#xiaojun and haechan sound so good together

[meimeiblo]

pado xiaojun/haechan… no words. this song in general.

icl tho this is the only song i’ve fully listened to off of nct’s 2023 album maybe i’ll listen to the rest later

[2cupids]

𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏$$𝐘 | 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬

warnings — fem reader, overstimulation, oral (f. receiving), f.ingering, pet names (doll, baby)

no sooner than your vision returns to normal, does your boyfriend’s latch his mouth onto your overly sensitive core again.

you’ve lost count of how count of how many times you’ve cum tonight. hell, you can barely even remember your last name. that’s how foggy your brain is.

you run your fingers through his hair and weakly tug at the strands but just enough to get his attention as you whine. “p-please too much, i-it’s too m-much.”

he moans against your cunt from the sting of his hair being pulled but he remains unfazed by your pleads, continuing to flick his tongue against the sensitive bundle of nerves and sucking it into his mouth as he drives two fingers into your hole. he does, however, let his free hand roam around the sheets until he finds your hand, intertwining your fingers together. your heart flutters at the simple yet intimate gesture.

he remains situated between your legs, one minute he’s lapping at your arousal then the next minute he’s suddenly pulling away and sitting back on his knees to look at you.

“let me honest with you, doll. i’m nowhere near finished with you. you let me have one taste of that sweet pussy and i can’t help myself, you know how i get,” he says before bending down to whisper the next part in your ear. “just let me stay down here a little longer— play with her a little more. then i’ll put this dick inside that pretty little pussy of yours if you’ll let me and fuck you to sleep while i fill you up.”

you clench around nothing except air at the lewdness of his words and all you can do in response is dumbly nod at him, too weak and tired to speak.

he brings your hand up to his lips, your fingers still interlocked and kisses the back of your hand. “thank you for being so good for me baby. we’ll do whatever you want tomorrow, how does that sound?”

you nod again and he returns to his previous position, placing a kiss on the hood of your swollen clit. “you think if i add three fingers i can get you to squirt?”

shownu, kihyun, taeil, johnny, taeyong, yuta, kun, changkyun, doyoung, jaehyun, hongjoong, seonghwa, yunho, san, mark, xiaojun, mingi, hendery, haechan, jaemin

note: now y’all i don’t write for mx but i.m, shownu, and kihyun (jooheon too lowkey) give me the vibe that they would do this

[doyozen]

ROOM 37. haechan.

part 4. 6.8k words.

playlist here

in which she falls for the guitarist next door.

ft. jeno, renjun, jaemin, yangyang, xiaojun, kun, soobin, winter, yeji

genre enemies to lovers, band au

warning contains drinking, smoking, mature content, haechan is an asshole at first

❝that attitude of yours is awful,

lee haechan. i don't care how

hot you are.❞

❝you think i'm hot? how sweet.❞

stars luminated and danced in the night sky once the sun had fully set after the show. the friendgroup walked down the sidewalk under the lights of family businesses taking over the street, sticking close to one another as comfortable conversation filled the air.

the band had joined in on the friends strolling around tiresomely which had yangyang and xiaojun too interested in their lives as a local band, but sunny cautiously looked over her shoulder to scowl at their loud laughter. even haechan welcomed himself. even his girlfriend.

"are they dating?" jaemin asked to both yangyang and xiaojun silently, referring to youngmi and soobin holding hands.

xiaojun sighed as his thick eyebrows pushed together in thought, swishing the beer can in his hand around. "i actually have no idea."

"not officially," yangyang chimed in, "but i mean... look at them. they might as well put a title on it now."

"youngmi is kind of picky about the guys she dates so i have faith in this kid. he seems cool."

jaemin nodded, but stayed silent with nothing much to say about soobin, and the conversation about the pair remained short-lived.

youngmi kept her hand in soobins grasp as she became immersed in whatever it was sunny and eric talked about. mainly in attempt to drown out the voices from haechan and his girlfriend, the sound of their laughter that they didn't try to hard to conceal right behind her as they walked. her hand subconsciously squeezed soobins hand tighter when she suddenly felt insecure that they were laughing at her.

"dads started asking me for money again," youngja sighed as she twirled her fork around her food, feeling seemingly pull after a half empty plate.

the sisters sat in their favorite local diner together, as they did on their free time since kids. "really? you'd think him having a rich girlfriend the same age as you, he wouldn't have to do that anymore."

the elder shuttered at the thought, still feeling grossed out. "yeah, but apparently she wants to split up with him. i wish i could say i'm surprised but i'm used to it at this point."

as sad as it was, all three siblings were entirely used to watching their father go through girlfriends like nobodies business. they were all too familiar with him only contacting them when he needed something, even when they were kids, and once he started dating a woman the same age as youngja, they finally stopped having hope for his change.

"i wish he would just leave us alone forever," youngmi said, "i know he's our dad but life would legit be so much easier."

"i mean, i do too to an extent. i stopped believing he was gonna change but i don't know. something keeps telling me i shouldn't hold it against him if he ever actually wanted to change."

youngmi hummed, sipping on her lemonade. she didn't fully agree but she definitely understood where her big sister was coming from. "anything new with you lately?" youngja asked.

"i made some friends, met a guy, xiaojun came back, i hardly sleep at night because my neighbors kind of a dick. life is good." the two laughed at the final part of her sentence.

"i'm gonna need you to run that last one back."

youngmi huffed, "well, he's a guitar player and plays his little guitar for hours every single night and i hate to say it, but i think i got used to it."

"people can be assholes," youngja muttered, shaking her head at the thought.

and she was right.

"hey, i'm outside your place."

"...what?"

"sorry babe, i know it's early and sudden but can i ask you a favor?"

youngmi was barely awake when she answered a call from sunny, groggily humming as she stood up to go answer the door. sunny on the other side sent a wide grin. "good morning!”

the girl mumbled more incoherent words back as she moved to the side to allow her friend inside, still registering what was happening. sunny walked to the couch and plopped down, patting the seat next to her where youngmi trudged over lazily.

"what's up?" the younger yawned, her swollen eyes finally opening properly.

"can you come to dinner with me tonight?" she asked urgently.

"i'm flattered, but i only see you as a friend," youngmi joked back, earning a laugh and a light shove from the other.

"what i mean is, i have to go to dinner with my parents tonight but i cannot go alone. like i just can't. haechans bringing his girlfriend and it's bad enough that i have to hear my parents for an entire night, i don't wanna be a third-wheel in the process."

"not that i don't want to, but what about yeji or winter? or even eric?"

"the girls are busy and eric secretly can't stand my parents."

"okay, that sounds promising."

"i'm sorry, i know it sounds dreadful but i neeeeed you. i'll literally do anything."

the idea of spending a night with two adults she didn't know, a guy she can't stand, and his girlfriend (who she assumed was the same girl she met in the laundry room) who seemed just as bad as him, did not sound pleasing whatsoever. however, youngmi really had nothing better to do with her life. the least she could do was do this one favor for her friend.

"okay, yeah, i'll do it."

"holy shit, thank you," sunny sighed in relief, grabbing her friends face and placing a lingering kiss on her cheek, "i owe you. i'll pick you up tonight!"

the girl stood once sunny was out the place and had shut the door behind her. with another yawn, she moped back into her bedroom to go straight back to sleep.

hours later she was fully awake this time, no interruptions from friends asking for favors, no music or guitar playing. she now was rummaging through her clothes to find something decent to wear to dinner, awaiting a text back from sunny after asking her what she should wear.

when she finally responded and said it was quite the fancy restauraunt and to dress nice, she was in even more of a dilemma because she knew she hardly had a lot of clothes to begin with, let alone something formal. sunny seemed to have been too busy with something else to text back since when asked how nice, she kept it short by saying anything nice.

this didn't help at all.

youngmi decided finally with a plain black dress that hugged her body, one that she'd usually only wear on a normal summer day, but quite literally had no other option. she had no idea if it was too nice, especially paired with heals, but sunny had yet to open her phone and respond to the texts to the few mirror pictures sent from youngmi.

then by the time she did, she was already on her way to youngmis house and were running late. youngmi grabbed her things and quickly ran outside into the elevator and out the building.

"hi," she greeted sunny after she was inside her car, "i had no idea what to wear, i really hope this is okay."

"you look hot, please, and i'm wearing a dress too. if we were wearing anything else we'd be ridiculed by my mother."

"she sounds real nice."

the drive was silent, sunny growing more nervous as seconds went by and youngmi noticing her quietness and didn't want to further bother her by saying something stupid. the two were just a few minutes late, the others already seated and waiting.

"i see them," sunny said, stress clear in her voice. "if anything goes even a little bit left, we run."

youngmi laughed, though she was pretty sure sunny was completely serious, before their arms locked together and they went over to the table. her mom noticed them almost right away, a visible crease in her eyebrows from frowning an rapidly sending texts to her daughter asking when she'd arrive.

"sunhwa, you're late." she said, her voice low but just right amount of warning tone that easily made sunny fearful.

"i'm sorry, traffic was crazy," the daughter replied, leaning in to kiss her mother on the cheek before pulling away, "mom, this is my friend youngmi."

much like her son, their mother kept pretty much only one expression at all times. blank. her thin face accented by light makeup, the only pop of color being a bright red lip, only the smallest bit of wrinkles around her eyes with not even a slight grin.

"nice to meet you. mrs. lee, and that's my husband." the woman looked behind her and youngmi peered over her shoulder to give the man a slight wave, to which he responded with a friendly smile. "have a seat, ladies."

it was only then youngmi turned to make eye contact with haechan, as his eyes were glued to her the moment she made her presence at the table. she could see his piercings were gone, but didn't look for long as she sat down in between his girlfriend and sunny. the girl she met briefly in the laundry room made no attempt to seem even the slightest bit interested in the dinner, just latching onto haechan and her eyes looking everywhere that wasn't his parents.

sunny slipped her jacket off, twisting her body a bit to place it neatly on her chair when her mother scoffed. "i can't stand looking at those tattoos. you really ruined your body, sunhwa."

sunny kept her eyes ahead of her with a small sigh. "sorry you feel that way."

"i mean, how do you expect to get a real job with those? there's no way that can be ever deemed as professional."

"didn't we come here to eat? if i wanted to sit here and listen to you complain, i might as well just move back in with you." haechan stepped in, arms leaned against the table.

mrs. lee glared, lifting her head slightly before sucking her teeth. "right, okay."

"so youngmi," mr. lee began, trying to save the awkward atmosphere, "what do you do?"

"oh, i work at a record shop. i'm really big on music." the girl nodded, for some reason feeling embarrassed announcing her job to the table. the parents seemed well put together and probably expected more from her.

"really? my son here, he's in a band! they're amazing." the man beamed, smiling from ear to ear talking about his son.

"yeah, i've seen them. they're good!"

haechan couldn't have cared less about the conversation or the fact that he was being complimented, just stirring his straw around his glass mindlessly and slouching a bit in his chair like a child. he couldn't even bother at least saying thanks.

"i wish my kids would get real jobs." mrs. lee muttered.

"hey, didn't you say you make a good amount of money, doing gigs?" youngmi asked hesitantly, turning her attention to haechan and his eyes lighting up when he realized he was being spoken to.

"...yeah?" the boy replied with a 'so?' tone.

"money or not, it's not a career. he'll learn that someday."

"i have to use the bathroom," sunny interrupted as she stood up abruptly, "come with me."

before youngmi could think, sunny was practically dragging her to the bathroom, huffing loudly the second they were away.

"you see what i mean now, right? she drives me fucking insane." the girl rubbed her temples as if she felt a headache forming.

"she's kind of awful, i'm sorry."

"don't be. she is."

"i'm guessing that's haechans dad out there?"

sunny hummed with another sigh, turning to the mirror to fix her hair. "my dads a deadbeat, you'll probably never see him. i hardly even see him."

youngmi nodded at the situation that felt all too familiar. she was glad she at least wasn't alone in that. "do you wanna go? i can make up some dumb excuse to leave."

"nah, i'd never hear the end of it if i leave now. plus the food here is really expensive and really good, so we should stay here just to make my parents pay for our over-priced meal."

youngmi laughed, not fully hating the idea as she was just glad sunnys parents even offered to pay for everyones meals because the prices were nearly as much as her rent. the pair took their sweet time fixing themselves up in the restrooms to pass time before gathering back up the courage to get back to the table.

the rest of the meal was spent with more of their mothers complaining, bickering, haechans girlfriend speaking about absolute nonsense, haechan hardly speaking himself unless it was to protest about something he didn't agree with, and youngmi silently watching everything go down while chowing down on her food.

"thank you for dinner," she thanked mr. and mrs. lee, bowing politely before leaving the place as quickly as possible once it was over.

"we survived!" sunny exclaimed dramatically as the four young adults stood outside the restaurant, the sun fully set and now a fully luminated moon in the sky.

"i'm gonna wait in the car." the girlfriend huffed, moving her legs without waiting for anyone to respond.

sunnys eyes followed her, a glare and even a slight snarl over her face. "why are you still dating her?"

haechan, who held a cigarette stick between his lips and dug through his pockets for a lighter, turned to look at his sister. "because i like her, obviously."

"she's a dick. you really know how to attract your own kind."

"very funny."

before sunny could further insult him, she felt her phone vibrating from her purse and pulled it out. youngmi watched as her frown quickly turned into an annoyed expression. "i'll be back." was all she said before turning on her heal back into the restauraunt.

awkward silence filled the air with the occasional sound of the wind drifting past and light huffs of haechan exhaling smoke from this mouth. the two stood just inches apart from each other, but youngmi couldn't even look his direction. though she's called him names that aren't very nice, told him his head was big enough for her to further inflate his ego, but now she felt herself practically shaking in his presence.

"why'd you come?" he was first to speak up this time, startling youngmi as she finally looked his way.

"um, sunny asked me to."

"hm."

thinking he was going to say more, youngmi kept her attention on him and when she realized he was done, turned her head back with both embarrassment and confusion.

she took in a breath before reluctantly opening her mouth again. "i feel like we... we got off on the wrong foot. so, i wanna apologize for the stuff i said to you. that's not the type of person i am."

the dark-haired boy still kept his eye ahead of him, taking in another hit of the stick, it at this point being nothing but a nub before he let it fall to the ground. "you wanna apologize?"

"yeah, that's what i said."

now that youngmis eyes were ahead of her was only when haechan finally turned to look at her before chuckling lightly. "you'd be more likable if you weren't so... cautious of the things you say. you think i'm an arrogant, mediocre guitar playing, big-headed asshole? then fine, think that."

in simple words, that wasn't quite the response she was expecting. "i'd be more likable? that's so... that's just rude. i try to be nice to you but you have not once said a word to be that wasn't just fucking rude."

"the more you say it, the more i start to believe it."

"you shouldn't be proud of that."

"never said i was."

"you act like it."

a stupid little sly grin was now over the boys lips as he glanced at her again before looking straight ahead of him. "so you want me to say sorry now, or what?"

"not if its insincere, which i know it will be so don't bother." her voice got quieter as she grew more annoyed, crossing her arms.

"not a problem, youngmi," with his tone in voice emphasizing the way he said her name, she didn't get a chance to say anything back before he was walking to his car.

"oh my god, is that the park youngmi?" was the very first thing yangyang said when youngmi entered the doors of the record store. a frown followed by a laugh left her as she set her bag down.

"the hell you on about?"

"two of the guys in that band came by, asking for you," he said with a playful grin, "renjun and jaemin, i think? something like that."

the shorter froze in her feet for a moment, the frown reappearing. "...did they say why?"

"no. i told them you wouldn't be here until later and then they just went on buying records and shit."

youngmi nodded slowly, not sure of how to reply and couldn't think of any reason why them, of all people, would be asking for her. "that's weird."

"weird as hell. but like, also, can't even lie, they seem so cool. like they're in a band, and they just do whatever they want. is that not so sick to you?" the boy beamed, following youngmi around, as he usually did during their shifts.

"yeah it's cool, i guess," she replied, obviously not that interested in the conversation. "you can always be friends with them if you think they're so cool."

"um, wasn't it you saying not to get involved with them? for whatever reason?" yangyang said, crossing his arms. "no! all because you hate haechan. that's why."

a glare was shot quicker than yangyang could think from youngmi, but she realized he was right. "maybe i was wrong. not about haechan, about the other ones. because i know first hand that haechan is a prick, but from what i've seen from the other guys, maybe they're not all that bad."

youngmi was never the type to judge people based on first impressions, or gossip, because she knew she'd hate if people did that to her. the band, besides her neighbor, seemed normal as far as she'd seen. although her new friends seemed entirely sure of their opinions, and that the best option was just to stay away, maybe it wasn't really fair to do that.

"right, but, i've never seen so many people so interested in getting to know you. no offense."

"me neither."

it didn't stop there, of course. yangyang had left work while youngmi was just in the beginning of her shift, just in time for soobin to come strutting in. his big eyes lit up when they landed on youngmi, the corners of his lips curving upwards as he walked his tall body her way.

his hands behind his back and a lively expression on his face. "i brought you something."

confused, but still way too happy to see him, youngmi placed all of her attention on him. "yeah?"

he pulled his hands from behind his back, revealing an iced drink in his hand, which youngmi immediately thought there couldn't be anything more perfect on such a hot day. "for me?!"

"yes, duh," he chuckled, "here."

the girl happily took the drink from his hands, sipping on it and thanking him. "you didn't have to, but thank you."

"no, of course, i wanted to," soobin replied, leaning his side into a shelf, "i also wanted to ask if you were free tomorrow night?"

"yeah, i should be. what's up?"

"can i take you out on a date?"

the simple question that easily made youngmis heart beat faster than usual. the straw between her teeth bent down as a toothy grin formed while she nodded. "yes, you can."

the taller smiled the second he saw her smiling, his stomach twisting and turning at the sight, even more so when she agreed, trying hard to seem confident when he was really internally losing it. "okay! be ready by 6."

cliché was the word to use, but it didn't feel right to youngmi. she'd never met such a gentleman in her life and he was so her type, for the first time ever she was anticipating a date.

her sudden glow was so prominent for the rest of her shift, even kun was looking at her like she had two heads until she was fully out the door. unable to wait until she was home, youngmi spent the entire car ride gushing to sunny on the phone about the date, the girl on the other line being just as excited.

"i'm here," the sound of sunnys voice followed by the front door being slammed shut echoed through out the small space, "i came as quick as possible, but i can’t stay long. what's up, babe?”

youngmi had tried on about 5 different outfits in the span of 5 whole minutes, doing twirls and poses in her body length mirror, being completely unsatisfied with every single one of them. sunny happened to enter the place as she wore a tight lacy dress she bought when she was 18 without the intention of even wearing it.

"holy shit," she gasped, "you're fucking hot. tell me you're wearing that."

"thank you, but absolutely not. this is too... much. it's too much, right?" the girl huffed, getting ready to pry the dress off but was cut off by a knock at the door.

the two girls looked at each other, each with widened eyes of both fear and confusion. "...soobin?"

it was nowhere near 6.

youngmi stepped her bare feet out of the room and to the front door, sunny following closely behind to ensure she was there if someone needed to get knocked out. youngmi stepped up, looking through the peephole before turning back to sunny.

"who is it?"

"the guys, from the band? the one we saw?"

sunnys head cocked back in surprise, that being the last thing she expected to hear, and got ready to tell her friend not to open the door but was beat to it when youngmi swung the door open.

the three boys she knew as jeno, renjun, and jaemin stood on the other side, in their usual dark clothes and messy hair and piercing in their face and ears, paired with silver jewelry. they looked as if they were positive on having something to say once the door was opened, but suddenly couldn't even remember what it was when seeing youngmi in such a tight dress.

once she saw them eyeing her body with slightly parted lips, she quickly grew shy and crossed her arms. another minute went by with no one saying anything, and sunny couldn't stand it. "what do you dickheads want?"

"hm? oh," jeno was the first to speak up, "we were chilling at hyucks and he told us youngmi lived here, so we're saying hi!"

"okay! you said it! bye!" sunny wanted badly to urge them away, but they insisted.

"sunny, babe, when will you become nicer to us?" jaemin teased, his perfect playful smile over his lips.

the girls face twisted in disgust at the nickname, "don't call me babe. if you don't need anything else, be on your way—"

"what are we talking about?"

behind the guys of three, haechan appeared, entering the conversation which only made sunny become more irritated. youngmi still hadn't said a word, on the other hand, watching everything go down in her too revealing of a dress that all she wanted to do was change out of.

while her eyes were glued somewhere else, haechan couldn't help but notice the attire over her body. "you gonna invite us in, or what?"

youngmis eyes lifted up from whatever it was she stared at, getting ready to snap at haechan about how she didn't need to do anything before remembering who else was in front of her. the others didn't protest, perked up eyebrows as if they were waiting for her to invite them in, and she found it rude not to.

"um, come in," she said quietly, moving to the side to allow them in fully before closing the door. sunny grabbed onto her wrist before she could go anywhere. "i wish i could stay so you wouldn't have to be alone with these dorks, but i have work. let me know how the date goes, alright?"

youngmi nodded with a small smile, gently squeezing the girls hand. "don't worry about it, and i got you."

as the older stepped out of the door, closing it behind her, youngmi then realized she was fully alone with four boys she hardly knew. "it's crazy how identical your apartments are, yet youngmis is so much cleaner." renjun commented, plopping onto the couch.

"thank you?" the girl chuckled, "uh, i'm gonna change."

"change? why? you look good!" jaemin beamed.

she quickly felt her cheeks heat up from the compliment. "too revealing, but thank you." and scurried away into her room before the redness on her face became too noticable.

though she still had no idea what she was going to wear, she stripped out of the dress and rummaged through the pile of clothes she already went through piece by piece, settling with a mini skirt and a cute blouse, deciding it was just going to have to be good enough.

the four had already made themselves comfortable in her place, tv blaring and arguing over what to watch, haechan in the kitchen head first in the fridge. if it was anyone else, youngmi really wouldn't have minded, but everything haechan did just irked her soul.

her faint footsteps stopped just as he stood tall to look her in the eye, being the only two in the room with just the view of the back of the other guys' heads in their sight.

"why do you not have any alcohol?"

"i..." she started, feeling small, "i don't really drink. that's why."

"you should. i feel like you could use letting loose a little bit."

youngmi couldn't stand how condescending his tone was whenever speaking to her. he was always sarcastic, but never in the way it was when just talking to her. "i don't like it, so no thanks."

her arm reached down into the fridge, hand grasping at a water bottle but was stopped by being caught in haechans grasp. a small gasp left her lips, but he seemed unphased. "where are you going dressed like that?"

"a date."

"a date? like that?" a hoarse chuckle left his lips, making youngmis confident smirk leave her lips.

the two now too close to each other for her liking, her being able to see every single detail over his face, youngmi snatched her wrist away. "i didn't ask you for fashion advice, asshole."

"all good, sweetheart. whoever's taking you out must be really lucky." with his expression so blank, youngmi couldn't tell if he was genuine or not, but quickly realized he likely wasn't because that was just the person he was.

as it always went when talking to haechan, youngmi wasn't able to get another word out before the boy walked past her to the living room where the others were. youngmi inhaled a breath before exhaling deeply, reminding herself silently not to let this guy push her buttons as much as he was clearly intending to. giving him the reaction he was so craving would only motivate him further.

the clique had barely been in her home for no more than five minutes before youngmi decided she needed them to go to get ready.

"excuse me," she called politely, catching all four heads turning her way, "um, i have to get ready so.. sorry to cut your time short?"

they looked at her for another second, processing what she was saying, before standing up hastily. "no problem. sorry for bothering, love." renjun apologized.

"no, no! it's all good, just... yeah. you guys seem cool though, maybe another time?"

jenos hands found haechans shoulders, squeezing tightly as his eyes stared down youngmi while walking past her to the door until they were gathered near it.

admittedly, she almost felt bad kicking them out. they genuinely seemed like nice guys, as much as sunny wanted her to believe otherwise. she hoped this wasn't just her taking the too-trusting route over the safe route, giving them the benefit of the doubt, and wouldn't regret it at some point.

a tense sigh left youngmis lips as she read the text on her phone from soobin, telling her he was just outside her apartment building. somehow the outfit and hair she decided she was satisfied with looked awful to her suddenly, and she went back to her room before realizing it was definitely too late to change and left.

she was so nervous that she started overanalyzing every thing she was doing, from the way she held her purse, to the way she walked outside and approached soobins car. there was no doubt that she possibly looked like she had a cramp in her leg with the way her short legs moved.

once the boy heard footsteps his way, his head perked up while he was leaned against his car, immediately standing up straight with his signature charming smile that sent crazy butterflies to youngmis stomach. she felt her relax a bit when she noticed he was dressed pretty much the same as her, formal but not too formal as if they were going to a ball.

"wow, you look stunning," he complimented.

refraining herself from rejecting the compliment, youngmi waved him off. "ah, thank you! you look good!"

"thank you! just like, 5 minutes ago, i saw haechan and the guys leave."

"really? did you talk to them?"

"yeah, um, jaemin said you look really pretty. he was right." the boy laughed awkwardly.

"oh, yeah, they stopped at my place to say hi. i told you that haechans my neighbor, right?"

soobins already high eyebrows perked up, shaking his head lightly, as if the news was more surprising than it should've been. "he is?"

youngmi hummed in response and the two didn't say anything else as soobin opened the passenger door, a flustered grin growing on her face as she stepped inside before he went on the other side.

the night was warm, as it was during summer nights, cool air from the car air conditioning causing goosebumps to cover youngmis bare arms and legs. the excited smile couldn't leave her face as soobin drove the bumpy roads and past the little buildings on each street.

"where are we going?" she turned to ask, unable to fight the curiosity.

the grin on his face further grew, but his eyes remained on the road. "there's this restaurant i really like not too far, and i wanted to take you there because the food is amazing."

they passed all the typical restaurants youngmi has seen and even been to herself, all cheap and easy but had some really good food. she didn't make a whole lot of money, and spent way too much time at family owned places and fast food services that quickly got tiring before she decided she definitely needed to start cooking for herself.

the last thing she expected however, was for soobin to pull into one of the most expensive places in town. even from the outside it was obvious the place was not cheap, with its fancy build and beautiful lights on the outside. not to mention it was huge, much bigger than an average restaurant.

the girl gasped lightly when she realized they weren't driving past. "soobin... this place is—”

"i know, i know," he laughed, "it's probably too much, it's just—when i like someone, i wanna be spontaneous and all that. i hope you don't mind."

don't mind? this is outrageous. "no! no, it's perfect, you're perfect. this is so expensive, i just... i can't afford it."

after fully putting the car in park, soobin turned his head to look at her. "youngmi, that's okay. you didn't think i asked you out to make you pay, did you?"

"no! of course not, but seriously i can't let you—"

youngmi stopped herself when she felt the boy grab onto her hand, not letting her further talk herself out of letting him do something nice. "hey, i promise it's fine. i got it!"

his doe eyes made it impossible for her to say no, just nodding her head as the two stepped out of the vehicle and walked inside together arm in arm. the sound of chatter hugged youngmis ears and she instantly felt out of place, watching people who more than clearly looked like they had a lot of money eat their exquisite meals.

she hated when people did anything for her, of course she was grateful, but she felt bad people wasting their time on her even if it was the smallest thing. she knew she was going to have to do something even better for soobin after this, she just didn't know what.

a hostess didn't waste a second lifting his eyes at the sound of the door being pushed open, a friendly smile formed over his lips. the talking from the people surrounding them made it hard to hear, but soobin held up two fingers and the hostess nodded, immediately understanding and signaling for them to follow.

youngmis arm found its way hooked into his own, keeping her body close to his as they past tables of guests enjoying their over-priced small-portioned meals.

just moments later they were sat a cornered table, a booth with a perfectly round cushion with just enough room to give space between the two. a menu was handed to each of them, giving a kind smile to the hostess before they left the two alone.

the night was luminous with stars and the infatuated pair sat with plates of expensive food half eaten in front of them, other guests already begun leaving but youngmis ears were occupied with soobins chatter with stories from when he was younger.

he had endless things to talk about, and she loved listening to it. she just couldn't relate to a single thing he said. their lives were incredibly different and it almost felt embarrassing comparing her troubled childhood to his, which seemed perfect.

eventually the conversations died down and nothing else was left to be talked about, awkward silence filling the air between them while their eyes wandered everywhere but each others.

"should we head out?" the boy asked, eyes glancing between the food they were no longer touching.

youngmi hadn't realized her slight slouch until the question made her sit up straight immediately. "yeah, definitely."

after a check had been paid, the two were walking out the doors of the restaurant and to soobins car. his hands tapped against the steering wheel during the quiet drive to distract himself from feeling a slightly uncomfortable atmosphere, while youngmis stayed on her lap with her eyes on the road ahead.

for the event that had youngmis heart beating out of her chest the entire day, she hated how in that moment she was just a little disappointed with the outcome. with it being the first real date she's ever been on, she didn't fully know what to expect or how she was supposed to feel by the end of it.

too tuned into her thoughts, she hadn't realized where they were until she felt soobin slow down in front of her apartment building. a hand brushed through her hair to get it out of her face before turning to the boy, who was already looking at her with a small grin.

"that was really fun," he spoke quietly, as if the moment was delicate. youngmi nodded, too immersed in the way he looked at her as he unbuckled both of their seatbelts.

snapping back to reality, the girl followed his movements and opened the car door, stepping out into darkness with nothing but a street lamp giving light to the two. the atmosphere was still warm, just a breeze giving a slight chill across their bodies.

stopping just outside the doors of the building, they turned to each other. "thank you, so much for dinner. i did have a great time and you were right, the food was amazing."

the pair stood in silence for a moment and youngmi could've sworn she was hallucinating when she saw him slowly lean in. it wasn't until his eyes started to flutter closed when she panicked and jumped back. "uh—sorry."

fuck this is so embarrasing.

"oh! no, sorry. sorry. i don't know what i was thinking," the boy pulled back, awkwardly holding his nape. "i'll get going."

the girl could feel herself wanting to curl up into a ball and pray for the awkward feeling to go away. the second soobin was out of sight her hand flung up to her forehead.

"what a way to reject someone," the sound of another's voice caused youngmi to jump ten feet into the air, turning her head in the direction of the sound just in time to catch haechan dropping a cigarette to the ground and squashing it with the tip of his feet.

"jesus—what are you doing here?" the girl asked, holding a hand to her pounding heart.

with one hand shoved in his pocket, he gestured with the other one the bud he'd just dropped, "smoking. obviously."

his tongue grazed over his ringed lip as his eyes moved to hers, watching her blank expression move into pure irritation while a heavy sigh left her lips. he didn't move his vision away when she didn't say another word, just opening the doors and walking inside. his head shook slightly, fighting laughter behind a small grin as he followed her inside.

"not gonna tell me how your date went?" he taunted, standing beside her when she stopped at the elevator.

"don't follow me."

"we live on the same floor, darling, i can't not follow you."

youngmi kept her eyes ahead at the elevator door that opened after what felt like forever, stepping inside while haechan followed after.

"is it safe to assume it didn't go great?" he asked again once the door was closed.

"no, it went great, haechan." she muttered.

the taller felt himself freeze up at hearing her say his name, relaxing quickly and going back to his usual self before he thought too much into it. "yeah? why didn't you kiss him then?"

honestly? because it didn't feel right. maybe because it was only our first date, maybe the fact i feel like we didn't click and we might never click after this. "some people don't kiss on the first date, believe it or not."

haechan chuckled. "some people are pussies."

"what? no?" the girl exclaimed, dropping her crossed arms to her sides.

"never said it was a bad thing. if you wanna be a pussy, go for it."

a scoff instantly left youngmis mouth as she shook her head, a million different things to say back running through her mind but didn't want to give him what he wanted, though it pained her not sending some snarky remark back to him.

silence fell between them with nothing but muffled elevator music playing, and though they were only going to the third floor, it felt like the they were on their way past the clouds. youngmi hadn't realized how close together they stood until the light scent of cologne entered her nostrils. it was the farthest thing from overbearing, so pale of smell that it just made haechan that much more attractive.

he let out a huff as he impatiently rocked on the heels of his feet, his hands shoved into his pockets with his elbow occasionally brushing against her body. the small motion easily caused her heart to beat faster than it should've been.

when the elevator door finally slid open, she practically flew out of there with haechan slowly trailing behind as they walked to their doors.

youngmi felt the breeze from his body as he passed her to his own, pulling out his keys lazily in contrast to her rummaging through her purse as if her life depended on it.

he seemed the notice the eagerness the second his eyes moved her way, as he was always so entertained watching her do anything. "that eager to get away from me, huh?"

the girl finally lifted and turned her head to make eye contact with him. "do you ever have anything, you know, not sarcastic to say?"

haechan tapped his index finger to his chin; sarcastically, pretending he was thinking hard about what to say next. "probably not."

a small sigh fell from youngmis face. "you're such an asshole." before finally jamming the keys into the doorknob and twisting open her apartment door.

part 1

part 2

part 3

taglist (comment to be on it) @matchahyuck @sundamariis

[lovesung127]

Golden Age album review

Baggy Jeans-okay first of all the mv is absolutely wild. im like gagged. my jaw was dropped the whole time. probably screamed more times than i'd like to admit. THEY ALL LOOK SO HOT OMGOMGGMOGOGMSAJSDHAIDAJVI. the little insta photo with ten in 7thsense AHHHH. couldn't stop giggling at the bridge part with doyoung. the song itself is so catchy. LOVE LOVE LOVE jaehyun and doyoung's vocals in this song they ate it up. also when mark goes "yea boy" it ignites something in me. the bridge is so good and mark taeyong and ten ateeee. ALSO THE CHOREO IS SOO GOOD I LOVE ITT ESP THE END CHORUS

Call D- okay the intro is cute i love the like game boi sound. ALSO TAEYONGS VOCALS WHAT AHOVDKDKO okayy the chorus is so cute and upbeat i love. reminds me of some krnb song but i can't remember which one. kinda love the outro

PADO- okayy introoo. love taeyong's opening verse and johnny's too! eat it up hendery! XIAOJUNS VOCALS?!?! love haechans part! jaehyun's voice fits this so well. and i love mark's raps! OMFGG THE CHORUS AHASHSJHDSIHVUKV I LOVE IT AHAHHHHSDHHDHFHDVHV bridge is eating. love the whistling too

Interlude: Oasis- omfg is the chenle in the intro bc omg his voice is so heavenly. I LOVE JAEHYUNS WHISPER RAP THING! AND OMFG YUTAA! AND WINWIN AND JAEMINS RAP OKAYY! THIS IS SUCH A NICE COMBO OF RAPPERS OMGOMGOMGM THE CHORUS IS SO CATCHYY AND CVNTY

The BAT- wait i love the intro sounds so dream like. omg jungwooo HSHDSKSDKFDJ omg whoever is syaing "my bat" or something like that in the whisper voice OMFG? JENO AND JISUNG FAST RAPPING GAGGED ME TO MY CORE. WHOEVER THAT WAS ATE. OMFGG THE BRIDGEE AHJOFSJOF THE HIGH NOTES. this is so good. and yuta's vocals ate as he always those. im like dancing in my seat omfg. that was so good

Alley Oop- YUH OKAY! omg yangyang ateeeeee! and jaemin. YEEEE JISUNG OKAYYYYY! YAS JENO! WAIT WHOS DEEP VOICE SINGING IS THAT BC OMGGGG! i love this song its so like football stadium coded. yuta is slaying the vocals. okay slay winwin and hendery! IS THAT JISUNG SINGING?? major ass shaker. THE BRIDGE IS SO HEAVENLY OMG I LOVE IS THAT JISUNG SINGING AHAHAHAHHAHAHH I LOVE IT. i love the whole songs build up. okay adlibbbsss

That's Not Fair- YUHHH TAEYONGGGG! okay jeno and johnny. STOP I LOVE THE SINGING PART OKAY LIKE MARK LEADING AHSDFJFJKJ. like very musical marching! loved tens vocals. YESSSS YANGYANG IS SINGING! i love marks second rap. OMG THE WHISPER RAPPING PART. the melody sounds so familiar but i can't figure it out. i love the low voices

Kangaroo- the intro is cute like show choir vibes IS THAT TAEIL OPENING BC SLAY! STOP I LOVE WHEN YANGYANG AND JISUNG SING. this is such a cute and summer song! love chenles vocals and kun and renjun serveeed! this song is very beach vibes like im imagining sitting on a beach chair and waves are going in and out

Not Your Fault- oooo love the piano intro. YASSS RENJUN. Taeil's voice sound so nice omgggg. doyoung's voice fits this genre so well. ahhh the adlibs sound so good!!! jungwoo's voice sounds so sweet and heavenly and xiaojun's voice sounds so heavenly. the vocal unit atteeee

Golden Age- the switch up from doyoung's vocals to marks rap took me out. i was baffled. but yangyang's rap!!! WINWIN HAS LINES! I LOVE XIAOJUNS VOICE AHHHH!!! the bridge slayed. the mv was also so cool. this song is so coming of age movie ending coded. they all ate!

okay this whole album slayyed! like the members they did for each song all fit each other so well its wild. also their voices all sound so good together AHHH. my favorites are probs baggy jeans, pado, the bat, alley oop, and interlude:oasis is really good too! GO STREAM BAGGY JEANS AND THIS ALBUMMM!

[moonjella]

my ranking of golden age that nobody asked for:

𝟏. alley oop — it’s the most hype song on the album so you know it’s going to be my top song, it’s exactly what i’ve been waiting for since nct 2023 was announced. a super hype song with an incredible rap line, but let’s also not ignore the vocals because yuta and jisung’s vocal lines are so heavenly! every member snapped in this, even winwin with his teeny tiny lines. this is going to be my anthem when i walk to class everyday, it’s incredibly motivating

𝟐. pado — sm really know what they’re doing putting xiaojun and haechan in the same unit again, their vocal chemistry is seriously unmatched. and the unit as a whole is probably one of my favourite u combinations because everyone’s voice (raps and vocals combined) sounds so perfect bouncing off each other. and the song itself is so fun and sexy, it actually surprised me. and idk how to explain this but the trumpets?? were so sensually teasing which i feel reflects the lyrics and the song as a whole, ughhhh i love it so much!

𝟑. the bat — i (s)creamed when i saw the videos from nct nation. it opens with them telling me to inhale, exhale but the jokes on me because i lose the ability to breathe with this song. i don’t even know what it’s about, wtf is bats on wheels lmao but i don’t care i’m still jamming hard to this song. also, the vocal trio of taeil, yuta and jungwoo is insane, and hendery and jeno’s rap?? hello??

𝟒. interlude: oasis — listening to this in the shower lead me to having an out of this world experience lmao it’s so heavenly and quite the nostalgic song, it reminds me of something that i can’t quite name. but at the same time, it’s a new and refreshing vibe that i’ve never heard from nct before, but i love it anyway. i just wish the song was longer

𝟓. call d — when it comes to tenyong duo, i don’t think anything can ever top baby don’t stop but call d is such a chill and fun song, and the instrumental breaks did surprise me. it’s not my fave on the album but i do love how the song is both fun and sensual. also ten’s rap and taeyong’s vocals?? they are so versatile

𝟔. baggy jeans — i’ll be honest, i’m not a fan of the chorus however! the rest of the song is so good! it’s so nice to see t7s unit back together again after 7 years. it’s one of the most catchy songs on the album which is great if you like the catchy parts. but for me, i’d rather have a different song on repeat. but the low, deep vocal ranges? jaehyun and mark really surprised me. i like the last third of the song more than the rest of the song, and getting through the first part feels like a chore

𝟕. not your fault — nct ballads usually linger towards the bottom of my playlists but don’t get me wrong, i do love them. i just don’t listen to them a lot. the lyrics are so sweet and gentle, i’m definitely going to listen to it when i need a pick me up because the message is so beautiful and intimate. and the vocals were so amazing, renjun really shined through

𝟖. kangaroo — i didn’t like this one at first but it grew on me after a few listens. the lyrics have a cute, fun meaning but if you squint enough, they’re a little dirty? did anyone else notice it, or was it just me and my filthy mind lol? this song is totally the song to listen to on a summer roadtrip with the windows down, and it honestly felt like a nct dream song rather than nct u, but it was fun regardless

𝟗. golden age — i don’t want to be one of those entitled nctzen but i really did expect a full group song with the same vibes of black on black/resonance throughout the song, but golden age is like a hybrid of black on black/resonance and beautiful. it really does enhance all of members’ qualities by allowing them to shine with their individual lines, be them vocal or rap. it’s such a feel good song, but it did give me whiplash lol

𝟏𝟎. that’s not fair — this song was going great at first but something about the chorus was very....idk how to explain it, i just didn’t like it. i did enjoy the dark, sinister feeling. it gives you the same vibe you’d get watching something scary. i know it’ll grow on me because every nct song does eventually. but there needs to be a song at the bottom of the list and this one fits the shoe which is a shame because i loved it at first

[facethesuns]

em beloved here is the nct crash course:

nct 127 (l to r): johnny. haechan. mark. jaehyun. taeyong (leader). yuta. taeil. jungwoo. doyoung.

fixed unit, known for there noise music (if you need recs do lmk). also 127 is like the longitude of seoul? or something idk. also winwin was once part of them but now he’s not and we’re all sad. active since 2016. known as the frat boys. chaotic. very endearing. i love them all dearly.

nct dream (l to r): mark (leader). haechan. (yes. again.) jaemin. jisung. jeno. chenle. renjun.

started out as a rotational group for younger (ish?) members but then mark left (or as we say. graduated) because he got too old (i think he was nineteen? the horror) and every nctzen cried and now he’s back but we’re still crying because he (and haechan) are in two fixed units so when do they breathe? never perhaps. idk what dream stands for. they’re young so they still have hopes and dreams? active since 2016. music very young and up beat.

wayv (l to r): xiaojun. winwin. ten. lucas. yangyang. kun (leader). hendery.

china based unit. also a fixed one. active since 2019. is lucas still a member? honest to god don’t know that’s a whole other story. ngl i have never known what wayv stands for and tbh idc. good music. i feel like they’re a special kind of insane. have very cute cats !

then some members are also part of the phenomenon we call superm. (jumping and popping we jopping etc.) and oh nct u! that’s the rotational. random. group. u as in U are picked this time? idk. it’s just random members each time coming together to make songs outside of their fixed group. was actually the first unit to debut with a song called 7th sense. (very nice. do check it out) also baby don’t stop is an icon.

oh and you’re totally right mark lee is the justin bieber fan!

anyways. that’s it! if i sound insane it’s because it’s 5:30 am and i apologize. also yes google will give you a better explanation but i had to send this because i cried laughing at your post. if you ever need more info or want some song recs lmk <3 bye !!!!!! sending hugs (((hugs tightly))) - @minchanz

ps. my phone is messing up the pics so i hope this works !!

omg nini hi!!! thank you for taking the time to type out this whole thing ksjdhfkjds i just read through it all and my biggest conclusion is: do any of them ever sleep skjdfjshf how are they all part of 983742 different sub groups LMAO. also when you were trying to explain nct u the sentence "u as in U are picked this time?" actually took me OUT 😭😭😭😭

i think i know whopping total of 3 nct songs between all these groups (including 7th sense!! i do actually know that one lmao) so maybe ill actually take a look at more of their music! the funniest part is that i know of the 2 baddies song (thats a new one i think??) but i actually have no idea what its supposed to sound like and only know the tune because hyunjin sang it in that one skz code episode (whoops)

fr this message made me giggle ty for sending it again! i hope you get some sleep soon <333

[techtechonmymind]

Alright first thoughts for Golden Age! I am a firm believer that music needs time, but I want my initial thoughts.

Baggy Jeans - Damn, listening to the song by itself without the performance or music video really calls into focus the absolutely beautiful vocal work happening. So beautiful. These five sound lovely together - and so much of it is Ten’s additional presence. He just has such a bright, twangy voice that cuts straight through any time he’s in the mix. The same thing happened in SuperM’s Super One. His “baggy jeeeeeans!” is so cute lol.

Call D - Wow, some really weird instrumentation in this. Like what, a melodica? Some other weird horn/keys situation happening. I like it. Ten and Taeyong sound beautiful. I love Ten’s “Call me, I’m waiting for you.” It’s very 90s boy band haha. The pre-chorus is really beautiful.

PADO - Yeahhhhh, this song is EXCELLENT coming after Call D. They do complementary wind things. I like that the choruses have a different vocalist highlighted - first Junjun then Haechan. The jazzy vibe is awesome.

Interlude: Oasis - Chenle sounds lovely. I tend to prefer these transitional songs/intros/outros/interludes that have like… none of the neos on them lol. My username is literally Intro: Neo Got My Back haha. But I do like this one - EXCEPT, just like in the live performance, the ultra high pitched chimey/triangley synth is really, really grating. Gives me a headache.

The BAT - ahh, this is cool. I already like this song, but I think it’s placed well in the album. Yuta sounds lovely. Taeil sounds lovely, of course, but he’s not as present in this song as I thought he would be. His adlibs are wild, but if I’m not mistaken, Yuta is doing most of the vocal section in this song.

Alley Oop - this uses the kind of marching band brass section that’s kinda popular these days (industry baby-esque). It’s a song using a sports metaphor so that makes sense lol. It’s subtle though, so that’s nice. Yangyang and Taeyongie sound good together. OH MY GOD YUTA IN THE BRIDGE 🥺❤️

That’s Not Fair - Alright, first of the two new songs. Wow. Creepy! Ten??? Ten and Mark are doing well with this vibe. I love it. It’s quite theatrical - same as Baggy Jeans to some extent and Call D. This is a very consistent album - it has a lot of running themes. Sorry, I’m being annoying but Ten again cuts through so clearly. He sounds great. They all are building out the sound well, it’s cool.

Kangaroo - Yayyyyy loved this song live haha. Aw Taeil! I didn’t realize he was on this song. I think Kun covered his lines live. So I guess this song isn’t Kun and the kids haha. WEEOOWEEOO! Adorable. It’s as cute as it was, and Taeil sounds great. I kinda wish it had more Kun, though. He just fit the vibe soooo well. I can’t imagine Taeil doing this choreo lol I hope we see it someday ❤️ very cute. Such a hard shift from That’s Not Fair lmao.

Not Your Fault - (deep inhale) Here we go. Okay, I’m cheating and listening twice three times lol. I think it’s interesting that each vocalist is basically getting pretty big chunks one after another. The chorus being primarily one vocalist is interesting too. Very not-SM, but the vocalizing happening underneath is still there and it’s nice. It’s quite stripped down. Really highlights their vocals. Doyoung > Xiaojun is so beautiful. These two sound so great together. Ten and Xiaojun do kind of a weird stylized thing with one of their lines each - it caught me off-guard, but I liked it. The first time I listened, I wasn’t sure about the bridge, but I do like it. Is that Kun whose voice is sitting up a bit higher??? Yeah, I don’t see anyone else who it could be. Cool - haven’t really heard him sound like that before. Doyoung really anchors this song down.

Golden Age - Haha, this song feels weird right after such a stripped down ballad. But it’s a great closer. This is so specific, but I freaking love how they sing “jigeum uri”. Haha. You know, I think one of the incredible things about this song is that if you didn’t know NCT, I don’t think you would be able to catch that it’s 20 different people singing this song. Love the drum fill during Taeil’s section. I don’t think people gave enough credit to this song for giving Taeil the ending line - it’s what leaves the biggest impression on you.

All in all, really loved it! No song was even remotely sub-par this time. Pretty cool.

[what-if-nct]

hiiii today's reminder is so much new music!!!

nct: i like golden age, it's interesting and a fun listen, though songs with all the members can be a little exhausting for the first few listens in terms of placing all the voices and faces the inevitable mental tally of who got how many lines. that said, the ones that stood out to me were yangyang, winwin (i did NOT expect to see him that early or for him to have any lines at all tbh) and yuta. and xiaojun and Doyoung as ever. the music video was eh (I'm too dumb for lore so it was just pretty people in places) but that one scene of Kun, renjun, chenle and haechan facing each other where Kun and Chenle were clearly 0.0003 seconds from bursting into laughter? that's my favourite thing that's ever happened ever. v excited for baggy jeans and for the album (… which honestly it hasn't even occurred to me to check if it's out or not, i just assumed it would be out after the second single)

seventeen: ahhhhhhhhh i love it so much. the song is pretty and the lyrics hit me where I live and the mv had FML vibes but in the opposite direction, like two sides of the same coin, and i love it so much. their japanese releases never miss tbh and I'll fight anyone who says dream (the svt song, not the nct subunit) wasn't good

Hozier: I'm holding out on the full album until I can listen to it all the way through on the metro tomorrow but all the pre releases have made me Sob and Hozier has never disappointed me so I'm going in with very high expectations

Hyoyeon: honestly a shame sm doesn't do more for her solo career because she has dropped banger after banger and they never get the appreciation they deserve. this one isn't my favourite by her, but still very good, and i love how well defined her vibe is for me even though I don't really follow her or snsd

Hiiii! I was so surprised by how much I liked golden age, since full unit NCT songs can be a bit clunky sometimes. Golden age was a bit clunky but I really liked the back and forth and it did kind of sound like two different songs but it blended together really well. I always forget Winwin has a deep voice till I hear him. And something about Jaemin, Hendery, Johnny and Jisung being followed by Jungwoo like that whole part was just very pleasing to my ears and satisfying like that part of the song just hit different for me. I know baggy jeans is going to be amazing and I can't wait to get my little paws on the album and listen to it. NCT is actually close to being the kpop group I have the most albums from. Right now NCT and Exo are even. Since I also collect dolls I have to have some kind of control with kpop albums.

I haven't heard Seventeen, Hozier or Hyoyeon's new songs. I will listen to Seventeen's at some point though, they just get buried in my YouTube subscriptions. But I really loved Memories by Riize , like it's literally the perfect spot when it comes to softer songs it's bright and cheery but with such a lost boy sense of youthful happiness. And the mv's sunnyness and the breakdown, I love a rap breakdown and they're free out in the world, thats rare an sm group can be in sunlight like that. And I love the song it's just so sweet and happy. I'm so excited for them, they're all my sons. Also their footwork goes crazy.

Also I saw this a day ago and thought you might like it.

It's not a lie.

[sweetlyocs]

Stars in Your Eyes 

synopsis: Zhouxia and Renjun get drunk and the conscious dreamies deal with the aftermath  Prompt 17 - “You have stars in your eyes. I like looking at it”

note: this does contain alcohol consumption so a warning for that & this also didn’t go how i planned but i kinda love it? 

Cheers filled the room as the Chinese members of NCT gathered in a single dorm, empty alcohol bottles and discarded cans of beer lay scattered around as music played through speakers. Rare moments when they would gather and live their lives as young adults who weren’t facing so much pressure from the outside made nights like these special. 

Towards the end of the night, Xia sat slightly buzzed as she watched Hendery and Yangyang perform what she could only interpret as some form of dance battle before the younger tripped the older and they fell to the floor. Boo’s cradled the air as forgotten playing cards were thrown at the two as they began blaming the other for the mess up in their routine. Kun pried the two off each other as he announced that the night was to come to an end, nudging a snoring Xiaojun off the couch, he began the attempt of trying to land his members into a suitable bed. 

Xia, picking up a half finished bag of chips, caught herself watching in amusement as Chenle and Hendery fought over who would get the bed whilst she saw Renjun sloppily place his coat on. “Planning on going somewhere?” The girl quizzed, noticing how he froze for a moment, “I have lunch with Jeno and Haechan tomorrow so I should head to the dorm”

His words slurred together slightly but she understood, Kun noticing the two by the door stopped in his tracks, “Renjun you aren’t going anywhere as drunk as you are, if you’re stressed about sleeping crash in Xia’s bed and she can crash with me. You’ve drunk too much to go anywhere by yourself” 

Shaking his head, he reached down to put his shoes on, half tipping over, only to be caught by her waiting hands. “I’ll walk him over, he wants to sleep in his own bed, you know how drunk people can be” 

Reaching for her keys, she patted him down slightly, groaning when she couldn’t find any keys of his own, “You best pray one of them are awake at this hour…”

The two began walking back to the Dream dorm in silence, although walking was a loose term. Zhouxia having to stop herself from swaying slightly and Renjun barely putting one foot in front of the other without knocking into something. As they reached the door, he simply huffed and sat on the ground, the door banging at his weight and the sound of his head hitting the door sending the two intoxicated idols into a fit of giggles. Knocking once lightly, he shook his head “Pfft no one will hear that, you have to do it like this” Giggling again, he started knocking harder, Xia soon joining in as they made a game out of who could create the best knock before the door was flung open by an obviously annoyed and very sober Jeno. The force of the door opening, sending Renjun flying onto the floor as the two let out howls of laughter, Zhouxia needing to lean on the door frame as she could barely stand. 

Jeno was mildly confused until he caught a wiff of just how much the two smelt of alcohol, their laughter prompting a freshly showered Jaemin out of his room noticing the three of them still at the door, one on the floor rolling from side to side. “Good god, how much have you two drank? You might as well have showered in beer by the smell of things” Jeno bent down to sit his friend up as Zhouxia tried to labour her breathing but failing as soon as the two made eye contact. “Honestly I think we drank the least out of everyone, minus Kun but he just holds his liquor better. This one wanted to come back home, it was adventure time” 

Jaemin simply offered his hand to the girl as she tried to navigate walking into the dorm over Renjun’s still collapsed body, leaving Jeno to deal with that mess. With how intoxicated she was, she had no problem with being so close to the other members of Dream, and that was something that Jaemin was more than happy to experience. Walking into his room to finish getting dressed, Jaemin noted how she sat on the floor instead of his bed, just like how they would when they were younger when she would always comment how the floor was more comfy. Jaemin sat at his desk as he watched her glazed eyes float over the room, his door left open so that if she came back down and wanted to leave the room she could walk straight out. 

Sighing, Xia sat up on her knees, swaying badly at how quickly she moved prompting Jaemin to lean down incase she lost balance. He watched her pick up the bunny from his bed, cuddling it to her chest, “Bunbun for Nana, it smells like Nana”

Her voice was even more slurred that what he thought, her state making her speak her thoughts aloud. A smile grew on his face as he shifted to sit on the floor across from her, 

“You got me that bunbun, remember?” Shaking her head, her glossy eyes lifted to meet his, “It was the last birthday present you ever gave me, it means a lot to me so if you’re holding it be careful” 

Nodding, she leant closer to his face, admiring him. Jaemin tried not to laugh at the look on her face, her brows scrunched and lips pouted as if she was trying to figure out math equations. 

Whispering to not break the quiet, Jaemin prompted her, “What’s on your mind pretty one?”

“You have stars in your eyes. I like looking at it. Your eyes make me miss you, I don’t like missing you” 

The smile dropped from his face as he noticed the sadness in her voice, patting her head he stood up, “Let’s get you back home, I’m sure your members are wondering where you got to”

[kpoptrashlord-007]

Hii again :D ty for the sweet words 💚

And yay! mini elf fam, I like it lol. Nct are actually one of the few groups I got to see debut, but I was a casual listener till Cherry Bomb era. I bias more than half of nct already 😭 but to name a few; kun, yangyang, haechan, sungchan, shotaro, johnny, yuta. Wby? 👀 I don't have a fave subunit since each one has a different vibe/sound, so I like all of them. Fave era? I have a lot, but Resonance was pretty legendary.

Starry Night is a beautiful song, I was obsessed when it came out haha. Their vocals sound so good together. Sj-m is my fave subunit in suju, so having zhoumi & wookie collab was the closest to a reunion for me. Eunhyuk is bound to bias wreck you, he's amazing! & I agree D&E always serves.

I've seen a few of their snl skits, they're hilarious. The one where hae is asked why he's crying while looking at a mirror & he's like "I'm so handsome" lives rent free in mind 😭 and totally agree w you!

Also, you too! Pls take care of yourself admin 🥰 you're so sweet. I really hope your day/night is going well! 💞💞

Hello again indeed, my friend!

We've lured another Elf into the family ~ an elf-bot! It's nice to see SuJu receiving so much love.

Oh heck yeah! That's awesome! It's amazing when you get to see a group grow over time, especially from their debut 🥺

The legendary Cherry Bomb split. What pulled you into stanning? The song as a whole? A specific member?

BLESS!! I love the diversity in your biases! WayV/Chinese members receive no love on this site, istg ✌😔 but I lalalalove them so much. I'm excited for my next YangYang fic! He's just so perfect 😭 I actually have 2 in the works for him haha.

I hyperfocused on Kun and YangYang there but I love all of them! Johnny was my 127 bias for a long time but I ended up committing to Taeyong for overall, U, and 127 (I simp hard). Xiaojun is my WayV bias (when are they coming back 😭) and WinWin is my birthday twin so I've always favoured him (whoop whoop king 😭). My Dreamie bias is... Renjun! Best boy 🥺

And I definitely agree! They really do have such unique sounds. Great picks all around - you have good taste!

You understand me 😔🙌 Starry Night, my beloved, my everything. I could barely decide with version to buy they both sounded so perfect. Thanks to our other ELF friend, I have added SuJu-M albums to my listen pile. I'm very excited for them.

The skits, omg. Donghae lmfao. I love Eunhyuk's and Shindong's too. And ofc MC Leeteuk 🤭 I liked SNL Korea. It sucks they cancelled it >.< anyway~

I will take care of myself! I'm not feeling great today so I'll probably take the day off from writing / being online. It just sucks because I didn't write yesterday either. Oh well. I'll write twice as hard tomorrow 🥰

OH!! Ubisoft Forward is today!! I've been looking, heh, forward to it all week.

Do you have any plans for the weekend? I think NCT is coming out with a new song soon. Are you excited for it? :)

Have a fantastic weekend, lovely! 💚

[taeilskitty]

Hey there! I saw that you open for a request so here's what I thought : what kind of sound did nct make when having sex? Are they more into whimpers, groans, or maybe dirty talk? Thank you so much for answering my question and hope you have a good day!

i was BORN to answer this omg. lemme tell you, i have thought about this so SO much!! (i'm leaving chenji out of this bc i don't know how people feel about that yet)

anyways, i hope u enjoy and i hope this matches what you had in mind <3

taeil

oh fuck. taeil is most certainly a groaner. i think (and trust me, i've thought a lot) he must make these gorgeous low moans like right in the back of his throat if that makes sense - have you ever heard his bubble voice messages? oh my god, they're so fucking hot. his raspy voice in the middle of the night is just to die for. that makes me CONVINCED that he dirty talks super up close. even thinking about it makes me shiver :(( he's the king of praise, i just know it. i think he degrades too, but his favourite is when he mixes both together - "you look so pathetic there baby, how cute." "daddy loves his pretty slut so much." "god you're so fucking good for me, my cockslut~" taeil also asks things, i think that suits him so much. "yeah? you like that?" "is daddy's cock too big baby? shh, i'll be done soon..."

taeyong

whiner. whiner. undoubtedly. this boy has the sweetest, prettiest little moans... he gets all high pitched when he's close and oh god when he sinks into subspace he just mewls and his voice gets so weak </3 little "yes" and "a-ah thank you"s slip out because he such a good kitten. he's so precious... and if he gets asked to speak while he's getting fucked he just squeaks out an answer. "m.. love it... ah..." n he will never fail to say his please and thank yous - he's so well mannered even when hes getting used !!!

johnny

this is just. oh my. i think he's silent for the most part. heavy breathing and quiet grunts and groans until he's close. THAT'S when he starts moaning, all sorts of things slipping out. "god you're so good" "i love this hole so much" ahh??! i think he talks down too. fuck !!! daddy!johnny is so patronising, and not just outside of the bedroom. kinda like taeil, he asks things, but he makes u feel so dumb and cock drunk :( AH AND he like... coos when you feel all dazed from his cock... "awh~ is that good? you like that don't you sweetheart? yeah, i know."

yuta

i have this vision of yuta just SLAMMING from behind with his face right up in your ear, telling you all sorts of dirty things lowly with just the hottest voice ever. he's very vocal about what he wants, and he loves cumming inside... so expect him to talk about that. oh, he is so fucking possessive too. "hmm. mine. this is mine. you're mine." he probably bites your ear/neck when he says it... the grunts that come out when he slams are enough to send anyone reeling, but i bet he tells you "fuck. gonna. gonna cum in my fuckdoll--" n his voice just trails off as he fills you up and sighs<33

kun

now kun is !! an interesting one !! ... i envision him as a pretty hard dom, so i don't think he's any stranger to degrading. that being said, i think he's more talkative when he's giving punishments (e.g. spanking over his thigh... heaven<33) rather than when he's fucking. i think he moans lowly, semi-quietly but as he gets more and more pent up he gets louder. (i think this is the case for most of the nct doms but oh well) he'll praise how good you make him feel - assuming you've been behaved enough - but that doesn't stop him from cursing under his breath at every chance he gets ,,..

doyoung

definitely has pretty moans !! he probably does whine, but i mean that in a dom way - if that makes sense? higher pitched moans but not pathetic, in fact it's probably paired with him whispering "fuck yes, good [insert ur fave petname here]". i think he's the type to kiss you a lot during sex and like... moan into your mouth; any space not taken up by the sound of moans will for sure be filled with the sound of his panting and his tongue dancing with yours.

ten

another semi-whiner. i always saw him as a dom but i'm sliiightly succumbing to the idea that he may be a switch... which is why i think there's so much BEAUTY in his moans?? ten makes really pretty, breathy whines and moans i'm sure, i don't particularly think he talks a crazy amount but rather short instructions. (yes i'm going back to dom!ten) "turn around." "get on your knees" "quiet." AH !! he always lets you know what he needs - however, sub!ten will just whine and squirm till you make him cum because he is most definitely a slut who takes anything:(

jaehyun

first of all, this man wrecks me to the fucking core, and i could talk about this for... a while. but his moans are definitely like, raspy high-pitched type. think about his vocals. esp in try again... i bet you they sound like THAT. i'm sure he talks a bit too, tbh he probably says rather textbook dirty things but it sounds so fucking hot when it's him. "yeah take it, take my cock" "fuck yes just like that", he loves how you whine when he moans right up next to you btw - it just makes him do it even more. oh, and bonus - he will never call you ANYTHING without prefixing it with my or daddy's. daddy's girl, daddy's boy, daddy's pet, my dirty slut... ahh<3

winwin

it's almost contrasting to jaehyun but sicheng's voice is so low. i can't explain this in any way other than that he's kitty, but his moans are so... puppy? and when he's fucked, he makes himself sound so dumb too. he's constantly slurring his words and biting his lip because he's trying to keep quiet but anyone who walks by the room will hear "mm.. m!!" because he just can't help himself :( when he's close he probably squeaks like taeyong and cums all over the place GOD i want him

jungwoo

oh god there's no doubt that jungwoo talks SO much during sex. he probably loses his fucking mind with how good he feels. he's such a good boy but sometimes you just need him to shut up - but he can't. he squeaks out a little moan when you push into him, or when you start touching his cock, but withn minutes he's babbling non-stop; "oh god oh god mommy/daddy i love it so much, a-ah like that, please~"

lucas

my brain used to be convinced that xuxi was a dom, but i'm now sure he's a switch. either way, his moans are pretty much the same. they're very heavy and... i guess manly is the best way to put it. in my head i can literally picture him being like "ughhh..." when you start fucking because he just feels like he's wanted to fuck you so desperately - yes, even if you fucked hours before. it's always so breathy and moany and i think he sounds like a bit of a fuckboy tbh... "fuck yeah" as he slides his cock into you? THANKS

mark

loud baby loud baby LOUD BABY:((( no matter how much you cover that pretty mouth of his he will be so LOUD!! he can't stop talking and whining and panting, kinda like jungwoo but honestly... more. he swears a lot too. he tries not to but he just can't help himself :( "aw shit... god shit!!!" under his breath UGHHFDGGDFDD SO FUCKING CUTE IM GONNA SCREAM !!! he's very polite though, so he always says sorry every single time :( he babbles like hell when he cums, he can't stop himself, again like jungwoo. "i'm gonna cum i'mgonnacumi- i'm -- ah fuck, shit--!!"

xiaojun

two words. action figure. everyone knew that was coming, HA - i'm sorry but THAT verse means we all know how he sounds. i think he tries his best to talk normally while you edge him but his little voice keeps on wavering and cracking and just... he can't help but sound all pretty and pathetic :( but surely dejun has some (very frequent) moments where he can't keep his front anymore and just whines like a whore because it feels so good<3

hendery

the things i'd let this man do to me:))) i think at first he'd actually try and hide his moans because he feels like that's what he's supposed to do, but no. for me personally, i know i would NOT LET THAT HAPPEN !! he probably sucks the air in through his teeth in an attempt to hide it - it's very fucking sexy when he does that, granted - but he can't keep doing that for long. i think he hums and laughs when he can't keep it in any longer because he almost feels some kinda defeat but then he just moans semi-loudly and lets out a "good girl/boy/baby... let me fuck you, huh?"

renjun

renjun scares the fuck out of me. why? because his moans are fairly quiet. he's master and it S H O W S. he grunts quietly, maybe muttering things under his breath like "so fucking tight" "mmh there you go..." to fill some silence but he does it subconsciously; he goes so far into domspace sometimes that he just can't control himself. when he's close he talks through his teeth and he's like "i'm. i'm gonna cum baby..."and the more you whine on his cock the more he just laughs at you because he's a sadist hhhhhhhhhhh.........

jeno

most definitely a fun one... you see when he's sub, he pants and whines and drools all over himself like a big dumb puppy boy and he just breathes so heavy n his moans are all shaky... if he's a brat he will try and talk big but he can't take it, he just gets so pathetic and !!! but dom jeno is fucking TERRIFYING because he talks down and tries his best to intimidate you. he chuckles and degrades you, but one of his faves is when he can big himself up under his breath. "look at you now. you love this fucking cock."

haechan

this isn't good for my mental health :) i fucking cannot TAKE this brat :) AHA! hyuckie is honestly such a whore, he's bratty and rude and always talks back at you like he's the king of the fucking world. he's constantly laughing at you and trying so hard to make you feel like you're not worthy but he feels so good he just gets fucked dumb by you :( he is SO loud too. he wants everyone to hear what a dirty whore he is and he makes sure he puts on his prettiest pornstar moans. he whines like his life depends on it. on the off chance that he's being a good boy, he begs and cries and whimpers when he finally cums - and i mean CRIES. sobs. he'll be heaving by the time you're done with him, but god he fucking loves it.

jaemin

fuck... fuck okay... well firstly he loves to talk. we all know how much he praises and how he's constantly showing his love off... that doesn't stop at fanservice, nope. he will fuck you like a ragdoll and keep calm and composed as ever, talking down to you as if you're in his lap for a soft cuddle. "baby loves nana so much hm~?" "oh you really love that don't you?" "you know you're so pretty. nana wants to cum in you so bad~" yes, he calls himself nana because he's a cocky fuck and loves how it sounds. especially when you're moaning it for him.

yangyang

i'm kinda in 2 minds about this... on the one hand, he's kinda like hyuckie in that he whines a LOT. but he can actually keep his composure - he's a breathy whiner, he's not quite as loud and he most certainy doesn't crumble as easily. (that's not to say that he can't, he most definitely can.) on the other hand i think when he's in a more neutral headspace rather than subby, he talks to you like a total fuckboy. not in a mean way but he's just like "hah. i know you love me fucking you like this." he gets so cocky and he sucks hickeys into your neck and hums quietly<3

shotaro

he's such a shy baby :( he wants to moan so much but he probably gets all self conscious and tries to hide it... so you gotta make him feel safe :( when he does he whimpers and it's so pretty and pathetic. the way he wells up with tears and hitches his breath is. adorable. he whispers "thank you... ah..." every time he feels that good and by the time he cums it's just falling from him like a waterfall :( the more comfortable he feels, though, the sluttier he can get... he will always be a good boy but i think he lets his whore side come out every once in a while <3

sungchan

last but most certainly not least, yet ANOTHER boy who pains me to the core. i think sungchan whimpers too. THERE I SAID IT. his cock is too big for his own good so he just... needs you to do SOMETHING to him :( he always sighs at first, maybe hissing just a little but then he gets to a point where he's quietly whimpering because he just needs to cum so fucking bad <//3 "need it... p-please..." he's always nervous to use titles but if he wants to cum he has no choice :( when his dom asks please who? he blushes bright red n mumbles a little "please mommy/daddy... 'm so good..." and god yes he is he deserves it so much ugh<33333333333333

[neopuppy]

Regular-Irregular: Part 1. (M)

Preview: “Is there anything you need from me? Anything I should prepare?” You asks Lucas nervously.

“Well..hah..” Lucas nods down to his crotch, pouting his lips with a smirk. “Nothing can prepare you for this, but if you can get past me.. you’ll be perfect here.” Johnny and Lucas bursts into laughter. Your brows furrowing together, but nodding with a smile none the less.

“Thank you for this opportunity alphas. I won’t let you down.”

Pairing: Female omega reader x alpha Lucas ft alpha Xiaojun

Word Count: 2.7k

Genre: omegaverse, straight up PWOP, pure FICTION.

Smut Warning: degradation, humiliation, big alpha cock, teasing, fingering, knotting, slick, voyeur, cumshot

Intro—>

Second Interview

Red. Form fitting. Tight.

“Something red will impress.” Repeating the words over in your mind admiring over the wine red silky dress. Would this be enough? This felt so wrong, opposite of your usual sense of style. Whatever style that of a broke college graduate with huge student loans could be considered.

“What if he’s not impressed?..” you continue to question pulling into your assigned visitor parking space. “What am I even supposed to do today? I really need this job..” huffing out to no one but yourself as you pull a mirror from your purse.

“You can do this. You got this. Mr. Suh loved you!” You mentally shout out words of encouragement, applying a sheer tinted balm, smacking your lips together.

“Lucas seemed nice right?” Mumbling to yourself, riddled with too many thoughts as you walk toward the elevator. “Yea, I think he liked me? He was excited about me interviewing..” nodding your chin forward, punching the button for the 10th floor. Slapping your own hand away from your mouth before you could nibble over your freshly manicured nails. The doors ding open loudly interrupting your spiraling thoughts.

“Woah..” two alpha’s stand at the floor entrance, looking you up and down. Your pace falters as you step out of the elevator. Nerves shooting about, exploding out of you like fireworks. You pause, with a small bow in their direction.

“Hello.. I’m here for an interview with the HR manager?” you stammer out, gripping at your purse.

“HR?” The shorter alpha questions, fingers stroking across his chin with a smirk. “Hah...second interview?”

“Y-yes...with Luc..”

“Lucas.” The alpha with black hair smiles, displaying bright white teeth. “Love the dress by the way..” he moves to your side, arm resting on the dip of your waist. “Allow me..” he nods, directing you forward.

You swallow following his lead, sweat pooling at your nape. The cold air conditioning blowing across your exposed skin, making it even more obvious how hot you feel. The alpha directs you toward a large room, hand palming at the small of your back.

“Love the pedicure too. Great choice.” He bites down on his lip, pushing the door open.

“Ah, Jaemin you’re back finally... and you’ve brought a gift” Johnny holds out his arms, face brightening up with a smile. “Please come in, bring her to me.”

“Of course boss.” Jaemin directs you toward Mr. Suh, pushing into your back to encourage you forward. Eyes around the conference table all follow your figure, eyes of predators. Eyes of hungry wolves.

“You’re gonna do great, I can tell.” Jaemin leans in, mouthing words directly onto your ear. He shoots you a wink, taking a seat near Lucas. The other alpha lifting his brows pleased with your appearance.

“Let me get a look at you..” Johnny pulls you forward, large hands wrapping around your waist. The heat rushing across your flesh so fast, you’d be a pool of sweat if not for the central air.

“Don’t start without me!” The other alpha from the entrance runs in, shutting the door behind him.

“We should. So you can learn to be on time Haechan.” Johnny says shooting the alpha a glare as he seats. Eyes returning to focus on you. Johnny’s fingers skim up the fabric of your dress, reaching toward the flimsy straps.

“A bra..” he tsks displeased. “Never saw the point in those things, all they do is get in the way.” Johnnys fingers trace beneath your dress, pulling off your bra straps. Hands swiftly returning to your waist, pulling your back into his built chest. He faces you toward the table, nothing but alphas surrounding. Eyes all gleaming with interest, some breathing heavy, others getting more comfortable in their seats.

“You sent the contract back very quickly. You read everything correctly yes?” Johnny tightens an arm around your stomach, hips shoving forward into your ass. He moves your hair to the side, nose running across your neck. Another alpha leans forward on the table biting on his lip. Johnny’s fingers stroking down your upper back removing the clasp from your bra.

“Y-yes..alpha..” you stammer out squeezing your eyes shut. The embarrassment too much, overwhelming your body. Muffled words of disapproval sound out around you. Johnny pulls your bra free, hardened nipples clearly exposed through your dress.

“Keep your eyes open sweetie.” His fingers skim across your jaw, tilting you neck back. “We don’t bite.”

“Yet!..” a deep raspy voice calls out. Your eyes flutter open looking into Johnny’s. The alpha smiles proudly, finger smoothing across your lower lip.

“Good omega’s always do as their told.” Johnny turns your face forward, making sure all the alpha’s see you with your eyes open.

“They follow rules.” Lucas emphasizes tapping a finger into the table. “They don’t argue. Good omega’s listen to everything their alpha’s say.”

“Isn’t he right?” Johnny licks at your earlobe, grinding his hardening length between your ass.

“Yes alpha’s..” your eyes flutter blinking away the moisture gathering up.

“Good omega’s know their place here. You’re nothing more than a stupid fuck hole to take our cum.” The alpha leaning forward closest to you voices out. The rest of the alpha’s nodding in agreement. Your thighs squeeze together, vision blurring behind the pools of tears you try to hold back.

“She likes it..” Johnny’s smile widens, nose digging into your cheek. Forearm gliding down your stomach, hand reaching under your dress. His fingers push between your thighs, squeezing around your mound.

“She’s so wet Jaehyun.” He responds to the alpha leaned on the table. Your own eyes locking with his, receiving a nod of approval.

“Of course she likes it.” Lucas stands up, pushing back his seat. Hands working on removing his belt with ease. “These omega sluts all know deep down inside the only thing they’re good for.”

“Might want to keep this one for myself Lucas” Johnny glares at him, roughly thrusting against you. Lower half bouncing forward into his hand with every movement.

“Aw come on Johnny! It’s been weeks since the last one quit. We’re fucking bored!” The alpha from earlier- Haechan, whines out smacking at his arm rest.

“You’re funny man.” Lucas head shakes, removing his blazer. Lustful eyes roaming over you, working the buttons around his wrists open.

“I’m being serious.” Johnny presses a finger into your slit, thin fabric of your underwear drenched in slick already. “I think I could conduct this portion of the interview better than you.”

“Is that right?” Lucas unzips his pants, pulling out a dick girthy and long enough to pull a shocked gasp out the back of your throat. “Should we grab a ruler?” The alpha smiles proudly with hands on his hips, cock laying against the table. Johnny sighs, pecking over your cheekbone.

“Get through this, you’ll be mine tomorrow.” He murmurs lowly into your ear. Gripping your flimsy underwear with a harsh tug up. Folds wrapping around the soaked fabric.

“Being the boss can be so exhausting.” He groans, shoving your body in Lucas direction. You fall clumsily landing into the alpha’s lap sat near Lucas. His jaw tightens, lifting a thick sharp brow.

“Xiaojun... help me out here.” Lucas snaps fingers at the alpha wrapping arms around your waist. Xiaojun gives you a look, swiping away a tear that finally breaks free.

“I love when they cry.” He grins full of mischief. Something mocking in his tone. You suck in air swallowing down a hiccup nervously. Xiaojun stands up, holding onto the back of your thighs and waist.

“Where do you want her?” He asks with a glance around the room.

“Set her down right here.” Lucas points his chin to the spot on the table in front of him. “Won’t distract you too much from your work, right boys?” The alpha taunts out with a laugh.

Pleased grunts and responses follow. Johnny focuses on setting up a power point, clapping hands together for attention from the group of alpha’s. Xiaojun lays you down in front of Lucas. The alpha grabbing onto your calves, pulling you in closer to fit between your legs.

“Red’s my favorite” Lucas smirks, long fingers gripping your knees, parting you open. “We won’t be needing these.” He bunches your dress up, ripping off the sides of your panties.

“Give me those!” The alpha that led you here- Jaemin calls out with grabby hands. Xiaojun rolls his eyes picking up the slicked up fabric.

“He’s kind of strange.” He peers down at you, shoving the underwear toward Jaemin seated to the side.

“What are we?” Lucas laughs out, hands squeezing down over the meat of your thighs. “Damn, you really are wet.” His brows waggle, fingers pulling your folds open. You squeak out in embarrassment, feeling slick slide down to your ass thick and heavy.

“You’ll never fit in there..” Xiaojun whispers staring between your legs from over Lucas shoulder. The alpha circles around your entrance curiously.

“..but she’s so wet” his forehead creases down the middle. “You taken real alpha dick before baby?” Lucas looks into your eyes with question. Your chest rises rapidly, digging nails into your hands. You lick at your drying lips, trying to regain moisture in your mouth, weakly shaking your head. Lucas sighs, prodding at your entrance.

“You can take it.. “ he pushes a finger inside you, long enough to reach deep in you. “Damn..” Lucas smile widens, pressing into your walls.

“Come here..” he mumbles, pulling you up by your shoulder with his free hand. Lucas leans in gazing at you with lazy desire filled eyes. Another finger working way in you, thick lips pouting out floating near yours.

“If you can’t take my cock, you won’t be hired.” The alpha lowly whispers against your face. Pouty lips skimming up your cheek, pulling your earlobe in. “How badly do you want this job?” Words muffle into your ear between sucking and licking. Lucas pushes a third finger inside you. They’re so long and thick already, the size of his cock can’t even compare.

“Yes alpha..” your face scrunches up in pleasure, fingers working you open. “I want it. I need it.” The high paying position, the alpha’s incredibly fat cock, whichever.

Xiaojun’s hand reaches between your bodies, fingers finding your clit quickly. The alphas work expertly, Lucas thrusting lengthy fingers into you, spreading open and stretching. Xiaojun circles around you clit, squeezing the bud between two fingers. Your head falling forward into the alpha’s chest too overwhelmed and shy to voice out anything.

“You have to take my knot too..” Lucas bites your earlobe, tongue lapping over the abused skin. Your eyes widen, neck weakly lifting. His smile turns vindictive, forehead pressing into yours. “Most omega’s can’t pass this interview.”

“I will.” You purse your lips swallowing down a whine, a fourth finger pushing your walls open. “Fuck..” your head drops forward into his chest again, biting back a moan. Pleasure passing through your stomach with each thrust.

“That’s right..” his fingers slip out, shoving away Xiaojun’s hand. Lucas lifts you off the table, returning to his chair. He turns you around like you weigh nothing to him, biceps flexing through his dress shirt. Lucas sets you on his lap, hard very hard cock nestling between your thighs. An alpha with a hidden forearm below the waist is what he was.

“You ready?” Lucas turns you to look at him, large hand covering the entire side of your face. You hesitate squirming about his lap before stiffly nodding. He holds back a smile digging teeth into his lower lip. Xiaojun swivels his seat closer to Lucas, gripping at the top of your dress. He gives you no time to react, pulling the garment below your breasts. Cold air kissing at your erected nipples. Groans sounding out from the alpha’s less focused on Johnny’s presentation.

Lucas gathers your dress up to your waist, lifting you up enough to prod at your entrance. Cock head sloppily sliding and poking between your heat.

“Fuck yourself on my cock.” He grunts out behind you, keeping you held up. You drop your head for a better look, reaching down gripping around the base of his length. Finger nails barely meeting around him. You swallow in trying to relax with determination. If there’s one thing you had, it was the will to fight for what you want.

Lucas lifts his hips impatiently, cock head pushing past your opened entrance. You squeeze at his base tighter, panting out for air. Slowly inching down the fat length, teeth grinding together in exertion. Head falling back against his shoulder releasing your hold around him. Xiaojun leans in lapping over your nipple, earning a jolt of surprise out of you.

“Fuck.. I’m already half in” Lucas drops back against the chairs head rest. Jaw hanging loosely soaking in your clenching walls. Xiaojun’s fingers return to your clit, stimulating the bundle of nerves with quick rubs. You finally cry out, trying so hard to not break. Trying so hard to not appear weak. Lucas let’s out a cocky laugh, thrusting up into you completely. Slick coating around his size with Xiaojun’s help. They play you like a toy, like the helpless little omega you are.

“How’s that feel?” Lucas wraps a hand around your entire neck, pulling you flush against him. He grinds up into you, cock fucking deep past what you even thought possible. Your eyes roll back letting out a deep cry, a pathetic wanton mewl. “Come on, I said fuck yourself on my cock.”

Your eyes squeeze, tears pooling out over your cheeks. Head nodding rapidly- good omega’s always do as their told. You reach a hand out gripping the ledge of the table pulling yourself up. Cunt so stretched and full, slick covering the entirety of Lucas slacks. You fall back down on the size ripping you open, eyes locking with an alpha across from you. His mouth hung open, tongue out like a dog. It’s filthy, a group of attractive alpha’s treating you like nothing but a hole. It’s hot, it’s beyond your wildest fantasies.

“Ugh..” you grit out, working into a speed. Ass slapping back against Lucas. The wet fabric of his shirt uncomfortable against your skin. He lifts his arms behind his head, watching you put on a show.

“Fuck, good omega. Taking all that dick.” The alpha inside of you moans out. You ride him faster, grind against him, balls squishing into your ass. Lucas moves his hands around your neck from behind. He grinds up as you circle around him. Xiaojun bites over your breasts, rolling a nipple bud between his teeth.

“Shit, I’m gonna cum. Pussy’s too good.” Lucas hisses out, he sinks into the seat, thrusting forward roughly. Strong, fast, relentless chasing the urge to knot. You gasp in harshly, fingers gripping at the table. Getting fucked into so good, sensors overloading in lust. Your mouth falls open, walls clamping as much as possible around the alpha. Crying out as slick pours around his size.

“A-alpha!” Your stomach sucks in deep. Lucas jerks in past your orgasm. His face glistening under the lights with sweat. He thrusts in deep one, two, three more times with force. Knot expanding into you, hands around your neck the only thing keeping you in place.

“Fuck! Fuck!!” He cries out raspy, deep and manly. Loads of cum shooting into your womb aggressively. A mixture of many different groans passing through your ears. Lucas sighs, releasing your neck. Body weakly flopping back against him.

“Get her on the table. I’m about to cum.” Xiaojun pants out from beside you. Lucas grunts, standing up with you hanging off his knot. He lifts you with hands under your knees settling you down on all fours. You squirm around, heated cheek pressing into the cool metal. Lucas pulls out, knot only barely starting to go down. Cum spilling free out of your gaped hole immediately.

“Fuck fuck that’s hot.” Xiaojun screams out from behind. Sounds of jerking, slapping his cock over your ass. “Oh shit!” He cums with a shout, shooting in between your ass. You whimper, vision blurred under moisture. Room spinning with alpha’s in suits gazing at you like you’re their next meal. Which you just may be.

“You two done yet?” Johnny questions Lucas and Xiaojun. Lucas shoots him a wide smirk, tucking himself back into his pants.

“She’s hired.” He finishes with a thumbs up before stepping out of the room. Xiaojun’s eyes stay focused on your ass. Pushing and squeezing together your cheeks watching large amounts of cum drip down to the table.

“I’ll get her account connected for direct deposit right now.” You hear Xiaojun’s voice from behind you. He slaps at your ass one final time, nodding Johnny’s way.

The rest of the alpha’s make to head out with Johnny ending the meeting. All slowly walking around the table to get a look at the mess you’ve made. The mess you’ve become.

“You’re going to be a great addition to the team.” Jaemin expresses with a loud lip smack against your ass cheek. “Can’t wait to have fun with you.”

Part 2–>

Tag:

@seuomo @unknown5tar @nanascupid @doieclayed @johnjaespeach @eggbutnotyolk @skittlez-area512 @jaehyunluvcult @lauraneuuh @hyucksslut @woofie-nctzen-fanarts @sweetmoonlight9 @multifandombtvh @notsooperfect @lenaluvs @hyunsannie @reinventingpersona @kawaiiayasan @resceluwu @winwiniee @hemlockbeauty @jaeminielovebot @aaaaalex05 @sheytanni

[nsheetee]

109 Steps To You

this is a part of the “almost” collaboration hosted by @hyucksie​

Pairing: Haechan x Reader Genre: romance, fluff, angst, mature content, soulmate!AU, college!AU Length: 19k Summary: Everyone is born with two marks on their body: one that is identical to your soulmate’s, and one that is identical to the person who will cause you immense pain. No one knows which mark means what until they live out their life and meet the people destined to bring them love and hurt. However, you were only born with one mark. Out of all the places you thought you would meet the person with the mark identical to yours, you never thought it would be on your first day of college. Warnings/Details: female reader, mentions of other nct members (and yuqi from g-idle), explicit sex (unprotected + the consequences that come with it), mentions of a dysfunctional family, swearing

— read epilogue here

a/n: if you’re a minor: beware! there is explicit and mature content in this fic.

“I want to thank you guys, again, for helping me out today.” You shyly announce to the table, swirling your spoon through your froyo and glancing back and forth between the other people sitting before you.

“Oh, it’s no problem, we weren’t doing anything today anyway.” Xiaojun softly knocks his elbow into yours, sending a reassuring smile your way. If it wasn’t for Xiaojun, an old childhood friend, you weren’t sure how moving into your dorm room and getting settled into campus would’ve gone; you would probably still be a mess right now.

“He’s right. Plus, I really wanted to meet the girl Jun kept raving about, he wouldn’t stop talking about how much we would like you-” Mark’s comment is quickly cut off, a thud under the table and a pained look on Mark’s face giving away that Xiaojun just kicked him.

“I just hope I lived up to the hype.” You laugh at their antics.

“Oh, definitely,” Yuqi quickly buts in before Mark can retaliate back at Xiaojun, “And I live a few floors below you, so just let me know if you need anything at all.” She adds on, her warm deposition and all around friendliness from today making you let out a small sigh of relief, some stress falling off your shoulders when you realize just how many people around you are here to help you out.

“I appreciate it so much, really.” You lean away from Xiaojun and Mark, closer to Yuqi and Lucas who are sitting on the other side of the table, “By the way, I love your guys’ marks. They look so good on both of you.”

At your comment, Lucas puts down his phone and gently grabs Yuqi’s hand, their matching chamomile flower marks touching as their fingers intertwine. You almost didn’t notice their matching marks earlier today when they were helping you set up your dorm room, but when you did, you couldn’t help but stop what you were doing and stare at their hands. Such a simple mark has never looked so pretty to you, maybe it’s because Lucas and Yuqi made such a good pair that their fated marks looked so right for them.

“I still wish I got a cool dragon mark down my back, but I’ll let Jun be the one to deal with that in this life.” Lucas smirks at Xiaojun, who just rolls his eyes at Lucas’ fake jealousy. “Yours looks good, too.” He finishes and glances down at your left hand. There, a dragonfly mark stains your skin, the long tail trailing over your thumb and the wings spreading out over the back of your hand and your wrist.

“Thank you.” Your reply is genuine, however you can’t help but remember the solemn fact that surrounds your mark, your voice inadvertently dipping down as your eyes trace over the wings of your dragonfly.

“So, what kind of classes are you taking this semester?” Xiaojun changes the subject, no doubt hearing the lament in your voice.

“Oh, just some required classes. Nothing for my major, really, except Intro to Ethics for my humanities credit.” You reply as casually as you can to bring the mood at the table back up, but your comment makes Yuqi gasp and all four pairs of eyes at the table turn to you. You slouch in your seat at their sudden attention on you.

“Why would you do that to yourself?”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Do you know your advisor's email? Let’s send them a message right now to get you out-”

“Stop.” You shake your head, laughing a bit at the overreaction from your new friends, “What’s wrong with Ethics?”

“It’s in the Hauss building.” Xiaojun says as if you should already know what that means. You roll your lips in and shake your head; you do not know what that means at all.

“It’s the building all the way on top of the big hill on the west side of campus, by the auditorium.” Xiaojun explains more.

“They only teach three classes over there: Ethics and Music Theory 3 and 4.” Mark sets down his melted froyo, not realizing he has some sticking to his upper lip.

“I’m failing to see what’s so horrible about that?”

“When Xiaojun says it’s a big hill, he means it’s a really big hill-”

“Didn’t someone count the steps once and it came out to be, like, close to 100?” Lucas asks, one hand still tangled with Yuqi’s and the other now rapidly slurping his triple chocolate froyo.

“That was me, and it’s 109 steps.” Mark shutters, “I took Music Theory 3 last year and I ended up skipping half of the time because I couldn’t find the energy to climb up and down those steps three times a week.”

“Why 109? Aren’t groups of steps usually in even numbers? That’s not very architecturally smart.” Yuqi purses her lips and her eyebrows screw together.

“Screw architecture. Are you telling me I’ll have to climb up and down 109 stairs three times a week just to go to Ethics?” You can already feel a headache growing at the back of your head when you think about the complications of dealing with this big staircase. You needed that class for your major, and you thought it was going to be a class that you could pass with flying colors, but it seems like it might just be a nuisance to you more than an easy A.

“Talk to your advisor. Try to drop out and take a different class. Trust me, 109 steps don’t seem like much until you actually have to climb them.” Mark gives you his piece of advice, sticking his spoon filled with froyo into his mouth and then immediately scrunching his eyes and mumbling about brain freeze.

You’ll have to send an e-mail to your advisor real quick, but for your first day of classes tomorrow, you’ll just have to deal with those 109 steps.

The walk to your ethics class the next morning is very calming, the university’s nice landscaping and the warm weather calming your nerves down for your first day of classes. When you round the corner of the stonewall you had been following, you’re met with the infamous set of steps.

You have to crane your neck to look up at the top of the staircase, your jaw slightly dropping at how steep of a hill the stairs were built on. There are other students around you walking up and down the staircase, their headphones shoved in their ears and their heads down as they make the climb to and from class.

The stonewall you had been following all the way here continues up the staircase on your right and on the left is a thick wall of trees, their branches hanging over the stairs and giving protection from the sunlight to the students below. You begin to count every step on your way up; four regular steps, the fifth one a bit longer than the rest, and then repeat. It’s not that you don’t trust Mark’s words when he said there’s 109 steps, you just want to count for yourself.

You hear some rowdy boys coming down the stairs, but the noise is not enough to pull your head up from the ground or to stop you from counting, until you’re forcefully pushed into the stone wall on your right. Breathing in through your teeth sharply, your left hand clutches your collarbones where the pain is the worst.

“Oh, my god. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to push you.” The guy laughs through his words, a high-pitched and almost squeaky laugh, making him sound not as sincere as he probably meant to be. When you turn to face him, the first thing you notice are his eyes. Chocolate colored and almond shaped, some laugh lines showing from the remnants of his shenanigans with his friends.

Looking back, you realize you fell in love with his eyes first. How they don’t hold back from showing any emotion, and the mischievousness they hold no matter what.

Even when his smile falls, his face looks pretty; long hair hanging down over his forehead and ears, and plump lips spreading into an ‘o’ shape as he looks at your dragonfly. Every line and detail is just the same as his own, as if fate spent a little more time with you two to make sure you know you’re each other’s soulmate the moment you meet.

“Your mark…” The man points at your hand, and that’s when you realize who you’ve just met. His brilliant eyes fill with excitement and he starts to breath harder, taking a step back from sheer surprise that you’re here. His soulmate. His one and only for the rest of this life.

However it all fades away the moment you drop your hand from your collarbones, stepping past him to continue up the staircase.

“Next time, watch where you’re going.” The first words you ever say to him are filled with so much indifference that Haechan can only follow your back with his eyes, his jaw slack and his hand still reaching out for you.

“Hey, wait-” Haechan is about to run after you, but he’s held back by Renjun, his best friend and the one who pushed Haechan into you in the first place.

“Was that-” Renjun begins, holding onto his friend’s elbow as he also watches you walk up the rest of the 109 steps.

“Yeah… Why did she ignore me like that? She saw that I have the same mark. We’re soulmates!” Haechan almost cries out in confusion, his heart and mind in a mess. Can you blame him? He’s been waiting to meet his soulmate since he knew what the dragonfly on his hand meant. Haechan has never been a patient person, and even waiting several years for you to come to him was testing him. Now that you’re here, he isn’t going to let you go easily.

As Haechan begins to walk back up the staircase to follow you, not caring about his Literature class in 15 minutes, Renjun’s grip on him tightens and pulls him back.

“You can’t just go harass her about this.”

“I’m not going to harass her. I just want to talk.” Haechan tries to pull out of Renjun’s grip again, but the little man has the sturdiness of a boulder and pulls his friend back.

“Maybe she doesn’t want a soulmate?” Renjun and Haechan stop their tug of war at Jaemin’s words. He had been leaning against the handrail by the trees the whole time while watching the scene unfold in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest and his baseball cap covering his eyes. “It’s not that uncommon these days.”

Haechan and Renjun let go of each other at their friend’s words. Jaemin sends them a bitter smile and all three of them recall the incident that happened last year when Jaemin met his own soulmate:

A rejection.

Jaemin took it hard; if it hadn’t been for his best friends, he doesn’t know where he would be in life right now. Jaemin can’t help but let the memories surface as he continues to walk down the stairs, slower than before, his head bowed and his hands shoved into his pant pockets. Renjun sends Haechan a look that tells him to not push the situation further, following Jaemin down the stairs.

Haechan sends your retreating figure one last look, watching you reach the top of the staircase and walk into the Hauss building. He retreats and follows his friends dejectedly, the promise of you showing up on this staircase at the same time on Wednesday being the only thing that lets his legs follow his friends down the stairs.

“Hey, ___, come in.” Mark smiles brightly when he recognizes you at the door, stepping aside to let you into the dorm room. “Xiaojun is in the shower still… Will you be okay by yourself if I leave?” He looks unsure as you set your backpack down on Xiaojun’s desk chair.

“Oh, I’ll be fine. You do whatever you need to.” You state and then plop down onto your friend’s bed. You hear Mark laugh and say something about how all the first years look tired at the end of their first day and then leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. You lay sprawled out on the bed, the only sounds surrounding you is the water from the shower and the ticking of the analog clock on the wall.

Even though the whole ordeal happened several hours ago, you haven’t been able to get the moment you met your soulmate out of your mind. It was almost impossible for you to turn around and walk away. Even now, your feet still itch to go back to that staircase and find the sweet looking guy who you no doubt left confused.

However, you can’t do that— you won’t let yourself do that. And that’s partially why you’re in Xiaojun’s dorm room after your last class today: so that he can knock some sense into you.

The shower turns off and a few moments later, the bathroom door opens and Xiaojun steps out. He has a towel wrapped around his waist and a smaller one on his shoulders to catch the droplets from his hair; when he sees you laying on his bed, he jumps in fright.

“Good, God,” He sighs and clutches his bare chest with one hand, the other protectively going to the towel around his waist. “Can you say something the next time you come over? I almost had a heart attack because of you.” He walks over to his closet on the other side of the room, rummaging through some clothes as you sit up.

“Sorry, I thought you heard the door open…” You trail off, getting distracted by Xiaojun’s mark. The dragon on his back is huge, taking up most of the area and spreading to his shoulders and upper arms, too. However, that’s not the mark that caught your attention. Right on his ankle sits a three-leaf clover, so small and such a stark difference from the monster drawn on his back.

You’re pulled away from your thoughts when Xiaojun turns around and walks back into the bathroom, this time leaving the door open, “So, how was your first day?”

“Oh, well, it was okay…” You trail off, speaking a bit louder so that he could hear you from the other room. You stand up and start pacing in the space between Mark’s and Xiaojun’s beds, a nervous habit of yours.

“But? I know there’s a ‘but’ somewhere.” Xiaojun replies.

“Well, something happened…” You trail off, not sure how to make the words leave your mouth yet.

“What is it?” You swallow at the question, your throat dry and hands clammy. You must’ve been taking a long time to answer because Xiaojun walks out of the bathroom, now fully clothed, and stares at your pacing form. “What’s wrong, ___.”

“I met him.” You say simply, hoping Xiaojun gets what you mean, but he doesn’t. You sigh and sink down to the floor slowly, catching yourself on Xiaojun’s bed. The action makes his eyes widen in fear and he crosses the room in a few short strides, kneeling down next to you and searching your eyes for the answer.

“What? What is it?”

“The person with the same mark as me. I met him.”

“... Oh.”

Xiaojun slowly slides down onto his butt in front of you, folding his legs. He’s not sure what to say, or how to comfort you in anyway. He didn’t expect to be the only person around that you trust when something like this happens. He sees the lost look in your eyes and slides towards you to pull you into a hug.

Unlike Xiaojun, and most people in the world, you do not have two marks.

Xiaojun’s dragon and clover match with two different people in this world; one who will be his soulmate and the other who will bring him immense pain. Everyone has two marks— except you; it even states it on your birth certificate, your parents can testify that they’ve never seen a second mark on you, just the lonely dragonfly that spreads its wings over your left hand.

When you were younger, you were curious about what it meant to only have one mark. The people around you always had two marks, the people on the TV shows you liked to watch always had two marks, even anatomy books have depictions of humans with two marks. Why were you different? What did it mean?

After gathering up the guts to type the question into the Google search engine, you found your answers, and it changed your thoughts on your one and only mark forever. The people in the world who only had one mark testified to the same story online: the person who’s mark matched theirs were both their soulmate and the person who hurt them the most.

After learning about that, you promised yourself that if you ever met the person with the same mark as you, you would not meddle with them in any way if they were only destined to bring you pain in the end.

If you knew jumping off a bridge would definitely kill you, you wouldn’t jump, right?

Xiaojun is the only person, other than your parents, who knows about the situation. Which is why when he hugs you, you lean into him and accept his comfort.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about. You must have so many questions.” He mumbles into your hair.

“Not questions. I’m just curious about what I am to him.” You reply, whispering into Xiaojun’s shoulder.

“About what you are to him?”

“I know he’ll be the person I’m meant to love the most, and also the person who will hurt me the most. But am I the one that’s supposed to love him or the one that’s supposed to hurt him?”

“Lots of people say that they can feel it when they meet. Like Lucas, he said he instantly knew Yuqi was supposed to be his soulmate.” Xiaojun thinks back to all the people who have told him the exact same thing, even his parents.

“The guy… he kept calling me his soulmate. He sounded so sure about it, too.” You lean away from Xiaojun to look into his big and curious eyes.

“What about you? What did you feel?” He asks.

“It felt… like I left a part of myself with him.” Xiaojun’s eyes widened at that, “Is that crazy? I was only around him for a minute, maybe less, and I can’t stop thinking about how I never wanted to leave. It was so hard to walk away from him..” You trail off, feeling tears suddenly gather at the edges of your eyes.

“Xiaojun…” The edge in your voice makes him grab a hold on your hands, “I don’t want him to hurt me. I’m not ready for it.”

“Hey, hey…” Xiaojun squeezes your hands before gently guiding your face to his, meeting his eyes with your own, “He’ll hurt you eventually, yeah, but he’ll also be the person who is supposed to love you unconditionally. The person who is going to know you so well, better than yourself. Maybe you should see where he takes you in life? Destiny still wanted you to meet each other no matter what the end game is going to be… Are you really going to tell fate to fuck off?”

“Can’t I?” Your response makes Xiaojun laugh, which he apologises for laughing in a serious situation right after, but the mood is already broken and you laugh at yourself a bit as well.

“C’mon, let’s order something to eat and get your mind off of this, even if it’s just for a few hours.” Xiaojun pulls you off of the floor and reaches for his phone, trying to find the phone number to his favorite delivery place.

You sit on his bed once again, your hands limp in your lap and so much appreciation for Xiaojun in your chest. You probably would’ve gone insane if he wasn’t here for you. His suggestion on giving the guy you met today a chance plays like a record in your head, but the record scratches when you remember the promise you made to yourself a long time ago.

Don’t mess with him. He will only bring you pain in the end.

On Wednesday, Haechan is the first one out of his seat in his Music Theory 3 class, not even waiting for the slow Renjun and even slower Jaemin before sprinting out of the classroom and outside, waiting at the top of the staircase for your figure to appear at the bottom.

Students float up and down the stairs, but he doesn’t see you anywhere amongst them. Eventually, Renjun and Jaemin catch up to him, standing behind him and also staring down the long staircase.

“C’mon, Haechan, we need to go to our next class.” Renjun is the first one to step down, followed by Jaemin. Haechan takes a good look at everyone’s faces on his way down, getting some weird looks sent his way for staring, but he doesn’t care.

“Haechan.” Jaemin suddenly calls out, making his friend turn suddenly to look at him. Jaemin only nods his head to the bottom of the stairs where you just turned the corner. Despite his hurry from before, Haechan stops at the sight of you. His usual confidence is lost when he sees you climb the stairs. Now, he’s not sure if he should approach you.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Renjun nudges Haechan, but the younger only turns around to look at his friend.

“I don’t know what to say to her. What do I say to make her see I’m her soulmate?” Haechan asks, helplessness seeping into his words.

Renjun rolls his eyes; whenever his best friend needs to be the usual confident man he is, that’s when the confidence is most likely to drain out of him. Renjun shakes Haechan’s shoulders with a tight grip on his jacket, making some more people send the two of them some weird looks.

“She’s your soulmate, right? Fate already gave you everything you need to know about how to talk to her.” Renjun then pushes his friend towards your direction, “But for the love of god, don’t harass her.” Renjun ends with a pointed look and continues walking with Jaemin down the stairs.

Haechan slowly makes his way to you, crossing over to the middle of the staircase and stopping you in your tracks. You look up to inspect who it is that just stopped in front of you, and your surprise fades when you realize it’s the same guy from Monday.

“Hi.” He says simply. You only nod your head, lips pursed, and then move around him to continue walking to class.

“Wait…” Haechan calls after you, but you don’t stop this time. So Haechan keeps walking after you, only one step behind, “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but you’re my soulmate. I’ve been waiting for you for so long—” You sharply turn to face him, making Haechan cut off and tilt his head up to look at you.

“How do you know I’m your soulmate? What if I’m not?” You ask. Haechan shakes his head softly at that, his golden hair moving over his sun-kissed skin as he does.

“That’s not possible.”

“How do you know?” You ask. Haechan loves how curiosity burns in your eyes. He takes longer than normal to speak only so that he can look over your features and memorize them to the best of his ability. Last night, he tried to recall your face but the image came out so blurry since he only saw you for a moment on Monday. He wants to clearly remember what you look like.

“How about I take you somewhere, and then I’ll tell you?” The proposition stuns you, and your burning curiosity makes you want to say yes. However, going anywhere with him would be breaking your promise to yourself, so you decide to forget it.

“Nevermind…” You mumble, turning around to walk up the stairs again.

“You seem like you really want to know how I’m sure we’re soulmates… Aren’t you curious?” Haechan asks, making you stop in your tracks again. This man has only known you for a day, only talked to you for a few moments, yet he already knows how to get you to do something. “I promise I won’t hurt you, and I’m not lying either.”

You take a moment to think about the proposition. You’re really curious about how he’s so sure that you’re soulmates. Sure, you know you’re soulmates, but why is he so sure you aren’t the person who’s supposed to hurt him? You consider taking up the offer, but can you stay strong to your own promise while being close to him?

Curiosity wins, and you turn back around to face him, nodding and making him smile widely. There’s that crinkle in his eyes again, that sparkle against the sun that makes saying yes to him so much more worth it.

“My friends call me Haechan, but you can call me Donghyuck. That’s my real name.” He sticks out his hand for you to shake. You once heard that physical touch brings soulmates together quicker; you’re not sure if that’s true, but you don’t want to test it.

“I’m ___.” You nod at him and grip onto your backpack straps instead of accepting his handshake.

“Haechan, hurry up or we’ll be late!” You both hear Renjun shout out from the bottom of the stairs, “And on our second day, too.” You hear him groan.

“Okay, ___, I’ll see you here at 7pm tomorrow night.” Haechan turns around to run back to his friends, sending you one last wave goodbye and almost tripping down the stairs as he does.

You take a deep breath and turn around to walk up the rest of the steps. You’re unsure if you did the right thing by agreeing to see him tomorrow night, but the deed is now done, and you can only wait for Donghyuck to quench your curiosity.

As promised, you meet Donghyuck at 7 o’clock sharp the next day. He’s already waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs.

“So, where are you taking me?” You ask after saying your hello’s.

“It’s a surprise.” He smiles and nods his head to make you follow him. He leads you through parts of campus you haven’t seen yet, the buildings looking older and older the further down the path you walk. Soon, Donghyuck takes a sharp turn into what looks like the middle of the forest but is really just a small, hidden extension of the trail.

Under a canopy of tall trees that wave with the wind to you and Donghyuck, there is a skinny trail that leads to glimmering water. It draws you in, your curiosity struck and your feet now moving on their own accord. Bushes tickle your ankles and the smell of some sort of flower you cannot identify floods your senses, but you can only keep walking towards the sparkling water.

The scene in front of you takes your breath away, a crisp gasp that you have no control over leaves your lips. The pond before you is big, stretching further than what you can see. The water is blue and the setting sun’s light reflects off of it to create rippling sparkles. There are some lily pads floating around, their flowers gone due to the temperature dropping recently.

You didn’t even notice that you stopped walking, your eyes wide as you take in the scenery before you. You almost forget who you’re with and why you came, but Donghyuck doesn’t let that happen. You snap out of it when he continues to walk along the trail that leads around the pond. You walk alongside Donghyuck, a few feet away with your hands awkwardly tucked into your pockets.

“C’mon, let’s sit.” He motions to a weeping willow tree. It’s tall and the branches sway pleasantly in the wind, completely unaware and indifferent to the years of history in the area. Underneath the tree is a sturdy bench, you sit on the left side while Donghyuck sits on the right side. Then, you both take a few moments to stare at the mesmerizing water that led you all the way to this seemingly magical place.

“Why did you bring me here?” You ask after a bit.

“Do you not like it?” Donghyuck asks back.

“No.” You quickly reply, looking over his side profile before turning back to the water, “I’m just curious.”

“Something in me knew you would like this place, that’s all.” Donghyuck replies while trying to hide his proud smile, looking down at the grass. “You’re curious about a lot of things, huh?”

“Yeah, I can’t help it. There’s just so much I want to know.” It’s easy to talk to him, a bit too easy. You have to keep reminding yourself that you’re supposed to have your guard up in front of him, but it’s proving harder than you thought it would be.

“Like how I’m sure that you’re my soulmate and not the person who is supposed to hurt me?” Donghyuck leans his weight away from you, his eyebrow cocked in a question. You nod your head lightly, playing with your hands on your lap.

“It’s because I’ve already met the person who’s supposed to bring me pain. I’ve already been hurt.” At his words, surprise fills you up and you turn your head to look him straight in the eye.

For some reason, you always thought that when people meet the person who brings them the largest amount of pain to their life, they couldn’t be the same ever again. How does one get hurt so badly, and still live on?

There are so many ways to hurt someone. Some people become bankrupt, some people lose all of their belongings, some people are even physically hurt by the person who has the same mark as them. How does a person go through any of that and still be themselves afterwards? More importantly, how did Donghyuck go through immense pain and still be able to smile at you like he is right here, right now?

“Here.” He begins to explain, pushing his pants around until you can see his second mark through one of the holes in his jeans, a sunflower on his knee, “My dad had the same mark as me.”

“Your…. Dad?” You ask, still confused.

“Mhmm,” He nods, now tracing the petals of the sunflower mark absentmindedly, “My parents immediately knew something was wrong when I was born. Why would a son and dad have the same mark? When I was growing up, he worked a lot, so I spent lots of time with my mom and grew closer to her. I don’t remember much from that time, but I do remember we were happy. We didn’t have a lot, but we had each other; that kind of feeling.” He looks over at you to see if you’re keeping up with the story. To Donghyuck’s surprise, you already have tears lining your eyes.

“Then one day, Dad comes home and tells us he lost his job. I remember my parents fought a lot the few weeks after that happened, mostly about how to raise me if they had no income. Dad would go out and look for work, but always came back with no luck. So eventually, my mom started working. For a while, the reason we could keep living was because of her.” Donghyuck swallows and pauses for a moment before continuing.

“And then one night, dad came home and told us he gambled. Everything, he gambled everything away. Even the little that we had, it wasn’t ours anymore. That night, my dad told me I was a mistake. My parents never meant to have me, and he said…” Donghyuck purses his lips for a moment. It had been a while since he thought about this. The scar on his heart still hurts when he picks at it. “... He said that he wished I had never been born. Then, we wouldn’t have been in that mess.”

“How old were you?” You speak up after a moment.

“Seven? Or eight.” He nods and sniffs his nose, looking down at his knee. The whole day, Donghyuck was preparing himself to tell you this story. He felt that the only way to get close to you was to open up like this first, to show you that he isn’t someone scary or bad. To Donghyuck’s surprise, telling this story hurts less now than it did earlier in this life. Maybe that means time is working, and his heart is being mended bit by bit.

Donghyuck leans his elbows against his knees, looking at the water once again while waiting for you to say anything. Are you still curious? What do you think of him now?

He was in no way prepared to feel your arms wrap around his waist in a hug, your head resting against his shoulder and your chest pressed against his side. He freezes for a moment, and then melts into your embrace completely. He’s overcome with lovesick softness for you, lightly griping the part of your arm that’s across his chest as his head turns to the side to press a kiss to the top of your head. It’s so quick that you don’t even have time to move away or to react. You just let it happen, as it’s supposed to be.

“You said that something in you knew I would like this place,” You mumble against him. He hears your voice straining with emotion, “Well, something in me knows that you need this right now.”

You and Donghyuck sit there until the sparkling water is no longer fueled by the sun’s light, but by the moon’s. It seems as though now you’ve touched Donghyuck, you never wanted to stop. You’re almost one hundred percent sure that it’s because of the soulmate bond, and a part of you nags at yourself for already chipping away at the promise you made to yourself when you were younger.

However, younger you never knew what it would be like to have a person sit in front of you and share a part of his past with you in an act of confidence and security. Your younger self never knew what it would be like to feel the same pain as someone else, and the pull you felt to touch him after sensing that physical affection would help ease that pain away.

Your younger self had no idea it was this easy to fall into a person, especially when you know they’ll catch you.

“God, I’m so sick and tired of Accounting. ___, I’m quitting school.” Xiaojun gravely tells you, his eyes not wavering from his computer screen.

“Shut up and do your homework, Jun.” You mumble, your eyes not leaving your own computer screen as you type up your Ethics essay. Three weeks into school and you’re already fully emerged in your classes. The newness of college has faded and now it’s time to start the next four years of studying endlessly for the future.

“Are you guys… okay? You haven’t moved over there in a few hours.” Mark asks from the other side of the room where he’s doing his own homework. He eyes you and your best friend from where you’re sitting on his bed, “Are you even comfortable?”

You and Xiaojun are sharing a blanket, he’s leaning against his headboard and you’re leaning against the wall. Your legs are thrown over his and several textbooks are scattered over the blanket. You’re not even sure which of these books are yours or his, or which papers laying in messy stacks belong to who.

“Yeah, I think we’re okay. We’ve been studying like this since high school.” Xiaojun answers, his fingers moving along his keyboard at the same time. You nod at Mark and he shakes his head, not understanding you two but accepting the answer.

You’re over at the guys’ dorm room enough that Mark is not surprised to see you here anymore, hanging out with Xiaojun or waiting for him to come back from class. It’s not that you don’t like your own dorm room, but it’s always so quiet in there since your roommate always studies at the library. You only hear her come into the room late at night when you’re on the verge of sleep, and when she leaves early in the morning before your alarm rings. Weekends are the same. You don’t really care, but you’ve started to hate the quiet, so you’re glad that Mark and Xiaojun don’t mind you chilling here.

“Argh,” Mark yawns and stretches after a few minutes, throwing his computer to the side and standing up, “I’m getting some snacks from the vending machine. You guys want anything?”

After you and Xiaojun answer with simultaneous shakes of your heads, which creeps Mark out, he leaves the room to get food. The room is silent for a few more moments until Xiaojun angles the lid of his laptop down to look at you.

“So… How’s the guy?”

“What guy?” You ask, still preoccupied with your essay.

“Your soulmate, ___, what other guy is there?” Xiaojun answers exasperatedly, “You never told me his name, so I don’t know what to call him. Actually, I haven’t heard you talk about him since the first day of classes. I was hoping you’d tell me what happened with him, but I guess I have to go digging up your dirt myself.” He rolls his eyes.

“His name is Haechan.” You answer, moving your computer to the side, “And I haven’t said anything to you about him because… I haven’t seen him in weeks.” You admit quietly.

“Huh? Didn’t you say you were meeting up so he could tell you why he’s sure you’re his soulmate?” You nod your head at the question, “So, what happened after that?”

“Well… I kinda, maybe, sort of…. have been avoiding him.” You answer quietly, stealing a glance at your best friend to see him staring at you blankly. When he sighs and reaches for his pillow, your eyes widen and you hold up your hands in front of you, spewing pleas and ‘wait’s. Xiaojun doesn’t care, though, flinging his pillow from behind him and into your face.

“Ow?” You whine after the pillow makes contact with your head and forces you to turn to face the other way, “Was that necessary?” You rub your nose, the part of your face that hurts worse from his attack. You’re used to Xiaojun doing this to you whenever you did something that both of you know you shouldn’t have so that you can “get some sense knocked into you, hopefully.”

“You’re so dumb. So, so dumb. Why would you avoid him.” It’s not a question, more of a confused statement to the general air. “You realize people would kill to meet their soulmate, right? People would do anything to be in your position, but you just hide away?”

“People would do anything to meet their soulmate, but people would also do anything to stay away from the person who shares their other mark.” You retaliate, “You don’t understand. To me, Haechan is both of those people.”

“There you go again, worrying about the future when you’re not even sure about what is going to happen. When will you stop worrying about something you can’t control and start thinking about today?” Xiaojun sounds so tired talking about this topic, a conversation you’ve had many times in your friendship. You wonder if he’s so tired of it, why he keeps bringing it up himself.

Before you can answer, the door to the room opens and Mark walks in, several snacks in his arms, “Hey, everyone, I hope it’s okay I brought a friend. He’s in the same major as me, just a year younger—”

“___?” Mark stops talking when his friend speaks, surprised that he already knows one of the people in the room. Your eyes widen, jaw slackening as you’re unable to even let out a peep from your mouth.

“You know each other?” Mark asks, looking between his two friends.

“Yeah, you could say I know my soulmate.” Donghyuck replies, making both Xiaojun and Mark’s eyes widen. You suddenly realize the situation you’re in: under a blanket with Xiaojun, your pajamas on, and your soulmate in front of you after you ghosted him for weeks. For the first time in a while, your eyes meet.

Donghyuck is mad. You can tell by how his fists are clenched and his jaw is tightened. Slowly getting out of the bed, you try to form some words, but Donghyuck snaps and walks over to you quickly. Grabbing your hand, he pulls you out of the room and down the hallway until you get to the lounge area. When you reach the empty room, that’s when you come to your senses.

“Donghyuck,” You pull your arm out of his, making him turn to face you, “I’m not even wearing shoes.” You hiss, pointing down to your feet as if to prove some point.

“What was all that?” He disregards your comment and hisses back at you, stepping closer so that you’re barely a few inches apart. “You were under a blanket. With some guy. Don’t you feel wrong doing that?” He asks, his hands now on his hips. You feel slightly like you’re being lectured to.

“That guy is my best friend.” You spit out.

“So, do you go around and do that to all of your guy friends?” Donghyuck chuckles vehemently, you can tell he’s angry and jealous, and that those emotions are clouding his brain at the moment. That doesn’t mean his words don’t hurt, though.

“Xiaojun and I have been best friends since we were in diapers. I’ve known you for three weeks, barely. I’m more comfortable around him than I am with you. You think just because I’m your soulmate, I’ll automatically trust you and we’ll all of a sudden be a happy couple? It doesn’t work like that, Donghyuck. I don’t even know you.” You can tell you hurt him by your last words because he turns silent, his shoulders slouching and his anger subsiding.

You can tell you hurt him, hard, because you feel the hurt, too.

It makes you realize how scary the bond between soulmates is. Even though you and Donghyuck haven’t spent that much time together to strengthen your bond, it’s still strong enough to allow you to feel his emotions. It makes you wonder if Donghyuck will be able to feel your pain in the future when he hurts you, like he’s destined to.

“Have you even tried to get to know me? You’ve been avoiding me ever since I took you to the pond.” At his comment, you fold your arms over your chest and look away, not ready to answer that question.

“I’m… just scared, is all.” You manage to reply. Although not the complete truth, it’s not a total lie. Donghyuck completely softens at your words, his close proximity to you feels less threatening and turns into something more gentle. His hand softly slips into yours, but this time with a lighter touch than before.

“You don’t have to be scared, not around me. I’m new to this too, so I don’t know how it all works yet, but this is something we can figure out together. That’s what we were fated to do.” Donghyuck can feel his words pulling you closer to him, he can feel you on the edge and he’s ready to catch you with his arms wide open.

But in the last second, you take a step back and slip your hand out of his, making his drop limply to his sides. You send him a look, something he can’t read, and then turn around and walk back to the dorm he pulled you out of.

He almost had you, almost.

When midterms come around, you use your upcoming tests and projects as a way to dive deep into your work so that you don’t have to think about Donghyuck. It’s a good plan overall, however your friends quickly start worrying for you and your health. Staying up late several nights in a row and not even being able to remember when the last time you ate is where Xiaojun pulled the plug on your bad studying habits. He confiscated your backpack and dropped you off in front of your dorm building with the promise that you’ll have all of your things back tomorrow morning only if you rest for tonight.

On your way to the elevator, you run into Yuqi, both of your facial expressions brightening when you recognize each other.

“Oh, ___, Hi!” You stop in the middle of the hallway to greet her, a smile pulling at your lips due to her bright hello. “How are you?”

“Midterms are kicking my ass, but other than that I’m fine.” She laughs at your answer, throwing her head back and letting her new short hair ruffle her shoulders.

“I wish I could tell you it gets better, but that would be a lie.” You nod your head in solemn understanding, “Listen, I can’t talk for long since I have a night class, but promise to text me when things slow down, yeah?”

“Of course, I promise.” You nod, just the thought of spending some time with a good friend already pushes away your stress. You wave bye to Yuqi as she begins to turn around but after a loud “oh!” leaves her lips, she turns back to face you.

“Your roommate, her name is Mya, right?” At her random question, you tilt your head in confusion, “She has really long, black hair and big glasses, right? I think I saw her when I was helping you move in?”

“Yeah, that’s her.” You nod, “Why?”

“She found her soulmate today.” You would’ve been more interested in the news if you knew Mya beyond when she goes to class and when she gets back to the dorm, but you feign surprise and nod your head absentmindedly.

“Lucas managed to get a video. It was a whole performance in the quad today, you’d think someone was getting married. I’ll send it to you later.” And with that, she says her last goodbye and runs off. You slowly turn and continue walking in a slow pace up to your dorm room, taking the stairs just so you can have some time to think and be away from people you could potentially run into if you use the elevator.

You’re genuinely happy for Mya, even if you barely know a single thing about her. However, something about a person close to you finding their soulmate makes you sad, considering the situation with your own soulmate. You can’t help but feel a little jealous that there are people who can meet their soulmate and fall into each other’s lives easily.

In times like these, you crave for Donghyuck.

You crave his touch and his words, you crave that comfortable feeling of belonging somewhere you get when he’s around. It’s insane that you haven’t spent much time together, yet you can yearn for someone to the extent that it hurts. It’s been like this ever since Donghyuck pulled you out of Xiaojun’s dorm and you rejected him.

Turning away from him all those weeks ago still haunts you. When you’re struggling to fall asleep, your mind goes to that night. When you let your mind wander, it wanders to that night. You constantly think about stepping away from him, but you’re not sure if you keep remembering the moment out of guilt or shame. One of the questions you keep asking yourself is if you did the right thing. You still do not have an answer.

When you walk into your dorm room, you kick off your shoes and turn on your bedside lamp, falling onto your bed with a deep sigh. You close your eyes for a second, but the peace and quiet of your room is ruined when your phone dings with a notification.

Yuqi’s message pops up, and when you swipe your phone open you can see she sent a video. You click on it and turn the volume up. This was no doubt taken earlier today in the quad, the sun shining and lots of professors and students walking in the background. Under the huge clock tower stand two people, one of them holding a large bouquet of roses. When the clock strikes noon, the bells on top of the tower begin to ring a familiar melody that can be heard all over your big campus. You see the exchange of the bouquet and the two people hug, and then applause rises from the people walking by. You smile when you hear Lucas’ whooping and hollering from behind the phone.

You’ve heard about the tradition of soulmates meeting under the clock tower at your university. Yuqi told you about it when she was giving you a tour around campus at the beginning of the semester. You remember her telling you that it’s really romantic, probably due to the history of so many people getting together in the exact same spot.

Although the idea is rather plain, you do feel your heart strings tug at the beautiful display, glad you could see something like this through a video. Then, as the camera gets closer to the couple, your smile fades and you pause the video, zooming in to get a better view. Mya is no doubt the one who received the flowers, but you can’t help but furrow your eyebrows as you recognize her soulmate.

It’s one of Donghyuck’s friends.

Not the quiet one with black hair that hangs around on the outside of their group, but the shorter one who seemed to simultaneously love and hate Donghyuck, or at least that’s what you gathered from seeing him a few times.

After the realization, you drop your phone to the side and stare up at your ceiling in defeat. Is this fate? If you didn’t meet Donghyuck on those steps two months ago, would you eventually meet him through your roommate and her soulmate? Or is this all just one big coincidence?

In this world, coincidences are harder to find than the work of fate.

Your train of thought is quickly cut off by the opening on the door, you quickly sit up to watch a huge red bouquet of flowers enter the room, followed by your roommate. You’ve only seen her face a few times this semester, but never have her features looked so bright and happy. She also looks startled when she notices you’re in the room, but her happiness doesn’t fade.

“Oh? You’re here?” She asks.

“I could ask you the same thing.” You both chuckle awkwardly, “Congrats, by the way. For finding your soulmate.” You motion to the flowers in her hand.

“Thank you! To be honest, Renjun wasn’t at all what I expected in a soulmate, but I think I love him already.” The sweetness drips from her eyes and words, and you nod and smile, remembering that Donghyuck’s friend’s name is Renjun. Her phone begins to ring and she shuffles the flowers in her hand to look at the screen, “Oh, it’s him.”

She answers the call, speaking quietly as she walks over to her side of the room. You weigh out the options of sneaking out of your dorm and finding a place to chill until your roommate falls asleep. You're not sure if you can talk to her about soulmate stuff and keep up this happy look on your face.

However, all thoughts of those plans leave your mind when Mya turns to you and holds out the phone, “It’s for you?” She says it more like a question, but you’re sure you’re the one who’s more confused.

“Hello?” You ask into the phone, awkwardly looking around the room.

“___? Oh, thank god. It’s Renjun, Haechan’s friend. I need your help.” He talks quickly and shallowly, like he’s out of breath and currently moving somewhere.

“How did you know I’m Mya’s roommate?” You ask, disregarding his cry for help.

“It’s a long story, I promise I’ll explain later, but can you please come to the auditorium? The back entrance.” You hear more voices in the background of the call, but you can’t make out what they're saying. One of them is definitely Donghyuck.

“What’s going on?” At the sound of your soulmate’s unique tenor, you suddenly become more aware of what might be happening. Is Donghyuck safe? Did he get in trouble?

“Donghyuck drank too much and he won’t go home, he keeps asking for you.” At that, you hand the phone back to Mya, who takes it from you with an unsure look. By the time Mya says her worried goodbyes and hangs up, she turns back to an empty dorm room, your phone snatched from your bed and your scattered shoes gone.

You must’ve made it to the auditorium in record time, not even the climb up the 109 steps could slow you down. When you reach the auditorium, you can hear Donghyuck and his friends conversing loudly and you follow their voices, which eventually leads you to the dingy backside of the auditorium. Donghyuck is sitting on the ground with the hood of his coat pulled up and covering his eye sight, arms crossed over his chest and his lips in a pout. His two friends, Renjun and the black-haired kid, stand above him. The quiet one is shivering in his spot while Renjun practically yells at Donghyuck on the ground, who doesn’t seem to be moving any time soon.

“Hi, ___.” The quiet one notices you first and then all three guys turn to look at you.

“___…” Donghyuck whines out your name and tries to stand up but Renjun gently pushes him back down.

“What happened?” You ask, sniffing your nose when the harsh, cold air nips at it.

“He said he wanted to unwind before his midterms tomorrow but then he went out and had some drinks, a few too many as you can see.” Renjun explains, “We followed him here, he said he won’t go anywhere unless it’s with you.”

“It’s strange. Haechan is a good drinker, I didn’t think he would get drunk so quickly… Oh, I’m Jaemin, by the way.” He introduces himself with a bright smile, as if you weren’t just discussing the drunken state of his friend.

“I’m Renjun, I called you earlier. I promise I have a good explanation for how I know you’re Mya’s roommate, I just don’t think right now is the best time to talk about it.” Renjun explains, his hands pointing towards Donghyuck.

“Right, about him… I think you guys should leave.” Both sober men widen their eyes, looking at each other and then back at you.

“Are you sure you want to handle this yourself? He looks small, but Haechan is kind of heavy.” Jaemin warns.

“Hey!” Donghyuck speaks up, but even his verbalization sounds slurred. When he points an accusing finger at Jaemin, he sways and misses Jaemin’s figure by a whole foot, “Don’t say that kind of stuff to my girlfriend.”

At his use of the word, Jaemin and Renjun stand straight with awkwardness and you sigh, white puffs of air leaving your mouth, “Yeah, you guys should go.”

Renjun and Jaemin give you an unsure look, but turn around and leave the area anyway. Renjun sends one last look over his shoulder with a wave of his hand. You look at Donghyuck after they turn the corner, kicking his shoe gently.

“Hey, get up. How much did you drink?” You’re not actually curious about how much alcohol he consumed, you just want to know if he can even respond to simple questions.

“Babe!” He exclaims when he looks up, “Oh, not much. I could go for another round right now, actually.” His words slur together and he sways in his sitting position against the brick wall of the auditorium.

“You’re not going for another round, you’re going home. C’mon.” You grab onto the sleeve of his puffer jacket, pulling him up so that he’s standing. He immediately falls onto you, his arms around your waist and his legs spread wide so that his head is hidden in your neck.

“Hyuck, you have to walk. Get up.” You pull him up once again, putting one of his arms around your shoulders and giving him more support around his waist. Slowly, you begin to walk away from the auditorium with Donghyuck’s drunk mumbling filling the cool air. His legs barely work underneath him, and he turns his head and leans into your ear every once in a while to sing some random lyric that pops into his mind at that second, like a small concert that he allows only you to hear.

Once you reach the top of the staircase, you stop and take a long look down to the bottom, “Why did you have to come all the way up here? How are we getting down the stairs?” If you start to climb down, Donghyuck could fall and hurt himself. You’re not that strong to begin with and your shoulders are already feeling sore from carrying most of Donghyuck’s weight.

“We can ride this.” He giggles and breaks away from you, one of his legs swinging over the handrail so that he’s straddling it.

“No, no, no.” You pull him off, but his shoe gets caught against the rail and he comes falling down onto you, both of you landing on the top step of the staircase. You wince in pain at how your back hits the concrete, but you don’t think about it much as you push Donghyuck off of you and into the space next to you on the top stair.

“Oh, no. Are we stuck up here?” He asks as you brush your hands together to get rid of the little pieces of concrete in your skin.

“Yes, and it’s all your fault. What are you gonna do about it?” You reply, so sarcastically that even Donghyuck’s drunk brain registers the joke. Your heart almost leaps out of your throat when he grabs your hands and pulls you closer to him, gently picking out each little ball of cement in your palms.

“I’m sorry I keep hurting you.” He apologizes. This close, you can smell the alcohol in his breath, mixed with his shampoo and cologne. He smells warm in this cold weather, and you feel like falling into him and drinking up his scent, not even minding the alcohol stench.

“Keep hurting me?” You ask.

“Yeah, that must be why you don’t want to be with me. I have to be doing something wrong for you to hate me.” He sighs, sniffling and enclosing your hands in his, his glassy eyes looking up at you and his long hair hangs down over his forehead and tickles his eyelashes. “I’m a bad soulmate.”

The way he says it makes your heart break. It makes you feel regret 1000 times worse than what you’ve been feeling these past few weeks; as if all of the worry and sadness hit you all at once, you feel like crying.

Isn’t he supposed to be the one who hurts you? Why does it feel like you’re the only one doing the hurting?

“You’re not a bad soulmate,” It’s not Donghyuck’s fault that he got stuck with you, or that things will turn out the way that they’re destined to, “And I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t?” He looks up into the night sky and sways a bit as he thinks, “Then why won’t you be with me? Hm?” He tilts his head, his lips pouting as he thinks. You desperately want to find an answer that’ll soothe him, but nothing you can come up with will give you that result, the truth included.

“It’s complicated…” You trail off, and your answer makes Donghyuck snort.

“How? I’m your soulmate, you’re mine. What else matters?” He laughs incredulously.

“What if you’re not just my soulmate?” You ask him, surprising yourself with how easily you can ask the question, probably because the influence of alcohol over him has you more at ease, “What if something happens in the future? I’m just… looking out for me, and for you.” You explain, trying to sound as vague as possible.

When you glance at Donghyuck, he looks dead serious. You think that maybe he has suddenly sobered up with how deep and calculating his eyes look. One of his hands tighten around yours while the other slowly raises to your hair, pacing himself along the way, and pausing before he touches you. When you don’t stop him, he gently caresses your hair and moves it away from your face, his nimble fingers sliding to your jaw. He moves your face so that your eyes meet his.

“I know I’m drunk, but I can make this promise again when I’m sober. I’ll make this promise every single day for the rest of my life, only if it means you can be there with me to fulfill it.” The severeness in his tone is like a wake up call about how serious this is for him.

“What promise?” You whisper back.

“It’s not just a ‘you’ or just a ‘me’ now. It’s an ‘us.’ And I will do everything I can to not hurt us.”

He says it with so much conviction that you somehow believe him. You finally fall into him and rest your tired head on his shoulder as he welcomes you into his warm arms. Maybe it’s foolish of you to think you two can go against fate’s words, but with him by your side, you feel like you can conquer the whole universe.

“Stop smiling like that, you’re making it very obvious that you got laid for the first time.” Donghyuck peers over his laptop screen to Renjun, where he has had a permanent smile on his face ever since he, Donghyuck, and Jaemin met up today to study in the lounge center of their dorm building.

“You know, Haechan, I’m not even mad at that. It’s more than what I can say to you.” Renjun tries to hide his widening smile while looking down at his own laptop, but that paired with Jaemin’s quiet laughter leaves Donghyuck bitter. “Didn’t you and ___ make up?” Renjun asks.

“They were fighting? I thought they just weren’t talking to each other?” Jaemin asks.

“Isn’t that fighting?”

“Kids.” Haechan cuts them off, “Not that it’s any of your business, but we were not fighting and we did make up.”

“That makes no sense.” Jaemin mutters and squints his eyes at Donghyuck.

“I’m older than you.” Renjun retaliates, but Donghyuck pretends like he doesn’t hear.

“We’re just… taking it slow.” Donghyuck ends his explanation with a firm nod of his head, and Renjun shuts his laptop and turns to his friend.

“Can you take it slow during the Fair this weekend? I’m planning to go with Mya and accidentally bought two pairs of tickets. I’ll give you the other pair.” Renjun leans into his friend’s side and wiggles his eyebrows.

“At what cost?” Haechan leans in as well and raises an eyebrow.

“Help me with my English project.”

“No way,” Haechan leans back and focuses on his own laptop screen again, “I haven’t even started mine, I don’t have time to help you with yours.”

“Please,” Renjun draws out the word, grabbing Donghyuck’s sleeve and tugging at it so hard that he can’t properly type, “I suck at English, and unfortunately it’s the only thing that you’re better at than me.”

“The only thing?” Donghyuck glares at Renjun. “Now I’m definitely not helping you.” When Renjun whines at that Donghyuck gets a devilish idea, and it shows by the smirk on his face, “... Unless, you’d like to show us how you really need help.”

At Donghyuck’s proposition, he leans back in his chair with his arms folded across his  chest while Jaemin mirrors his actions, his own goofy smile on his face as he waits for Renjun to either accept or deny the proposition, but he hopes he’ll accept it.

Renjun looks between his two friends and sighs, dropping his head down as he mentally prepares himself. When he lifts his head, he looks at Donghyuck with his lips pursed, his pointer finger over them and makes a “kyu” sound that is way higher than his original speaking voice. Jaemin and Haechan immediately burst into as quiet of laughter as they can, Jaemin reaching over the table to poke Renjun’s cheek at his cuteness.

“I never said to act cute, I just wanted you to say please again.” Donghyuck jokes through his snickering, and Renjun immediately stands up from his chair to take a fistful of Haechan’s jacket and pull back his other fist, all cuteness gone from his facial features in a split second.

“Okay, okay, sorry, sorry.” Haechan tries to pull away, his voice rising as Renjun holds onto his jacket tighter and threateningly leans in.

“Hey, quiet down.” Someone whisper-shouts from a few tables away, and it makes Renjun let go of Donghyuck and slowly sit back down. “This isn’t even a library, why are they shushing me.” He grumbles.

“You guys have fun on your date,” Jaemin sighs as he begins to put away his things, satisfied with the study session and with his friends' mischief, “I would go too, but I don’t feel like being a fifth wheel.”

Once your classes end on the day of the Fair, you and your roommate meet up with Donghyuck and Renjun outside of the Fair grounds. You and Donghyuck walk side by side, a bit behind the other couple as they lead the way, practically in their own little bubble. Your hands are shoved in your pockets to keep them from turning numb from the cold and you try to shove your head as far into your jacket as you can to keep your face and neck protected from the wind. Other than the chilly weather, it’s a perfect day for a Fair.

You don’t seem to notice Donghyuck’s predicament right beside you; he’s trying to find a way to hold your hand, but you don’t move them out of your pockets. Actually, Donghyuck is sure you’re doing this on purpose, since he has been trying to touch you the moment you met up with him tonight.

“So, what do you wanna ride first?” He asks you. After looking around the area, your eyes land on a tea cup ride, where the large cups move in circles and also spin in their spots.

“That.” You point to it. Before you can move, Donghyuck latches into your hand that was pointing into the air and pulls you to the ride, a smug smile on his face at how he succeeded in finally sharing some skin to skin contact.

The ride was, to say the least, nauseating. Not that it was disgusting, but Donghyuck wouldn’t stop spinning your individual cup around in fast circles, and you were so sure that you would fling off any second due to the strong velocity those tiny cups have when they go at full speed. However, walking off of the ride with wobbly legs and not being able to see straight was funnier than you thought it would be.

Donghyuck was actually still pretty dizzy when he tried to win a stuffed octopus for you with a dart game. However, he ended up losing $15 while trying to win the game, and you’re sure he would’ve spent more if you didn’t pull him away. After eating some good food and refilling your energy, the sun begins to set on the horizon in a colorful display of red, orange and pink, and people start to make their way to the ferris wheel.

“C’mon,” You hear Mya say from behind you, “We need to get in line first or else we’ll be waiting for half of the night.” She pulls Renjun by his sleeve and passes you and Donghyuck, practically running to the end of the growing line for the Ferris Wheel. When you see where she’s running to, you stop in your tracks which in turn makes Donghyuck stop. Your intertwined fingers pull you back to each other as he looks at you with a puzzled look.

“I’m… not good with heights.” You confess and look towards the top of the ferris wheel, shivering just at the thought of going that far up into the sky in a metal contraption, “Or small spaces…” You add on.

“That’s okay,” Donghyuck gently reassures, smiling lightly at your sudden timidness about your fears. Honestly, he’s just happy you now trust him a bit more to even tell him what you’re afraid of. “We don’t have to go. We can do something else.”

“Like what?” You ask. Donghyuck purses his lips and looks around, until a set of stairs on the edge of the fairgrounds catches his eye.

“I know a place where we can still get a good view of the sunset without going too far up.” He replies and tugs you along with him towards the set of stairs. They lead down to the park that’s nestled in the middle of your University, which eventually leads to a pedestrian bridge that crosses over a river that runs through your town.

The river isn’t that big, nor is the bridge, but it’s big enough to have your head tilting up in wonder as you gaze at the lights adorning the sides of it, lighting up not only the bridge itself by the sky as well. You’ve seen this bridge from your dorm room, but you’ve never once stood on it, and it looks remarkable from this close up.

Donghyuck continues to lead you over the pedestrian bridge onto the other side, where an outdoor museum that was constructed by art students a few years ago holds several different abstract paintings. His hand in yours, which has been it’s resting place all night, keeps yours warm. You try not to think about how your hands fit into each other like the gears of a hand-crafted watch. The lines on your palms connect with the lines on his; it’s painfully obvious he was made for you and you were made for him.

When you reach the end of the outdoor museum, you turn west and face the sunset just as it’s setting over the skyline. Even though some tall buildings obstruct the view, the colors of the sky stretch overhead and make both you and Donghyuck stand still and appreciate the artwork in the sky.

“You like these kinds of things, huh? Sunsets, and ponds, and that kind of stuff?” He suddenly asks, not talking his eyes off of the sky. You, however, turn to look at him. He has his eyes screwed as he tries to look at the sunset, obviously not liking the bright sunlight.

“You don’t?” You ask back.

“I think... there are more enjoyable things.” Donghyuck takes a while to make up his mind about what he wants, obviously trying not to make the things you enjoy sound bad to him.

“Then we should go.” You turn around, but he pulls you back to your original spot.

“We walked all this way, we’re watching this sunset even if my feet freeze to the ground.” He tightens his grip on your hand and speaks through his teeth, making you sputter out a laugh and hit his shoulder with your own lightly.

“Sometimes, I wonder why fate put us together.” You ask, watching as the sun moves bit by bit, leaving behind trails of light and the beginnings of stars and the vast universe on the other side of the sky. “We’re different. I don’t know about you, but you are not who I imagined my soulmate would be.” You speak truthfully.

Even though there are some strings attached to Donghyuck’s relationship with you, it didn’t stop you from thinking about what kind of person he’d be— what kind of person fate would pick to be your perfect fit. Maybe they would have some sort of major flaw, like an anger problem or a lack of common sense. Maybe they would be an alcoholic or someone who commits crimes.

When it came to your soulmate, you always thought of something bad considering that they were also going to hurt you in some way. You never thought that your soulmate would be someone as unique and fun as Donghyuck. Fate made it way too easy to be with him, and you’re not sure whether to feel bitter or thankful.

“Well,” He blows some air through his nose, “You’re exactly what I thought my soulmate would be like” Your heart jumps into your throat and beats irregularly when Donghyuck says that, struck with the feeling of surprise once again.

“Mark tells me you’re smart and get good grades, and I know it was you who ordered that soup for me the morning after you took me home when I got drunk. Not to mention, you went out when it was dark to take me home in the first place.” Donghyuck explains, his hand that’s still interlocked with yours waving around as he does so, “You’re willing to help others, you have a good head on your shoulders, and not to mention you guard your heart to the very end.”

“Guarding my heart… That’s an admirable quality? If I remember correctly, it caused you some pain in the past few months.” By now, the last rays of the sun are disappearing over the horizon and night begins to blanket the sky. You turn to your soulmate when he takes more than a moment to answer, watching the way his face reacts to the thoughts turning in his head.

“Yeah, it is a great quality. I think if you completely trusted me the moment you saw me on those stairs, we wouldn’t end up here now. You wouldn’t be the perfect fit for me if you loved me so easily.” He turns to you, a teasing smile playing on his lips. Your interlocked fingers are basically frozen together at this point and maybe your feet really have stuck to the ground, but his words warm you up from the inside out.

“I think I would’ve fallen in love with you even if we weren’t destined to be together.”

Somehow, he manages to remind you of one very important fact that you’ve set aside since the moment you met him. You’ve always put the fact that he’s supposed to hurt you first, and the fact that he’s your soulmate second. However, he is a human and so are you, and you’re both given the opportunity to love one another wholly and truly. People die to have this type of moment. People live their whole lives without experiencing this type of emotion.

It’s time to remember that Donghyuck is your soulmate, first and foremost. He is deserving of love, and you’re now willing to give it to him.

When you pull Donghyuck into you, he feels like it may be a hallucination. Surely your lips can’t be that close to his own. But when he smells the cinnamon on your lips from that churro you had and your fingers sliding up his arm to grip his jacket, he becomes scared that this might actually be a hallucination.

You slowly lean in, almost painfully slow, but Donghyuck doesn’t dare rush you. When your lips do meet, both of you feel complete. The feeling of finishing a lifetime’s worth of work with one gentle kiss is the most delicious feeling ever, different from anything that either of you have ever experienced.

It’s slow and careful, but passionate and full of true love. No matter what happens in the future, it will always be your memory to savor and remember for the rest of your lives.

“___!” You hear Mark’s voice from your right, turning your head quickly to see him stick his hand up in the air and begin to make his way through the throngs of people between you two. You move towards him, attempting to meet in the middle, but somehow he ends up behind you, and you laugh as you attempt to meet again.

“Hey, Mark,” You look over him, noting how well he manages to pull off the choir robe that everyone else seems to look like a sack of potatoes in, “I didn’t know your concerts could get this packed. You guys could start your own group and make it big.” You look around while adjusting the flowers in your hand so they don’t get squished against your chest.

“Nah, it’s mostly just families that come to these concerts. Since there are a lot of vocal majors, there are a lot of families that show up.” He explains.

“So, what does that make me?” You joke, but Mark doesn’t seem to get it and tilts his head to the side.

“You’re Donghyuck’s girlfriend. That makes you family, right?” At the mention of your relationship, you glance down at the flowers in your hand, the flowers that are meant for the aforementioned boy. You nod, mumbling something like a ‘I guess’ before Mark looks down at his watch and sucks a breath through his teeth.

“Okay, I have to go warm up. Make sure you get a seat in the middle, that’s where it sounds best.” He gives you a quick wave as he walks away, and you manage to send one back. Before you know it, the doors to the auditorium open and people flood in to grab the best seat they can.

You barely manage to snag a seat in the middle, an older lady to your right and a grandpa to your left who seem to be unrelated and didn’t mind you sitting between them. You shrug off your coat as you look around, feeling anxiety build up in your chest. You know you don’t have anything to be anxious for, so you deduct that it’s probably Donghyuck.

He invited you to the concert today. For him, it’s part of his final grade for his vocal class and for you, it’s a chance to see him sing on stage. Strangely, he has talked about how much he loves to perform but never wants to sing in front of you. When he told you he auditioned for a solo in one of the songs, and ended up getting the part, you knew you absolutely had to come today.

Pulling out your phone, you send Donghyuck a text saying that you’re seated and that you wish him to break a leg. You see the read receipt pop up next to your text, and although he doesn’t text anything back, the anxious feeling in your chest subsides and you smile to yourself.

“Those are pretty flowers.” Turning your head to the lady on your right, you glance down at the bouquet of black-eyed susans on your lap.

“Oh, thank you.” You put your phone on silent and slip it into your pocket.

“They’re my mom’s favorite.” Your attention turns to a kid who sits on the other side of the woman. He can’t be any older than ten, and his feet don’t touch the ground as he swings them back and forth and looks up at his mother.

“Oh?” You ask, turning back to the older woman, “Would you like some?”

The woman seems to be stunned by your question, obviously not expecting you to hand over flowers at such a comment from her son. She looks almost flustered as she shakes her head at you.

“No, it’s okay. I bet those are for someone special?” She asks while nodding towards the stage.

“They’re for my… boyfriend.” You mumble, still not used to the words leaving your tongue, even though it has been more than a few weeks now.

“Then you should save them for him.” She nods and you smile back.

“But I want one.” The woman’s son pouts, and the mother nudges her foot against his leg. You laugh a bit, using your right hand to hold down the bouquet and your left to pull out a flower. Carefully, you hand it over to the little boy and he grasps it, his pout turning into a smile while he sings a ‘thank you’ and counts the petals on the flower.

The woman gives you a nod, and you all turn to face forward where the students are beginning to walk onto the stage.

The concert went well; you weren’t familiar with any of the pieces of music the choir performed, and many of them were in different languages, but you still enjoyed the performance by the many music students from your university. You managed to catch sight of Donghyuck fairly quickly, and Mark was just a few rows behind him.

Donghyuck’s solo fit his voice perfectly. Maybe you’re biased, but you think no one would be able to match his tone and technique to fit the song as perfectly as he did. Since it was the first time you heard him sing, you were a bit taken back by how amazing his voice sounds and how much control he has of it. It didn’t look like he struggled to hit the notes, and he looked like he was in his element on stage.

After the concert, you wait on the staircase outside of the auditorium building where you agreed to meet up with Donghyuck. You roll on your feet, jumping up and down slightly to keep warm. You clutch the flowers to you, scared that the cold weather might cause them to bend and begin to wilt quicker.

“Oh, it’s the flower lady!” You hear a familiar voice call out, and you turn your head to see the little boy and his mom from earlier… walking with Donghyuck? He has his choir robe hanging from one arm and his other hand intertwined with the little kid.

“Do you guys know each other?” Donghyuck asks, looking between the three of you with confusion.

“We happened to sit next to each other during the concert.” The woman explains, a grin growing on her face as she looks between you two. “This is your soulmate.” She doesn’t say it like a question, she says it plainly and nods her head in content.

“I’m sorry, did you already know who I was when we met?” You ask her.

“No, until I saw the mark on your left hand. I would recognize my own son’s mark anywhere.” Son? This is Donghyuck’s mother?! Your eyebrows must be up to your hairline and you think your mouth might be open, but you can only focus on remembering every little thing you said to her before the concert started to recall if you said anything dumb.

“Let me introduce you properly. This is ___, my soulmate and my girlfriend. ___, this is my mom, Sara, and my half-brother, Hyunjin.” Donghyuck gently takes your elbow and pulls you closer to him.

“It’s nice to meet you.” You politely greet them as if it’s the first time ever.

“Well, I like her. She gave me a flower.” Hyunjin exclaims.

“Back off, she’s mine.” Donghyuck jokes with the kid. “Thank you guys for coming today, by the way.” He continues, “I appreciate my favorite people being here for my first college performance.”

Donghyuck goes to hug his mom as she sets a kiss to his cheek that makes him cringe away slightly. However, you’re still struck to your spot from being included into Donghyuck’s group of favorite people. There’s a warm feeling in your chest at being included into something so special so early on in your relationship. There’s also some anxiety that comes with it, since promises that are made too early hurt the most, but you push the feeling away and soak in Donghyuck’s unconditional love.

After you all bid farewell to each other, and Sara and Hyunjin leave, you turn to Donghyuck with a deadpan expression, “You didn’t tell me I’d be meeting your family today.”

“Would you believe me when I say that I forgot they were coming?” He asks and you roll your eyes, not believing his words at all.

“These are for you.” You push the flowers into his chest and dig your hands into your pockets so that they can finally get warm, “Your solo was… interesting to listen to.” You say with annoyance dripping from every word.

“Thank you,” He replies cutely, not affected by your irritation. You roll your eyes again, but a smile tugs at your lips as well. “What kind of flowers are these? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them?” He asks while digging his nose into the bouquet.

“Black-eyed susans.” You reply, and Donghyuck gives you a weird look.

“That’s such a random flower.”

“They attract dragonflies.” You explain, nudging his side with your elbow. When you glance over to him, he has a smile playing on his lips.

“Should I be giving these to you, then?” He hands them over, but you push them back at him.

“No way. I’m already attracted to you.” You state, turning around to walk back down the staircase. When you don’t hear any footsteps following you, you turn around to find Donghyuck kneeling over with the flowers clutched close to him.

“Are you okay?” Alarm rises in your chest, especially when he shakes his head at your question.

“No, you just made my heart beat really fast and I’m afraid I’m gonna have a heart attack.” You would roll your eyes again, but you’re afraid they might roll out of your head at this point. You climb back up the stairs and yank on his sleeve jacket to make him walk alongside you.

“___, feel my heart. I swear it’s going to beat out of my chest.”

“Shut up, Donghyuck.”

“No, seriously, I think we should go to the hospital.”

“Shut up.”

In the morning, Donghyuck loves to wake up next to you. He has always been a spread-out type of sleeper; arms to the side, legs open, laying diagonally across the bed. Once you two moved out of your dorms and moved into an apartment together during your second year of college, Donghyuck’s way of sleeping changed dramatically.

Now, he can’t help but snuggle in, wrap his arms around you, tangle his legs in with yours, and do everything he can to sleep as close as he can to you. Maybe that’s why he suddenly woke up. The absence of you next to him made him shuffle awake, missing the frame of your body next to his like how it usually fits.

He groggily opens his eyes and immediately shivers, catching the open windows in the bedroom letting in fresh, cool, morning air. Donghyuck shivers once again, blindly reaching for the blanket and wrapping it around his head and shoulders, then making his way out of the bedroom in search of you.

He checks the kitchen, but you’re not there. Then he goes to the living room, and he sees your figure outside on the balcony, the curtains that are supposed to be hanging up in your bedroom moving with the wind as they hang next to you. He tightens the blanket around him and opens the glass door. Even though you definitely heard him come outside, you don’t turn around. You have a cup of something warm next to you and you’re leaning against the balcony while staring out into the city skyline, watching the sun rise into the sky to welcome the new day.

“Good morning.” Donghyuck mumbles as softly as he can. When you mumble back a reply, he opens the front of the blanket so he can swallow you into his embrace. His chin rests on your shoulder and tries to guess exactly what you’re looking at, but when he lifts his head to look at your face, your eyes are closed.

“So, do you want to tell me why our curtains are out here and not on our windows like they should be?” He rests his head against yours, also closing his eyes.

“I woke up and suddenly felt the urge to clean them, I don’t know.” You laugh a bit, making both of you move with the movement of your chest. Donghyuck smiles at your reason; one of the things he learned about you when you moved in together is that your work ethic comes in random bursts of energy, rather than carefully planned out schedules to follow. You always have a small goal for every day, and sometimes you don’t even know what it is until it randomly pops into your head. Although he doesn’t really understand how you’re able to work like that, he loves this little quirk anyway.

“Did I wake you up?” You whisper and nudge your head into Donghyuck’s, nuzzling back into him when a particularly strong gust of wind blows over the balcony.

“Not technically, no. You not being next to me woke me up.” He replies.

“Well, I’m here now. How about we sleep some more?” You ask, leaning back against him and looking at his face.

“Best thing I’ve heard today.” He sighs. Without letting you out of his blanket trap, he walks you both back into the apartment and into your bedroom, both of you beginning to giggle at one point when you almost trip over the blanket and crash into the ground.

Thankfully, you both made it back safely to the bed, falling into the soft mattress. Immediately, Donghyuck gathers you in his arms and cuddles you to him, almost like he’s latching onto you. You wrap your arms around him slowly and lean into his shoulder, placing a kiss against his collarbone. You were going to stop there, but when he lets out a whimper at the small press of your lips to his skin, you continue moving up his neck.

When you reach the space underneath his ear, he twitches at how you suck on the sensitive skin, not expecting you to pay closer attention there. His hand slides over your back, between your shoulder blades, and back down, pressing you to him as he caresses you and silently hopes you don’t stop what you’ve started.

You don’t seem to have any intention to do that when you lean back, looking up at Donghyuck’s big, round eyes as they stare down hazily at you and quickly connecting your lips. He kisses back slowly, as if taking his sweet, sweet time in loving you.

“I thought we were supposed to sleep?” You ask between kisses.

“We can sleep later…” He trails off, grabbing your hand and pulling you on top of him so that you’re straddling his hips. “... If you’re really tired we don’t have to.” He suddenly pulls away, his hand comfortably resting over your waist.

“No way. It’s too late for that.” You answer, pulling your shirt over your head and tossing it to the other side of the bed. A chill runs through you at the cold temperature in the room, goosebumps forming over your arms and your nipples hardening. Donghyuck wraps his arms around your middle and presses a kiss in the valley of your chest, moving over until he reaches your left nipple and taking it into his mouth.

Biting your lip, your hands find his hair and tug on the long strands. Donghyuck’s hands squeeze your sides and his fingers draw random, little lines over your bare skin as he sucks and plays with your nipples, switching between each one.

“Hyuck…” You whine, giving a particularly sharp tug to his hair when he bites down onto your right nipple. “Please…” You trail off.

“Hmm? Please what? What do you want.” He leans back and looks up at you. You comb your fingers through his hair, pushing it back away from his face and behind his ears. His eyes are clouded and hooded over by the thoughts of you that are speeding through his mind.

“Please, make love to me.” You say it shyly, your eyes looking over his face but not meeting his own. He can’t help but smile at your timidness. You act like it’s the first time those words came out of your mouth. He can’t help but find it endearing how you ask him to make love to you every single time you find yourselves in this position.

“Of course, anything for you.” He connects your lips again, keeping the slow and steady pace from before. He shifts around as he moves his boxers away. Breaking the kiss, you move his hands away and pump his shaft, glancing up at him as he leans back with his weight on his hands and his head leaning back.

He lets out whines every time you twist your wrist, and you almost want to take a moment and stay this way, loving the sounds coming from Donghyuck’s mouth and how he looks as he pants beneath you. However, the tension growing between your legs makes you stop and sit up, pulling off your own pajama bottoms and underwear, throwing them somewhere along with your shirt.

Donghyuck grips your hips with one hand, the other pressing his middle finger to your slick folds, watching you squirm from above as he slides his finger through slowly.

“Just— Can you just do something already?” You almost whine out, grabbing onto his arm hard enough that you leave crescent moons in his skin.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure.” With your permission, Donghyuck positions himself at your entrance and slowly brings your hips down, watching your reaction throughout it all. The way your jaw slacks and drops open to the way you swallow when your hips meet with his, closing your eyes in pleasure at how he manages to fit inside you so perfectly. When everyone says your soulmate is made specifically for you, they really do mean in every way possible.

You sit like that for a moment, before opening your eyes and looking at your lover. He helps you move your hips up and back down, you let out a gsap at the sparks that fly up your spine. Your hips start to move in unison, yours grinding down and his moving up to meet yours in a steady rhythm, like a dance to music only you two can hear.

Your nails hurt when they move over his shoulders and chest, leaving temporary marks, but Donghyuck doesn’t mind. Actually, he loves it when you tug on his hair and scratch up his back, his whines turning into full out groans when you lean in and attach your lips to the side of his neck, pressing hot kisses down to his collarbone and biting down gently in the same place this whole situation started.

“H-Hyuck, I—” Before you know it, you’re so close to your orgasm, it’s basically right in front of you to reach out and accept.

“I know, baby, I know. You can come, I got you.” He answers back messily, using the last of his energy to keep your hips in place and drive himself into you. You let out a shriek at the sudden pleasure, only a few more deep thrusts into your hole and you’re falling over him as your orgasm spreads to every crevice of your body.

Donghyuck loves the way your muscles seize and flutter around him, making him pant and his thrusts become sloppy as he comes as well, his warm seed filling you up as he rides through his high. You both fall into the mattress below, you on top of Donghyuck, too tired to roll over and opting to just rest on his sweaty chest.

“I think that was way better than sleeping.” He says, his chest rumbling underneath you as he speaks.

“What a good way to tire ourselves out.” You yawn.

In the last few moments before your tired bodies fall asleep, you find Donghyuck’s hand and intertwine your fingers together, happily and contently falling asleep with the fresh air coming through the window and the sunlight now fully streaming into the room.

In the late summer before your and Donghyuck’s last year of university, you attend a wedding. Not just any wedding: Yuqi and Lucas’ wedding.

Although the ceremony is held outside, there’s a nice breeze that keeps the guests from getting too hot and sweaty in the summer sun. The whole wedding is held in a botanical garden and the place is decorated in white and purple, lilacs and daisies filling vases everywhere you go and freshening the air with their scent.

You and Donghyuck walk into the room inside the administrative building that’s designated for the bride. Yuqi is there, her face shining brightly with happiness and a glow that can’t be stolen from her today.

When you walk in, you let out a sound of delight at how pretty your college friend looks in her wedding dress, taking note of the chamomile flowers that adorn her hairpiece.

“Ah, I can’t believe you’re here.” She all but shrieks, embracing you tightly with her small bouquet still in her hands. After she gives Donghyuck a small, welcoming hug, she backs away to look at both of you.

“You look amazing today, I can’t believe you’re actually getting married. Congratulations.” You say sincerely.

“I can’t believe it either, actually. I feel like we’ve been planning this for forever, and now the day is finally here.” She recalls, a blissful look in her eyes even though you’re aware of how much stress she has had during the past few months over this one day.

“Are you nervous?” Donghyuck asks and you nudge his side and send him a look for asking a question like that.

“No, I’m not,” Yuqi laughs, “I feel one hundred percent happy. Like I’m starting the next part of my life with the one I love.”

“I’m glad you can spend the rest of your life with your soulmate, you’re definitely luckier than most.” You muse, and she suddenly softens her expression and takes your hand in hers, gently holding onto you.

“I’m not marrying my soulmate. I’m marrying the one I love. It just happens to be the same person.”

After bidding your farewells and good lucks, you and Donghyuck walk out of the room and head to where the ceremony will be held. He pulls out of sunglasses, propping them on the edge of his nose, and then grabbing your hand and strolling through the exhibits on the way to the ceremony grounds.

Yuqi’s words ring in your head throughout the peaceful walk, specifically how happy she looked to be marrying the one she loves. Somehow, you never thought about separating soulmate from lover; those two people have always been one in your head. You always thought that there can’t be a soulmate without a lover, and there can’t be a lover without a soulmate.

But the moment with Yuqi reminded you of the first time Donghyuck properly confessed to you, the words you can still hear floating through your head whenever your mind wanders off and thinks about him.

“I think I would’ve fallen in love with you even if we weren’t destined to be together.”

Maybe Donghyuck has been wiser than you this whole time. Not that you’d ever admit that to his face, unless you’d like to hear about it at least three times a week for the rest of your life.

Every memory— every year that has passed by with Donghyuck has only grown the idea of soulmate and lover further apart in your mind, and it took the matrimony of your close friends to realize it. You don’t think it’s a bad thing; in fact, you’re lucky that you can call your lover and your soulmate the same person.

You feel something tugging at your hand, and when you look over at your lover, he looks at you expectedly.

“Huh?” You say, dumbfounded since you’ve been in your own little world for who knows how long. Donghyuck laughs, bending over a bit at the funny, bewildered look on your face before straightening up and looking over to you again.

“I said, what colors should we do for our wedding? I personally think I look good in red, but I’m sure we can figure out something less contrasting.” He explains nonchalantly, you realize he’s kicking a random pebble around as you walk. Looking around, confused out of your mind, you turn back to him.

“Are we getting married?”

“Well, yeah,” He does something between a laugh and a scoff before leaning next to you, a serious look that permeates through the shade of his sunglasses, “You do want to marry me, right?”

Your brain is in a complete fritz. If you had a whole day to think about this you could maybe make up a sentence that resembles a sophisticated answer, but you can only shrug.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?” Donghyuck stops walking, “I just asked you if you want to get married, and you reply with ‘uh, yeah, I guess.’” He mocks your tone and it makes you roll your eyes at him.

“This is the first time we’ve ever talked about this and I got nervous.” You explain, making him relax and stand in front of you with his hands leisurely resting in his pockets. “Of course, someday I would like to marry you. I guess you’re… tolerable.” Donghyuck pushes you away from him and quickly walks down the path, twice as fast as he was walking before. You laugh and follow him, running slightly to catch up.

“Excuse me, Miss, would you like to leave a wish for the happy couple?” A sudden voice stops you, making you turn back around. A man stands with a camera, looking at you expectedly.

“Uh, how?” You look from the camera and back up to him.

“I’ll take your picture. You can write a wish on it and hang it up over there.” He points to the dozens of polaroids already hung up a few feet away, random people posing in the photographs with different color writing on every picture.

“Let’s do it.” Donghyuck comes up behind you, no doubt catching the last part of what the photographer said and pushing you lightly over to where there’s better lighting while taking off his sunglasses and tucking them into his shirt. The photographer asks you to pose, and you and Donghyuck smile for the camera, your eyes slightly shut due to the sun beating down on top of you.

“Great, how about one more for yourselves?” The photographer asks as he waits for the photograph to develop and you agree. This time, Donghyuck wraps an arm around you and pulls you closer so that your back is against his chest. You feel him rest his cheek on your head and drape his other arm around your front. You grab onto his forearm, not knowing what to do with your hands, and then suddenly the picture is taken and the photographer hands over both of the developed photos.

You take the second picture out of Donghyuck’s hands, not being able to look away. The sun seems to hit both of you just right, and the slight candidness of the photo adds another layer of reality to the picture. Donghyuck has a small smile while his cheek is slightly squished against your head, but he still looks as handsome as ever.

“What wish should we leave them?” He asks, picking up a golden sharpie from the table nearby, somehow already having his sunglasses back on.

“Maybe just… Congratulations on getting married?” You suggest.

“And a million other people will have the same thing. We need to be memorable.” He stresses and taps the end of the sharpie against his head. “What do you wish for Lucas and Yuqi?”

“I wish…” You think about it for a moment, “For them to have a lifetime of memories that they can share until the very end.” You nod.

“Oh?” Donghyuck looks at you, “When did you become a poet?” He asks as he writes that down at the bottom of the first picture.

“I’ve always been like this. I’m glad you just now figured it out.” You reply sarcastically, to which Donghyuck replies back with his own sarcastic laugh. He hangs up your picture close to where Mark and Xiaojun hung up their’s, and then turns back around.

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road.” He pushes up his sunglasses with his ring finger and thumb, walking with swagger towards the ceremony and grabbing your hand while he’s passing by.

“If you’re going to be like this at our wedding, maybe I’ll have to change my mind…”

For one today being one of the most awaited days of your life, it started out pretty regularly.

You wake up from the ringing of your alarm, get ready, and go to your classes for the day. You had breakfast before you left, and lunch right before your last class of the day. Even work was boring as usual, but nothing beat going to the store afterwards.

When you got to the aisle filled with shoes, you were first puzzled by how many options there are. So many colors and styles, you didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed and accidentally spent almost an hour just looking at every individual pair. This had to be perfect. This was going to be a memory that you thought about for the rest of your life.

You call Donghyuck when you approach your front door, he answers almost immediately.

“Hey, love, what’s up?” He yawns through the words, and you can’t help but smile as you look down at the bag in your hands.

“Oh, I was just wondering when you’ll be home.” You open the front door and shut it behind you, taking off your shoes.

“I’m right outside of our building. Did you just get home?” He asks, no doubt hearing the front door from your side of the line.

“I’ll talk to you when you get up here then, see you.” You send a kiss through the phone and abruptly end the call. If Donghyuck is right outside of the building he’ll be up to your apartment in just a few minutes.

You drop the rest of your things down at the front door and hurry into the kitchen, setting down the small white bag with a lace bow on top in the middle of the kitchen table, clearing the table of anything else. You slide into a seat at the table, fixing your clothes nervously as you hear the front door open. Not even a few seconds later, Donghyuck walks into the kitchen, his eyes moving from you to the white bag and back to you.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, dead serious. Your nerves and anxiety, and maybe even some fear, must be strong enough for him to feel. You shake your head and pat the chair next to you. Donghyuck takes a seat, he came through the door so quickly that he didn’t even take his shoes or his jacket off yet.

“Open the bag.” You can’t help the excited smile and small clap of your hands as he reaches out and holds the bag. He gives you a quizzical look, but you only nod to encourage him.

Donghyuck unties the lace ribbon, looking down into the bag for a few moments. You can’t read his face and you can’t feel any emotions from him, and your anxiety grows tenfold. He reaches in and pulls out the little shoes, a light blue color with white stitching. They’re so small, they can sit in Donghuck’s hand perfectly.

“What are these?” He asks, still looking at the shoes in his hand.

“Well, they’re shoes… For babies. For our baby.”

At your reply, he does nothing. He doesn’t react at all, which only worsens your nerves and makes your leg twitch up and down as you wait for him to say something. He swallows and sets the shoes on the table, still looking at then with a blank expression.

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yeah…” You reply, reaching out to put a hand over Donghyuck’s, “Say something.”

“I’m not sure what to say, this is very… sudden.” He tilts his head. Your stomach drops at the lack of emotion in his voice. You aren’t sure what you were expecting, but it was not this stoic expression in his face. Whatever traces of a smile that you had on your lips vanishes and you grip his hand tighter.

“I know this is not what we had planned. I know this is kind of… not good timing, since we’re still in school and not married, yet. But this is what fate had planned for us, I guess?” You’re not sure if you’re trying to console him or convince him, but the icky feeling in your stomach tells you Donghyuck’s reaction to the situation is not good.

“Yeah, fate did us real good.” Donghyuck replies sarcastically and you drop your hands from his, resting them in your lap. You can see the tears forming in his eyes even when he tries to look away from you, and you can feel the fear that’s boiling and overflowing inside him.

“I know you’re scared, I’m scared too. But we can get through this to—” You’re suddenly cut off by Donghyuck standing up abruptly.

“I’m not scared. I’m worried.” He rubs his face with his hands. “I’m worried that I won’t be able to support this kid. I’m worried I won’t be able to be here for you through it all. I’m so worried I’m going to end up like my father that I feel like it’s going to eat me alive.” He runs his hands through his hair, pulling his head back as he looks at the ceiling and paces around the kitchen.

“I never knew your father, but from what you told me, you’re nothing like him.” You stand up too, your legs feeling like jello.

“No, you don’t understand. What if I say something wrong and ruin this kid’s life like my father did to me? What if I can’t find a job after we graduate? Are you going to support all three of us? I can’t let you live like my mom did, it was too hard to watch back then and it’ll be even harder to watch now.” He suddenly stops, not giving you a chance to speak as he looks from you, to the little shoes, and back to you. “I can’t.”

“You… can’t what?” There’s panic rising in your voice as he shakes his head and backs away.

“I can’t be here, not around you or this baby. I won’t be a good father.” He turns and walks out of the kitchen, leaving you standing dumbfounded with tears brimming in your eyes. You move to the front door, watching at Donghyuck’s shaking hands pick up his keys and wallet.

“Are you leaving me? Right now?” He doesn’t look at you and he doesn’t answer, opening the door, “Wait!” You cry out. He stops, his shoulders tense and his hand clenching the doorknob.

“What about that promise you made me? Huh? You said that it’s not just a ‘you’ or a ‘me’ now. It’s an ‘us.’ You said you’ll do everything you can to not hurt us.” You ask, recalling the promise Donghyuck made back when you two were young college students, and a promise he has repeated and vowed to you over and over again every time your relationship got into a rough patch.

“I think… that what I’m doing is what’s best for us. It’ll be better if I wasn’t here. ___...” He looks back at your teary eyed figure with one last look of regret, “I love you. I’m so sorry.” And with that, he closes the door, leaving you all alone in your cold and dark apartment.

You jumped off of the bridge. You jumped off a while ago, actually, but the fall took longer than you expected. You thought Donghyuck would be there to catch you at the bottom, but he’s nowhere to be seen now. The fall was peaceful and enjoyable, a soft limbo between making the hardest decision in your life and the ultimate consequence of that decision. The fall was long and made you feel faux comfort, so when you reached the very end, it ended up hurting a lot worse. You knew jumping off of a bridge would kill you, so why did you jump?

You’re not sure how long you stand by the front door, but it’s long enough that the sun sets outside and the room turns dark. You stare at the door, waiting for Donghyuck to come back. You wait for the door to open and for him to run through, hugging you and whispering that he’ll be here for you. You can only walk up to the door and slide down onto your knees, your forehead pressed against the cool wood as you wait.

Tears run down your cheeks silently, your eyes red and your head hurts. You keep your forehead pressed against the door for the whole night, waiting for him to come back. You wait, and wait, and wait. Donghyuck never comes back.

Your heart rips open from pain, it feels like it’s bleeding onto the floor in front of you. Your mind is numb from any other emotion, your body is cold from sitting on the floor, but you can’t get yourself to stand up. That’s when you realize, this is it. This is how Donghyuck hurts you.

What a sick and twisted way for fate to finally serve up her plan. You almost forgot who Donghyuck is supposed to be; the one who loves you, and the one who hurts you the most.

— read epilogue here

[sapiowoman28]

I can, I can't : Part 1 of 3

Pairing: Jaemin x female reader

Gener: best friends to lovers au, smut, fluff

Warning: mentions of sex, masturbation (Female)

Summary: Jaemin and Y/N are part of a group of best friends. One day, things change.....

They called themselves the dropouts. Brought up in good Catholic families, active within the Church community as kids, Catholic school education... the works. They then grew up and stopped going.

It wasn't some group thing were everyone agreed to stop going altogether at the same time. It was more like, one by one, they stopped going.

Jeno was the first to stop, at 15, after his parents got divorced. He became angry and withdrawn. By 16 he was mixing with the wrong crowd - think underaged drinking, partying, It was only after a close brush with the law that he - literally and figuratively - sobered up and decided to focus on healthier pursuits like education and sports. Thankfully too, the old Jeno that everyone knew and love came back.

Then were was Renjun. Renjun was always the one who wasn't really into religion anyway. He was more apt to believing in aliens and ghosts. His mother kept him going for as long as she could. By 18 he was out.

Haechan, as he got older, became a sporadic goer. After moving out on his own to live with the guys and Y/N in an apartment closer to campus, he stopped too.

Y/N? The older she grew, the more she learnt about the importance of gender equality. The more she embraced feminism, the more she found some church teachings hard to swallow.

All was left, of course, was Jaemin. Now Jaemin, he was still a "good boy", faithfully going to Church every Sunday. It wasn't that he was extremely religious. It was more that he had gone to Church every single week all his life. To not go one week felt odd and different.

The good thing was, nobody made fun of him or tried to stop him from going. Jeno even woke him up on Sunday mornings before he went for his 10km runs just so Jaemin would get to mass on time. (Mass is what Catholics call a church service.)

Y/N enjoyed hanging out with her friends. She was like one of the boys. It had always been like that since they were young. Everyone who knew Y/N knew she was not to be messed with. Not only was she capable of kicking anyone's balls, she also had four bros who would come after their ass too. In fact, guys who were interested in dating her would often try to get in good standing with the four guys so life would be easier for them. So it was hardly surprising that Y/N had never had her heart broken.

The problem was, Y/N was the one breaking hearts. Commitment wasn't her strongest suit, and more often than not she'd break off with whoever she was seeing with very trivial reasons, First she was dating Xiaojun. Then 7 months later she broke it off with him because apparently he "sucked at making out". The truth was, Xiaojun was good enough in bed but Y/N wanted to date the more exciting Yang Yang after meeting him at a frat party her gal friends dragged her to and making out with him. So Yang Yang it was. For a while she was happy. But then 10 months passed and Yang Yang was history. Now it seemed, was some guy called Lucas.

"Now, before you guys misunderstand, Lucas is not my boyfriend." Y/N declared over a pizza with Jaemin one Saturday night. "He's just... a friend..."

Jaemin raised his eyebrow. "You mean a friend with benefits? Cos based on what we have to hear every single Friday night, none of us think you guys are friends. Speaking of which.... Jeno wants me to talk to you."

"Let me guess, you lost rock paper scissors. Again. And that's why you're the one speaking to me."

"Well, we have house rules to follow..." Jaemin started, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

"Jeno and his stupid house rules." Y/N sighed. "What now? I can't bring Lucas home?"

"It's getting kind of weird for all of us...."

"You guys bring girls home all the time!" Y/N protested.

"I don't." Jaemin said. It was true.

"Jeno does. Haechan does. Even Renjun! Remember that weird Yoga chick he was seeing?"

"But they're not loud. Lucas sounds like he has a loudhailer in his throat and it's weird hearing him......we end up having to use headphones."

"I've tried asking him to tone it down. But he gets too excited when I blow him..." Y/N grinned as Jaemin covered his ears with his hands, not wanting to hear the details.

"Look, Jeno says he appreciates that YOU have gotten less loud since that time you were dating Yang Yang. But Lucas he's just.... too expressive. Can't you do it at his house or something? It's not the moaning as much as the dirty talk, you know?" Jaemin's voice was getting tinier and tinier.

"If Jeno has a problem, why can't he tell me himself?" I know it's not Haechan or Renjun who are complaining. Haechan's always gaming with his stupid headphones on and Renjun's always listening to music on his noise cancelling ones."

Jaemin sighed. "Don't put me in a tough spot, Y/N..."

He looked at her with puppy dog eyes.

"Fine. I'll speak to Lucas. But I'm only doing it cos of you, cos you good Catholic boy and virgin and all."

Jaemin rolled his eyes. "For the last time, Y/N, I'm not a virgin!"

Lucas took the news surprisingly well and he was happy to have her hang at his apartment instead. Which turned out to be a better thing, since his apartment was bigger and his housemates were never around. Y/N wondered why she insisted on making out at her apartment to begin with.

"I'm surprised Jeno was the one with the problem.." Lucas said after they had made out and she was snuggling in his arms.

"He has all these rules. The worst part is he makes Jaemin speak to me instead of telling me directly."

"It makes sense. You and Jaemin are close."

"I'm close to all four of them."

"No no no." Lucas said, "Each of them has a different thing with you."

"Explain, Mr Wong." she said, looking up at him.

"I think Jeno knows both of you have strong characters so he has Jaemin speak to you instead when there's an issue so you guys won't argue. He prefers to keep things light, so the most you're gonna get is Jeno making fun of you for having a thing for foriegn men."

"What about Haechan?"

"Haechan's your gaming bestie. You talk about gaming, and game together. But he'd kick the ass of anyone who gives you trouble."

"I think I'm least close to Renjun."

"I don't think it's that. It's more Renjun is kind of in his own world. He's like that with everyone. But he feels close to you guys."

Y/N was impressed.

"What about Jaemin?"

"Jaemin's like your total opposite. But you guys get each other. I like him. He's a good guy."

"Yeah he's a virgin." Y/N joked.

"He's a good looking guy! Heck, if I was a chick I'd go after him man!" Lucas said, his eyes expressive as always.

"Well, he's a good guy. I've never seen him bring a girl home."

"Come on man, when it comes to hormones, even good guys turn bad."

Lucas was driving her home when she got a call from Jaemin.

"Wassup?"

"Are you alone?" Jaemin asked. He sounded strange. "I need help."

"Are you ok?" Y/N asked. "I'm with Lucas. Where are you?"

"Oh. I'll call someone else..."

"Don't be an idiot, Jaemin. Where are you?"

"Hospital." he said. "Can you come? Just don't tell anyone anything. Not even Lucas."

She found him in a bad state at the hospital. Sitting in a daze, blood stains on his crumpled shirt. Y/N had never seen Jaemin look so small.

"Hey" she half whispered. He looked up.

"I can go now. I got an x-ray done. My nose is not broken. And it's finally stopped bleeding." he said. "I already collected my medicines. Mostly painkillers."

"What happened?" she asked.

"I don't want to talk about it." he said.

"Let's get home and get you out of these bloody clothes. And then you can tell me after you've had a good night's sleep."

"Can i sleep in your room tonight?" he asked. It was an unsual request. "I'm feeling quite shaken."

"Yeah. Sure. Let's do that."

It was 2am and he still couldn't sleep. She could feel him toss and turn next to her.

"Jae."

"Sorry."

"No, I can't sleep either."

He sat up.

"I need to get my ID card back. Can you follow me tomorrow?"

"Your ID card?"

"I was fooling around with a first year chick in her house. Her parents came back and caught us. Her dad took my ID away, said he was going to lodge a police report against me for tresspassing his house and taking advantage of his daughter. Well, that's after he beat me up."

Y/N sat up. This was interesting, she thought.

"She's 18?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"18 is legal you dumbass." she slapped her forehead.

"I thought it was 21.."

Y/N groaned. "I can't believe you're so stupid."

"But the trespassing thing?"

"They don't have a case Jae. I'm sure you can prove you were invited there. Even if she lies and said she didn't invite you. They can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt."

"I'm so glad you're studying law."

"And Jaemin?"

"What?"

"It's illegal for him to detain your ID. YOU can report him."

"Oh. I didn't know that."

"Can you go sleep now that you know you're not actually in trouble?"

"Yes. Thanks Y/N." he said, turning to face the opposite side.

But Y/N couldn't sleep. Her mind was running a million miles a minute. Jaemin made out with someone. What was he like when making out? Was he gentle? Was he sweet like he always was to everyone? Was he a dom or sub? What did he do with the girl? Did he have fun?

Her own thoughts made her sick. Feeling a stir in her stomach made her sick. This was her best friend she was thinking of. She had to stop. Maybe she needed a shower.

Taking a towel with her to the bathroom, she shut the door, stripping quickly and getting under the hot jets of water. Damn it, Y/N, she scolded herself. Not Na Jaemin. What happened to your thing for Chinese guys?

She soaped herself trying to escape the mental picture of Jaemin, between the girl's thighs, lapping on her clit mercilessly, his eyes twinkling like they would whenever Jeno or Haechan said something witty. Suddenly, she was thinking of him between her legs, lapping at her core.

She brought her fingers to her clit, rubbing them from side to side. She leaned against the bathroom wall, moving more aggressively. She was wet. Biting her lip she pushed two fingers into her pussy, thrusting them in and out, the sound of the shower masking the wet noises as her fingers moved.

The muscles in her stomach were tightening. She could no longer hold back, thinking of Jaemin thrusting into her, looking at her with an intense gaze. She wanted him bad.

Slowly she came undone, as she moaned into her hands while cumming.

Suddenly, someone was knocking aggressively on the bathroom door. Y/N froze.

"I need to pee!" Haechan shrieked. "Hurry! I need to go back to my game!"

"Give me 2 minutes I'll be done." Y/N said, drying herself with her towel and getting dressed, mind still dazed from thinking about Jaemin. She knew their friendship was never going to be the same ever again.

She was just wondering how easy or hard it was going to be, to get Jaemin to join her on the other side.

[warmau]

☆ [nostalgic] summer romance!au yukhei  happy (not tooooo late at all, for a change lol) birthday yukhei!~ find others here: johnny | haechan | taeil | taeyong | mark | jaemin | yangyang | yuta | sicheng | chenle | kun

“that’s the worst sound i have ever heard in my life.”

you stand up too fast from behind the counter and bump your head with an ouch before looking to see what sicheng is complaining about now

outside the window of the cafe, you see a group of laughing boys and the bright, loud dirt bikes they’ve started riding around town

the sound of the engines and skidding tires managing to make their way through the windows

you wipe your hand on the front of your uniform’s apron and shrug

“i think they’re kind of cool.”

sicheng swivels around on the creaky bar stool, a script open halfway through is laying beside his iced-coffee

“extreme sports is just the polite way to say hey, this shit will get you killed”

you roll your eyes and check the clock that hangs above the display of baked goods and menu - almost eight, so almost time to close

you point it out to sicheng who packs his things up, you go over to help an elderly regular clean up their table and when the customer leaves you tell sicheng he doesn’t have to wait up for you

he throws his bag over his shoulder and looks over his shoulder at the parked dirt bikes 

“hey, if one of them bothers you when you’re locking up just call me.”

“im pretty sure they’re not even going to notice me.”

sicheng still frets as he slips out of the door

you hum as you fall into your end of the day routine. you’ve been working here part-time through university, but with summer coming around, you’ve come on full-time

it’s a lot of work for one person, but the boss trusts you like their own children, and you actually enjoy having the quiet responsibility of locking up

you sweep the floor, put away all of the left over food and milk in the fridge, check the register and print-out the sales for the day

your last task is to close all of the blinds, the cafe always has them up in the summer, the tops open to let a slight breeze in when it coasts by

as you go through each them, you finally reach the last one that faces directly out of the front of the cafe. out onto sidewalk across.

it’s right in front of the intersection where the sidewalk turns into the boardwalk, and there’s a bike rack and some parking spots

the dirt bikes have all been left there, tires soiled with wear and sand

beside one of the bikes, a sleek red bodied one with various silver accents, stands a lone figure

in the summer heat, he’s still got leather gloves on that clutch the matching colored helmet in one hand, long jeans and lace up heavy boots 

the only breathable part of his outfit is the white tank top that clings to the obviously toned lines of his upper body

a silver chain hangs around his neck, the links look so small on his overall broad figure, but they still shine against his sun kissed skin

he chews on the end of a toothpick and staring -

you step back slightly - he’s staring right at you

something in your stomach feels off, the crossing wires of concern and shock tell you to enter a state of heightened awareness

scurrying back to your work, you tell yourself you are just seeing things. you should listen to sicheng, finish quickly and hurry home.

the summer sun is quietly being pushed out by the summer moon by the time you lock the front door of the cafe and drop the keys into your bag

you turn around and whisper a small - shit! - when the figure from before is still there

he’s probably waiting for his friends, but sicheng was all wound up about them so now i am to- oh wait i think he’s coming over here!

and you’re right, the figure looks both ways before he crosses the street and jogs easily up to you

suddenly your hand itches to fish those keys out of your bag because what can a guy (a very handsome guy, up close) on a dirt bike have to do with you-

“hi - do you work in the cafe?”

he asks, voice deeper than you expect, his eyes are large and the color of autumn chestnuts

“um-yes?”

he sees the way your shoulders are tensed and he immediately retracts himself a step backwards

he puts his hands up, helmet still in his right, “oh right - sorry to scare you, i was just asking because ive seen you around-” 

something like a flush coats under his cheeks

“wait - that sounds weird too, i just meant to say that i think you’re - that i wanted to know your name is all....”

you blink, your shoulders don’t relax completely, but you can tell there isn’t any bad intent coming from him

“well, what's your name first.”

he stands up taller and grins, white teeth almost blinding in the dusk

“wong yukhei! i came here for the summer with some of my buddies.”

he tilts his head toward the bikes and you nod, saying only your first name - sichengs cautiousness seeping into your own

yukhei repeats it, with an almost a bit of a goofyness in his smile when he does

“well - ill see you around then?”

you aren’t sure what to make of the situation, so you just shrug - “maybe?” - he seems satisified with this answer though, and crosses back to his bike

you don’t know why, but you feel embarrassed just standing there, so you shuffle your feet and start your walk home

at some point you turn to look over your shoulder, right at the corner that you have to take, but when you do - yukhei and his bike are gone

“really? see, this is why i should stay while you lock up.”

sicheng’s eyebrow twitches as you finish telling him what happened

it’s the next day, and it’s noon - right when the days get the hottest and most of the cafe’s customers are just coming in for the free air conditioning

“i don’t think he’s dangerous, i think he just wanted to say hi.”

you answer, fixing what must be the twentieth order for shaved ice-cream

the slices of strawberry fall gently onto the heap, and you place two pairs of the forks beside the dish

carrying it carefully to the pick up counter, you call out the order number and watch as a young couple - still dressed in their beach attire - comes up together, unable to break apart for even a second

you smile at them and return to sicheng, taking his empty glass and turning to fill it up with ice 

“you can think he’s not dangerous, but any idiot who owns a death trap like a dirtbike-”

“sicheng, it’s like a normal bike but with an engine. it’s like a car but without the-”

“the safety, without the safety. really - i didn’t think you’d be the type to be into bad guys like that.”

you make a pfft sound with your lips, filling the glass with water and setting it down beside him

“first off, im not into anyone - i talked to him once. and just because they like bikes, doesn’t make them bad - you’ve been reading too many of those cliché scripts.”

sicheng makes his own sound of disapproval, but takes the drink you offer and brings the straw to his lips

you get busy with other customers, at some point kun and xiaojun turn up and distract sicheng

the whole time you work, something in you keeps making you stop to look out of the window

last night, the row of bikes had been there, but now they’re gone - maybe they’re not coming into town tonight?

you reprimand yourself every time you do look, because really it is just like you said to sicheng - yukhei was just saying hi. 

finally it’s time for you to close the cafe again

the only reason sicheng doesn’t stay is because kun drags him somewhere else and if there’s anyone more stubborn than sicheng, it’s the elder of the pair

you take your time - calling the boss to let him know you’re leaving 

“did that group of loud boys wreck havoc again?”

“group of boys?”

“the ones on those bikes, not motorcycles the other ones-”

your hand gets a little sweaty as it holds the phone

“no, they didn’t come around today.”

“good. be safe going home.”

you think about the conversation as you subconsciously start walking after you lockup 

there’s a way to get home that’s faster, and much safer, but there’s a longer way too - that has you walk most of the boardwalk

really, it’s still safe - because of summer the beach is as bright as a movie screen till midnight - but you avoid it for the crowd and the noise

your feet urge you to turn at your usual corner, but you don’t, you make way to the little stairs that lead from the sidewalk and onto the old wooden boardwalk

there are lots of people still about, packing their things up from their time at the beach or coming to stroll by the waves when the sand isn’t burning under their feet

groups of friends, smiling strangers, couples with kids or without 

everyone is enjoying their summer, and you almost feel out of place because your summer is going just as you thought it would. completely uneventful. long days at the cafe, lonely nights in your room

“oh?”

you hear your name suddenly and turn your head left to see yukhei leaning against one of the benches

on the bench are what look like some of his fellow friends, some have those moto jackets you’ve only seen on tv  hanging off their shoulders and others are drinking out of cups and swinging the keys to their bikes around their fingers

yukhei comes over to you and everyone in his crew throws a look over their shoulder

you blink when he stops in front of you - right, you think, he’s pretty tall

“are you getting off work?”

“yep”

“it’s really late, your boyfriend doesn’t ever walk you home?”

“boyfriend?” 

you retort almost sarcastically, because where did the sudden idea that you - walking alone on a boardwalk made for summer romance - have a boyfriend

yukhei scratches the back of his neck and you notice some scrapes on his elbows

“oh there’s the guy - in the cafe with you all the time, he glares a lot - uh-”

“sicheng? oh no, he’s a friend.” you can’t help but chuckle “but you’re right he doesn’t smile often.”

yukhei seems to suddenly beam at the confirmation, which makes something inside of you feel a little warm, but awkward so you point to his injuries

“bike accident?”

he pokes at the yellowing flesh and winces, “yeah. but it happens a lot.”

“it seems like a dangerous sport, do you not mind getting hurt?”

the question is more curiosity than anything - you’re not trying to be mocking or even mean - and yukhei can tell from the way you’re still casting a concerned look at his other arm for evidence of any other “accidents”

“i mean i mind it, but i love it too much to give up” 

yukhei laughs and it sounds nice, pleasant - people with good laughs tend to have good hearts

“and im not really good at anything else. like if i was to be a waiter in a cafe like you, id probably hurt myself a lot more than i do on a dirt bike”

you want to correct him, you’re technically not a waiter - but a barista - but you stop because you are slightly transfixed by the kindness that glows from him 

you’ve never seen someone else radiate so......positively

suddenly one of his friends calls out his name, asks if he’s going to join them as they head back to get their bikes

yukhei looks at you before he answers - “i could walk you home, since it is late.”

“that’s ok, thank you for offering.” you push your hands behind your back a little as you tell him goodnight, before you’re a couple of steps away someone from his group shouts out

“yukhei’s not only good with dirt bikes - he’s a good kisser too-”

by the sound of it, yukhei jumps on his friend and tells him to shut up! you hear the aftermath of the scuffle, but don’t turn around as you giggle to yourself

a couple of times after that, you see yukhei simply in passing

sometimes you’re in the middle of your shift and he walks by the window with his friends, he looks up and sees you and waves - but he doesn’t come in

you wave back every time and a part of you pinches when he the door doesn’t open after

other times, you’ll see him after work - or you’ll hear his bike somewhere and he slows down to ask how work is before speeding off to catch up with friends

little bits and pieces of interactions, never anything more than that 

you don’t really tell sicheng about it either, he grumbles enough about the noise they make and the other things he doesn’t like so you decide not to bother even though he’s a close friend

and the twilights of a little crush on yukhei are most definitely seeping into your brain

but everything changes when you find yourself closing the cafe after a super busy saturday, where you hadn’t been able to get everyone out until it hit past eleven.

the boss had thanked you profously and promised a good overtime check since you’d stayed so late

and you were too exhausted to be too mad about having to stay past your schedule

as you went through your routine, you nearly jumped from your skin when the door opened and you turned to explain - no really, you were closed now when you came face to face with yukhei

the side of his cheek is obviously bruised, scrapes that look like bad road rash cascade down past the angle of his jaw and onto his neck

he limps a little when he makes it across the doors threshold and you see dried blood on his knuckles

“yukhei?” you rush over and take him by forearm, making sure to hold onto the skin that isn’t covered in some kind of wound

“yukhei what are you doing here - did you fall off your bike, you have to go to a hospital now!”

not anywhere close to being a doctor, you can only prematurely tend to him with the cheap ass first aid kit from the kitchen

the entire time you keep saying that he has to go to the hospital

and yukhei mumbles that he doesn’t know where one is, his friends weren’t with him either - he got hurt alone - so he came to the only place that was close by and familiar

you look up at him - he’s sitting on the same bar stool that sicheng is usually in  and you’re standing between his legs, bottle of ointment uncapped on the counter - bandages in your hand

“ok, ill take you - ill call a friend who has a car.”

“im ok.”

he lifts a hand and wraps it gently around your wrist. you can feel the wear on his skin from his leather gloves and old callouses from old injuries

he stares at you and the only light is from the kitchen, flickering on and off

“you’re not ok, you might have a more serious internal injur-”

“if i was bleeding inside, i would know.”

you frown, he says it like it has happened before - you wonder how many times has yukhei fell off his bike, or gotten hurt some other way - how many times has he done it alone 

“fine, you don’t have to go now but go sometime soon. promise me.”

he looks at you, the autumn chestnut color you saw when you first met him is glazed now in a darker brown. 

“ill promise you if you promise me something too.”

swallowing, you become acutely aware of how close you are - his knees are grazing either side of your thighs. your wrist is still in his lax hold.

you smell sweat, blood, and cologne on him. he smells the tiredness of your work on you.

“this isn’t a joke yukhei, i just want you to be-”

“i will go, i promise but promise me something too.”

“ok. ok fine, what? do you want free coffee or -”

“promise you’ll kiss me at least once before this summer is over.”

before you even realize it, you agree. simply because you want him so badly to go to the hospital, or at least that’s how you come to terms with it on your own.

you itch as the promise swirls around your head, even hours after you watched yukhei walk away from your front door - banged up and bruised and stilling insisting on walking you home

when you see sicheng the next day, you want to tell him about everything because your head feels like a tangled mess 

but you don’t - you just pick at the strings of your apron, make drinks and heat up pastries 

three days go by and yukhei doesn’t show himself anywhere. he’s not even in his group of friends who you see once again on the boardwalk one night after work

you somehow push past the nervous feeling and ask one of them where he is

“ah, his bike is all fucked up so he’s been mopping about it while it’s in the shop.”

“did he go to the hospital?”

the guy laughs, shakes his head - “knowing yukhei, probably not. but we haven’t seen him for a while either.”

you say thank you and turn to leave - you hear some kind of buzzing, some kind of mention of you and yukhei and what kind of ‘relationship’ you’re in - but you push past it

you don’t even know where he lives, let alone where he rides his bike so you can’t really go and check on him

you have to wait for him to come to you - that bothers you.

you stop and return to the group, who all simmer to silence when you come close again.

“where do you guys usually ride your bikes?”

you’ve never been this far up the beach, mostly because this part is relatively blocked off from swimming because of the high ridges of rocks and the part of the coast that disappears into the mountains 

there’s a trail for hikers that leads off and into the trees, but you don’t go there - worried you’ll get lost without a map or guidance

yukhei’s friends said they mostly biked here  - dirt bikes aren’t motorcycles you know that right babe?

you cross your hands over your chest - on your one free day of the week, you want to be splayed out on your floor under a fan. not looking for yukhei - someone who is practically a stranger to you

is he though? we might have talked less times than i can count on all my fingers but would i really call him a stranger?

you look around but it seems barren, almost eerily quiet and isolated

so when the loud sound of an engine roars from that opening into the mountains, you almost teeter back 

with a flair of dirt and sand that flies toward you in a storm, you hear a bike rip down and into dune

the red bike strikes against the sizzling backdrop of the summer day and your eyes widen when you see it do a half-circle and come to a halt

yukhei pulls the helmet off and shakes his sweaty hair from his forehead - he looks over at you and you think you have lost the ability to speak

i know im supposed to be angry and concerned, but he looks so hot it’s almost unfair

the road rash on his cheek is healing better than expected, but his wounds are all still clear as day - scabbing as they heal

he doesn’t get off the bike - just looks at you and then beckons you over with a tilt of his head

you almost protest because you came here to be all strong willed and insist that he go see the doctor, also when did his bike get out of the shop? 

but you bend to the command and make your way over

he kills the engine and stares at you - you stare back

“where have you been?”

“i went to the hospital like i promised.”

the sudden confession makes you drop your hands - “really! what did they say?”

“no internal bleeding.” he leans his body slightly over the side of his bike “told you id know if i was dying.”

“still, im happy you went. it’s better to be safe than so-” 

he drops his helmet on the sand and your sentence cuts off with the sound

“so i kept my promise, do you want to keep yours now?”

don’t be silly, im not kissing you - you don’t even like me and i don’t -

all the excuses in your brain just get lost in the jumble that’s already made a home up there, so you just decide that fine. you will keep that idiotic, dumb, heat of the moment promise.

you grab yukhei by the sides of his tank top, starling him as you push yourself toward his mouth

using the leveraged grip you let your hold relax only enough so that you can dig your nails through the fabric and into the skin of his ribs

yukhei makes a growling noise into your mouth that is somehow more sweltering than the summer sun

he cranes his neck slightly so when you run your tongue across the slip of his lips he can easily grant you any of the access you require, one hand goes up to grip the back of his neck

he takes one hand from the handles of the bike and slips it to the small of your back - then up between your shoulder blades as he pushes you closer

it’s supposed to be one kiss. one little, flimsy kiss, and yet the attraction you feel between you two is so charged that you cannot stop

you only break back to see if yukhei feels the same thing, and it is written all over his face, he does

that and the way he tells you to step back as he gets off the bike, it falls to the sand and you start to ask why in the world he’s so careless with everything when he just wraps you up in his arms and starts kissing you again

“i wont be careless when it comes to you”

his mouth is magical, even more so as it drags down to your neck and the layer of sweat between your bodies is threatening to turn to fucking cement and keep you stuck in this embrace for the rest of eternity (not that either of you would mind)

but it’s so hot and you are not about to fall back on this sand - so you somehow manage to tell yukhei to meet you later tonight

“want a ride home?” he pants, but you unglue yourself from the plane of his perfect chest and shake your head, “meet me at ten.”

yukhei is there on time. he didn’t bring his bike, which is a good idea considering the noise it would make, he looks so sweet when you come downstairs and he asks if you want to go on a date

a date, like go get dinner if you haven’t had any or play boardwalk games until midnight

you say yes. just not tonight 

yukhei’s look of childish confusion makes you laugh as you take his hand and lead him back inside.

sicheng might have warned you about yukhei being “bad”, the only little problem is you might have always been the “bad” one all along 

with how big, strong, dirt biking yukhei looks up at you with absolute awe as you forgo chitchat over shared ice-cream and push him down onto the sheets of your bed

in the morning, you have to go to work and yukhei has to leave through the window, but you kiss him one last time and he mumbles he’ll meet you after your shift

“now i do have a boyfriend to walk me home, huh?” 

you giggle and yukhei nearly trips over himself at the word

you do let yukhei take you on a date, of course you do - and it’s as soft and sweet as you expect because yukhei is the opposite of what he looks like at first glance

all the bruises, all the confidence, all the arrogant handsomeness that is ingrained in his perfect features is just a cover. he’s a big teddy bear.

refusing to let you pay, giving you his jacket, offering to come over early and help you lock up

holding your hand gently, kissing your forehead when you complain about dumb customers, the absolute sugary-sweet pillow talk that sometimes makes you feel like you’re in a hallmark movie romcom

when sicheng catches yukhei with a hand around your waist on the boardwalk - he nearly calls the police, but you explain everything - sans the more intimate details and it takes a long time for sicheng to accept it but

you are happy, god you are so happy it is pouring out of you - especially when you are with yukhei

even your boss warms up to him (only him, the rest of his buddies are basically barred from coming into the cafe) 

and yukhei, when you see him with others, it’s obvious that he is an extroverted charmer - one afternoon he helps you with orders and when he returns, the receipt is covered in numbers

of course - he crumples it and tosses it into the garbage as he lets a secret hand sneak up your shirt behind the shield of the counter

and then, the summer is whisking away, and you feel the first kisses of autumn when yukhei is helping you steady yourself on the dirt bike - even though you refuse to actually ever ride it

you shiver at the breeze and yukhei feels your goosebumps under his fingertips

“hey, are you going to leave once summer is over - i know you and your friends are just staying here because it’s a great place to bike but-”

he leans down and buries his face in your hair

“why, you gonna miss me if i leave?”

you reach behind you to try and flick him, but he dodges

“i just wanted to know - if i should get ready for heartbreak or-”

“don’t ever say that, i would never hurt you.” 

his tone drops and you know he’s being serious

“i love you and im not going anywhere.”

he helps you off the bike and then pulls you into his arms

“promise?” 

you whisper, but yukhei hears it and you feel him nod 

“promise.”

a couple of years later, you hear a loud sound from the living room and rush out to the garage 

you see yukhei rubbing his head - wrench in one hand and a broken looking bike on the floor

“what happened?!”

“i didn’t put the kick stand down all the way so it toppled over”

you kneel down beside him and examine him for any wounds, 

yukhei watches you and the concern that is always so bright and tender in your eyes when it comes to him

you turn his hand over to make sure, the engagement band on his finger catches the light as you do 

the matching one on your hand feels cool against his skin.

“you’re so careless, seriously!”

you puff your cheeks out and chide him with all the love, he smiles back and leans in to kiss your frown

“true, but im never careless with you.”

you roll your eyes, but it’s true - ever since he first said it till now. 

[jaehyunsbreadbasket]

NCT Universe Album Ranking: An Opinion Piece

1. New Axis

Loved it from first listen

"Upper echelon, all of the above, qualified, yeah very much" is such a catchy line and is my favorite part of whole song

Was my favorite on the album when I had only heard a few songs and remained my favorite after I heard the entirety of the album

I've had this song in repeat ever since it came out

Strong beat

They're all so talented, there's no weak point in this song

I love the contrast of all their different rap styles and hearing how they can complement each other also

The perfect first track, really sets the pace for the rest of the album while also being considerably different from the other songs

I wanna see a stage for this song so bad 😫✋🏽

Main rappers slayed

2. Universe

I liked it from the beginning despite the structure of the song seeming unusual to me

The beginning of the song (Haechan's first part) kind of sounds like a bridge to me and I think that's really unique

The choreography is so catchy too

The repetition of the adlibs and starting and closing lines makes the song very catchy and memorable (ex. The "Let's play ball" chant and the "What you got?" chant)

Xiaojun shined so much here, like an icon

The acapella part during/after Jeno's rap made me levitate

Yangyang deserved more lines, but his lines on the other tracks made up for it ig

Jungwoo and Doyoung absolutely devoured that bridge, as they should, honestly

Xiaojun's beautiful high note, what a vocal God 😫🙇🏽‍♀️🙏🏽

This was the perfect title track for the album, it really did it's job of making me interested in the rest of the album

3. Miracle- WayV

I'm a sucker for Nct's English songs, what can I say 🤷🏽‍♀️

Extremely catchy and just good vibes in general

Yangyang really outdid himself with this one, he's so talented

The lyrics are amazing

This song has the perfect balance of rap and vocal

I love Hendery's rap style, yes versatile king

Ten's "I-I-I-I" is kinda funny but I love it though

My favorite song of all the fixed units, and my favorite unit

I'm so proud of them, it's been a while since they've had a song all together (even though this still isn't really all together) and they came back with a bang

4. Round&Round

Groovy

Nice kind of R&B vibe that I like

All of their voices complement each other's very well

The instrumental is kinda basic, though. That's my only complaint

Sungchan ace? I think yes

Taeil's high note sent me to space, omg

Ten absolutely bodied this song

They all did such a good job, how iconic of them

5. Sweet Dream

The instrumental alone gives me chills

The "Lalalala lala" at the beginning is so heavenly

It just sounds dreamy, which is fitting considering the title

Again that R&B kind of sound I love

The lyrics are so romantic and sweet omg

"You are so sweet, dalkomhan dream" I'm sobbing 😭😭😭

Nct's vocalists left no crumbs, per usual ofc

Jaehyun's voice is so smooth, I love that man

Yes falsetto, period

This is Taeil and Jaehyun's song idc, argue with the wall

It's giving coffee shop vibes, and I'm loving that

Makes me feel like I'm floating on a big, fluffy cloud

"From this dream, I don't wanna wake up" is on repeat in my mind 24/7

Honestly should be higher than 5 but this album has so many bops idkwtd

6. OK!

"My baby said she wanna dance with a ghost, she wants to leave me uh" 💃🏽👻

This song slayed in every way possible, the raps, the vocals, the instrumental it's just all so amazing

The instrumental is especially likeable to me, it kinda sounds like skeleton bones lol

I see this as the Faded In My Last Song of this album, where it wasn't promoted as a single, but is still very popular with the fans

I love Jeno's rapping so much

Overall a very memorable and catchy song

7. Birthday Party

"Ay bae gon' love that like it's your birthday" 💃🏽

Ultimate party song, definitely lives up to it's name

High energy

If Work It and Make A Wish had a baby, it would be this song

JISUNG FAST RAP, I REPEAT, JISUNG. FAST. RAPPPPP!!!

JUNGWOO SAID "TONIGHT IT GON' BE A DRAMA" 😫😫😫

The adlibs are so hot 😫

Shotaro: "You gonna love it" YES SIR, YES I WILLLLL

Jaemin's "Woooooooooooooooooowww", I love it so much

This song is so quotable omg

"Yo DJ, can we switch it up a bit?" has the same energy as "Hold on, hold on, hold on, can we switch the language?" and idk if I love it or hate it but it's so funny every time I hear it

The bridge/breakdown 😫

Johnny outsold

Petition for Nct to continue these annual birthday themed songs because I love them dearly and my birthday is at the end of the year so it makes them feel like a birthday present

8. Beautiful

Johnny's little intro gave me Wakey Wakey flashbacks that I did not ask for why did they make him do that again 😭

Hendery's rap is the best part of the whole song, you can @ me on that

Their voices sound so good together in the chorus

Yes kings, inspire me. Tell me my self worth 😌

Taeil outsold, that's all I need to say about that

Taeil's high note after Hendery's rap, what a lovely combination

Nct's vocals will always impress

Doyoung's "You are" at the end, don't touch me 😭😭😭

The choreography is so pretty too, but that's beside the point

9. Know Now

Unrelated to the quality of the song itself, but I love how half of this unit is just NCT Dream

It's been so long since I got a Sungchan rap, feeling very blessed right now

Energetic song which is very nice

When they all harmonize on "Know now" 😫

The instrumental has a lot of unique sounds in it, I like it a lot

When Johnny and Yangyang said "Talkin, talkin...Poppin, poppin" I felt that

Jaemin got so many lines, yes baby, slay

Jeno's raspy voice>>>>>

Very catchy

The ending sounds a bit awkward though, like there was meant to be something after it or maybe the vocals were just weird with the instrumental at that point, idk

Besides the ending, the song is very good

10. Vroom

Yes Jisung, snatch those lines baby

I love how the instrumental builds up in the pre-chorus but am kinda disappointed when the chorus comes cause all the build-up leads to nothing

Chenle and Jisung's vocals, the way the maknaes ate this song up 😌

Chill vibes

After you listen to it a couple times it gets more catchy, but it didn't leave much of a mark the first few times I gave it a listen

I don't really have any strong opinions on this song

11. Dreaming- NCT DREAM

I feel conflicted about the instrumental

Their vocals are so pretty, as always

The chorus is the best part

The verses are a bit boring to listen to at times

Jeno's accent when he sings "I love that feeling" 😫😫😫

Jisung's part and the instrumental changing up along with it, very much pleasing to the ears

Renjun's part before Haechan's high note, yessir

I've listened to this song at least 5 times and I still cannot remember what it sounds like until I listen to it again, so ig it's not very memorable for me

12. Good Night

A unit full of ballad masters

Easy listening, very soothing

Makes me sleepy tbh

Their vocals are so beautiful 👏🏽

Kinda boring, I usually like Nct's ballads though so idk why I'm not really feeling this one

I just feel like I've heard it before, it doesn't really stand out

It kinda felt like a drag listening to it

I'd listen to it to wind down before bed, but on a day-to-day basis, probably not

It feels a bit out of place with all these fast paced/hardcore songs, maybe if there was more balance throughout the album then it wouldn't feel like this song is such an outlier

13. Earthquake- NCT 127

I didn't like it from the beginning, it's like a headache to listen to, especially in the first couple times

Literally it just started and my head is already killing me, I'm not even listening with earbuds

Jaehyun's vocals were nice though, like a bit of a break from all of the utter chaos in this song

"When we shake, earthquake" is kinda catchy though

I didn't really like any part of the song until Johnny's part at the end of the bridge and from that point on until the end of the song, it became more bearable

The chorus definitely sounds better after the breakdown, though I'm still not crazy about it

The song is just too loud for my taste ig, I don't know if I've ever disliked a 127 song this much before

Notes for the album overall: Needs more Renjun 😊👍🏽