here,” Minho says, gesturing to the narrow dirt path that leads up to your tent.
The tent is a long, rectangular space, the beige tarp even accompanied by clear vinyl windows that zip up for added privacy. The inside houses a small birch wood table pushed against the side, two white folding chairs, and a single bed, just larger than a twin-sized one.
“One bed?” You say as you scan the room, dropping your bags and looking nervously back at Minho.
“All the units have one bed,” he explains casually. “I’ll take the floor.”
“You’re not taking the floor, Minho. It’s freezing.”
“I’ve done it before,” he says, unzipping his bag and pulling out a smaller pouch. “I’ll be fine.”
“But it’s so awkward to have you on the floor while I get a whole bed to myself.”
He disregards your concerns, tossing the pouch to you, which you catch in two hands and examine.
“Bait,” he says with a small smile.
“Bait?” You echo. “You mean like…”
“Fishing,” he says confidently. “We’re catching our dinner tonight.”
*
It’s a fair assumption to say you hadn’t taken Minho’s liking to camping very seriously. Sure, you knew he was partial to the great outdoors and to catching his own dinners. Of course he knows how to pitch a tent and gut a fish. But seeing him do it in action, string a spinnerbait onto his fishing rod and cast his line, watching meticulously as the bobber pulls underwater and he checks if he’s caught a bass yet, you’re admittedly pretty impressed. He looks completely in his element like this, uttering remarks about his “monofilament fishing line” that you don’t understand in the slightest, but you listen to regardless. For a brief moment, you can’t help but feel bad, seeing how much this interests him, when all you’ve ever done in the span of your friendship is drag him to clubs and get takeout together. Maybe you should’ve taken this whole thing more seriously. Maybe you should have accompanied Minho on one of his offers for a fishing trip when you still had the chance to do it without being under Jung’s watchful eye.
“We may need a smaller hook,” Minho says, as he adjusts his rod and stares out at the lake. The atmosphere is lazy and restful, the gentle lull of the lake’s deep blue water sloshing against the rocks that line the shore and swaying with the breeze. There’s a distant buzz of cicadas at this hour, and the swallows circle the vast green trees overhead that rustle in syncopation with the water. You and Minho remain seated on the flat rocks that line the shore, a cooler of ice and a small pouch of bait between the two of you.
Minho’s gaze remains set on the lake, attentively watching the bobber and praying for a bass to latch onto it so that he can instruct you on the de-gutting and cleaning process. But there seems to be no sign of fish anywhere, the only movement being the little ripples that vibrate with the sporadic activity of water bugs.
“When was the first time you went fishing?” You ask Minho suddenly, catching his gaze as he turns to you.
“First time?” He echoes. “I don’t know, maybe age seven? My dad taught me.”
You nod in response, picturing a little Minho alongside his dad, learning the ropes of monofilament fishing lines and all that jazz. You can’t help but smile at the thought of it, knowing Minho was probably so quiet, yet full of curiosity, the same way he is now.
“I wish I would’ve come,” you say finally, letting out a small sigh as you speak. “I wish I came with you on one of these trips.”
Minho shakes his head and waves you off. “Solo camping is one of my favorite things in the world. I didn’t need it to be ruined by all your city girl antics.”
“Hey!” You exclaim with a small laugh, hitting him lightly, and Minho hits you back.
For a moment, the two of you say nothing, admiring the way the sunlight glares overhead and sets the water aglow with glints of light that make it almost hard to look at. Minho takes notice of the more casual look you sport, too, void of any makeup and your hair tied back loosely. Similarly, the little imperfections that mark his skin remind you of the Minho you met in college, back when you were both riddled with zits and drank cans of soda for breakfast. And now across from you, acne scars and a handsome face he’s grown into so well, you can’t help but feel your heart swell at the fact that he’s still here, this many years later, regardless of the roadblocks your relationship has taken you through. It’s a miraculous thing to have someone stick by your side knowing you’re getting wed to a person he despises. And you refuse to part ways with him, too, despite the amount of outings he declines in the name of nothing important. What a fascinating prospect, to be reminded that your most unconditional form of love comes in the form of a best friend more than even your fiancé on most days.
You open your mouth to say something, being promptly interrupted by the reel of the fishing line being pulled back, the rhythmic buzzing of the handle startling you both as it’s pulled in circular motions to indicate a catch.
“Oh my god, what do we do?” You exclaim to Minho, a sense of urgency present in your voice as you await his instruction.
“I’ll teach you,” Minho says, as he rises from his spot and gestures to the fishing rod. “Grab the handle, like- yeah, just like that.”
And you do as you’re told, approaching the rod to steady the handle in your grasp. He guides you through the careful motions, steadying your hands a comfortable distance away from the reel seat, pulling back the handle with slow, yet purposeful movements and raising the fishing line away from the gentle current of the water.
“There’s a lot of resistance,” you comment, as you pull even harder.
“Really?” Minho remarks, his hands on his hips as he looks out upon the water. “I wonder if it’s going to be a big one. Keep pulling.”
And you do, heaving the rod desperately away from the water to pull in your catch. There’s heavy resistance at first, and then a generous amount of give to the force, as the line finally glides across the water and begins to pull up toward you.
“Get ready,” Minho says excitedly. “It’s probably going to be a little skittish, just hold tightly and don’t let go.”
As he watches you pull, he takes note of the way the line struggles to move past a barrier in the water, sending ripples down the shore as you continue to pull, to no avail.
“I need help,” you voice frantically. “Minho, take the rod-”
“Just relax,” Minho echoes, coming around behind you and placing two hands over yours. He stands close behind you as he helps steady the rod, gripping tightly and helping you reel it in.
The two of you watch with bated breath as the line finally begins to move again, erratic ripples of water vibrating in the otherwise still lake as you reel in the catch.
“Here it comes!” Minho exclaims, as he continues to reel over your hands with his, his veins protruding with every slight motion as his slender fingers work around yours.
And then the fishing line is promptly pulled out of the water, swinging in front of your view and slowing its swaying motions as you take a gander.
It’s a large, juicy, vibrant hunk of moss.
No fish in sight, no catch of the day, unless for a bottom feeder. Minho says nothing for a moment, placing his hands on his hips again as he takes in the sight of the forest green mass. And then you break the silence with laughter, doubling over and clutching your stomach as you laugh at the ridiculous view.
“What’s so funny?” Minho inquires with a breathy chuckle, transitioning into his own fit of giggles.
“It’s fucking moss,” you exclaim, gesturing to the fishing rod and laughing again. “We’ve been here for hours and we haven’t caught anything besides a fucking byrophyte.”
Minho laughs, too, setting the rod down to clutch his own stomach.
“It’s not funny,” he says between laughter. “We don’t have dinner tonight.”
“Yeah we do,” you say breathlessly. “We have moss.”
And the two of you almost collapse on the gravel, holding your stomachs as you laugh endlessly at the ridiculousness of the situation. The fishing rod remains propped up against the rocks, the slab of moss dangling and dripping murky water back onto the gravel.
When your laughter dies down, Minho sprawls out onto one of the big rocks, the palms of his feet flat against the warm stone as he meets your gaze again. You occupy the spot beside him, your knees bent too, keeping your gaze locked on his as you smile.
“I missed this,” you say after a moment of silence. “I missed hanging out with you.”
Minho responds in a breathy chuckle, running his hands through his hair and rolling his eyes in a joking manner.
“You should’ve come camping with me ages ago,” he says. “We could’ve been eating moss for dinner instead of fast food.”
You chuckle too, and the sunlight beams over your listless bodies sprawled out on the rocks, glints of light hitting Minho’s golden-brown hair and his sparkling eyes. He looks so angelic in this atmosphere, so at peace with the nature around him and in tune with his emotions. For the first time in a long while, there’s nothing present between you and Minho that hinders the relationship you have to each other. He’s just as important to you in this moment as you are to him. And not even the knowledge that you’ve lied to your fiancé to be here with him can come between that.
*
Lucky for you, Minho always comes prepared. Of course he’s dealt with the situation of catching nothing while fishing and needing a plan to fall back on for dinner. So it’s no surprise to you that his backpack contains cups of instant ramen and bags of chips.
“Shrimp or chicken?” Minho asks, as water boils on his portable kettle.
“Surprise me,” you shoot back, getting comfortable in one of the two camping chairs across the bed. You feel a wave of tiredness wash over your body instantly, but you also feel fulfilled, having bonded with Minho more in the last few hours than any of your double dates with Jung and one of Minho’s picks from a dating app.
Minho shuts off the kettle, tearing open packets of vegetables and mixing them with your noodles as he pours hot water in both cups.
“Careful, it’s hot,” Minho remarks, handing you a cup and sliding a pair of chopsticks across the table to you.
“Today was fun,” you say to him, as you blow on a generous serving of noodles and guide them into your mouth with the wooden chopsticks.
“You’re not half bad at fishing,” Minho states. “I think it’s just emptier this season. But your technique’s good.”
“Really?” You query. “I feel like you did most of the work.”
Minho shakes his head, slurping a portion of his noodles before speaking.
“Maybe if you ditched your lame golf nights with Jung and came camping with me more, you could get some practice.”
“Ha ha,” you muse sarcastically. “His golf nights aren’t lame, they’re actually pretty fun. You’d know if you came out to one.”
“Please,” Minho retorts, gathering more noodles with his chopsticks. “Artificial grass and polo shirts aren’t really my thing. Of course they’d be Jung’s, though.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means even his favorite sport is as fake as he is.”
“Minho!”
“What?” He says in a breathy chuckle. “You asked what I meant.”
You shake your head, stirring broth around in your cup with your chopsticks. You normally don't entertain Minho when he insults Jung like this, knowing he’s just going to get mad and list everything he despises about him. But tonight, being so far away from Jung, it somehow feels permissible. It’s not like Jung is going to materialize out of thin air and find out about his little remarks. You don’t get cell reception out here, and it’s possibly one of your last few intimate moments with Minho to just let loose and joke with him. So you don't say anything, allowing him free reign as he cracks jokes about Jung at his expense. And you don’t feel bad about it, either, knowing Jung wouldn’t hesitate to do the same back at Minho.
The tent falls quiet for a moment as both of you finish your meals, the only noises present between the two of you being slurping the remainder of your noodles and setting the cups aside. Minho runs his hands through his hair and spreads his legs out in front of him as he slouches back in his camper chair.
“I can’t believe you’re getting fucking married,” he says with a breathy chuckle. “That’s still so weird to me.”
“Imagine how I feel,” you emphasize. “The word ‘wife’ still kinda grosses me out.”
“Well you have about a month to get used to it,” Minho replies. And then he gets quiet, averting his gaze from yours as he blinks. “Or a whole lifetime, I guess.”
You stay quiet, too, pulling up your legs to cross them in your chair and nodding reluctantly.
“Yeah. ‘lifetime’ kinda sounds like a scary word, too.”
Minho purses his lips, and then he turns to meet your gaze again, a solemn smile on his face.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he voices. “It can also imply a lifetime of happiness. And of love. Permanence isn’t a bad thing.”
You smile at him, comforted by the optimism he brings to the atmosphere, despite his dislike for Jung, and especially the prospect of you getting married to him. He doesn’t change- he’s still the Minho you know very well, the one who takes your problems and makes them seem so small, so unimportant, until you can’t, in good conscience, worry about them anymore.
“You’re right,” you say back at him. “I’ll remember that when I say my vows.”
You think over his words momentarily, and then you meet his gaze with a knowing smile.
“Do you remember when we had to write an essay about where we’d want to travel if we won the lottery? In our literary analysis course?”
Minho’s eyes roll to the ceiling as he thinks for a moment, and then he nods.
“Yeah. You wrote about Europe or something.”
“I did,” you recall. “And you wrote about that one historical town. What was it called again?”
“Shirakawa,” Minho responds. “Small mountain village in Japan where it snows a ton and there are little farmhouses everywhere.”
You chuckle lightly, remembering the countless images Minho had shown you when he was producing his paper on the subject. You can still picture the little brown houses and the vibrant green hills in the summertime. And the winter photos looked like something out of a Christmas movie, fresh snow blanketing the village and painting the town with bright hues of white.
You think over his essay for a moment, remembering just how many times you’d peer edited each other’s papers, and Minho wound up getting the best grade in the class for how poetically he spoke of Shirakawa. He talked about it for several months after the assignment, too, always voicing his desire to visit one day and see all the farmhouses for himself.
“I wish we still had time to go,” you say finally. “I always pictured we’d go one day.”
Minho purses his lips in a thin line, your statement echoing in his ears and the words stinging. It’s moments like these he’s especially regretful you’re getting married to Jung- all the stupid, likely intangible plans you made together and promised you’d fulfill sometime down the line. And now with Jung’s obnoxious presence indicating that of permanence, Minho knows there’s zero possibility you’ll be able to fulfill any of the plans you made together.
“You have a whole honeymoon planned on a tropical island,” Minho says somberly. “That’s far better than little old Shirakawa.”
You say nothing in reply, nodding at his words and thinking back to the plans you and Jung have already booked for your honeymoon.
Honeymoon. Even that word sounds foreign.
“Maybe we’ll plan for when I get back,” you tell Minho. “Little camping excursion in the farmhouses. We can get shitfaced and pet all the little goats.”
He laughs lightly, giving you a smile.
“Sure,” Minho affirms. “We can do that.”
And then his gaze darts to his backpack which sits on the floor, his eyes widening as he sits up.
“Speaking of shitfaced,” Minho says. “I think I brought boxed wine.”
“Boxed wine?” You repeat with a chuckle. “Jesus, we really might as well be back in college.”
He rises from the camper chair to make his way over to his backpack, unzipping the larger pouch and pulling out two small black cartons of wine, giving them a small shake before scanning the room as though he’s looking for something else.
“What?” You query, waiting for him to say something.
Minho says nothing, standing up again and taking long strides to where his fishing rod is, grasping it in one hand and fiddling with the hook.
“What are you doing?” You ask, watching as Minho’s expression turns serious again. His slender fingers toy with the small hook, the two cartons of wine balanced in his other hand.
You watch as he unfolds one tab on the box of wine, and then brings down the fishing hook to pierce it through the thin cardboard and string it through securely. When he’s finished, he gives it a little tug, and then raises the box of wine as he lifts the fishing rod once more, reeling the handle in the counter direction to move it out toward you.
“What the hell are you doing?” You ask again, chuckling softly as you watch Minho struggle to balance the carton of wine.
He reels the carton out further, and then slows as he drops it into your lap, moving the rod around in erratic motions and pretending to stabilize the line.
“Get it!” Minho exclaims. “It’s getting away, you have to get it!”
You play along, grasping the carton of wine in your two hands and pretending to steady its slippery grip as it flaps around helplessly.
“It’s slippery!” You exclaim back, holding it up with two hands and angling it toward Minho.
Minho gasps, and then sets his rod down to applaud you generously.
“Congratulations,” he says in a proud voice. “Your first catch. You caught your own dinner.”
And the dark night around you seems to be set aglow as laughter fills the entirety of the tent.
*
Two hours later, it’s half past midnight, empty cartons of wine on the table between you as you talk through your starkly different lives.
Minho shares tales of work you’d missed out on, dating app horror stories and recounts days from college when you’d go to nightclubs together and use fake IDs. You listen attentively for the first time in a long time, no sense of urgency present, nor the desire to set him up with somebody else. It’s you who wants to be here alongside him, rekindling your friendship and reliving your glory days. And Minho feels the same way, a gentle buzz swirling his mind from the cherry merlot and your sweet laugh in response to his tales.
“They so thought we were lying when we turned 21,” you say through laughter. “In hindsight, it’s pretty lucky we didn’t get thrown in jail for a night.”
“Yeah, only because you flirted with the bouncer,” Minho says. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t throw you in jail after offering you a drink.”
You laugh lightly, remembering the bizarre encounter, and then you slouch back in your chair as you shut your eyes.
“We should get to sleep,” you say to Minho. “It’s late.”
“Yeah,” he responds. “I’ll get my sleeping bag on the floor.”
“Don’t be such a fucking drag,” you protest.
“What?”
“Just sleep on the bed with me. It’s big enough and there’s less of a chance that you’ll wake up with a broken back. I’m not listening to you complain about your fucked-up joints on tomorrow’s drive home.”
Minho laughs lightly, and then he gestures to the bed.
“If you snore, I’m throwing you to the bears,” he says plainly.
“Yeah, well you kick me, I’m dumping you in the lake.”
*
Minho brushes his teeth over the small steel sink in the corner of the room, swapping out to fix the bed sheets while you brush your teeth, too. When you’re finished, you meet him at the foot of the bed, pulling your corner of the blanket down and climbing in beside him. The ceiling of the tent is barely visible in this level of darkness, just an indistinguishable outline of fabric visible as you cross your hands over your chest and exhale deeply. Minho does the same, and though he’s right beside you, he feels miles away, his exhale sounding distant as he focuses on the ceiling of the tent, too.
“It’s really dark,” you comment.
“Yeah,” he says back. “That’s the outdoors for you.”
He thinks for a brief moment, and then he breaks the silence that washes over the two of you.
“Are you excited for the honeymoon?” He asks quietly.
There’s no answer for several moments, the only sound coming from the gentle sway of the trees just beyond your tent.
And you are excited, but you’re more nervous, uncertain and disappointed knowing that everything will be so different upon your return. It’s like exchanging an old life for a new one- one that could be far worse, for all you know.
“I’m nervous,” you say candidly.
“Why?”
“Because marriage is a big deal. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m even doing the right thing.”
It’s Minho’s turn to remain quiet now, his hands folded over his chest as he ponders your words.
“Are you happy?”
There’s no response from you. Not now, not after a minute and not even after several minutes have passed. And you are happy, but you’re still much of the same- nervous, uncertain and disappointed that this new life implies change.
“Jung hates me,” Minho says suddenly.
“He doesn’t hate you-”
“He hates me,” Minho reaffirms a little louder. “The way he looks at me, or interrupts us whenever we’re talking. I’m sorry that I’m so distant from you when he’s around. The guy hates me.”
You stay quiet, knowing he’s right, but not wanting to fuel the fire that burns between the two of them.
“He probably thought we had something going on,” Minho says. “He’d kill me if he knew I was in the same bed with you.”
You scoff lightly, dismissing Minho’s claims with a wave of your hand.
“Please,” you emphasize. “He hasn’t even touched me in a month.”
And you regret the words the second they leave your lips, bringing two hands up to cover your mouth as Minho props himself up to look at you.
“What? Why?”
“Nothing,” you say quickly. “Forget I said anything.”
“No, I genuinely want to know,” Minho reiterates, keeping his gaze locked on yours. “You’re getting married and you haven’t had sex with your fiancé in a month? Who does that?”
“He told me it was a punishment,” you say in exasperation. “We had a fight, and he told me he wouldn’t touch me if I didn’t admit to being wrong.”
“What?” Minho says, turning audibly irate. “Are you serious? What kind of cruel and unusual punishment is that?”
“Look, I don’t know, okay? Let’s just not talk about it-”
“There go your excuses,” Minho says. “Your future husband won’t touch you, and you’re still defending him. Jesus Christ, it’s worse than I thought it was.”
“Would you stop?” You say to him, sitting up as he slings his elbows around his knees and shakes his head.
“Stop what? Stop being concerned for my best friend who’s clearly suffering at the hands of her own fiancé? Not gonna happen.”
“I’m not suffering,” you relay to him.
“Sure,” Minho says sarcastically. “So you never wanted to have sex in the whole month he’s kept this punishment going.”
You say nothing, swallowing nervously as you keep your gaze locked on Minho’s. He’s at a painfully close proximity to you right now, one strand of hair falling loosely in his face as his eyebrows furrow together in anger. His plain black t-shirt hugs his broad shoulders as he sits up, his basketball shorts riding up to expose a generous amount of his toned thighs. And his lips remain parted, waiting for you to say something, which you don’t. You simply stare at him blankly, your eyes darting over his gaze, down to his lips and then back up to his eyes.
Minho’s expression turns serious, too, unable to look away from your conflicted expression as you watch him.
“Not… really…” you manage to say in short words.
“Maybe not…” you continue, leaning into him a little as his arms loosen around his knees.
He somehow looks so tantalizing right now, in a way you’ve never seen him before. Sure, you’re aware Minho is good looking, and he always has been. And maybe your fleeting crush back when you first met him was short-lived, quickly moving on to date somebody else you met at a party. Maybe you were a little jealous the time his former girlfriend remarked how good he was in bed, or that she got to touch him when he wore that suit you loved so much at graduation. Maybe you even touched yourself once or twice to the thought of him, conjuring some stupid fantasy in your mind for the sole purpose of getting off to it. But nothing was ever going to come to fruition, not when he’s been your friend for years, you have Jung and you’re about to get married.
…At least not with any intention besides being fucked by him the way Jung has neglected of you for a month now.
“Maybe not until now,” you finally breathe out, your heart beating erratically in your chest as you await an answer from him.
Minho’s gaze flickers down to your lips, and then back to your eyes, furrowing his eyebrows as he makes sense of your words.
“Are you drunk right now?” He asks simply.
“No,” you’re quick to respond, shaking your head to affirm the answer.
“Good,”’Minho says. “Me neither.”
And the two of you meet in the middle, his lips crashing against yours roughly as you kiss him for the first time, hands flying to tug at his t-shirt as he brings to hands around the small of your back.
He tastes like wine, transferring the robust flavor of cherry merlot back onto your lips as you kiss him, his plump lips working perfectly against yours as you pull him closer. You want so badly to position yourself differently, to adjust your body’s awkward spot on the bed so that you can be a bit closer to him, so that you can cup his face and pepper it in breathless kisses. But you fear that the minute you pull away, Minho’s going to somehow realize that it’s you he’s kissing, his best friend of so many years, one who’s already engaged.
It’s Minho who pulls away briefly first, getting a little closer to you, while you scoot further back and lie flat on your spot on the bed.
“This is just to prove a point,” Minho says breathlessly, as he hovers over you now and steadies himself over your body with one strong arm. “It’s not cheating,” he emphasizes, and you nod eagerly at the words, suddenly aware that it’s not even the cheating aspect you were worried about. It was solely the possibility of ruining your friendship with Minho, who’s always been so vocal about his distaste for disloyalty.
“It’s just to prove a point,” you repeat, tangling your hands in his hair and pulling him back down to kiss you. “Nobody has to know.”
Minho grins against your lips, pressing repeated, chaste kisses to your already swollen lips and trailing down to paint a line of kisses down the column of your neck. Your heart beats in ways you’ve never felt before, a rapid arrhythmia brought on by the sheer terror of being found out, by the knowledge that this is the one person who could single handedly ruin your engagement to Jung. And yet you couldn’t care less in this moment, as his teeth take your flesh between them and suck bruises down your neck, a generous purple color painting the goosebumps that rise upon your skin.
Are either of you in any place to return with hickeys painting your skin like you spend the weekend at a frat house? Not in the slightest. And yet you can’t help but feel this is what you missed in college all that time, the same actions Minho repeated with the few girlfriends he ran through. Fucking them sweetly in his dorm bed, roping scarves around their necks when he’d send them off and his ears turning a bright shade of red when you’d point them out in your 7am college lectures.
Was there ever a hint of jealousy present between the two of you? Maybe, you think to yourself, as a string of spit connects Minho’s lips to your bruises, peppering them in light kisses. You could never help but wonder what it was like, what those girls had experienced each time they disappeared from his dorm in the early hours of the morning. And Minho, being the gentleman he was, was never one to kiss and tell. The sex was intimate, private, the details living and dying with him only, even if the relationship went awry or fizzled out suddenly.
“We probably shouldn’t go any further,” Minho interrupts, pulling away from you to maintain eye contact. His eyes are hooded with lust, his lips pink and swollen from kissing you so passionately. And his eyebrows arch up in a state of concern, mostly worried you’re going to protest him taking it any further than this. But it’s all you’ve occupied your mind with now, wanting so badly to know what little tricks Minho wears up his sleeve, if he’s just as intrigued with the idea as you are, if he even wants to have sex with you.
“It’s not like we’re dating or anything,” you say to Minho, desperately searching for the words to indicate how badly you want this. “It’s just… some drunken hookup. It’s probably nothing Jung didn’t do at his party last week.”
“But we’re not-” Minho begins, promptly silencing himself. He begins to tell you that he’s not drunk, and you aren’t either- but he’s already caught on to your little plan.
“Yeah,” Minho then says. “I’m a little tipsy.”
“Me too,” you say with a soft chuckle. “Too much wine.”
“Yeah,” he says, leaning into kiss you again. “And I get really horny when I’m drunk.”
“Me too,” you say between kisses. “It’s not like we can just leave each other hanging. Unless you want me to rub one out beside you, and that would be more awkward.”
“Yeah,” he replies. “Might as well… help each other out, right?”
“Right,” you affirm, pulling down your panties as Minho separates to pull off his shirt.
It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, already having witnessed him in this level of undress at every pool party and when you’d come over to his dorm unannounced. But it feels different at this proximity, his tanned skin hovering over yours and brushing against your flesh with every eager kiss.
Minho begins to ask you if he can touch you, but you’re faster than he is, taking his hand in yours and guiding it to your aching clit, letting him circle two fingers around your bundle of nerves as he pulls back to look you in the eyes.
“Jesus,” Minho remarks. “You are wet when you’re drunk.”
And your breath hitches in the back of your throat as he rubs you gently, a smirk growing on his face as you let out little whimpers. It’s been so long since somebody’s touched you like this, Jung hardly even giving attention to the foreplay on most days. His nimble fingers rub at a steady pace, his eyes boring into yours as he makes you writhe in pleasure beneath him. Minho’s eyes are sparkling at this proximity, his big brown pupils exuding curiosity and tenderness as he gauges your every reaction to his touches.
“Minho,” you breathe out desperately, arching into his touch to chase the friction.
“What?” He asks sweetly, his expression shifting into that of concern as he waits for you to speak. But he knows what you’re going to ask, also aware of the tent pitched in his boxers as he works you.
“Don’t make me ask,” you say with a sheepish chuckle.
He chuckles softly, too, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to your lips before pulling his hand away.
“Let me get a condom,” Minho says in a serious tone. And you’d completely forgotten about protection, not even having used a condom in ages, since your only partner for several years has been Jung.
With the painful ache between your legs, you wish so badly you could ask him to fuck you raw and help ease the weeks of waiting you’ve had to do just to feel some sense of relief. And a part of you can’t help but think back to your days of college, when Minho would always ensure he kept a new one between the crisp bills in his wallet. Ones that were put to use with other women, Minho always so careful not to make any stupid mistakes or take risks the way you and Jung often did.
But you can’t let him fuck you raw, being in the middle of nowhere, no access to pills and admittedly not the most punctual at remembering to take your birth control. The last thing you can do right now is show up to your own wedding with Jung- pregnant with Minho’s child.
Minho’s cock is fully erect as he fishes around his backpack for a condom, pulling out his wallet and sorting through the bills for one. You briefly wonder what would happen if he didn’t have one- you’d likely ask him to fuck you anyway, and to finish on your face or your tits. But it’d be such a waste not to let him finish inside of you, not when you’re both this aroused and desperate for some sense of relief
You silently pray he won’t think too hard about any of this. Don’t think about who I am to you. Don’t think about how this will complicate things, and don’t think about the fact that I’m engaged to another man. Just fuck me, and we’ll deal with whatever consequences arise tomorrow.
“Got it,” Minho voices, and you feel yourself exhale the breath you’ve been holding this whole time.
Minho approaches you again, pinching it between his two fingers, tearing open the silver packet with his skewed front teeth and pulling out the white rubber. You watch with bated breath as he rests a knee on the bed beside you, steadying himself with one hand and rolling the condom onto his length with one hand.
It’s the first time you’ve properly taken note of the appearance of his cock, and he’s bigger than you’d imagined. His thick, veiny girth is tinted a bright shade of red in anticipation, his head leaking a bead of precum as the rubber grazes his tip and coats every inch of his flesh. You’re a little disappointed at the sight being obscured by the protection, but you take a sharp breath, anyway, wanting nothing more than to just feel it inside of you.
“Are you sure this is okay?” Minho asks, as he hovers over you again and props himself up with two hands. “If you think we’re making some mistake-”
“We’re not,” you say quickly. “It’s not a mistake. I promise you I’m not drunk or out of my mind or anything. I’m just really fucking horny.”
Minho chuckles lightly, and then he leans into graze his lips over yours just barely, delivering a painfully light kiss as he positions himself in front of you.
“Just tell me if you want me to stop,” he says, pressing another light kiss to your lips. “I promise I won’t get mad or anything.”
You nod eagerly, wrapping your arms around his neck, and then you both maintain eye contact with his hands as he carefully guides the tip of his length inside of you. You feel like you could cum at the sensation of his tip alone, your walls contracting around him desperately as he shuts his eyes in pleasure.
“Jesus,” Minho breathes. “You’re tight.”
“It’s been a month since he fucked me,” you admit shyly. “I haven’t even touched myself.”
And Minho takes it as a signal to snake a hand down between your bodies, latching the pads of his fingers to your clit once more and rubbing in gentle circles.
“He’s a fucking idiot,” Minho says plainly. “What a fucking joke.”
You weave your fingers in his golden brown tresses pulling him in for another kiss as he begins to thrust in and out of you with gentle movements so as not to hurt you. And it feels heavenly, like nothing you’ve ever felt with Jung before. There’s so much fear circling your mind, but it simply elevates the arousal you feel at the same time, your mind and body contracting in syncopation to echo the same sentiment that maybe you have indeed, been jealous of some of the other girls he’s fucked. Maybe your jealousy forced you to shut out the idea of anybody being pleasured like this by your best friend. You silently pray it never felt half this good for any of them, that he simply couldn’t get hard for them or maybe he’d neglected the same parts that drive you crazy in this moment. Because the thought of his cock inside of anybody except for you drives you mad, it feels so unnatural to think about when he’s fucking you so sweetly in the privacy of your tent, here in the middle of nowhere. Virtually impossible to feel an ounce of guilt when the nearest human is likely miles away, made even harder considering the only man who’d even care is much, much farther.
And Minho hopes you can’t feel that he’s been trying to stave off his own orgasm for the better part of 20 minutes now. His cock twitching with every thrust, his eyes shutting tightly to give attention to the sensation of your cunt clenching desperately around his thick girth. He can’t remember how he’d imagined it all those years, but he knows this feels much, much better than any fantasized version of you that ran rampant in his thoughts. One he had to stop himself from staring at a little too long when you’d opt to wear short skirts and tight little shirts to the clubs you’d frequent. A version of you he swore would one day come around to the realization that Jung isn’t meant for you, that he doesn’t fulfill you emotionally, or intellectually or even physically. Even a version of you that found exhilaration in fucking Minho behind Jung’s back, because having any version of you belong to Minho in one form or another would always take precedence over your inevitable absence following the wedding.
“Talk to me,” Minho says, as his thrusts slow a little. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”
“You,” you’re quick to respond. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Minho captures your lips in a drooly kiss, gasping into your parted lips as he thrusts in again and holds it there for a moment.
“Is it still okay?” He asks, like he hasn’t already been fucking you for several minutes now.
“It’s more than okay,” you respond, folding your leg at the knee beside him so that he’s hitting an entirely new angle.
“Jesus Christ,” Minho breathes, squeezing his eyes as his cock grazes your cunt even deeper.
Your breaths are labored now, involuntary gasps escaping your mouth with every thrust inside of you. His cock is completely buried to the hilt inside of you, the condom completely coated in your juices and working out of you with complete ease as he fucks you.
And he fucks you like he’s yours, like he’s the one getting married to you, perhaps subconsciously to prove a point to both you and Jung. He could never fuck you like this. I’m willing to bet he never has. He could never want you the way I do so passionately and unrelenting.
“Minho,” you call to him, arching into his touch as he moves a strand of hair out of your face.
“What is it?”
“This is okay, right?,” you state, though your tone takes the form of a plea, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. “It feels so good, I don’t want to ruin things-”
“It won’t ruin things,” Minho emphasizes. “We’re drunk, remember?” he says with a light chuckle.
His face is promptly buried in the crook of your neck, peppering kisses along the flesh and whispering promises against you that exist only in the intimate space of your shared tent.
“I’m just helping you out while we’re here,” Minho repeats. “And then you have a wedding to run off to.”
You smile up at him, fingers massaging his scalp lightly as he stays still inside of you, his cock pulsating lightly inside of the rubber as you take him.
“I would’ve asked for help a lot sooner if I knew it’d be this good,” you say with a saccharine smile, allowing your fingers to loop in his hair and tug lightly.
Minho chuckles down at you, his smile instilling an almost immediate sense of comfort once more as he begins to move again, his cock grazing your cervix with every slight movement as he lets out little gasps over you.
“I think I’m gonna cum,” you breathe through labored pants. Your tone sounds surprised, almost, at the prospect of your best friend coaxing an orgasm out of you.
And maybe you are, never having thought that this camping trip would end up with him inside of you, making love to you the way you picture the events of your honeymoon to unfold. Your best friend since college, and the most vocally displeased person at the reality of your engagement to Jung.
And the moment Minho’s been fantasizing since he first confronted his own feelings for you, a time completely unbeknownst to him now. Maybe it was the time you let him stay in your dorm bed when he wasn’t feeling good, or the time you baked him his favorite cake for his birthday most people seemed to have forgotten about. But the pinpointed time doesn’t matter right now- he’s here, your entire being is his for the night, and love or not, he’ll take any form of you he can grasp so desperately at.
“Fuck, I’m gonna cum, too,” Minho says back, his hands digging into your waist as he moves a little faster.
For several moments, nothing else is said between the two of you, only the echoing sounds of skin and drool and his toned body working itself in and out of you teeming around the dinky little tent like an erotic film on low volume. The sounds are muffled, both of you doing your best to remain hushed in your words and your breathy exchanges to each other, almost as if it’ll all be too real if you voice it any louder than this.
But all of this is very real, the actions serving as a sealed promise between the two of you to maintain this remarkable relationship you’ve developed with him. One in which you traverse the complexities of dating a man who’s never quite fulfilled you the way Minho caught on to very early on. And in turn, Minho uses the opportunity to fulfill you in every way he’s able to, whether it means being there at 3am to lend a kindly ear, concocting your favorite dishes after waking up hungover as a result of drinking to mask Jung’s shortcomings. And even to fuck away the stress Jung instills inside of you. To meet you halfway with his version of intimacy, one Jung has withheld from you for so long, and to remind you that although the marriage implies permanence, things could still be so, so different.
“Cum for me,” Minho says to you, leaning in to keep his lips pressed to yours. “Just let go of everything. Don’t think about him right now.”
And somehow it’s those words that assist you in reaching your finish, the subtle command to eject Jung from all your thoughts and replace him with Minho and Minho and more Minho.
It’s Minho easing the pain, Minho kissing you so tenderly, Minho thrusting his hardened cock in and out of your soaking cunt as you whimper helplessly beneath him.
And it’s Minho who finishes first, squeezing his eyes tightly as he feels his tip releases strings of cum into the constriction of the rubber condom, the finish feeling as though it’s the heaviest he’s had in months.
And the gentle pulse against your flesh coaxes out your own release, contracting around his wet girth and dribbling cum along the length of the condom as he fucks you through your fervent moans.
“God, you’re amazing,” Minho voices, as he pulls you in for a much gentler kiss. He holds his lips there momentarily, grazing them softly over yours, every part of him wanting to stay right here inside of you.
But as his cock begins to soften against him once more, he pulls out without another word, stripping off the condom while you watch him.
Strands of sweaty hair hang loosely in front of his face, framing his flushed appearance as his nimble fingers work to tie the condom off. He looks so attainable, so forgiving as he moves, and every part of you wants nothing more than to pull him close again and keep him tangled in your needy embrace.
“Minho?” You ask, as you sit up on the palms of your hands to meet his gaze.
“Hm?” He hums in response, discarding the condom and running two hands through his disheveled hair.
“Would you stay like this?”
He chuckles softly, occupying his spot again and pulling the blankets up to his chest.
“I’m not taking the floor anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, would you stay... close to me?” You ask shyly, your eyes flickering over his figure as he lies beside you.
He sits up to meet your gaze, reaching a hand out to you, his palm facing upward as he shoots you a sweet smile.
“I can stay close to you,” Minho reaffirms, pulling you close to his chest as he lies flat again, your head resting on his broad chest.
His chest rises and falls with every breath, his eyes shutting gently as he revels in the sensation of you seeking comfort beside him like this. And he can’t help but press a series of soft kisses to your temple, smiling when he hears a soft giggle escape your lips.
When the tent falls quiet once more, your listless bodies welcome the sleepiness that washes over you, euphonious melodies of crickets engaging in the sounds of nightfall outside. And Minho’s hand rubs gentle back and forth motions along the small of your back, reassuring for one last time that you have nothing to feel guilty about.
*
It’s like a moth to a flame, the way you’re drawn to Minho in the morning, despite the promise of it being just one night with him.
You’re hypnotized by the way he pulls on his sweatpants, chuckling as he nearly trips over himself in the confined space of the tent. His veiny hands working nimbly to chop vegetables and crush herbs as he prepares you one of his signature omelets. The silence that falls over you both while you eat, two fascinated gazes stuck on each other knowing very well you’d let him do it all over again if you weren’t so pressed for time. And when he’s helping you hoist your heavy backpack over his shoulders, the pressing urge to kiss him is present again, as though you seek a reminder that what occurred was indeed real and not some lucid dream conjured up within the darkened campsite.
An urge which you act upon, leaning into press your lips to his as he turns to ask if you’re all packed. And one which is reciprocated with a smile from him, grinning against your lips as he takes his time cupping a hand to your cheek and grazing his fingertips along your skin tenderly. With no real purpose, no sexual implication, no rush. Simply a kiss to conclude the trip, which may very well have been everything you needed as it precedes the wedding.
And with shared smiles between the two of you, Minho leads as you make your way back through the informational center. The same woman is sat at the desk, except she says nothing as you pass her by, a scowl on her face at the sight of you. You watch as she bows politely to other guests, inquires about their stay and offers them hard candies from the glass jar in front of her. Except she says nothing to you, almost appearing to shake her head as you pass her by.
“She was nicer yesterday,” you voice to Minho, your concerned gaze scanning his expression for a reaction. But he doesn’t give one, shrugging lightly as he holds the door for you on the way out.
“She’s probably having a bad day,” he says back. “Don’t worry about it.”
And it’s not until he takes your hand in his again that you realize it- this woman who you’d so confidently corrected on the fact that Minho is not in fact your fiancé, has witnessed you kissing him and holding his hand on your way out. Like a scarlet letter you wear upon your chest, except it’s you who put it there. Confirmation that you’re disloyal- a cheater, simply put. You want to defend your actions, but realistically, to whom? Not to Minho, who actively facilitated it. Not to Jung, who would kill you both if he knew.
And not even to the elderly woman, who you can’t explain it to, because it’s different. It’s not cheating, not when it’s Minho. He’s not some drunken hookup from a dive bar, or someone who’s relentlessly pursued you despite your protests. He’s your best friend, one who did you a favor in the absence of your fiancé’s desire to satisfy you. It’s different, you want to say to her. It’s not cheating with Minho- he’s different.
But you settle on the uncomfortable silence that remains when you climb into the passenger seat of Minho’s car, watching the trees melt into a blur of green hues as he backs out of the parking lot. And his hand meets yours over the center console, intertwining your fingers to put your mind at ease like he can somehow read your mind.
Perhaps he can, being the person who’s known every one of your thoughts so intimately since your time in college. And he also reads into your dismissal of the event when you finally let out a gentle sigh, lacing your fingers with his and allowing him to press a kiss to the back of your hand.
*
The arrival home is a non ceremonious one, Minho dropping you off a block before your shared apartment with Jung to avoid the interrogation he knows he’ll get.
He assists in gathering your bags, consolidating your items to ensure you can comfortably carry them up the block. And for a minute, the two of you say nothing as he sends you on your way, a kind of sparkle present in his eyes as he stares at you. He looks different today, a saccharine smile on his face and a much calmer demeanor overall. Every bone in your body wants to jump him and pepper him in kisses, to thank him for relieving the pent up sexual frustration in you and affirming that your fears surrounding this wedding are valid, but they don’t imply that you won’t enjoy married life, either. They’re just… feelings, ones you often find trouble confronting in the presence of Jung, and ones that you realize you’ve probably never confronted at all, if not around Minho.
The fears are valid, and they’re not fleeting in the slightest. But they are lessened with the reminder that Minho’s beside you every step of the way- regardless of how it manifests in your relationship. And the silence remains, as Minho shoots you a small wave, his eyes flickering briefly over the distant outline of your apartment.
“Hey,” you call out to Jung, who’s lazily sprawled out over the sofa, his feet laid flat upon the coffee table.
“How was the trip?” He asks enthusiastically, not taking his eyes off the sports channel that echoes loudly in front of him.
“Oh, you know,” you reply casually. “Just yoga. Always good to see old friends, though.”
“I’ll bet,” Jung replies, chuckling sarcastically as he speaks. “Seems like the only person you’re around these days is Minho.”
And then he reaches for the remote, lazily flipping through channels as you set your bag down.
“He’s my oldest friend,” you say casually, hoping he won’t notice the audible shakiness in your tone. It feels like he can hear how loud your thoughts are, the fears circling your mind, an expression on your face painted with incrimination. You think of your heart racing while Minho kissed you, the way his cock felt inside of you, your clit pulsating gently at the mere memory of it.
“Yeah, well, change is good,” Jung finishes. As you turn the corner, to meet him in front of the couch, you take note of his lap- a small, white cardboard box propped upon his sweatpants, the top ripped to keep it open and his hands working and out of it in rushed motions.
It’s the cake, you quickly realizing, your heart sinking a little at the sight of the frosting in complete disarray, almost half the dessert either smeared around the sides or piled on the fork he brings up to his lips.
“Listen,” Jung says, between a mouthful of food. “I have a golf thing this week and I want you to come see a couple buddies of mine.”
“This week?” You echo, your mind pondering all the potential excuses you can use against him. But nothing comes to mind, as Jung sets the box of cake aside and stands up from the couch.
“Yeah,” he says casually. “My buddy from college is gonna be in town, and he wants to get together before the wedding.”
You want so badly to protest his offer, knowing very well that Jung’s friends are nothing short of insufferable. They very seldom like you, openly voicing their concerns with your flaws, and they’re protective of him, as though Jung is the one who’s sacrificing more by being wed to you.
“Do I have a choice?” You ask, a small smile on your lips to offset the anger that could very well erupt in response to your statement.
But Jung just brings two hands up to your shoulder, rubbing the sides as he turns his attention back to the television.
“Not really. Hey, the game’s on again but make sure to clear your calendar on Thursday for me. And let’s bring that wine we got recently.”
“The white one?” You question, sagging your shoulders a little at his lack of hesitation to offer your favorite wine as a housewarming gift to his friends.
“Yeah, that one,” he says plainly, pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead and slinging his body back over the couch.
“By the way,” Jung voices, motioning for you to move out of the view of the tv screen. “Where’s the cake from? Shit’s good.”
Your gaze lands on the box again, completely torn apart, the icing letters indistinguishable and the fondant ribbons in disarray on the cardboard. You can’t help but think of Minho and his careful attention to detail- the way he picked all your favorite colors, the flavors he knows you love, all from your favorite bakery you very seldom even visit because of the steep price points.
“Babe?” Jung calls again, spooning a layer of frosting into his mouth. “I asked where the cake was from.”
And you shrug casually as you pivot on your heel to exit the room.
“Minho picked it,” you say as you stride away from his still-slouched figure. “I wouldn’t know.”
*
“You have to freeze your cake and eat a piece of it every wedding anniversary,” Jung’s friend Kwang explains, as he brings a cigar to his lips and inhales generously. “That’s what we did, and we still have enough red velvet to last fucking years in there.”
“I love it,” Jung replies in a chuckle, slinging an arm over your shoulder and nudging you harshly. “Course, I’m not sure this one could stop herself from eating the rest of our cake for a whole year. She’s got a bigger sweet tooth than I do.”
You distance yourself from Jung a little, fiddling with your golf club as the men share echoing laughter between puffs of smoke.
The golf course Jung frequents is massive, spanning several hectares of land, which means you’re often stuck here for a long while during his golf sessions. His friends are the same detestable group of men he’s usually out with, all old friends from college you’ve since been forced to get acquainted with. And together they talk each others’ ears off about sports, food, making subtle digs at their own wives or partners, and of course, golf. The blinding shade of green hills contrasts harshly against a pale blue sky and depicts an almost cartoon scenery, and you can feel the headache in your temples worsening with every loud chuckle that escapes Jung’s lips.
He hasn’t asked once about your yoga retreat- which may be a blessing of sorts when you recall the events that unfolded. But you know it’s got nothing to do with that, and everything to do with the fact that he doesn’t give a shit.
He probably doesn’t even remember you were gone, nor does he care to fill you in on the details that unfolded while you were away. And it wouldn’t matter, because you know it would be exactly some version of this- his obnoxious friends, golf, sports on tv and bragging about his proximity to a married life with you. Strangely enough, you’re normally able to stomach these conversations when you’re forced to go out with Jung. But somehow today, every word he utters aggravates you, and you’re desperate to find some excuse to make it home again.
Except you also know very well that it’s something else eating away at your mind this afternoon.
“Y/n?” Kwang questions, and you snap your head to look at him, realizing you’ve tuned out most of his talking points up until now.
“Yes?”
“It’s your turn,” he says, gesturing to your golf club. Jung watches you and chuckles, almost embarrassed with you, as he mirrors Kwang’s gesture.
“Go on,” Jung says condescendingly. “Remember how I taught you last time.”
And with the golf club in your timid grasp, you approach the tee, positioning your club out in front of you and doing your best to mimic the way Jung taught you. Or rather the way he yelled at you to memorize, always taking his sports endeavors far too seriously.
The club head rests gently against the golf ball, pulling back momentarily as your hands shift and tighten around the grip again. And Kwang exhales another puff of smoke, a light chuckle escaping his lips as his eyes bore into your standing figure.
“Her form’s gotten a little better,” he remarks to Jung.
“Yeah, because of me,” Jung says back.
“And good thing, too,” Kwang voices. “If she’d gotten better without your help it’d mean someone else was helping her.”
He laughs as he finishes speaking, transitioning to a coughing fit as you turn to meet Jung’s gaze. But Jung doesn’t look back at you, he simply pats Kwang’s back and exchanges laughter of his own.
“That’s true!” Jung echoes through a fit of laughter, like it’s the best joke he’s heard all century.
“Could you imagine if she pulled up here better than you?” Kwang says, flicking stray ashes off his cigar. “Some other man doing your part for you?”
Jung chuckles again, pulling a box of cigars from the pocket inside of his blazer and thumbing at a fresh one. You watch as he flips open a small bronze Zippo lighter, a small metal clink emitting from behind his cupped hand, as he brings the cigar head to the little yellow flame and holds it there momentarily.
“Fuckin’ A,” Jung remarks with the cigar hanging between his lips.
When it’s lit successfully, he pockets the lighter again, taking a generous puff and blowing smoke just past the direction of Kwang’s still-laughing figure.
“They say that’s how you know your wife’s disloyal,” he remarks. “Her sports form never worsens.”
You stand awkwardly, your fingers grazing the rubber of the golf club grip as you say nothing. Their laughter continues to swirl the atmosphere around you, the sound of the birds and the buzzing cicadas drowning out amidst their cackles. The sun beams entirely too bright down over you, the artificial grass seeming to turn an even more obnoxious shade of green as you wait for them to finish.
“Better hope this one’s not disloyal,” Kwang says amidst his jokes, nudging your upper thigh with the tip of his own golf club. “That’s a lot of planning down the drain.”
And somehow the words trigger the familiar arrhythmic beat in your chest, flashbacks of Minho crossing your mind instantaneously. It’s like they know, the way their jokes seem to run on forever, their wicked cackling taunting you with every passing second. They speak of your form and your position, and you can’t help but picture the way Minho had you sprawled over the bed for you, his toned body looming over yours as he fucked you like he was consummating a marriage.
Beads of sweat trickle down your forehead as the sun glares over you, and the feeling is reminiscent of your sweaty bodies tangled together in the confined space of the tent. Was it you who came first? Was it Minho? The details are a little blurry right now as you try to steady your breathing, every single fear coming to life as you use your golf club to keep upright.
Disloyal. Another man. Cheater.
Their words replay in your mind and produce offspring of new ones, alluding to implications of broken trust and shattered plans. Hypothetical talks of one whole year of planning down the drain, another man with his hands all over you fulfilling Jung’s role in his absence and improving your form.
They know. They know you cheated, this is Jung’s way of humiliating you in front of his closest friend before he publicly calls off the marriage. He’s going to confront you about it any second now. He’s going to drag Minho’s name through the mud, and possibly also his corpse when he’s done with him-
“Y/n?” A voice interrupts, and your head snaps in the direction of their still gazes. The atmosphere is quiet now, birds chirping overhead once more, cicadas buzzing rhythmically in the distance again.
“Huh?”
“You want to forfeit your turn?” Jung asks with a chuckle. “We’ve been waiting for you to start for ten minutes now.”
Your gaze falls down to your hands, gripped tightly around the rubber of the club still, the ball remaining immobile on the little red tee.
“Uh, sure,” you reply, handing the golf club to Jung as he shakes his head.
You watch with an embarrassed expression as Jung grasps the club skillfully, pulling back and twisting his heel as he produces a robust hit, the ball lifting off its tee and soaring into the distance over the green hill.
“She can’t be disloyal,” Jung says with a chuckle, as he prods you with his golf club for the nth time today. “She can’t even complete one round successfully. Any other man would’ve taught her that’s not how you golf.”
*
At the one week mark since you’ve seen Minho, he’s aware something is wrong. You haven’t picked up his calls, haven’t responded to a single one of his texts, and you feign tiredness or some made up illness when he offers to stop by at hours he knows Jung isn’t home. But you don’t entertain any of it, fearing still that Jung knows, and that this is going to be the end of your marriage.
A fleeting physical endeavor caused by your fiancé’s stubbornness, and yet it’s effectively going to be the end of what was supposed to be your entire future. Seeing Minho will only reignite every fear present inside of you, causing it to coax the truth out of you and confront your fears in the presence of Jung.
The fear of what a lifetime of marriage implies. Are you meant to feel like teenagers in love for the entirety of it? Do the fights last a lifetime? Are you supposed to find a middle ground, or will there always be a need for somebody like Minho to provide some clarity and help you rekindle things to the best of your abilities?
What if in a week, you hate the cake flavor you’ve picked? What if you find yourselves so comfortable it doesn’t feel like love anymore? What if you spend a lifetime picturing it’s Minho fucking you instead of Jung, just to get off at night?
What happens to the marriage then? Does the love fizzle out until it’s a comfortable state of tolerance, one in which you’re sacrificing happiness for stability? Or does it simply exist somewhere else- or with somebody else? What’s implied by a lifetime of this?
Minho’s always been a worrier at heart, though, and he won’t let up until he’s certain your relationship to him isn’t at risk of dissipating, too. So at 11pm on a Friday, when he knows Jung is out with the same group of friends, he makes his move to confront you.
The living room is completely quiet at this hour, a soft ticking noise from the clock overhead as you flip past a page in your book. A romance novel, one littered with smut and cheesy dialogue, true to the lonely housewife you’re already conditioning yourself to be. And as your gaze falls over the first sentence of a new chapter, a knocking at the front door interrupts you.
It’s not Jung- it can’t be at this hour, his return home always signaled by his loud stumbling through the doorway, the jingling of his keys and drunken steps over the shoes he so conveniently forgets to put on the shoe rack.
You wrap your arms around the knit holes of your sweater, approaching the door hesitantly. It’s likely one of Jung’s friends, late to the party, or even one of your own girlfriends, here for a late night gossip session. But when you unlatch the door and pull it open, your heart drops at the sight of Minho, his hands shoved in his pockets and his figure standing slouched as his head looks up to meet your gaze.
“Hi,” says Minho, giving you a thin-lipped smile.
You give him a small nod, unsure of what to reply.
He looks handsome tonight, in a dark denim jacket and a pair of jeans. His golden-brown tresses fall loosely around his chiseled face, and his eyes look a little tired, like he hasn’t gotten much sleep.
“Minho,” you say plainly, fidgeting with a loose hem on the inside of your sleeve. “What are you doing here?”
Minho shrugs, peering into the doorway behind you, and then his eyes lock on yours again.
“I never taught you how to gut a fish,” Minho replies.
“I was just- what?”
“A fish,” Minho repeats. “I never taught you how to gut one.”
“Yeah, because we didn’t catch any,” you reply, a short chuckle escaping your lips.
“I know,” Minho says. “I was wondering if you wanted to come over and gut one.”
“Now?” You reply, glancing at the darkened street behind him. “It’s late.”
“Yeah, and Jung isn’t home until early morning. There’s a salmon defrosting on my counter as we speak, assuming the cats haven’t gotten to it. And I was wondering if you wanted to gut it.”
And he’s doing that thing again, where he takes the problem at hand and makes it so much more miniscule than it actually is. This state between disloyalty and tension you feel toward Jung, and the conflicting feelings you have toward Minho and the trip’s subsequent events. But he doesn’t address any of that- instead, he takes issue with you never having gotten to gut a fish. And that’s a relief, when you think about the other option of verbally confronting the emotions you keep at bay.
“Is it messy?” You ask with a little smile.
“It’s messy,” Minho replies.
“What if I’m bad at it?”
“Then you’re bad at it. But I’ll help you. Mess and all.”
You turn around to peer back into the hallway, at the book lying open and flat on the couch, the second hand on the clock moving painfully slow and the dim lamp illuminating the room around you. There’s not much of anything to stick around for, not when Jung’s still going to be out for hours on end. And not when a part of you is dying to confront the situation with Minho in the privacy of his place.
“You can’t laugh if I’m bad,” you say to Minho as you turn back to face him, slipping on your shoes in the process
“I won’t laugh,” he retorts. “No promises, of course.”
*
Two hours later, the kitchen is littered with napkins, plates, gloves, filet knives and scales. Minho walks you through how to remove the roe and the milt, discarding them for you as you prep your filet knife. He verbally instructs you how to descale the fish, and when you make minimal progress, he guides your hand up and down the length of the salmon with his, giving a little nod as the scales fall off with ease and uncover the smooth finish beneath.
He’s understanding when your reluctant hands fail to cut through to the back bone, chuckling lightly as he helps you cut that, too. And when you successfully pluck the remainder of the pin bones with tweezers, he nods proudly, giving you a thumbs up as you dispose of the fish parts and slide the plate of pink slabs to him across the counter.
“You did really well,” Minho says comfortingly. “You’re very attentive to detail. I don’t think there’s a single pin bone still on there.”
“It’s a little gross,” you say, shaking off your hands and chuckling lightly.
“But the end result will be worth it,” he replies. “Somebody plucked the pin bones off every filet you’ve eaten.”
You hit his arm lightly, as he laughs, coating the slabs in seasoning as you pull your gloves off.
“Minho,” you voice nervously, as he keeps his attention on the plate of fish in front of him.
“Hm?”
“Should we… talk about what happened?”
He sprinkles dried parsley atop the filet, not looking at you as you hold your breath for an answer.
“We can talk about it,” Minho replies simply. “Or we can choose not to. It was just a favor I ran you.”
You nod in response, watching as he swaps out parsley for onion powder and sprinkles lightly.
“Can we talk about it?” You say finally, twiddling your thumbs together.
Minho sets down the glass jar, turning to face you and pulling off his gloves, too.
“Sure,” he says, leaning back against the counter and giving you his undivided attention. Your heartbeat quickens momentarily at the sight of him focusing solely on you, and you struggle to find the words to say. But Minho is faster, taking reins of the conversation and breaking the deafening silence between you two.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Minho finally says, a kind of sadness evident in his tone.
“I was scared,” you reply. “I felt like Jung knew. It could ruin all of our wedding plans.”
“There’s no way he can find out,” Minho says. “I haven’t said a word to anyone. Unless you felt inclined to say something-”
“God, no,” you reply quickly. “I wouldn’t dare say anything.”
“Good,” Minho then says. “Then it was just a mistake in the heat of the moment. There’s nothing to worry about.”
And somehow the words sting a little, this conclusion that the affair was a mistake. Was it a mistake? You’re not sure- though you are sure of the complete sense of ease it instilled in you, and the fact that it hasn’t left your mind in a whole week.
“Are we okay?” You ask him, a nervous expression painting your face as you wait for an answer.
And Minho nods confidently, pulling on a fresh set of gloves as he reaches for the salt and pepper shakers.
“We’re fine,” Minho reassures. “If you think anything is getting in the way of a decade of you being stuck with me, then you’re mistaken.”
You laugh lightly, pulling on another pair of gloves too and joining Minho in front of the plate of fish.
“You want to pan fry this?” Minho asks, changing the subject. “I’ll walk you through it.”
Your eyes scan the well-seasoned strips of salmon, and then Minho’s comforting figure beside you, as he slides you a pair of tongs.
“Yeah,” you say to him. “Let’s finish this thing.”
Minho’s right- the end result is worth it. The fish is tender, well-seasoned, paired beautifully with his favorite bottle of white wine over an old comedy movie.
And everything feels like it’s back to normal once more as you sit beside him, your plates completely void of food as you finish your glasses of wine and sit back comfortably.
As the end credits roll, Minho lowers the volume, but he doesn’t shut off the television yet, taking another sip from his glass as your gazes fix on the names disappearing on screen.
Your eyes scan Minho’s mostly-vacant walls, at the things and the stuff he’s moved around. And he has, a couple new photographs displayed neatly on the wall in gold frames.
Most of them are black and white photographs you recognize to be cityscapes. And among the collage, placed right in the middle, the only photo with an ounce of color catches your eye.
“Shirakawa,” you say to Minho, cocking your head at the photograph.
It’s a wide shot of the town, bright green grass contrasting the traditional brown farmhouses that span the entirety of the landscape.
“Mhm,” Minho affirms, giving a little nod as he looks over the photograph, too.
You remain like that for a moment, reveling in the view, and then you finally break the comfortable silence once more.
“Could you tell me about it?” You ask him sweetly. “Just anything.”
Minho thinks back to the facts of Shirakawa he stores in the corner of his mind for a moment, sorting through facts and tales he’s held onto since college. Little stories he’s always wished to pass along again one day.
“Those are called Gasshō-Zukuri houses,” Minho says. “Which directly translates to hands in prayer.”
You cock your head in the other direction, nodding at his words, and seeing exactly what he speaks of. The houses do resemble two hands in prayer, the triangular thatched roofs almost reminiscent of a church’s.
“The roofs were designed to prevent heavy snowfall,” he continues. “Which the town is notorious for receiving. But apparently it’s like a little winter land when you’re there.”
His voice trails off a little at the last syllable, getting quiet again as he folds his hands in his lap.
“Which is pretty cool,” Minho finishes, pulling back from divulging too much information about the town he could go on about forever.
And he doesn’t know you’d gladly listen to him talk about it forever, being continuously fascinated with his appreciation for the centuries-old town across the world from you two. You nod in response to his words, imagining the winters those tucked away in that little town must experience- blankets of snow and freezing temperatures, and yet so warm inside those historical homes loved by people all around the world.
“We’ll go one day,” you say to Minho finally, turning to meet his gaze.
He turns to look at you, too, a somber expression on his face as he listens to you speak.
“We’ll go to Shirakawa one day. I promise it.”
Minho swallows nervously, well aware of how close you are to him on the couch now. Your face at such a close distance to him, your limbs resting right beside each other as his eyes flicker over your parted lips.
Minho engages in the nervous habits he always does, blinking nervously a few times and toying with the lobe of his ear. But he doesn’t act on anything, not wanting to push the boundaries you’ve practically just set in place. The same boundaries that concluded it was a mistake in the heat of the moment. So then why do you feel so inclined to kiss him all over again, let your body tangle with his and ease your stress as he assists in confronting all your fears preceding the wedding? Why does the idea of a lifelong commitment feel so much less intimidating when you’re in the presence of Minho? And what are you doing having these thoughts about your best friend when you’re getting married to somebody else in a month?
Thoughts that fail to induce an answer from you- instead interrupted and subsequently silenced by your lips on Minho’s again, kissing him with such desperation the way you did before.
And though desperate, it's still tender, his eyes shutting instinctively as his hands cup your cheeks and pull you closer. And you’ve nowhere to go but his lap, straddling his waist with your legs as you refuse to break away from the kiss, your kisses turning hungrier by the second as his hands find your waist.
This implication to fuck you is far greater this time, a pressing urge between the two of you to mirror the night’s actions and confirm it really did happen. That he did fuck you that night in your tent, and that you both came with each other and for each other, your bodies releasing the pent-up frustration you’re now certain has existed for years.
“Is this okay?” Minho begins to ask, his hands grazing your sides, and your kisses trail down his neck to provide a clear answer to his concern.
“Please,” you plead, nibbling a light bruise into his flesh. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
“I don’t want you to feel guilty-”
“I don’t,” you say, moving to meet his lips again. “It feels so right with you. Please, could we do it again?”
Minho’s breath hitches in his throat as you palm him over the fabric of his jeans, his erection already visible for you.
“I want to,” Minho gasps. “But you’re getting married. I don’t want you to make another mistake-”
“It was never a mistake,” you say breathlessly. “Not the first time, not now. It feels so different with you. Do you feel it too?”
You pull away momentarily, hands cupped around the back of his neck as you wait for his answer. And Minho shoots a nervous smile in response; sheepishly toying with his hair as he struggles to voice his feelings.
“I… do,” Minho begins. “But I want you to-”
“Don’t worry about me,” you say, leaning in to resume pressing kisses along his neck. “Just fuck me like he doesn’t exist,” you finish, your lips working against his once more and guiding his hands down to your waist.
Although you were the one worried of getting found out, you can’t keep your distance from him, wanting nothing more than to feel him inside of you all over again. Coaxing your own arousal out of you, encouraging you to forget all about him the way you’ve been trying to do in the absence of Minho. But with him here in front of you, you know the only way to shut Jung out of your mind is to fill it with thoughts of Minho, and Minho and more Minho.
“I… can do that…” Minho says with another nervous chuckle, as you unzip his jeans and palm him through his boxers.
“Call me something other than my name,” you say to him, pressing a series of chaste kisses to his lips. “Say it like I’m yours.”
And Minho reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, pulling away again to look into your eyes.
“Baby?” He questions nervously, eliciting a smile from you.
“Yeah. Like that.”
“Yeah, baby?” He says again, reciprocating confidently now as you stroke him over his boxers. “You want me to make you forget about him?”
“Please,” you beg again. “You’re so much better than him.”
And amidst the ego boost, Minho can feel his cock swell, painfully hard in your firm grasp now as you stroke him.
“Wait,” Minho says, wincing slightly as you slow your movements. “I don’t want to cum yet.”
“Then hurry up and fuck me,” you smirk down at him, looping your fingers in the waistband of his jeans and tugging slightly. And Minho sits up straighter, smirking back, as he moves to press you down against the couch and hover over you.
“You want me to fuck you?” Minho asks, using one hand to tug his jeans down to his thighs. “God, you haven’t stopped thinking about it, haven’t you?”
“Not once,” you admit, wrapping two arms around his neck and pulling him down toward you. “I would’ve asked you to fuck me years ago if I knew what I was missing out on.”
The two of you share giggles as his jeans are discarded on the floor, followed by his t-shirt, and then your pants and your t-shirt, leaving him in just his boxers, and you in your bra and panties.
Minho lowers himself against your clothed core, rubbing ever so gently against you to provide some relief to his aching shaft as he works his kisses against your drooly lips. And he smiles in between every slight movement, completely satisfied at the fact that it’s him rubbing against you like this and taking care of you instead of Jung. For the second time this month.
The idea that Jung is completely clueless to this game you play behind his back, that he still comes home thinking you belong to anyone except Minho. Both in mind and body, your entire being is intertwined with Minho in every way possible.
And you both know it, judging by the way you grab at each other like a pair of horny teenagers on a first date, trying everything in your ability to hold onto the feeling. Also by the way he’s so patient and forgiving with his movements, stil careful not to move too fast in case you decide you want to stop. And an unspoken promise between the two of you, that no matter what happens, the friendship will remain, that it simply can’t slip through your fingers after a decade of promises to each other.
“Let’s go to Shirakawa,” you say to Minho in a whisper, finally tugging his boxers down and freeing his erection against abdomen.
“You want to?” Minho asks, tugging your panties down, too.
“Yes, I want to,” you reply. “We’ve talked about it for so long. Tell me what we’ll do there.”
“Well we’ll definitely go fishing,” Minho begins, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips as he discards your panties on the floor beside you. “And I’ll help gut all the salmon with you.”
“Mhm,” you voice in a dreamy tone, massaging his hair with the tips of your fingers.
“And then we can see all the animals there,” he continues, positioning himself over you and lifting your leg a little to get a better angle. His hand massages gentle circles in your inner thigh, careful not to enter without ensuring you’re comfortable first.
“And when it snows,” Minho says. “We’ll be trapped inside. But we can occupy the little attic space, where the walls slant inwards. And I promise to make love to you until it stops snowing.”
“When does it stop snowing?” You ask, as Minho pumps his cock gently over you and positions himself in front of your entrance. He chuckles lightly as he leans in to kiss you, your entrance quickly swallowing his tip and caressing his girth with your arousal as he leans in to push himself even further.
“It doesn’t,” Minho replies finally, thrusting himself into you and letting his hands find the small of your back to steady himself. You let out a fervent moan at the sensation, quickly drunk on the feeling all over again. The mesmerizing sensation of his body hovering over you, of his cock inside of you, exactly the way you remembered it from the other night.
And it’s not right, but it feels so right to have him those close to you again, your best friend closing the gap of uncertainty between you and shutting you up with the confirmation that your souls have always belonged to each other this way.
“Fuck, Minho,” you breathe out, beads of sweat dripping down your temples as he buries himself to the hilt inside of you and holds it there, pulsating harshly against your cervix.
“Will you go faster?” You ask him, running your fingertips down his back in encouragement.
“Are you sure?” he says between labored breaths, still careful not to hurt you.
“Please,” you practically beg. “I’m so eager for you, please just do something about it, baby.”
Minho’s eyebrows raise a little at the utterance of a pet name. He’s never heard it from you- not in all your years of friendship. He’s hardly secured a nickname from you in all that time. And yet here you are now, taking him so fully obediently, throwing words like baby at him and begging him to fuck you so that you won’t have to think about Jung.
“Baby?” Minho says curiously, capturing your lips in a kiss.
“Baby,” you reply, rutting your hips up against his as he begins to move a little faster. “Baby, and honey, and fiancé.”
Minho chuckles a little at the last word, cocking his head as he digests your response.
“Fiancé?”
“Yeah,” you say back between little moans that escape your lips. “If we were in Shirakawa I think we’d be engaged. And you could fuck me whenever you wanted to.”
Minho feels his cock twitch at your words, his mind running rampant with the fantasy of being engaged to you. The implication of a lifetime of this, fucking you sweetly in the comfort of a shared home and coaxing all your stress out of you. And furthermore, a lifetime of you- of being dragged to all your favorite bars, takeout meals and cheap comedy movies, camping when the leaves turn orange and gutting salmon alongside you.
A lifetime of security, stability. One of sheer, unwavering happiness.
“What a dream that would be,” Minho voices, moving a little faster at your words now.
“You think?”
“I know,” he affirms, his hands finding the mounds of your breasts and cupping them gently to unclasp your bra.
“What a fucking dream it would be to have you like this every night.”
Your bra is promptly discarded alongside you on the couch, the cool air grazing your erect nipples as he brings his mouth down to latch around one in gentle sucking motions. You can feel yourself clench around his cock, taking in the sight of his drooly lips wrapped around your chest and working you in eager motions. It’s still the same Minho you recognize from years ago- still the dorky, yet handsome figure of permanence always present somewhere in your life. And it feels even less unnatural than the last time you slept with him, simply instilling another wave of eased stress and tranquility deep inside of you. It’s like this is supposed to be the relationship between the two of you now- you live your life catering to the stubborn, unmoving personality of Jung’s. Minho tends to his monotonous life away from you. And when you reunite once more, relishing in tales of your separate lives from each other and laughing over glasses of chenin blanc, he concludes the night with a slow, intimate session of love-making, one to seal the promise between your souls that regardless of where the future takes you, this is still permanent.
Neither the college girls Minho’s fucked so well, nor the shitty men you promise yourself to could come between that. And it’s a comfortable truth you both come to terms with as he gives himself to you so lovingly and wholly.
“Are you close?” Minho asks, moving to your lips once more and indulging you in a slow, sensual kiss.
“Yeah,” you breathe out, wrapping your arms around his neck a little stabler and bringing your gaze down to his cock, where he disappears inside of you with complete ease.
“Where do- fuck- where do you want me to finish?” Minho asks, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily. “I don’t want to pose any risks to you right now.”
And he’s right, both of you knowing very well that just because you’ve addressed your mutual attraction to each other, doesn’t mean you can run around with Minho’s arousal catching in your walls like you just aren’t engaged.
You still have a wedding to tend to, another person to return home to and a promise in the eventual holy sanctity of marriage that Jung is your only lover. But right now that no official certificate holds you to that, you can’t find it inside you to care, wanting nothing more than to be filled by Minho, and Minho and more Minho, and yet knowing it’s simply not a possibility.
“Wherever you want,” you finally breathe out, placing the option in the hands of Minho. Your breasts, your mouth. Inside of you. You don’t care- all you care is that he’s here, and he’s upholding his end of sealing the permanence between you two.
Minho gives a few particularly harsh thrusts, and then he brings a hand to the base of his cock, pulling out carefully and wincing as he staves off his orgasm. Your hands remain wrapped around the back of his neck, your gaze fixed on his as he works himself in quick strokes and leans in to kiss you.
“Can we go to Shirakawa?” You ask him again tenderly, as he continues to pump himself over your lying figure.
“Of course we can,” Minho responds with a sweet smile, his breaths labored as he nears his finish. “We can go wherever you want.”
“As long as you’re there,” you say to him, smiling up at him as he leans forward to kiss you again.
“As long as it’s the two of us,” Minho clarifies. “We can go anywhere.”
His eyes shut once more, his long eyelashes grazing his eyelids as his lips part open, and then he lets out a whimpered moan as he finally reaches his finish, coating your stomach in the milky white release of his orgasm. He kisses you when he finishes, smiling against your lips as he brings a hand down between you and rubs your clit in gentle, circular motions.
Your moans turn whimpered, too, as you reach your finish, clenching around what you wish was his cock and letting go for him.
And the credits on the television reach their end, transitioning to the hushed echo of a commercial playing. But neither of you are in any rush to leave or clean up just yet, allowing your listless bodies to intertwine lazily on the sofa as your giggles fill the quiet space between you and reverberate off the walls with such mutual fondness.
*
Mondays are heavy with work. Tuesdays, Jung works late. Wednesdays and Thursdays are dedicated time for his friends from college, and every day after that is a toss-up, but they’re often days you spend with Jung, watching movies in your apartment, going on little dates or in uncomfortable silence alongside him as he spills details of his work and his friends.
And he believes this to be your schedule, because he’s clueless otherwise.
Mondays are really for late-night phone calls with Minho, where you run off to the patio for a few minutes of privacy while Jung catches up on sports broadcasts. Tuesdays, Minho cooks you intricate meals at his apartment, alongside old comedy movies and concluded always by his gentle love-making to you. Wednesdays and Thursdays feel like college again, Minho finally agreeing to accompany you to all your favorite bars again and paying for your drinks as he watches you dance for him, his hands all over you as the two of you exchange needy kisses for everybody to watch.
And though the lights by the bar are far too dim for anybody to recognize you’re out with somebody beside your fiancé, a part of you doesn’t care.
Bastard. Facilitator of cheating. Homewrecker.
Sometimes you and Minho joke about the names they’d call him if they found out. Every derogatory term under the sun, like they haven’t already thought it of him for being quieter than Jung’s douchebag friends. And yet they also fail to see he’s more kind, more attentive and more loving than any of them could ever bring to the table in the presence of their own wives.
You also know they won’t find out- not when you’re virtually invisible to Jung and his friends when he’s not showing you off like some trophy to be won. When corporate holiday parties arise, or the need for an even number of golf participants makes itself known, Jung’s there without hesitation, grasping your hand between his clammy fingers and recounting days of when you’d met.
And yet none of his stories involve the present you. They fail to include your successes at work, or the books you’ve taken a liking to recently, or even the valiant efforts you’ve put into decorating your shared space with him, despite his complete lack of assistance. His stories of you exclude the liking you’ve taken to “yoga retreats” recently. And they definitely don’t know you can gut a fish like your life depends on it.
“This wine is better than the last one,” you say to Minho, as he pours himself a glass and slips a crystal stopper into the spout.
“It cost me less than the loaf of bread,” Minho replies with a breathy chuckle. “I don’t think we’ll ever stop favoring cheap convenience store wine.”
You swirl the cherry red color around in your glass, admiring the way the liquid forms a little whirlpool and settles once again, the strong scent wafting upward in the process.
“Notes of cherry, wood, french vanilla and… pocket money,” you say to Minho wafting the scent up even further with a wave of your hand.
He laughs at your words, taking a sip from his own glass and smacking his lips together once.
“Undertones of fruit and nuttiness. And maybe penny pinching, like in our college days,” Minho replies, the two of you chuckling as you set your glasses down.
You look out at the view from his balcony window, the darkened sky providing little to see at this hour, but still outlining the silhouettes of the trees and the bushels that line his apartment terrace.
“The time passed us by so fast,” Minho says in a somber tone, not turning to face you. You keep your gaze on the trees outside, thinking over your shared actions over the past few weeks. It’s been nothing short of thrilling going behind Jung’s back the way you do, but you’re also aware that with every meetup, you’re a day closer to tying the knot with Jung, preparing for a lifetime of permanence alongside the same person you’ve never felt so unsure about before now.
You turn to face him finally, a sad smile on your face as he waits for your answer.
“I wish we did something about this earlier,” you respond finally, taking note of the glow in his eyes as you speak. He looks marvelous at this proximity to you, so attainable and so enchanting all at the same time.
“Did something about what?”
“This,” you emphasize. “Us.”
Minho blinks nervously a few times, and then he cocks his head slightly as he waits for you to continue, too scared to affirm your words with thoughts of his own first.
“All this time I was trying to validate the fears inside of me surrounding this wedding,” you explain to him. “And then there was you, the same person who makes them nearly nonexistent. I wish we did something about it earlier so that maybe the fear was just lessened to begin with.”
Minho nods nervously, as he understands very well now that you’re on completely separate pages.
Minho, who wishes he could shake some sense into you and confess that this isn’t just some physical endeavor soul-searching the way it is for you- that he’s so madly in love with you, and that he chases the reminder of your permanence because the ivy that constricts his veins will surely kill him in your absence.
And thus, he takes what he can get- you, at your most vulnerable moments, unloved and uncherished by Jung, just seeking a kindly ear and maybe a warm body to remind you that there is some semblance of comfort to be felt in the interim.
And yet you, who only partakes in this fleeting act of physical yearning because you’re scared of commitment to Jung, who maybe doesn’t fulfill you every way you wish he would all the time. So you go behind his back, and you chase the fulfillment yourself, and you act upon the fears and the anxieties that have always circled your mind in the presence of Minho.
Maybe he likes you, maybe he’s jealous, maybe he wants to fuck you.
Statements you’ve heard throughout the entirety of your friendship, ones you couldn’t help but ponder, too, as Minho would grow painfully quiet with Jung in the room. But ones you always brushed off, telling yourself that the two just don’t click. And yet the arousal present with the fear makes for some of the most pleasurable moments together in the privacy of Minho’s home, albeit for Minho, on time begged and borrowed from you. The affair with Minho is not indicative of permanence in any form, and yet it exists to confront your very fear of permanence.
Selfish? Surely. Contradictory? In every sense of the word. The concerns raised to you by Minho himself in any way? Never.
So it remains, this tragic cycle of sleeping with your best friend behind your fiancé’s back, blind to the fact that he’s irrevocably in love with you, in a comfortable state of mind knowing that at least you’ll have felt this state of peace for even just a finite amount of time before you give yourself away to the marriage completely.
And yet it’s a beautiful thing in essence, this shared love between the two of you. A trust instilled so deeply on both sides to give yourselves away to each other every night and close a chapter of what once was, regardless of the differences in how it’s perceived.
The incandescent glow Minho’s tender embraces bring forth in you, no matter the fact that he’s simply grieving a very real, living love that still exists between the two of you. Green leaves of ivy that constrict his throat and force words back down them again, so that he may never admit that he’s jealous, and it’s you, it’s always been you. The same suffocating feeling he ponders late at night, asking himself why he’s been so magnificently cursed to only love you under these circumstances, and never in ones that promise him your permanence in return.
But when you're across from him, a glass of cheap wine in hand and your gentle laughter accompanying his, he can’t help but embrace the grand feeling- tarnished, but still grand.
“Maybe it worked out the way it was supposed to,” Minho settles on saying. “Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be more than this little period of time.”
And there’s a pang of pain in his chest as he utters the words, but he’s met with your small nod in response, visibly comforted by the prospect of his implications.
“Hey,” you say after a moment of silence, sitting up straight and swirling your glass of wine around in your hand again. “There’s a dinner thing Jung’s hosting with some people from the guest list. Don’t say you didn’t get the invite.”
Minho exhales with an audible groan, slouching back in his chair and running his hands through his hair.
“I don’t even like his cooking,” Minho admits frustratedly. “He’s just going to make me feel like an idiot the whole night.”
“But I want you there,” you say to him in a pleading tone. “You’re my best friend. I can’t do this stuff without you.”
“I know you can’t,” Minho replies. “And I don’t want you to have to. But it’s going to be awkward, and painful.”
“I won’t let him cross any boundaries,” you reason with him. “I’ll diffuse anything that comes up. I just want you there, even if it means you’re going to sit there and say nothing. Even that would make me happier than seeing your empty chair all night.”
Minho groans again, swirling his own glass of wine around in his hands and averting your gaze. He’s quiet for a long moment, and then he speaks again, in a reluctant voice.
“He would kill me if he found out, you know. We would never see each other again.”
You feel your heart sink at his words, even the thought of it beyond unnerving to you.
“Why do you say that suddenly?”
“Just… thinking,” Minho finishes.
“Well he has no way of knowing,” you console him. “And I promise to keep things civil.”
Minho thinks for a moment, wanting to press you for more answers about what this even is, about why you’re choosing to let him waste his time like this and what possessed him to agree to attend your pre-wedding dinner as the other man.
But he says nothing, letting a generous sip of alcohol serve as the answer to the requests you press him for- yes, of course he’ll be there, albeit with his long list of fears and reservations. But he’ll do anything, twice even, at your behest.
*
The ebony wood dining table looks particularly elegant when it’s set up for guests. You line the seats with ceramic white platters, shiny silverware and iridescent glasses, paying special attention to even minute details, such as the direction of the prongs for each fork you place on white nylon napkins. Mixed peonies and birchwood make up the long centerpiece, and tall white taper candles are lit in the bronze candleabras.
And the mood is largely set by the guests, who laugh loudly around the table with glasses of expensive beverages in their hands. They speak of their jobs, and their spouses and pop culture references you can’t be bothered to pay attention to. Your eyes scan the emptiness in their eyes, most of them living lives you can tell they’ve simply settled for. And you wonder, briefly, if they’ve ever experienced the unwavering happiness you do in the presence of Minho. Do they ever crack open a bottle of convenience store wine? Do they still let loose at clubs every now and then? Could they gut a fish if they caught one?
You respond to their stories with little nods and fake chuckles, and your head snaps in every direction past your guests to the front door.
Minho’s fashionably late tonight, or at least you hope he is, still holding on to the promise that he’s going to be here. And Minho’s many things- but he’s not dishonest. He’ll show if he says he will, albeit for a few minutes each time when it involves Jung. But he’ll still show, dropping by with a timid smile and greeting the audience before sending you off with a lousy excuse again and leaving his spot vacant for the remainder of the evening. But tonight is different- tonight he’s here as the other man. And you can’t decipher whether that indicates a change in his subsequent actions, that perhaps he won’t show after all, and you’ll be left to your own devices with Jung and his obnoxious friends.
“… And one of our clients is an intern this quarter,” Jung says loudly, as he rants about his work in typical fashion. “Which means I’m going to be carrying most of our partnership.”
The guests laugh and raise their glasses, and you can’t help but wonder how on earth the comment warrants even an ounce of laughter. As Kwang’s wife begins to voice a response, the doorbell rings once, and your head snaps in the direction of the echoing bell.
“I’ll get it,” you say quickly, rising from your seat and smoothing down your skirt. “Excuse me.”
The guests glance briefly in your direction, and then turn their attention back to Jung, who begins to voice another chronicle of his inadequate colleagues. As you march down the hallway, your heart quickens in your chest, admittedly a little nervous to confront Minho after the recent events. You wonder if he’s going to be more awkward, or maybe even shut down entirely around the group. Maybe he’s just here to drop off another cake and send you off with a wave. Endless possibilities you’ve never had to consider when you weren’t actively sleeping with him. You unlatch the front door, taking a deep breath, and then pull it open, your gaze falling instantly onto the standing figure.
And it’s a wave of comfort when he smiles at you, his eyes forming little crescents as he grins and exposes his endearing set of skewed teeth, a breathy chuckle escaping his lips as he does. He’s much more dressed up tonight, in a black collared button down and a black tie, his light brown tresses framing his chiseled jawline so well. And seeing him is more exciting than any other guest you’ve seen tonight, a present urge to pepper him in kisses and remain right here alone, with him.
“Hey,” Minho says in a shy voice.
“Hi,” you respond, trying to stifle the giddy expression on your face from the guests around you who might be looking. “I saved you a seat,” you continue. “Come on.”
Minho enters reluctantly, glancing around the room and giving a small nod to the guests as you direct him to the vacant seat beside you. And somehow, he looks a little more confident, his posture much straighter and a knowing smile on his face as he occupies the seat beside you.
“Hi,” he says to the guests as they meet his gaze, and he even gives a small nod to Jung, who shoots him a subtle scowl.
“Jung,” Minho voices, gesturing to the table. “Pleased to be here.”
Jung just nods at Minho, and then goes back to telling a story of his business accounts.
But your attention is everywhere except for Jung’s story, hardly even able to take your gaze off Minho’s. His eyes sparkle under the hanging pendant lamp, his lips pulling into a little smirk as you watch him with such fascination. There’s something so enticing about the prospect that nobody here knows he’s fucked you, several times since the last time they saw him, and he’ll likely do it tonight when Jung thinks you’re out with a group of girlfriends. They don’t know the world you two have effectively built together, romantic nights of cooking intricate dinners together over glasses of cheap wine. And they don’t know the history you two share, years of walking through your fears and uncertainty alongside one another and bettering yourselves in the process. He’s your other half in so many ways, and you’re not sure it’s something anybody except the two of you could even begin to comprehend.
You watch as Minho picks up a bottle of wine from the table, rotating it in his grasp and examining the contents. It’s one of Jung’s favorites, an expensive bottle of zinfandel he picks up from a special market a few hours out of the city. And it all tastes the same to you anyway, pairing just fine with steak or fish or even fast food at 3am. In fact, it’s subpar in comparison to Minho’s favorites, which taste like safe intimacy, laughing at comedy reruns and love-making under the warmth of his blankets.
“Anyways,” Jung voices loudly, finally garnering your attention from beside him. “We’ve never been more ready for this honeymoon. I need tropical weather and some margaritas.”
“Amen to that,” Kwang chimes in, raising his glass for the nth time tonight.
I hate warm weather, you want to say. I wish it was Shirakawa, under the safety of the prayer hands thatched roofs and blankets of snow.
“If we don’t come back, just know we opted to stay,” Jung then says. “I’ll stay golfing on the beach and you guys can tough out the rest of winter here.”
Cue the obnoxious laughter, fake smiles, raised glasses.
“You’ll have the whole trip to help on her form,” Kwang says loudly, gesturing over to you with the wine bottle in hand.
“We went golfing the other day, and let’s just say there’s ample time for improvement.”
Roaring laughter, unsightly grins and clinking glasses.
And Minho glances over at you, who keeps a smile on your face at the stupid remark.
It’s exactly this that keeps him from acting upon the urge- you look content. You don’t argue, you don’t maintain a blank expression. Instead you smile, and you agree with his friends and your eyes look like they’re still on the same page of devoting entirely yourself to this less-than-desirable relationship you flaunt. Minho knows he’s just a stepping stone in this chapter, and that he’s going to come out of this hurt. But he also knows that despite your fears, you’re content, and he’s not going to insert himself between the love that you deserve, though it may take a while to materialize fully.
You glance over at Minho with a nervous smile, silently hoping he’ll say something. Just ask me to run away with you, you want to say. Tell me to run, and I’ll meet you there. Wherever.
But you know he won’t dare, too set on the idea that this is still what you want. So he’ll remain like this, in the unfamiliar atmosphere of a dining table you share with another man, and he’ll let himself face what becomes of it in due time.
“Are you okay?” Minho asks quietly, leaning in to fill your glass with more expensive wine.
“Peachy,” you say with a smile. And one he returns, shooting you another gentle smile and nodding at your confirmation.
The two of you listen as Jung segues into another story about his business client, and Minho’s leather heel finds your ankle under the table, grazing it softly as you stifle a smile.
There’s no sexual implication rooted in his actions, maybe not not even romantic implication, as his heel moves up and down the back of your bare calf. It’s just a reminder to say this will always be of permanence.
*
Minho’s hands work up and down the sides of your waist as he kisses you, smiling against your lips as you slot yourself between his legs and grasp the back of his neck.
He kisses Jung’s expensive wine back into your mouth, the flavor complementing the mouthwatering look he sports this evening, and you have to remind yourself several times to slow down.
“This looks so good on you,” you say with a smile, fidgeting with his tie and loosening it from around his neck.
“It’s the same one I always wear,” Minho says with a chuckle. “I can’t be bothered to buy a new one.”
“Don’t buy a new one. I want this one. I want it to be this one every time.”
Minho laughs lightly, a form of verbal agreement, and then he pulls you a little closer to him, rubbing little circles in the small of your back as you stay close in his embrace. He’s sprawled out on his couch, strands of hair hanging delicately in his face as he steadies you in his hold over him, his pink lips visibly swollen from having kissed you for the better part of an hour now.
“Tell me something about Shirakawa,” you ask him innocently, unfastening the first few buttons of his collared dress shirt.
”Anything?” Minho responds, bringing an arm up to rest casually behind his head.
“Anything. Something dreamy.”
“Hm,” Minho hums in response. “There are rice fields, and lily ponds and green orchards,” he says finally. “We can walk through all of them without a care in the world, and we can get drunk off little glasses of sake.”
“And the whole town can be ours,” you chime in, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to his toned chest.
“The whole town,” Minho echoes. “It can be whatever we want it to be.”
“As long as you’re there,” you tell him, trailing your kisses lower and undoing the line of buttons as you near his navel
“Anything you want,” Minho exhales in a dreamy tone. “Say it and it’s yours.”
His eyes shut instinctively as the last of his buttons are undone, exposing his chest to you and promptly covered in eager kisses as you trail down to his hardening cock in his pants.
And his arms rest lazily behind his head, feeling completely taken care of, so needy always for your delicate touch. Your nimble fingers work to graze in slow back and forth motions over his flesh, and then you hoist yourself up a little higher to straddle your hips over his crotch.
“Thank you for showing up tonight,” you say to him in a sweet voice. “It means everything to me.”
“Anything you want,” Minho says for the second time tonight. “Say the word and I’m there.”
“You’re my best friend,” you voice to Minho. “I couldn’t do any of this without you.”
And the utterance of a friend doesn’t even sting for him anymore. It’s fact- you belong to each other, time and time again, as friends, and lovers in the evening, and everything else in between. He doesn’t fight it, because he’s grateful for any role he can play amidst the grand role you play in his.
“Are you hard?” You ask a little quietly, a knowing smile on your face as you rock your hips gently over his.
“A little,” Minho replies, though he’s in no rush to have you take care of it. It’s enough exactly like this, your bodies intertwined together and infatuated with each other in the secrecy of his home.
“You want me to take care of you?” You then ask, one hand trailing up to wrap lightly around his throat.
And as your slender fingers graze the column of his neck, it’s clear to you at this angle. Sticking out like a sore thumb, so glaringly wrong and indecent from this proximity.
Your left ring finger, completely bare, your engagement ring nowhere to be seen.
At first you’re sure you’re hallucinating, pulling your hand back quickly to examine the thin tan where your finger meets your knuckle, one that’s usually covered by the gleaming jewelry. But as you rotate your finger around under the dim lighting, you confirm it’s not in fact some illusion- your engagement ring is gone.
Minho sits up a little, craning his neck a little to examine your worried expression.
“Y/n?” He questions, taking note of the way your eyes remain fixed to your hand. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s not here,” you say simply.
“What? What’s not here?”
“My ring,��� you say a little more panicked, climbing off him and glancing around the coffee table.
“Where’s my ring?” You question, moving aside stacks of books and magazines atop the glass table. Minho sits up, glancing around too, searching desperately for the little piece of silver jewelry.
“Let’s stay calm,” Minho says as he stands up. “It has to be around here. When was the last time you saw it?”
“I can’t remember,” you say in a panicked tone, now scrambling to the kitchen and searching the marble counters.
“Okay,” Minho says calmly. “Was it- do you ever take it off to wash it?”
“I never take it off,” you reply. “I never take it off, why the fuck isn’t it on my finger?”
“Let’s stay calm,” Minho repeats. “It has to be in here-”
“Calm?” You finally retort, turning to face him with tears pricking your eyes. “You want me to stay calm? Jung’s going to kill me, do you know how fucking expensive that thing was?”
“Of course,” Minho says, buttoning up his shirt as he continues to search. “Which is why we’re going to find it.”
And you don’t reply for several moments, still frantically scanning the kitchen counters for any sign of your ring. But it’s a moot point, every napkin you unball containing nothing, nothing in the trash cans Minho searches through, even the dishwasher thoroughly searched, to no avail.
And you can’t help but to cry, tears falling nonstop from the corners of your eyes as you rush about the kitchen and think of every worst-case scenario. This is it. Confronting Jung about it means he’s going to know what’s been going on, chew you out about the cost of the ring and your carelessness toward it. And then call off the wedding, and every single one of your friends will know you’re a cheater and a liar.
“It’s not fucking here,” you cry out to Minho, halting your movements to bury your face in the palms of your hands, letting yourself emit muffled sobs into the sleeves of your sweater.
“It has to be,” Minho says, glancing once more around the room, and then approaching you to pull you in for a hug.
“Don’t,” you order, pushing him away from you, and Minho furrows his brows together. “Just don’t fucking touch me right now.”
Minho gives a breathy chuckle, thinking at first you might be joking, and then his expression softens as he realizes you’re being completely serious.
“What- seriously? That’s it?” Minho questions.
“What?” You say with a choked sob. “I can’t find my fucking engagement ring. The one I was given to get married, in case you forgot. Sorry I’m not in the mood.”
Minho scoffs lightly, placing his hands on his hips and shaking his head. And then he meets your gaze once more, a solemn expression on his face.
“What are we doing?”
“What?” You query in response.
“What the fuck are we doing?” Minho repeats. “What the fuck are you doing here if you’re getting married?”
You shrug frustratedly, wiping tears with the back of your hand and saying nothing in response.
“No, answer me,” Minho commands, his voice raising a little. “What are we doing, going behind his back like this? You come here almost every night spewing your bullshit about Shirakawa and suddenly it’s my fault that you can’t find your fucking engagement ring? I mean, who even cares?”
“Who cares?” You retort. “I do. I’m getting married-”
“Exactly,” he interrupts. “So then what the fuck are we doing? Go get married, for fuck’s sake. Will you just leave, for good then?”
“You want me to walk out of your life just because I’m getting married?”
“I want you to leave because I’m in love with you,” Minho says finally, and a deafening silence washes over you two.
For a moment, all that’s heard are your echoing sniffles and Minho’s heavy breathing, as he struggles to find the words to continue.
“You really don’t see it in the way I look at you? You really haven’t realized I’m only okay being the other man because I’ll take any fucking version of you I can get at this point?”
Your gaze fixes on his, taking note of the way tears prick at the corners of his eyes, too.
“I’ve been in love with you for all these years,” Minho says, his voice coming out in a choked sob. “And what a waste, all these talks of Shirakawa when I’ve known all along it was always going to be him in the end.”
His words circle your mind with a sense of urgency, as you struggle to respond.
You have known it, maybe even reciprocating by this point, but knowing that you can’t, not when you’re getting married in mere weeks. You’re happy, and you’re safe here with Minho. But in terms of love, this isn’t permanent. It’s a fleeting thing, one that has to end like this as you approach the next chapter of the rest of your life.
And yet it hurts, like a knife pierced deep into an existing wound, like thick vines of ivy that caress your veins and pull tightly with every thought of it being Minho all this time, all these years.
“I love you,” Minho says almost sheepishly, throwing his hands at his sides in defeat. “I’ve always loved you. I love you in loud bars and over cheap bottles of wine. And I’m jealous- god, I’m jealous,” Minho admits in a choked sob. “And it’s killing me. I can’t do anything about it except watch you plan a life with somebody I’ll spend the rest of my life wishing was me instead.”
Your lips part to say something, but you can’t, simply wiping the tears that fall onto the sleeve of your sweater.
“I love you in the hands of another man and I’ll still love you if you choose him. But I can’t do it at this proximity to you anymore.”
“Minho, please-”
“There’s nothing else,” Minho says, gasping back his tears. “This is it for us.”
You watch as he exhales deeply, wiping his tears and gesturing back to the kitchen.
“Did you check the soap dish?” Minho then says in a quiet voice.
“What?”
“The soap dish,” he clarifies somberly. “For your ring.”
And Minho watches as your gaze falls to the stainless steel soap dish across the room, a bristle pad sponge occupying the rectangular dish, alongside the familiar glint of your silver engagement ring.
One you removed to ensure you didn’t lose it among the plate of pin bones from the cod you helped Minho prepare. And one you hadn’t even realized has been missing from your finger for several hours now.
Your gaze falls back to Minho’s before you retrieve the ring, and his eyes are swollen and mournful. There’s not a glint of hope present between you two- not in friendship, and certainly not in love.
And neither of you say another word as you pivot on your heel to collect the symbol of yours and Jung’s ode to permanence.
*
The polyester-spandex mix of your reception dress is much itchier than you remembered it to be. It’s a simple white piece, long and cascading behind the heels you’ve chosen, a generous v-cut enhancing the curve of your breasts as you adjust the hem in the mirror.
“Is it more comfortable than your wedding dress?” One of the bridesmaids questions with a smile.
You shoot her a somber smile, nodding at her and fidgeting with the long sleeve of your dress.
“Yeah. It is.”
“It should be,” she responds kindly. “Remember, try not to step on the bottom or we’ll have to get it cleaned off before the real thing.”
You nod at her, checking your reflection once more in the full-length mirror across from you. You love the woman you embody- she looks elegant, and sure of herself and well on the path to a lifetime of stability and happiness.
And yet the girl inside of you can’t feel further from the perception.
You want nothing more than to climb out of the tight-fitting dress and leave all of this, damn this rehearsal dinner to hell and call off the wedding. But this is it- the final stretch. Guests at every corner assume their positions and practice where they’ll stand and how they’ll move about so elegantly as you say your vows.
Jung seems so sure of himself, adjusting the cuffs of his suit and shooting you a wink from across the room as you stare blankly. And you can’t reciprocate, still far too preoccupied with the events of last week to care about any of this. Minho sending you off, the ultimatum to choose between your fiancé and the best friend you’re in love with.
Of course you couldn’t choose Minho, whose role in most of this has been to help lessen your fears and prepare you for a lifetime of giving yourself to Jung. And yet somewhere along the way, you couldn’t help but wonder if that was even true, completely smitten with every part of him, too. The fact remains that you’re in love with him, and yet you’ve both been so magnificently cursed to keep it at a comfortable distance and pray that in some version of this story, it’s you guys in the end.
Your family saunters about the venue in their fancy dressed and suits, and your guests chat amongst themselves and sample the foods that have been laid out for them. And your mind circles with images of Minho, and Minho and more Minho. And what he would look like, instead of Jung, waiting at the end of the aisle for you with a toothy grin and tears in his eyes. The cheap wine you’d choose to cater, just a handful of guests the way you know he’d want it. And an innocent, undemanding love shared between the two of you, sealing your promise to each other with a tender kiss and his breathy laugh.
Yet the fantasy is fleeting, it’s rooted in the delusion of a cheater, in every sense of the word, and it would effectively ruin your life had it come to fruition.
“Which way do we go from here?” Jung questions loudly, and your head snaps up in his direction.
“From here you’ll go to the right, just past the foyer there,” a coordinator responds. “Make sure to smile when you’re walking down an aisle at any given point.”
Stupid. The whole thing feels stupid.
“Did you get that?” Jung questions, and you nod meekly.
“Sure.”
“Let’s take five,” a coordinator says, clasping her hands together.
Jung resumes a conversation with the groomsmen beside him, and your eyes fall to the vacant seat across the table, where Minho’s meant to be sitting. A small white folded card rests delicately on a white platter, his name scribbled in loopy cursive to reserve his spot.
Lee Minho.
And you read his name over a dozen times, replaying every last word of your conversation in your head and wondering what he’d do if he were here. Probably criticize the wine, or make faces at Jung’s phony speeches. And love you from afar, but with his entire heart, regardless.
“What do you think so far?” Jung leans in to whisper.
“Yeah,” you reply, nearly evading the question altogether.
Your eyes scan the room at the carefully placed decorations- rows of lantern lights, white tablecloths and organized dishes for the guests, tapered candles are lit at every table. And in the center, bushels of magenta flower arrangements in cylindrical glass vases.
Magenta.
Your eyes do a double take, carefully examining the color as you furrow your brows. Magenta. Neon, obnoxious shades of magenta at every table. Nothing within the realm of the baby pink you requested. Harsh on the eyes and contrasting repulsively against the rest of the decor.
“The flowers are magenta,” you say to Jung quietly.
“Hm?”
“The flowers,” you repeat. “Are magenta.”
“Yeah,” Jung says, audibly a little confused. “They’re nice, right?”
“I said pink,” you respond. “Baby pink. These aren’t pink.”
Jung furrows his brows together, and then he cocks his head at the floral displays set upon each table.
“You’re right,” he then replies. He snaps his fingers at a staff member, and then he gestures to the floral displays.
“These aren’t pink,” he says harshly. “She requested pink and not magenta. Could we get these swapped out, please?”
A coordinator jots something down in a small notepad, and then gives him an understanding nod.
“That’s what we’re paying you guys for, right?” Jung asks sarcastically. “Come on, don’t let us settle for magenta flowers.”
And when he turns back to you, his chuckles get quieter as he observes the displeased expression on your face.
“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?” You ask him quietly.
“What?”
“Why are you ordering them around like that? They’re just flowers.”
“What? But you just said-”
“You never make things feel like less of a big deal,” you say quietly, a little scoff escaping your lips as you speak.
“What are you talking about?”
“You just take something and run with it. You don’t make things feel like less of a problem than they are. You’re supposed to comfort me, or find the good in magenta flowers. Not yell at the service workers.”
Jung laughs nervously, taking your words for a joke at first, and other guests begin to stare across the table as they watch you rise from your seat.
“And why is the wine so fucking expensive?”
“Please, sit down,” Jung says nervously, waving the guests off as they shoot him concerned looks.
“No, I don’t want to.”
And as you search for the words to say, your heart beating erratically, you realize it’s exactly this that you’ve stopped yourself from doing all this time. Fighting back. Using your voice the way Jung so comfortably weaponizes his against you. Letting your emotions spill out from the years they’ve been bottled up inside of you, and finally coming to terms with the fact that this isn’t the life you want at all.
It’s Minho you love, it’s always been Minho and it’s always going to be Minho.
“I don’t want this,” you say to Jung, as you smooth down your dress and stand up.
“Please, sit,” he says through gritted teeth.
“You don’t know the first thing about me,” you say in a shaky voice. “You don’t fulfill me, you haven’t touched me in weeks, I don’t think you even know that I asked for baby pink flowers, because you’re too busy showing off to all the shitty people you call friends. I don’t think we have ever been friends.”
All of the guests keep their gazes on you, taken aback by your words, but you don’t care, continuing your rant while they watch in horror.
“I hate expensive wine,” you say to Jung. “I want to go on a honeymoon somewhere it snows. I want to watch comedy movies, and go camping and be so madly in love it hardly feels like it some days, because we’re also such good friends when we’re not completely infatuated with each other.”
Jung doesn’t say anything, glancing nervously around the table as the coordinators maintain their silence, too. Your chest rises and falls with gasped breaths as you try to hold back from crying in front of them. And then you shrug, before finishing your speech.
“At the end of the day, there’s the man who tells me how to golf,” you say in a shaky voice. “And there’s the man who guts a fish alongside me, mess and all.”
Jung frowns at your words, visible confusion painting his features.
“What?”
“I have to go,” you say to him, sparing him any sort of explanation.
The hem of your dress is balled into the palms of your hands and pulled up to give yourself room to walk, as you kick off your heels and begin to exit the venue. And before you do leave, you pivot around one last time, letting your gaze meet Jung’s visibly irate expression.
“Here,” you announce, pulling the silver band off your ring finger and setting it down on the tablecloth.
“If you’re going to make a big deal out of anything, at least let it be this.”
*
The polyester-spandex mix of your reception dress isn’t made to run in. It’s much too long, the fabric bunches up at the sides and its bright white color begs to be kept indoors only. And yet you run- and you don’t stop, not even for a second, until the reception building is completely out of your sight, disappearing beyond the trees and the tall grasses that surround it.
Your bare feet scrape the squelching mud that surrounds the grassland after the recent rains, and overhead, the piercing blue sky and a harsh sun beams down over you in encouragement. And you normally hate blue skies and green grasses like this, always equating them to Jung’s stupid golf courses and the corporate events he’s dragged you to for years.
But today it serves as a sort of blessing, like the world is brighter, lighting your path and guiding you to the beacon that is Minho, and all his unconditional, unwavering love for you. Maybe it took you years to finally acquaint yourself with your emotions like this, and maybe you hadn’t even realized what true love was until Minho. And there’s the possibility, of course, that you’re also too late, and that Minho has already settled on the tragic fact that Jung would always remain a part of you.
And that’s true- he will maintain a role of permanence in your life. He was your first serious boyfriend throughout college, your first fiancé and your first true love before you understood it in a less superficial form. And yet he will also permanently remain the man whose life you walked out on, because he helped you realize he’s nothing near what actually fulfills you.
Once the paved roads are in view again, you waste no time waving down a taxi and uttering Minho’s address to the driver with such urgency. Your dress is caked in mud up to the ankles, and your hair is in complete disarray as you glance out the window at the rows of cars, all belonging to guests here for your dinner rehearsal. And you chuckle briefly, at the thought of them emptying the lot and walking out of your life forever.
Contrastly, Minho’s apartment is in complete disarray, too, as he hoists the last of his immediate belongings into a leather bound suitcase and latches it shut.
What a waste, he thinks to himself. What a waste to have spent so much time comfortably in love with the idea of a finite soulmate, and at such close proximity, too. You’re probably off at your rehearsal dinner, sampling finger foods and laughing at all of Jung’s surface-level conversation.
And he’ll never know you the way Minho knows you. He will never comprehend your fears, your reservations, all your little quirks and the things that make you tick. He’ll never fully understand the prospect of being so bound to somebody in both friendship and love that it’s almost indistinguishable what you are to each other. Perhaps that’s where you went wrong, too- because Minho knows it, that his role in your life has always been to love you, near, far and at every point in between. And yet you deem it just a fleeting thing, one implying an end.
There is no discernible point between the end of my friendship and my love for you, Minho wishes he could tell you. Just like the promise of my friendship to you, it’s a blossoming thing, this beautiful phenomenon. And we can run with it, or we can let it die like this- but it will always remain of permanence.
The chestnut suitcase is hoisted into the trunk of his car, also littered with boxes and duffel bags of his belongings. It’s a vulnerable feeling, to pack up and move on like this. Not forever- just for the duration of which you’ll be uttering your vows to Jung. He can’t bear to be in the same city as any of it, he refuses to let himself love at the proximity of you dolled up in a wedding dress, in the sacred environment of a church surrounded by your family. How could a higher power accept the felicitations of the same man who’s been fucking you behind the groom’s back? Within the four walls of which transforms hate to love, and sin to virtue?
What a waste, Minho concludes again. What a waste to have loved this deeply, and to pacify your fears only for another man to reap the benefits. Try as Jung might, he’ll never know you the way Minho does. And the vast trench that separates you from Jung, one which paints a clear divide of friendship and his superficial love for you- that will remain permanent, too.
As Minho starts up the engine, the last of his belongings all packed and ready to go, he glances around the neighborhood with a somber expression. The sun glares down on the empty concrete roads, birds circling the sky like there’s any reason to celebrate. Maybe they’re ravens, and maybe they circle in a mourning ritual. The only event fitting for an afternoon like this one, as Minho prepares to leave for his parents’ house- like the coward he knows he is.
His apartment grows smaller with every passing inch he drives down the concrete road, and a trembling hand reaches up to adjust his rear view mirror, letting out a deep exhale as he prepares to leave all this behind.
And as the faint outline of his apartment grows smaller, a white figure behind him grows bigger.
It starts as a fleeting blur, maybe a shadow, or perhaps the glint of the sunlight in his mirror. But as he quickens the push of his foot to the gas pedal, it grows faster, too, catching up to the drag of his car along the concrete and approaching him with such purpose.
An apparition of sorts, he thinks momentarily.
I’m fucking seeing things. I’ve officially lost it.
But as the frantic call of his name floats through the air and into the crack of his car window, his eyes widen, the lag of his brain finally reaching a halt as he slams on his brakes and throws open the door.
And in rushed motions, he’s climbing out to face you, doubled over as you catch your breath and hold a hand up in surrender.
“Stop!” You shout, waving your hands and motioning for him to cease his movements.
And Minho’s eyes don’t get any smaller, maintaining their shocked expression as he waits for you to speak.
Your white dress, tainted brown up to your knees in mud and grass. Even your face is muddy, streaks of it painting the otherwise stunning face of makeup you flaunt. And you speak in pleading gasps as you finally break the silence between the two of you.
“It’s you,” you say to Minho sheepishly.
“What are you-”
“It’s you, it’s always been you,” you breathe out. “I was so stupid, and I left as soon as I could comfortably come to terms with it. It’s you I love, Minho. Not Jung and not the idealized version of that life I created in my head. I can’t do any of this without you, and I can’t live the rest of my life without having said something. I love you- now, and in ten years time and I want to spend the rest of my life gutting fish alongside you- mess and all.”
Minho doesn’t say anything for a moment- in fact, he wears a poker face as he watches you continue to catch your breath. And then he scoffs lightly as he shakes his head.
“You waited until the day of your wedding to say something?” Minho retorts frustratedly.
“Rehearsal dinner,” you correct him. “This is just a dinner dress.
“Regardless,” Minho says. “I mean, what are we doing? There’s another man waiting for you, and we’re here doing something we should’ve done years ago if it was meant to be in the slightest.”
You feel your heart drop at his words, confirming the theory you’d feared the most. Too late.
“Please,” you beg, and Minho shakes his head.
“We’re terrible people,” he then states, his voice trembling in the process. “Cheaters, and liars. And this is far too rooted in dishonesty and selfishness to be love.”
Tears prick the corners of your eyes as you watch Minho scan your expression. And perhaps he’s right- but it can’t be anything except for love, not when it feels this right with him.
“Where are you going?” You ask Minho quietly, moving a strand of muddied hair out from your eyes.
“My parents’ place,” he replies.
And you give him a small nod, pivoting on your heel to walk out of his life, forever.
Except it’s the realization of this that causes you to turn back around-
There is no forever in the absence of Minho- not when he plays a role of permanence.
He will forever be the man you fell in love with, the man you’ve been in love with for years, one you risked your life to come find and one who’s defined the limitations of what it means to be a best friend and simultaneously a lover.
That will remain with you always, and near, far and everywhere in between, the love will exist the way it always has.
“Loving me was the most selfish thing you ever did,” you call out to Minho, and he turns back around to meet your gaze.
“And yet you did it anyway,” you continue. “You made love to me and you drank my fiancé’s wine and we’re in love so selfishly at this proximity to each other. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re in love, and that I’m not going back to Jung. And leaving here- depriving yourself of the love you’ve wanted for so long, that’s also a selfish move. You can go as far as you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that the love is still here between us.”
Minho’s lips part to say something, but he doesn’t, instead blinking nervously as he waits for you to finish.
“And at the end of the day, there’s the man who tells me how to golf, and there’s the man who teaches me how to gut a fish, mess and all,” you finally finish.
Minho stays silent, pondering your words, and scanning your expression.
And truth be told, he wants to take you in his arms and run, hearing the words he’s longed to hear all his life. But he stops himself, instead emitting a breathy chuckle from his lips and shaking his head.
“Well what do you propose?” He finally asks, cocking his head as he awaits your reply.
And his response is a weight off your shoulders, as you sigh deeply and shrug in his direction.
“I propose we let ourselves be selfish,” you say to him. “And we spend the rest of our lives seeking forgiveness together.”
Minho chuckles, taking careful note of the way your eyes sparkle as you approach him. He’s not sure he’s ever seen you so relaxed before, and certainly not so sure of yourself. You look like the woman he’s loved both near and far, exuding confidence and passion and unwavering comfort in your demeanor. His best friend and his lover, he thinks encouragingly, as he cups his hands around your cheeks and pulls you in for a tender kiss, one that confirms your proposal and implies all of this permanence.
The roads are still empty in the dull afternoon of the hour, Minho maneuvering the car with one hand as you sit beside him in the passenger seat, your hands intertwined over the center console as the harsh blue sky and bright hues of green grass melt into blurs of color beside you. And he speaks only of Shirakawa as he drives, promising you beautiful snowfalls and chilly walks along the lily ponds upon your arrival.
You can picture everything as the tales escape his lips, full of life as you imagine the brown farmhouses and green hills, where you and Minho promise to love selfishly under the prayer hand thatched roofs, the very place your forgiveness will coincide alongside the permanence.
And as he brings the back of your hand to his lips for a chaste kiss, he can feel the green vines of ivy loosen around his soul, but this time you feel it too, viridian leaves finally putting distance between your venules and their harsh grasp. And perhaps it wasn’t grieving all along, but love for you- love which you’re full of, too.
The vines tangle themselves beautifully between your seated figures, blossoming flowers and color and placing life back into you both.
And for the first time in a long, long time, Minho can finally breathe.
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belafujoshisdead · 1 year
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6, 21, 37
oc questions!
6. Two OCs of yours that look alike despite not being related?
a lot of the character dynamics and drama in the story my characters are from comes from the interactions + inner workings of a bunch of royal and noble families from another world, so i'm not sure if any of my characters really fit this! usually when characters from this story look alike it's because they're related. but i bet a lot of royals or nobles use body doubles from time to time and that's something i should explore more maybe 👀
21. Your most artistic OC
virenina and asaau, who are executioners, both consider themselves as artists in the way they carry out their role (as do most executioners - on tei ura it's referred to as the red art). vene, the main antagonist and virenina's father, calls what he does science, but works more like an artist or magician than any legitimate scientist, especially after he goes from 'single person' to 'sea of cloned bodies.' he's descended from a house bloodroyal that's basically a clan of mad scientists it's fun
37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human
virenina and vene are both on parallel roads to monstrous divinity (or divine monstrosity. depends on who you ask)! virenina is bound to an entity called ai naa that slowly eats away at her humanity and leaves something shining and terrible in its place. vene is forging his own artificial divinity through endless scientific self-cannibalism (by way of constantly 'consuming' his own cloned bodies in experiments)
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erisenyo · 4 days
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I'd say we can blame the Zukka server for this one except it's been kicking around for a while all on it's own
NSFW ahead - Zutara, bloodbending, humiliation kink, D/s vibess, conensual but not sane or safe, I think we can see where this is going
The first time she has him on his knees it’s an accident—almost.
Katara grunts as Appa takes off, instinctively shifting her weight to counterbalance the heave of take-off, the rush of bloodbending still in her ears. It’s a sharp, jagged thing, sticky in the way it clings to her bending, tugging her awareness away from the rolling ocean and toward the smallest rush instead, looking to grab and hold and crush the water to her will and she knows it’s not water but it’s close enough and she’s just doing what she has to do, what Zuko came with her to do, so for him to turn away like he’s horrified by her, like she’s the monster when he—
“What was that?” Katara snarls, the words bursting out of her, her bending thrumming like she can feel the pulse of every venule in her fingertips.
“What?” Zuko says after a pause, delayed and not looking at her, acting like there’s anything at all to see except ocean over the side of Appa’s saddle, when the only thing around to look at is—
“Back there,” Katara snaps, bending throbbing along with the words and her pulse, high and wild and looking for something to grab onto and that’s the hardest part of bloodbending, the way it wants to be used once it’s been called, a rising flood pressing against the dam of her control. “On that ship, when you—”
“My information was out of date,” Zuko has the gall to shrug, even stiffer than usual about it and nearly entirely turned away, like she’s too disgusting to even look, at the edge of the saddle like he’d be leaping out of it if he had anywhere to go. “But it’s fine, we got his location, we just have to go to—”
“I’m not talking about information,” Katara spits, “I’m talking about you.”
A jerk, his voice coming high and thin. “I—me?”
“You think you’re better than me?” Katara hisses, wishing she could revel in that fear except all she wants his for him to snap and snarl back so that she’d have the excuse to— “Like you’ve never done what you had to do? I don’t need your judgment, Prince Zuko.”
“What?” he says, almost turning toward her before he catches himself. “No, I—” Like he has any ground to try to deflect when he’s acting like she’s something too shameful to even acknowledge. “You just—”
“Shut! Up!” The bending lashes out with the force of it, whipping and rolling right at the object of her rage and freezing his jaw if not his throat.
So when he moans in the sudden silence, they both hear it, clear and lingering even in the rush of wind and waves.
“What—” Katara pulls back, her shock quickly twisting into ready anger as he gasps and whirls fully away like she’s— “Are you mocking me? You think this is a joke?” she snarls as he just shakes his head, mute.
“No, no,” he says, the words tripping out of him, “I don’t, I don’t, I—"
“This isn’t some trick—”
“—I know, I know, you’re—"
“—that you can just laugh at,” she shouts, the bending lashing out of her mid-word, snapping his jaw shut and wrapping into his veins and arteries and forcing him to turn and face her.
It’s a rush of adrenaline-fueled rage and she’s braced to counterbalance his resistance, so she overspins when he goes limp into it instead. She stumbles, instinctively yanking him down as she finds her balance and the way he folds right to his knees, not even fighting.
Katara only half-releases him in surprise this time, but it’s enough for his whimper to go from strangled to loud and clear halfway through, the sound loud and clear, fear and—and making fun of her, when they’re—when this whole thing was his—when they wouldn’t even be here if not for—
“Stop mocking me,” Katara screams, her hands clawing the air as she purposefully reaches out this time, gripping him tight and making him feel her, making sure he feels her bending everywhere.
“I’m—not—a—joke,” she snarls, setting her feet and shoving away the part of her that wonders what Aang would think of her using all their time practicing bending in the air for this and focusing on the wild feeling of exactly what she could do to him instead.
She lifts Zuko bodily into the air until he’s barely supporting his own weight, back arched and arms splayed wide and knees just graving the saddle, making sure he feels her power down to his fucking toes. She strangles any more sounds as she flattens his tongue to the roof of his mouth, his head kicking back, and she can feel the way his pulses pounds, feel the flush of fear in him, the blood rushing to his cheeks and extremities and his—
Zuko lets out a sound that any other time would be protest as she releases him so abruptly he collapses down onto the saddle. But she knows its just gasping for breath and the shock of regaining control of himself after—after straining, ice replacing the rolling fury in her veins as she stares at Zuko fumbling up onto his knees and back, scooting away, his knees drawn up like—like protection. Like he needs protection from her. His chest heaving and mouth wide and face turn away so she can only see his scar and just a sliver of skin, usually pale but still flushed red with—
Katara whirls away, fists clenched at her side as she tries to will away the voice too like Aang’s in the back of her head murmuring ‘two-headed rat viper,’ sadly and quietly and understandingly, like there’s anything here to—
“Get us to Yon Rha,” Katara grits out, the words rough in her throat like she was the one fighting to scream, and Zuko just gasps behind her, breaths harsh, and Katara decides that that is answer enough.
--
The second time she has him on his knees, it’s on purpose. Mostly.
Because the problem is she can’t stop thinking about it, that—that sound. About that sound, and about the way he’d looked at her.
So in snatches and glances and sidelong looks, through the rest of the night and into the morning she watches him. Through the trek across the nondescript, nothing island to the nondescript, nothing village to the nondescript, nothing man who killed her mother, she keeps him in the corner of her eye.
And she knows that he can tell she’s watching, she can see it in the way he holds himself and the angle of his head and in the mortified redness that never truly leaves his face. In the stiffness of his body when she makes the rain fall like daggers around them. And in the look in his eye when he snatches furtive looks back, too, even though she doesn’t know how she knows it, something in his gaze she can’t place except that it makes her think again of that sound, and what it felt like to have him helpless in her hold, and he way he’d curled his legs up in front of himself after…
“Why didn’t you fight me,” Katara demands later as they pause by a stream, Zuko crouching down to wipe the sweat from his face and neck, his hands, cupping water into his mouth and the power of the moon is still lingering in her chi and for a while moment she imagines she could cup that water in her bending, too, cup it and follow it past his lip and—
“You didn’t even try,” she snaps when he just avoids her gaze, temper scraped raw by the idea of being denied this on top of being denied the struggle, on top of all the righteous fury crested inside her with nowhere to go. “You always—you fight why wouldn’t you—”
She breaks off, clenching her hands into fists against the jagged surge in the midst of the rolling ocean of her bending, Zuko hunching forward even more and still not answering, hunching over himself just like before, which means this is the same, which means—
Which means not what she thinks its means. Which means she was wrong then, and she’s wrong now, and he’s just mocking her again, mocking her like—
“It’s like you want to be on your knees,” she accuses, remembering the way he—blurting the words before she even fully thinks them, bravado over uncertainty and then when he just looks away, doesn’t even have the nerve to make a sound, “Or like you want me to put you there.”
Zuko just swallows hard, a flush crawling up his face, and Katara feels like her own face is flushing, barely-banked adrenaline surging back to life and her bending along with it.
“Toph told me how to spot a liar, you know,” she says, watching his lips part as he gasps and she has no idea where the threats are coming from. “I can feel hearts beating and pulses pounding just as well as her.” The quick flash of his tongue, like his lips are suddenly dry. “Would you be lying now if I checked you?”
Katara doesn’t know why she holds her breath, jagged anticipation in her throat, but it’s the only reason she hears the whimper that slips past his bitten lip over the sound of the stream, the noise that’s fear but also—it’s also—
“Should I check?” she says, the words coming out taunting, challenging, her bending shivering with readiness, her awareness sharpening from the heavy rush of the stream to the tight-quick-fast pulse on front of her as Zuko pants a moment, still half-folded forward.
Then, unsteady and low, gold eyes suddenly peaking through his lashes and the fall of his hair, “If it would make you feel better.”
Katara bloodbends him. Not like before, not with that sharp urge to wrench, but shoving into every bit of him hard enough to make him gasp, to make his whole body jerk with it and then go still, caught as she holds, flexing against every bit of him and—
“You like this,” she accuses as she quickly releases him, like that does anything to erase the bright feel of the pathways and pools of his blood from her mind.
And Zuko shakes his head, chest heaving and gasping and that’s familiar to her, too familiar, but the flutter of his lashes along with it—
“Are you lying?” she challenges, and she wonders if he can feel the potential of her bending pulling at his blood as he pants, open-mouthed a moment, body going tight.
Then, “You could check,” he rasps, and it’s such an open invitation that even half-expecting it, Katara still stares a moment before grabbing hold again, pushing to the liquid core of him but leaving his throat free because the way he keens, like he wants it, like she doesn’t even need to check his throbbing pulses to know—
Zuko is still folded half over himself, so she makes him straighten to sit back on his heels, first. Then she makes him drag up his head to look at her, makes him keep his eyes open until they bead and water and she’d do something about that except for the way the strain against her grip is like he’s trying to tilt back into it. And then she forces his knees to spread, wide enough to draw out a panting whimper and further than she expected and more than enough to see the bulge in his pants.
“You like it,” Katara says, her mouth suddenly dry—adrenal response, a voice like Yugoda’s says in the back of her head—as she stares at the dark fabric straining against the length of him, the way she can see his shape so clearly, see him press flat by the fabric against his own leg and it can’t be comfortable and—
 Katara gives him enough play to talk, to argue, to say its stress or adrenaline or just the natural responses of a teenage male body experiencing hormonal surges. But he just groans, letting out a low, pleading sound of denial and she can feel the way he strains to close his thighs but she still has him in her hold and she’s attuned to his blood, she can feel the way he’s reacting, she has felt it, and even if she couldn’t she can see.
“You like it,” she says again, more to herself except she can see the way he bites his lip against it even as she can feel the rush of his blood, can feel exactly where it’s pooling and even if he doesn’t like it, his body undeniably does.
Except Katara thinks he might like that, too. Because his invitation is still hanging in the air and she can’t fight the urge to figure this out, figure him out, arching his back—he likes that—and flexing his fingers—he’s indifferent, or what baselines as indifference for him in the current situation—and closing his lips—oh, he really like that, that gives her a new baseline. And she can see the hardness between his legs, the one she isn’t causing, at least not with bending—at least not directly with bending. And she can see the way he gasps and pants as much as she’ll allow it, hear the half-pleading groans that don’t entirely muffle against his sealed lips.
And the way she can feel the strain of his body, what he fights and what he tries to sink into, the shivers and tremors and Tui and La the jerks of his hips that she presses instinctively to stillness, and then again because the way it makes him moan—she shoves with her bending, gripping and pushes and finally following the flow of blood as much as controlling it, making her presence known beneath his skin, deliberately pressing it through him inch by inch and feeling heady with the precision of it, with that she can make his body do, what she can make it feel.
There’s the increased blood pressure throbbing against her pending, the quickened pulse, the blood rushing away from the heart, so like fear except for the way the blood is also flushing up his abdomen and Katara is fascinated by the way she can feel the steady spread of it before she ever sees the wash of red reach his neck and face.
There’s the blood stiffening his nipples, erectile tissue going hard just like his already-full penis, Yugoda’s voice again brisk and papery in the back of Katara’s mind, talking about arteriolar dilation and increased blood flow, about supraspinal centers and spinal reflex mechanisms and Katara wonders wildly which one is, wonders when exactly he got hard, and why, and how and—
Zuko’s blood throbs against her bending like it’s in her own veins and Yugoda’s clinical vice in memory talks through the stages of male arousal, Katara noting each one, wondering what this would feel like with her healer’s sense instead of the jagged sharpness of bloodbending but it’s impossible to do both with Zuko gasping and straining and throbbing this way, with the way she can feel his flush rising even hotter, blood rushing even lower, feel he way he swells even further, so much it has to hurt and the sound he makes says maybe it does but that he doesn’t mind, his muscles straining against her hold, a textbook case of male arousal and on a woman she’d feel—
Katara yank her bending so hard back to herself that Zuko cries out with it, his entire body arching against the hold that’s no longer there. His hips jerk against nothing, a wordless protest breaking past his lips, then another as he falls forward to catch himself on hands and knees, head bowed and body visibly clenching still, gasping almost like sobs with every breath, fingers digging into the dirt.  
“You like it,” Katara finally says, low, watching the flex of his fingers into the dirt, the humiliated hunch of his shoulders and flex of his hips. “You like not liking it,” she realizes, staring another moment and feeling the echo of his throbbing blood before suddenly whirling to stomp back to the path and the beach and Appa, trying not to listen for how long it takes Zuko to follow and forcibly shoving away the awareness of her own pulsing blood.
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transgenderer · 4 months
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Human and rodent placentation is hemochorial, the fetomaternal interaction between the two blood circulations involving direct physical interaction between maternal blood and the chorionic trophoblasts.
The mechanism by which cells are exchanged across the placental barrier is unclear. Possible explanations include deportation of trophoblasts, microtraumatic rupture of the placental blood channels or that specific cell types are capable of adhesion to the trophoblasts of the walls of the fetal blood channels and migration through the placental barrier created by the trophoblasts. Intervillous thrombi containing mixed maternal and fetal cells occur in the fetal placenta/labyrinth.44,45 Histological defects in the continuity of the trophoblasts lining the vasculature of the placenta are also reported.46,47 Together these observations suggest the possibility that fetomaternal hemorrhage within the fetal placenta/labyrinth may allow exchange of cells between the fetal and maternal circulation. Microtraumatic dislodgment of trophoblasts from the trophoblast-lined blood channels through which the maternal blood passes may also explain why trophoblasts appear in maternal circulation. The microtraumatic hypothesis of cell exchange does not appear consistent with the hypothesis that fetomaternal microchimerism may be of adaptive value to the fetus but fits well with the hypothesis that fetomaternal microchimerism is an epiphenomenon of pregnancy with potential pathological consequences.
An alternative hypothesis is that cells cross the placental barrier by mechanisms akin to the active adhesion and transmigration that occurs across high endothelial venule (HEV) endothelium in peripheral lymph nodes and at the blood-brain barrier (BBB).48 Intriguingly, in the mouse at least some of the fetal cells that enter the mother are also capable of crossing the blood brain barrier into the brain.35,49
Fetomaternal microchimerism appears to occur with great frequency following human pregnancy. It has been suggested that fetomaternal traffic occurs in all pregancies.14 Moreover fetal cells are reported to persist in the mother for decades. Male cells have been found in maternal blood even decades after pregnancy,7,77 including in one case in which the women was last pregnant with a male child 27 years earlier.7 Fetal cells also may persist for even longer after engrafting maternal bone marrow14 and perhaps other organs. By engrafting into niches such as the bone marrow, fetal cells may also be able to proliferate and reinfiltrate blood or other tissues later. There is strong evidence that fetal cells with the characteristics of mesenchymal cells do engraft the bone marrow. Male DNA was detected in 48% of CD34-enriched apheresis products from nonpregnant female marrow donors.1 Male cells were also detected in all bone marrow samples from women who had previously been pregnant with males, including one woman who was last pregnant with a son 51 years earlier.14
The absence of Y chromosome markers in samples from women who had never born sons in some studies14 strongly supports the argument that the male cells observed originate from the fetus. However, it is important to note that there are crucial caveats in the use of the Y chromosome alone as a marker for fetomaternal microchimerism that may have led to over estimation of the incidence and persistence of fetomaternal microchimerism in humans. Male cells have been found in the blood of women without sons.78,79 Male cells may occur in the blood of as many as 8–10% of healthy women without sons and no known history of abortion.79 It has been speculated that the male cells arise from unrecognized spontaneous abortions, vanished male twins, an older brother transferred by the maternal circulation, or sexual intercourse. However, a history of unrecognized spontaneous abortions or sexual intercourse cannot explain all cases of the presence of male cells in females as another study detected the presence of the Y chromosome in normal liver from seven of eleven female fetuses and five of six female children.80 Such microchimerism may be best explained, by fetofetal transfer from an undetected vanishing male twin or maternofetal transfer of male cells harbored by the mother. Estimates of the frequency of vanishing twins range from 3.7–100% of pregnancies81 however not all twins share connected placenta vasculature, especially at the early stages of development at which many twins disappear. Maternofetal transfer to the mother may also have occurred if the mother's mother had a history of blood transfusion, transplantation or previous pregnancy with a male fetus. It is difficult to estimate how frequently male cells in females could arise as a result of fetofetal or maternofetal transfer. Although one might expect such events to be rare, the incidence may be high enough to have biased estimates of the incidence of fetomaternal microchimerism in humans. While the possibility that the Y chromosome could also enter the mother via microchimerism as a consequence of previous blood transfusion or transplantation has been considered in most studies, the possibility that male cells detected in the mother may have arrived via fetofetal or maternofetal transfer to the mother in utero has not be systematically excluded. Conclusive proof of fetomaternal microchimerism in humans would require the use of other paternal markers that differentiate between the father of the fetus and the father of the mother. One scenario might be to investigate cases where the mother and the mother's father share a genetic mutation or polymorphism not carried by the father of the fetus. In such cases, evidence of genetic markers derived from the father of the fetus in the mother could provide more conclusive evidence of fetomaternal microchimerism in humans. If the genetic mutation or polymorphism caused disease the presence of fetal cells in the diseased tissue could also offer evidence of the potential of fetomaternal tissue repair.
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morbidmemories · 1 month
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Individual who was laying on an “egg crate” mattress when they passed. The image shows how lividity occurs on dependent areas.
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This individual was lying on an “egg crate” foam mattress when he died. The foam tips of the mattress touched the skin and cleared the livor, while the cups of the mattress allowed the livor form. Livor mortis or lividity is the gravitational pooling of blood in the dependent parts of the body, both externally in the skin capillaries and venules but also in the internal organs. Lividity may not be seen in bodies that are very anemic at death.
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vandaliatraveler · 2 years
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Elizabeth’s Woods, part of the Toms Run Preserve system, is located just a few minutes from where I work: a convenient little Eden on whose gentle, winding trails I frequently relieve my accumulated angst and stress. In early spring, especially in the late afternoon, the old woods take on a soft, burnished glow that penetrates every leaf and flower, exposing nature’s finest filigree - veins, venules, stigmas, anthers and more - in intricate detail.
From top: a rocky alcove overrun by giant blue cohosh (Caulophyllum giganteum); a purple variation of dwarf larkspur (Delphinium tricorne), a toxic little beauty whose flowers remind me of parachuting wizards; an even lovelier lavender and white variation of the same plant; a tall and stately Jack-in-the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum); a smooth blackhaw viburnum (Viburnum prunifolium), equally beautiful in spring and fall, when its foliage turns reddish-purple; bigfruit hawthorn (Crataegus macrosperma) with new spring blossoms; woodland stonecrop (Sedum ternatum), whose massed white flowers look like clumps of snow in the leaf litter; and an unfurling Virginia grape fern (Botrypus virginianus), also known as rattlesnake fern due to its tendency to grow in the same habitats in which rattlesnakes occur.
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The Ahsoka series has reignited my 2019/2020/2021 self who desperately wanted to give Ahsoka training in nightsister magic. I'm not even sure why I abandoned that idea; (in Legends) the Nightsisters are seemingly (I don't have an exhaustive knowledge of all Legends material) the only ones to have abilities and powers that directly connect to the Daughter (who they call the Winged Goddess).
Ahsoka's jedi training clearly hasn't allow her to tap into whatever fragment of the Daughter's spirit resides in her. The nightsisters' unique approach and connection to the force could change that.
Of course, narratively I've always planned to do this using Dathomirians that are not from Mother Talzin's clan (because I hate Mother Talzin and refuse to believe she successfully united all the clans as she claimed, which would contradict other legends material anyways, and I can't see Ahsoka accepting the extreme sexism of Mother Talzin's clan teachings).
Reworking my old OC's Arjav Venul, Revnirik Venul, and Sunsuja Nantra (who originally didn't have a name, and I've changed her appearance), has been really fun, and I'm excited to see what other lore the last two episodes of the Ahsoka series will give us.
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trevlad-sounds · 9 months
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Mixtape 333 “Water Melon Rainbow”
2023-07-05
Ambient electronica experimental instrumental sleep
Wednesdays, Fridays & Sundays. Support the artists and labels. Don't forget to tip so future shows can bloom.
Gemini Horror-To Me-00:00
Gilroy Mere-Bethesda-03:37
Bryan Rohmer-Landlines-06:58
Emily A. Sprague-Water Memory 1-08:53
Matthewdavid-Zithertronica-15:26
Wave Temples-Sunken Palace-18:03
Richard Norris-Through The Window-20:53
Cate Brooks-I-21:25
Early Fern-Leeches In The Mud-28:10
Moray Newlands-There is Joy in Solitude-30:58
Warm Binary-Read the Rainbow-34:17
Lord Of The Isles-Coco Melon-35:18
Robert Farrugia-Venules-36:57
Jay Chakravorty-Alexia, Berlin-43:24
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muraenide · 9 months
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Magic and Overblot
What sets non-magical beings and magical being apart is an organ known as Magic Vessels.
Magic Vessels are venules that spread across a magical being's body upon birth. They possess a structure identical to blood vessels and are often just adjacent to the blood vessels, except instead of carrying blood, the magic vessels transport magic throughout the host, providing them the ability to use magic with different parts of their body.
Just like blood vessels, the substances transported by magic vessels across the body contain the genetic code of that specific organism inscribed in it. This code determines the user's affinity to magic such as the ability to use various types of magic, a stronger/weaker resistance to certain magic, and how strong of a magic user they are.
When a user abuses their magic, this causes their magical veins to burst from overexertion, and magic flows into every part of their body, even places where it didn't belong. The condition is commonly known as Overblot.
When magic is carefully contained inside of its magical veins, it takes the form of a clear liquid with deep-blue coloured particles like glitter. In Overblot conditions, the same substance turns into a murky greyish near-black colour. This is known as blot. It can be fatal or poisonous to everyone except its original host. This, however, depends. As mentioned before, a magic user's affinity to magic is determined by their genetic code. If someone of a higher magic affinity touches the blot of someone with low magic affinity, they will suffer a less severe impact. The opposite is also true. If someone of low affinity to magic touches the blot of someone with a high affinity to magic, permanent damage or even instant death might be among their consequences.
Jade is born with a very low affinity for magic. He is only slightly better than a non-magic user. This is proven by the fact that he rarely relies on magic to execute his day-to-day activities, opting for physical or manual ways to achieve them. Even his UM is not as impressive as Azul's or Floyd's, who came from the same place of origin as Jade.
Being born in such a way benefits him in as many ways as it puts him at a disadvantage. The disadvantages are obvious enough, but the advantages? Jade, in theory, cannot overblot due to the lack of sufficient concentration of magic particles in his veins. If he ever overused his magic, however, he might be stuck in a semi-overblot state, exhibiting signs such as bleeding blot through the eyes, ears, lips, nose and creating a disturbance in the air created by dark magic when he does. He would also start smelling different, though only the non-human students with a heightened sense of smell might notice it. But he will always be in control of his full consciousness, such as being able to recognise the people he knew before the overblot on top of recognizing himself, who he is, continue to function like normal. This happens because his body is desperately trying to implode into an overblot entity, but it's unable to due to the lack of resources. Yet, being stuck in this state will cause him extreme pain that is persistent and perseveres, as his body is constantly in a state of shock, and magic is pouring everywhere inside. Similiar to trying to endure internal bleeding, except there is no cure unless someone notices and immediately calls for help. A fully overblotted student might blackout in their mind and comes to once they recover, but in Jade's case, he sees himself through the entire process.
If not treated over a long period of time, a semi-overblotted person might just die in their current state, or at least until all their blood has been polluted and turned to poison, ultimately killing the host.
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moremedtech · 9 months
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Atlas of human brain blood vessels highlights changes in Alzheimer’s disease
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Atlas of human brain blood vessels highlights changes in Alzheimer’s disease MIT researchers characterize gene expression patterns for 22,500 brain vascular cells across 428 donors, revealing insights for Alzheimer’s onset and potential treatments. Your brain is powered by 400 miles of blood vessels that provide nutrients, clear out waste products, and form a tight protective barrier — the blood-brain barrier — that controls which molecules can enter or exit. However, it has remained unclear how these brain vascular cells change between brain regions, or in Alzheimer’s disease, at single-cell resolution. To address this challenge, a team of scientists from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard recently unveiled a systematic molecular atlas of human brain vasculature and its changes in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) across six brain regions, in a paper published June 1 in Nature Neuroscience. Alzheimer's disease is a leading cause of death, affects one in nine Americans over 65, and leads to debilitating and devastating cognitive decline. Impaired blood-brain barrier (BBB) function has long been associated with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis. However, the molecular and cellular underpinnings of BBB dysregulation remain ill-defined, particularly at single-cell resolution across multiple brain regions and many donors.
Navigating vascular complexity
Embarking deep into the complexities of our gray matter, the researchers created a molecular atlas of human brain vasculature across 428 donors, including 220 diagnosed with Alzheimer's and 208 controls. They characterized over 22,514 vascular cells from six different brain regions, measuring the expression of thousands of genes for each cell. The resulting datasets unveiled intriguing changes in gene expression across different brain regions and stark contrasts between individuals afflicted with AD and those without. “Alzheimer's therapy development faces a significant hurdle — brain alterations commence decades before cognitive signs make their debut, at which point it might already be too late to intervene effectively,” comments MIT CSAIL principal investigator and electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Professor Manolis Kellis. “Our work charts the terrain of vascular changes, one of the earliest markers of Alzheimer's, across multiple brain regions, providing a map to guide biological and therapeutic investigations earlier in disease progression.” Kellis is the study's co-senior author, along with MIT Professor Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute and the Picower Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
The little cells that could
The threads of our human brain vasculature, and every part of our brain and body, are composed of millions of cells, all sharing the same DNA code, but each expressing a different subset of genes, which define its functional roles and distinct cell type. Using the distinct gene expression signatures of different cerebrovascular cells, the researchers distinguished 11 types of vascular cells. These included endothelial cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels and control which substances pass through the BBB, pericytes that wrap around small vessels and provide structural support and blood flow control, smooth muscle cells that form the middle layer of large vessels and whose contraction and relaxation regulates blood flow and pressure, fibroblasts that surround blood vessels and hold them in place, and they distinguished arteriole, venule, and capillary veins responsible for the different stages of blood oxygen exchange. The abundance of these vascular cell types differed between brain regions, with neocortical regions showing more capillary endothelial cells and fewer fibroblasts than subcortical regions, highlighting the regional heterogeneity of the BBB.
Clues and suspects
Armed with these annotations, the next phase was studying how each of these cell types change in AD, revealing 2,676 genes whose expression levels change significantly. They found that capillary endothelial cells, responsible for transport, waste removal, and immune surveillance, showed the most changes in AD, including genes involved in clearance of amyloid beta, one of the pathological hallmarks of AD, providing insights on the potential mechanistic implications of vascular dysregulation on AD pathology. Other dysregulated processes included immune function, glucose homeostasis, and extracellular matrix organization, which were all shared among multiple vascular cell types, and also cell-type-specific changes, including growth factor receptors in pericytes, and transporter and energy in endothelial cells, and cellular response to amyloid beta in smooth muscle cells. Regulation of insulin sensing and glucose homeostasis in particular suggested important connections between lipid transport and Alzheimer’s regulated by the vasculature and blood-brain-barrier cells, which could hold promise for new therapeutic clues. “Single-cell RNA sequencing provides an extraordinary microscope to peer into the intricate machinery of life, and ‘see’ millions of RNA molecules bustling with activity within each cell,” says Kellis, who is also a member of the Broad Institute. “This level of detail was inconceivable just a few years ago, and the resulting insights can be transformative to comprehend and combat complex psychiatric and neurodegenerative disease."
Maestros of dysregulation
Genes do not act on a whim, and they do not act alone. Cellular processes are governed by a complex cast of regulators, or transcription factors, that dictate which groups of genes should be turned on or off in different conditions, and in different cell types. These regulators are responsible for interpreting our genome, the ‘book of life,’ and turning it into the myriad of distinct cell types in our bodies and in our brains. These regulators might be responsible when something goes wrong, and they could also be critical in fixing things and restoring healthy cellular states. With thousands of genes showing altered expression levels in Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers then sought to find the potential masterminds behind these changes. They asked if common regulatory control proteins target numerous altered genes, which may provide candidate therapeutic targets to restore the expression levels of large numbers of target genes. Indeed, they found several such ‘master controllers,’ involved in regulating endothelial differentiation, inflammatory response, and epigenetic state, providing potential intervention points for drug targets against AD.
Cellular murmurings
Cells do not function in isolation; rather, they rely on communication with each other to coordinate biological processes. This intercellular communication is particularly complex within the cellular diversity of the brain, given the many factors involved in sensing, memory formation, knowledge integration, and consciousness. In particular, vascular cells have intricate interactions with neurons, microglia, and other brain cells, which take on heightened significance during pathological events, such as in Alzheimer's disease, where dysregulation of this cellular communication can contribute to the progression of the disease. The researchers found that interactions from capillary endothelial cells to neurons, microglia, and astrocytes were highly increased in AD, while interactions in the reverse direction, from neurons and astrocytes to capillary endothelial cells, were decreased in AD. This asymmetry could provide important cues for potential interventions targeting the vasculature and specifically capillary endothelial cells, with ultimate broad positive impacts on the brain. “The dynamics of vascular cell interactions in AD provide an entry point for brain interventions and potential new therapies,” says Na Sun, an EECS graduate student and MIT CSAIL affiliate and first author on the study. “As the blood-brain barrier prevents many drugs from influencing the brain, perhaps we could instead manipulate the blood-brain barrier itself, and let it spread beneficiary signals to the rest of the brain. Our work provides a blueprint for cerebrovasculature interventions in Alzheimer's disease, by unraveling how cellular communication can mediate the impact of genetic variants in AD."
Going off script: genetic plot twists
Disease onset in our bodies (and in our brains) is shaped by a combination of genetic predispositions and environmental exposures. On the genetic level, most complex traits are shaped by hundreds of minuscule sequence alterations, known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (or SNPs, pronounced snips), most of which act through subtle changes in gene expression levels. No matter how subtle their effects might be, these genetic changes can reveal causal contributors to disease, which can greatly increase the chance of therapeutic success for genetically-supported target genes, compared to targets lacking genetic support. To understand how genetic differences associated with Alzheimer’s might act in the vasculature, the researchers then sought to connect genes that showed altered expression in Alzheimer’s with genetic regions associated with increased Alzheimer’s risk through genetic studies of thousands of individuals. They linked the genetic variants (SNPs) to candidate target genes using three lines of evidence: physical proximity in the three-dimensional folded genome, genetic variants that affect gene expression, and correlated activity between distant regulatory regions and target genes that go on and off together between different conditions. This resulted in not just one hit, but 125 genetic regions, where Alzheimer’s-associated genetic variants were linked to genes with disrupted expression patterns in Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting they might mediate these causal genetic effects, and thus may be good candidates for therapeutic targeting. Some of these predicted hits were direct, where the genetic variant acted directly on a nearby gene. Others were indirect when the genetic variant instead affected the expression of a regulator, which then affected the expression of its target genes. And yet others were predicted to be indirect through cell-cell communication networks.
ApoE4 and cognitive decline
While most genetic effects are subtle, both in Alzheimer’s and nearly all complex disorders, exceptions do exist. One such exception is FTO in obesity, which increases obesity risk by one standard deviation. Another one is apolipoprotein E (ApoE) in Alzheimer’s disease, where the E4 versus E3 allele increases risk more than 10-fold for carriers of two risk alleles — those who inherited one ‘unlucky’ copy from each parent. With such a strong effect size, the researchers then asked if ApoE4 carriers showed specific changes in vascular cells that were not found in ApoE3 carriers. Indeed, they found abundance changes associated with the ApoE4 genotype, with capillary endothelial cells and pericytes showing extensive down-regulation of transport genes. This has important implications for potential preventive treatments targeting transport in ApoE4 carriers, especially given the cholesterol transporter roles of ApoE, and the increasingly recognized role of lipid metabolism in Alzheimer’s disease. "Unearthing these AD-differential genes gives us a glimpse into how they may be implicated in the deterioration or dysfunction of the brain's protective barrier in Alzheimer's patients, shedding light on the molecular and cellular roots of the disease's development," says Kellis. "They also open several avenues for therapeutic development, hinting at a future where these entry points might be harnessed for new Alzheimer's treatments targeting the blood-brain barrier directly. The possibility of slowing or even halting the disease's progression is truly exciting.” Translating these findings into viable therapeutics will be a journey of exploration, demanding rigorous preclinical and clinical trials. To bring these potential therapies to patients, scientists need to understand how to target the discovered dysregulated genes safely and effectively and determine whether modifying their activity can ameliorate or reverse AD symptoms, which requires extensive collaborations between medical doctors and engineers across both academia and industry. “This is a tour de force impressive case series,” says Elizabeth Head, vice chair for pathology research and pathology professor at the University of California at Irvine, who was not involved in the research. “A novel aspect of this study was also the methodological approach, which left the vasculature intact, as compared to previous work where blood vessel enrichment protocol was applied. Manolis Kellis and his colleagues show clear evidence of neurovascular unit dysregulation in AD and it is exciting to see known and novel pathways being identified that will accelerate discoveries at the protein level. Many DEGs associated with AD are linked to lipid/cholesterol metabolism, to AD genetic risk factors (including ApoE) and inflammation. The potential for the ApoE genotype in mediating cerebrovascular function will also lead to possible new mouse models that will capture the human phenotype more closely with respect to the vascular contributions to dementia in humans. The regional differences in DEGs are fascinating and will guide future neuropathology studies in the human brain and drive novel hypotheses.” "The predominant focus in AD research over the past 10 years has been on studying microglia, the resident macrophage-like cells of the brain,” adds Ryan Corces, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of California at San Francisco who was also not involved in the work. “While microglia certainly play a key role in disease pathogenesis, it has become increasingly clear through studies such as this one that vascular cells may also be critically involved in the disease. From blood-brain barrier leakage to an enhanced need for debris clearance, the vascular cells of the brain play an important part in this complex disease. This study, and others like it, have begun picking apart the underlying molecular changes that occur in vascular cells, showing which genes appear dysregulated and how those changes may interact to alter vascular cell functions. Together with the mounting evidence of vascular involvement in AD, this work provides an important foundation for guiding therapeutic interventions against blood-brain barrier dysfunction in AD, especially during the preclinical or prodromal stages of the disease, where the blood-brain barrier may be playing a central role.” Sun, Kellis, and Tsai wrote the paper alongside Leyla Anne Akay, Mitchell H. Murdock, Yongjin Park, Fabiola Galiana-Melendez, Adele Bubnys, Kyriaki Galani, Hansruedi Mathys, Xueqiao Jiang, and Ayesha P. Ng of MIT and David A. Bennett of the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago. This work was supported, in part, by National Institutes of Health grants, the Cure Alzheimer’s Foundation CIRCUITS consortium, the JPB Foundation, Robert A. and Renee Belfer, and a Takeda Fellowship from the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. Source: MIT Read the full article
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er-cryptid · 1 year
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Path of Blood Flow Outside the Heart
Oxygenated blood leaves the left ventricle
Aorta
Arteries
Capillaries
Gas exchange occurs
Venules
Veins
Superior and inferior vena cava
Right atrium of heart
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k00288191 · 1 year
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Sunflower Leaf Fail
Early in the semester, I decided to track the decay of a sunflower leaf on a daily basis with the goal of creating a stop motion animation and "touring" over the surface of the leaf as it broke down.
The connection with my project is that the details on the leaf's structure (its veins and venules) remind me of the brain and I was hoping to capture that degradation.
I set up a small studio at home, with a strobe and soft box, put the sunflower leaf on top of that and positioned my camera directly above.
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Unfortunately, by late November, I decided to terminate it because the leaf was not breaking down. Below is a simple stop motion clip of the images I took (no tour over the surface).
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talesbytaru · 2 years
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Stab me and watch me bleed your name
that only you can hear aloud.
Only you can spell that flame!
Dear, only YOU are allowed.
For the world it'd be a rushing reverie
dripping from my ribs and bones.
Oh! For you, "I'd be writing eulogies..."
says my pungent venules.
Who is to forget that you dwell in my chest,
Mi Amore, a forbidden love's quest.
Pull the dagger out and tear this skin and flesh!
Thou get to unleash thee, I wither to fulfill your zest.
As every drop of my ichor turns into ink
you'd read my penance that holds our love.
Perils of peace scrupulous and unscathed
bathed in blue, molten memories gather dust.
Oh! Unravel the knots in your chest and wind them around my neck.
Free me from this suffocating grief of your dearth .
Else my hands that once clothed your skin
shall die of yearning and cause a wreck!
Satin lullabies etched into velvet dreams
fail to put me asleep.
Silently and remorsefully I'd kill myself in your debt.
Either COME, destroy me or watch me die in your thirst!
My love, I surrender.
You better come now and take charge!
-TArini❣ #sugar⚜
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drshavezkhan · 21 days
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Piles Treatment without Surgery in Agra - Dr. Shavez Khan
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