Warnings : Little cockwarming, suggestive and tooth rotting fluff.
Notes : This is my first drabble after a long time and I hope it makes sense because i wrote this in a haze. Also, this is requested by @coupsalchemy, a wonderful friend and a great person I am honored to have in my corner. I hope you like this, C!
You lay on Jeonghan, breathless as he runs his fingers on your thighs, making a path to your ass and then to your back.
He was warmly snuggled in your pussy, he feels as if heaven was right in his arms as he holds you. You try to catch your breathe and look up at him, lean into him for a kiss.
Your lips slot right into his, the rhythm of moment as he kisses you so natural it comes off as easy as breathing.
You smile and get up from him and laying back on the bed, exhausted. You watch him move around the bedroom and come over to clean you up with a wet cloth. After he takes care of that, he climbs back into the bed and pulls the covers over you.
You nuzzle onto his chest, lay there listening to his heartbeat, a steady beat lulling you into sleep after the rough clash of your bodies. After the passionate marks both of you left on each other, those which would bloom red like roses tomorrow.
He absentmindedly plays with your hair watching your breaths slowly become shallow and you drift off of to sleep, probably listening to his heartbeat.
You had this unique habit of always laying on his chest and sleeping off listening to the sound of it. It confused him at the beginning, he wondered the reasons behind the actions so often than not.
But then you once you so casually explained why and since then, he too was always looking forward to sleeping with you tucked under his chin or you laying on him. And then one time he laid on your chest, he immediately knew he was addicted to the sound of your own beats too.
"Your heartbeat makes me feel comfortable," you told him.
It wasn't anything big, or unique or unnatural. It was something so small and normal, and it made you feel safe with him.
And that was all that mattered. That you felt safe with him. That you could trust him to hold you when you didn't want anyone else to hold you, steady or not.
The days when work exhausted you, the days when everything weighed on your shoulders, the days when life felt too much you came to him. Trusting that he would hold you, and that you were safe with him.
And when things changed and Jeonghan couldn't bare it anymore, when even smiling felt hard or his voice wasn't supporting him, he would come to you, knowing you would keep him safe. That he too trusted you the same way you did.
That he too loved you the same way you did. He would definitely argue that he loved you more than you did, and that argument as he wants always ends up leaving either of you breathless one under each other.
backburner - choi seungcheol imagine part two final
andddd it's here🥺
i think this one is the most angsty fic i have ever written, i need to give myself a pat on the back. If you're new here or have been here for a while, i am not the best at writing angst but when i started writing this fic it clicked to me immediately. i'm so happy a lot of you like it🥺
hope you enjoy the rest of it🤍
alsoooooo quick note, the added donation link here if u want to give ur girl some coffee that would be greaaatlllyyyy appreciated. no pressure tho, your love for my fics is enough. okii byeee
The silence started bothering him at 7:12 a.m. Because by then, usually, there was already something. A complaint or a craving or a random observation. A message about your daughter moving too much at dawn like she personally hated sleep.
But that morning nothing.
Seungcheol checked again while pouring coffee. Still nothing.
By 8:03 he sent first.
Seungcheol: Morning. Want breakfast?
The reply took thirteen minutes. Long enough that he noticed.
You: No thanks
He stared at the screen. Then sent again later, trying casual.
Seungcheol: Lunch later? I can bring something.
This time the answer came faster.
You: No, Thanks. I’m good.
That period should not have mattered. It did. Because now every instinct he had built around you over months started lighting up at once.
You never answered like someone who was actually fine.
By noon he had read those two replies enough times that even Wonwoo noticed he had not touched half the paperwork in front of him.
“You’re reading punctuation like it insulted you”
“She’s quiet”
Wonwoo barely glanced up “So go check”
“I’m at work”
“You haven’t done work in twenty minutes”
That was enough. By early afternoon he was already driving. The entire way there his mind kept building possibilities he hated.
By the time he reached your apartment, his pulse had already climbed too high for how still the hallway looked.
You opened the door after the second knock and immediately something felt wrong. Your face looked composed in the deliberate way people wore when they had been trying very hard for too long.
“What happened”
“Nothing” That word again.
He looked around instinctively. No sign of vomiting. No visible mess. No emergency. But you were standing too straight, like even your shoulders were trying not to reveal anything.
“You didn’t text”
“I answered”
“You sent two words”
“I’m tired”
“You look like you cried”
That made your jaw tighten immediately “I’m fine”
There it was. The phrase he trusted least.
He softened his tone instinctively “Did something happen today?”
“No.”
“Did something hurt?”
“No.”
“Did she move?”
“Yes.”
“Did you eat?”
A pause “Yes.”
Lie. He knew because your eyes moved left when you lied badly so he stepped closer.
“I’ll make something”
“I said I’m fine”
“You haven’t eaten”
“I did”
Something in you snapped a little at how easily he kept seeing through everything. Because that gentleness, the same gentleness that had comforted you for months felt unbearable today.
So when he reached for the kitchen as if this apartment belonged naturally to his care too you stopped him.
“Cheol”
He turned and your voice came sharper than intended.
“I said I’m fine”
“You’re not”
That should have comforted you. Instead, it hurt worse because the truth sitting ugly in your chest had become too tangled to separate now.
You heard him last night. You thought he was sacrificing too much. You thought someday you would become the reason he missed his own life.
And worse than all of that you now knew the ache inside you when imagining him with someone else was not friendship.
It had crossed quietly while you were too distracted surviving to notice.
And loving him now felt unforgivably selfish.
Because what right did you have? Pregnant. Broken. Carrying another man’s child. Already leaning too much. Already taking too much.
So when he took another step toward you, concern plain on his face you panicked.
And panic made cruel things come faster than thought.
“Just go, okay?”
He stopped completely but not because of the words, because of how they sounded. Still you kept going, even when the words hurts you twice back.
“I don’t need pity”
“This isn’t pity”
“I don’t need care either” Your voice cracked slightly now but still you forced it.
“I don’t need you.”
Silence. Absolute silence. The second the words left you, you knew they were false. So false they almost knocked the air from you yourself.
Because if there was one truth clearer than anything right now, it was the opposite.
You did need him.
Too much.
And that was exactly why saying it felt safer than admitting anything real.
His eyes stayed on you. No anger. Only that quiet wounded stillness from someone hit somewhere unguarded.
And seeing that expression hurt you far deeper than it should have if this were only friendship.
That was the moment it arrived fully, undeniable:
You loved him.
Not slowly enough to soften. Not lightly enough to excuse.
Loved him selfishly enough that hurting him made your chest feel like it split open.
Loved him enough that seeing him with someone else in your mind had wrecked you before anything even happened.
And because of that realization, fear sharpened further.
So instead of taking the words back you pushed harder.
A lie over a wound “I’ve asked enough already.”
Still silence. Then finally he spoke, voice lower than usual.
“You think that’s what this is?”
You looked away because if you met his eyes, you would break.
“I think you should stop rearranging your life because of me”
Something flickered across his face, understanding almost, but incomplete.
He exhaled once through his nose and for one second it looked like he might say everything. Whatever he had buried. Whatever sat right behind his restraint. But your face stopped him.
So instead he only nodded once, like agreeing with you right now physically hurt.
“If you want space, I’ll go”
That gentleness broke something in you harder than anger would have.
He just moved toward the door and when it clicked shut behind him the apartment felt immediately unbearable.
You stood there exactly three seconds before your legs gave enough that you had to sit.
Then the first sob came, nothing graceful about it. And suddenly it hurt more than that night months ago when your world first split open because back then grief had a clear target.
Now the pain came from your own mouth, from words you did not mean.
From watching the one person who never failed to show up finally leave because you pushed him there yourself.
And for the first time in months, you cried with both hands over your face while your daughter moved quietly beneath your ribs like she felt everything too
=
For almost two weeks, Seungcheol learned something ugly about silence:
It could become louder than any argument.
Every day without you became its own kind of noise. No morning texts. No random complaints. No messages about swollen feet. No annoyed updates about your daughter kicking at impossible hours.
Nothing.
And he hated how quickly his life still bent around checking anyway.
He told himself he was respecting what you asked for. Space. Distance. Whatever that conversation had become.
But respecting it did not stop the constant thought:
Did you eat? Did you nap? Did you try reaching something too high alone? Did you walk too long because no one was there to stop you?
The worst part was that last look on your face kept replaying.
Because your mouth had said I don’t need you but your eyes had looked devastated even before he left.
And Seungcheol knew you. Knew the way you lied when scared. Knew the way your voice sharpened when what you really wanted was the opposite.
He had wanted to believe anger would fade and you would call.
You didn’t. So by the time the second week ended, he had become restless in ways even work could not cover.
Wonwoo noticed it immediately. How could he not when Seungcheol was practically moping.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Wonwoo asks when he sees his friend glaring, again, at his laptop. A common expression Cheol wears nowadays.
“Nothing”
“Mhm, and I have 20/20 vision. Surely this is about Y/N”
Cheol visible tenses at the mention of your name, a reaction Wonwoo didn’t miss.
“Did you two fight?” he asks
“No”
Wonwoo rolls his eyes, taking a seat infront of Seungcheol’s desk. Determined to get some answers.
“Okay, let me rephrase that. Is she avoiding you? Because you’ve been staying after hours here which you havent done in like 8 months. So either she’s not answering you or you finally decided this one sided relationship isn’t workling”
Seungcheol looks up from his laptop to glare at his friend, making Wonwoo chuckle.
“There it is, I’m guessing the first option then?”
“Don’t you have work?”
“Yes, but I’ve heard 3 people say they’re scared to approach you because you have this permanent scowl on. I had to see it for myself”
Cheol only rolls his eyes, “People need to get a life”
“And you need to grow a spine, what are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
Wonwoo gestures all over, “You, this, her. Don’t tell me you’re actually staying away when she needs you the most”
Silence.
“So secrets and silent treatment. You’re really something you know that”
“You didn’t see the way she looked at me, she told me to go”
“And you did?”
For a second the two men just stared at each other, because Wonwoo could not believe that this is the same man who considered committing a crime the moment he heard about the cheating issue.
The same man who hunts down sweet potatoes at midnight, buys candied grapes and goes to every doctor’s appointment.
The same man who thought loving someone could be a burden to them so he’d rather suffer in silence.
“You could have done that months ago, Cheol. But you didn’t. And whether or not you plan to admit it, you love her. Leaving was never an option for you, not back then so why now?”
Seungcheol can only stay silent because he didn’t have the answer to that. Or maybe he did, he just can’t admit it yet.
“You’re taking away her freedom to decide her own feelings the same way you’re stopping yourself from feeling your own. Don’t destroy a good thing just because you’re scared”
That evening he was driving home after work, Wonwoo’s words from earlier still playing in his head.
One hand loose on the wheel, exhaustion sitting heavy behind his eyes, and then your name lit up his dashboard.
Everything in him reacted instantly. He answered before the second ring.
“Hello?” Already expecting your voice.
Instead “Is this… Choi Seungcheol?” A stranger.
Immediate cold through his chest.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“I’m calling from the emergency contact listed on Ms. Y/L/N’s phone”
His grip tightened so hard his knuckles blanched. The car nearly drifted before he corrected sharply
“What happened?”
“She was brought in a little while ago. She collapsed.”
Everything after that came in fragments. Hospital name. Neighbor. Pale. Unresponsive briefly.
He did not even remember the drive fully afterward, red lights felt like an insult, hands shaking on the steering wheel.
The violent rhythm of one thought:
No. No. No.
By the time he reached the hospital, he was already halfway running.
Reception barely finished your name before he was asking where. A nurse met him outside the maternity ward.
“She’s stable right now”
And still that wasn not enough to calm him.
“What happened?”
“She apparently went to a neighbor saying she felt dizzy. Then she collapsed before sitting down. They rushed her to the ER about an hour ago”
His jaw tightened “And the baby?”
The nurse glanced at the chart
“There was fetal distress for a while. Her blood pressure dropped badly when she came in. We were concerned about early labor because contractions started briefly.”
His chest went cold “But they stopped?”
“For now.”
For now. Words he hated immediately.
“She’s severely exhausted. Dehydrated too.”
That one hit hardest because guilt arrived instantly, sharp and deserved.
The nurse continued gently “She needs proper monitoring tonight. Stress likely contributed”
Stress. He almost laughed bitterly because the source of that word felt too obvious.
Him leaving. You alone. Two weeks of pretending fine.
He looked through the glass before entering and the anger turned fully inward.
You looked small. Too small. Far too pale against white sheets. One hand resting weakly over the blanket near your stomach like even asleep your body stayed searching for reassurance.
The monitor beside you beeped steadily.
Your daughter’s heartbeat audible now. Soft, fast, alive. The sound nearly took his knees because for days he had imagined worse without permission.
Now hearing it made everything inside him loosen and tighten at once.
He stepped inside quietly. The chair beside your bed scraped softly when he pulled it close.
Your face looked thinner somehow in only two weeks or maybe guilt made everything harsher.
He sat then leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped tight enough to hurt.
He’s mad, mostly at himself because the memory came immediately. The lie in your eyes and he had still left because you asked.
He should have known better, should have ignored pride, should have checked anyway sooner. Should have come back the next morning, and the next, and the next.
Instead he gave distance to someone who never knew when to stop carrying too much alone.
A slight movement then your eyes opened slowly. It took two seconds before focus reached him.
Immediately the tears gathered before you even spoke.
“Don’t.” His voice came lower than intended as if stopping apology before it started
“Cheol…” the name came weak
And he hated how much relief that tiny sound gave him.
He stood immediately, leaning close
“Why didn’t you call?”
“I was fine” The lie was so automatic he nearly exhaled in disbelief.
He stared then softer, more broken than angry
“No, you weren’t.”
Your eyes filled fully now because of course that sentence hurt when spoken like that.
The monitor kept its steady rhythm. He looked once toward your stomach then back at you.
“The nurse said she was in distress”
That made your hand move instinctively to your belly, small panic in your face.
“She’s okay?”
“She’s okay.”He said it immediately.
You shut your eyes briefly in relief. One tear slipped anyway.
He saw it and something inside him gave way. All remaining anger dissolved into something rawer.
He reached without thinking. His hand covering yours where it rested over the blanket.
And your fingers trembled beneath his.
His voice lowered “You scared me.”
“I didn’t mean—” “I know.”
“But you don’t get to disappear and collapse alone because you’re trying to prove something.”
Your throat tightened “I wasn’t trying to prove anything.”
He looked at you for a long moment then finally said what had sat bitter for days
“Then why did you look at me like I was someone you had to lose before I even left?”
That silenced you completely.
Inside that small room, the distance of two weeks suddenly sat between both of you like something breathing.
And yet his hand never left yours.
Not even once.
And when your daughter kicked suddenly beneath his palm through the blanket, sharp enough both of you felt it, his jaw tightened unexpectedly, eyes lowering there.
A tiny reminder.
Alive.
Still fighting too.
He closed his fingers slightly over your hand.
And for the first time since arriving, his voice broke just enough to show how close panic had truly come.
“Don’t do that to me again.”
Because he already knew he would not survive another phone call like that.
By then you were sitting up slightly, pillows stacked behind your back, hospital blanket gathered around your lap, one hand still trembling where his had not left it.
Seungcheol stayed close, chair pulled near enough that his knees almost touched the bed. Still watching you like if he blinked too long you might disappear again.
You looked at him. Tears were already falling before words even came snd when you spoke, your voice sounded fragile enough that he straightened instantly
“You deserve more than this…”
His brows pulled together “What?”
More tears. You shook your head once, as if even saying it aloud hurt.
“More than me.”
Immediate confusion crossed his face, but before he could interrupt you kept going, words tumbling now because if you stopped you knew you would lose courage.
“You’re sacrificing too much of your life for me.”
He opened his mouth.
You kept speaking “For this baby…”
Your voice cracked harder there
“For someone else’s—” “Don’t.” Sharp enough to stop you instantly.
Not angry. Just immediate. Firm.
“Don’t say that.”
His face had changed completely now. No hesitation, no caution, no polite restraint left. Only certainty.
“She’s yours,” he said, voice low but unwavering. “And that’s all that matters.”
His eyes held yours now in a way that gave you nowhere to hide.
“I don’t care about anything else.”
Then the words finally came, stripped clean and terrifyingly simple:
“I love you.”
And because truth once started rarely stopped neatly, he added softly
“I love her too.” That did it.
Whatever fragile control you still had shattered completely.
You broke.
A sob escaped so suddenly it shook through your whole chest. Then another.
Then your shoulders were trembling hard enough he moved immediately, standing, leaning in, pulling you carefully into him without disturbing the monitors.
One arm around your back. One hand at the back of your head. Careful of every wire, every ache, every fragile part of you.
And you cried into him like something finally allowed to collapse after months of holding itself upright.
His voice dropped softer instantly “Hey… hey…”
The tone he always used when calming you. Only now it carried relief too and something almost trembling underneath.
Because he had said it. Finally. And you had not pushed him away.
He eased back just enough to see your face.
One hand lifting carefully, thumb brushing tears from your cheeks.
And somehow even like this you looked at him with something so raw it made his own expression soften further.
His smile came small. The kind smile he wore only when emotion hit him deeper than words.
“There’s this selfish part of my brain…”
He waited.
You looked down because admitting it felt shameful and impossible all at once.
“…that hates that”
His brows shifted “Hates what?”
“That she’s not yours”
The confession came broken ad once spoken, you forced yourself through the rest.
“That you’re so ready to love her… and some awful selfish part of me hates that she isn’t yours”
For a second he only stared. Then something almost warm—almost amused through emotion—touched his mouth.
Because of course even now you thought love obeyed blood first.
And he asked quietly “Who says she’s not mine?”
he leaned slightly closer still smiling, faint but certain now.
“Who says she isn’t mine?”
Your breath caught “Cheol…”
“I’m serious. I don’t care whose name is buried in biology.”
Your tears started again immediately because no one had ever said something that frighteningly gentle to you before.
No one had ever chosen this clearly.
He looked down briefly, hand moving to your stomach where your daughter rested beneath the blanket.
“She moves when I talk.” A tiny smile.
“She kicks hardest when you’re stubborn.” Another glance at you.
“I already worry when you skip one meal like the world is ending.”
Then back to your eyes.
“So tell me honestly—what part of this doesn’t already feel mine too?”
That was when your sob returned harder.
Because the answer was nothing.
Nothing about him had ever felt halfway.
He loved like it had already decided for him months ago.
“I’ve been trying so hard not to say this because I thought loving you while you were carrying someone else’s child was selfish.”
You stared. He gave one breath of humorless disbelief.
“But apparently I’m past pretending that matters.”
A tear slipped down his own face this time “I was ready long before today.”
You reached for him before thinking. Hands catching his shirt again, pulling him close because distance suddenly felt unbearable.
He came easily. Forehead against yours. Arms around you carefully.
And when your daughter kicked again between you, he laughed softly against your temple.
“There,” he murmured.
“She agrees.”
You cried and laughed at once, which only made him smile wider. Then he kissed your forehead. Kissed your cheeks, once, twice, making you smile.
This time it didn’t looked forced or fake, just… you.
You closed the distance between the two of you, kissing him softly. Like even now you’re unsure if you deserve this but of course he could read you.
So he reached up, gently cupping for your face before kissing you deeply, fully. Like he meant everything, keeping them all as vows to you.
And in that small hospital room, with monitors still humming and your body still weak and exhausted something quietly became whole.
Not perfect. Not easy.
But chosen.
Entirely chosen.
His hand never left your stomach after that.
As if he had already decided exactly where he belonged
=
By 37 weeks, everything had started looking like a countdown.
In the nursery door that stayed half open because both of you kept wandering in just to look.
The folded blankets stacked too neatly, tiny bottles lined like careful soldiers.
The crib Seungcheol had assembled himself after refusing help, despite cursing quietly at the instruction manual for nearly an hour because apparently one screw had offended him personally.
and the fact that his car now carried a professionally installed infant seat he had checked so many times the straps practically knew his hands.
Seungcheol no longer moved through days casually. Everything now had purpose.
Routes to the hospital memorized. Fastest route at noon. Fastest route at night. Backup route if traffic stalled.
Hospital parking entrance. Emergency entrance. Even which convenience store nearby stayed open twenty-four hours.
He had catalogued it all silently like preparing for something sacred.
And because neither of you bothered pretending anymore, he was simply staying with you now.
His things had just begun appearing naturally. A charger by your bed, shirts folded in your laundry basket, toothbrush beside yours, his watch on your kitchen counter.
And you did not mind.
Tonight the two of you sat cross-legged on the nursery floor, hospital bag open between you.
Tiny baby clothes spread like impossibly small evidence that very soon there would be an actual person here.
Your daughter.
A whole human.
And somehow that reality hit harder now than ever before.
You picked up one of the newborn shirts and just stared. It was absurdly tiny. The sleeves looked unreal. The neck opening looked like it belonged to a doll.
Your eyes immediately softened in that dangerous emotional way he had learned meant tears were near.
“Oh my God…”
Seungcheol looked up from where he was folding receiving blankets badly
“What”
You held up the shirt like proof of some impossible fact
“She’s supposed to fit in this?”
He glanced at it then at your face and smiled.
There it was again, that expression lately where wonder and fear collided in you at the same time. You looked half amazed, half on the edge of crying.
“It’s so tiny.” Your voice had already gone softer
He reached beside him and picked up a white onesie. Held it by the shoulders.
The entire thing was barely longer than his forearm. He turned it slightly, disbelief finally showing in his face too.
“…That can’t be real.”
You laughed “It is real.”
He frowned lightly at the fabric like it personally challenged logic
“Our daughter fits inside this?”
“She’s supposed to”
He looked unconvinced then found one mitten from the pile. Held it in his palm completely flat. Tiny enough that it barely covered the center of his hand.
He stared for a full second. Then exhaled something halfway between disbelief and wonder.
“This is criminally small.”
That one tiny thing. Too small. Too delicate.
His eyes shifted back to you “Hey”
You wiped under one eye quickly
“I’m fine.”
“Liar.”
You smiled weakly “I spent months imagining this and now suddenly… t feels terrifying”
He shifted closer automatically “Terrifying because?”
“What if I don’t know what I’m doing?” The honesty came quietly now
“What if she cries and I don’t know why? What if I do something wrong? What if—”
“You will”
That made you look up immediately. He smiled.
“You’ll do something wrong eventually”
“Cheol”
“So will I”
He set the mitten aside, reached for another tiny sock. Held it between his fingers.
“This small person is going to humble both of us”
That made your mouth twitch despite yourself.
He continued softer “We’ll still figure it out.”
You looked at him for a long second because he said things like that now so naturally, as if there had never been any doubt he belonged in every version of what came next.
He picked up the sock again
“She has feet small enough for this?”
You laughed through the last tear
“She currently kicks like she has full adult legs.”
“That part I know.”
As if summoned by the conversation, your stomach shifted visibly. A kick. Then another.
He smiled down “See? Already violent.”
“She gets that from you.”
“Impossible.”
“You assembled a crib like it insulted your family.”
“The crib started it.”
You laughed properly this time.
=
It happened on the one night he finally slept.
Of course it did.
After days of living like a man waiting beside a fire alarm, exhaustion had finally caught him hard enough that sometime after midnight he dropped into real sleep.
The kind he had been denying himself for nearly two weeks.
You noticed because for once his breathing stayed deep. A faint snore every now and then, soft enough it almost made you smile despite the hour.
One arm still draped over you automatically, heavy across your side even in sleep, palm resting near your stomach as if his body refused to fully let go even unconscious.
The room was dark except for the city light slipping through curtains.
Then you felt it. At first just tightening. A familiar hard pull across your abdomen.
Enough that your eyes opened.
Weeks of false alarms so you breathed through it, one hand automatically pressing low over your stomach.
Still half convinced this was nothing. Still telling yourself not to overreact.
You almost closed your eyes again.
Then another came and this time the pressure stayed longer.
A deeper ache blooming down your back.
You shifted carefully.
A clean pain that made your whole body jolt before you could stop it. Your hand grabbed the blanket instinctively.
You turned immediately. Seungcheol still asleep beside you. You almost hesitated because after days of no sleep he looked painfully tired.
Then another tightening built again. Stronger.
You nudged his shoulder
“Cheol” Nothing.
Another wave. Stronger now.
You nudged harder.
“Cheol”
Still half asleep, he made a low sound but did not wake fully then the pain sharpened enough that your voice changed.
“Cheol.” That did it. His eyes opened instantly.
“What?” Then he saw your face and every trace of sleep vanished.
“What happened?”
Your hand was gripping the blanket now
“I—” Another tightening interrupted you
His whole body straightened immediately
“Is it pain?” You nodded once
“How bad?”
“I don’t know—”
“When did it start?”
“A little while ago.”
His expression changed so fast it almost looked unreal. He pushed upright instantly, hand already on your arm.
“How long is a little while?”
“I thought it was normal”
He glanced immediately at the bedside clock. He was out of bed before you finished breathing.
Phone in hand. Lights on. The room suddenly bright.
“What are you doing?” you asked, still trying to sit up
“Timing.”
“Cheol—” “No, absolutely not, timing first.”
His phone is already open. Already kneeling beside the bed. Watching your face with terrifying focus.
“When it stops, tell me”
You almost laughed if it did not hurt because he looked exactly like someone waiting for an exam result.
Another wave passed. You exhaled.
“It stopped”
He checked the timer.
“How far apart was the first one?”
“I didn’t check” Of course you didn’t.
He inhaled through his nose once, fighting panic.
“Okay. Fine. Fine.”
Then another contraction started and your face changed enough that he saw it before you spoke. Immediately he reached for your hand.
“There?”
You squeezed hard “Yes”
He looked at the timer again like the seconds personally offended him. Then after it eased, he stared.
Thirty seconds. Too real now.
He looked at you. You looked back.
And for one suspended second both of you understood together:
This might actually be it.
Your voice came smaller now.
“Cheol…” And he hated how fear sat under your tone immediately.
So whatever panic existed inside him got shoved down fast. His voice softened. Very steady now, even if his pulse was chaos.
“Okay. Okay. We’re okay.”
Another breath.
“We’re just checking. No panic yet.”
You blinked because he said no panic while very clearly already panicking.
He stood, then immediately leaned back down and kissed your forehead. Quick. Grounding himself too.
“Can you stand?” You nodded.
He still helped carefully anyway, one arm around you like glass. The second your feet touched the floor another pressure came and he froze
“You sure you can walk?”
“Yes.”
“You look pale.”
“I’m pregnant.”
Twenty minutes later, the room no longer felt like the quiet apartment you had left.
Now everything smelled faintly clinical. White light overhead. Monitors humming. Footsteps beyond the hallway.
A nurse moving in and out with practiced calm that somehow made everything feel even more real.
And the contractions, those had fully announced themselves. Low, deep, wrapping around your entire middle and down your back until breathing became something you had to consciously fight for.
You were in the hospital bed but not really resting on it, half upright because staying still somehow felt worse, one hand gripping the railing hard enough your knuckles had gone pale.
Your other hand had not left Seungcheol’s once.
Another contraction built. Your grip crushed his hand.
“Breathe.”
You exhaled sharply through your teeth.
“You’re annoying.”
“That means you’re still functioning.”
Another wave climbed. You bent slightly forward, gripping the rail harder. Eyes squeezed shut.
The contraction sharpened hard enough that a frustrated sound left your throat.
And because pain stripped filters faster than anything you muttered through clenched teeth:
“I hate that I can’t even blame you right now.”
“You can blame me if it makes you feel better.”
You opened one eye enough to glare weakly
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
Another pulse hit and your fingers nearly bent his hand backward. He did not react except to move closer so you had more of him to hold onto.
“This is entirely your fault,” you said through another breath
“I accept that”
“You’re way too calm”
“I am not calm”
And that was true. Only his face had learned how to lie better than his pulse. Because inside, he was nowhere near calm. Every time your expression tightened, something inside him tightened too.
Every time you inhaled sharply, his own breathing changed.
He hated that he could do so little beyond stay.
The nurse came, checked monitors, murmured something about progress, and left again. Then another contraction arrived before you had fully recovered from the last one.
This one stronger. Longer.
And when it eased enough for speech, you muttered with deadly seriousness:
“Next time…”
He already knew pain meant dangerous statements were coming. Still he smiled.
“What next time?”
You pointed weakly at him while still breathing hard.
“Pinch me if I say I want another kid.”
That made him laugh again, fuller now. A real laugh that softened immediately when another pain flickered through your face.
“You’re deciding this now?”
“Yes.”
“During active labor?”
“This is the clearest I’ve ever thought in my life.”
He leaned closer, brushing damp hair gently from your forehead.
“I’ll remember the exact quote.”
“Don’t let me romanticize anything later.”
“Noted.”
“Don’t try and change my mind with your stupid handsome face”
He only chuckles, rubbing your back soothingly.
Then quieter, more tired now
“This hurts so much.”
There it was. The honest sentence underneath all the humor. Immediately his expression softened completely. The smile faded into something gentler.
He leaned close enough his forehead brushed yours.
“I know.”
Not ‘I know’ because he understood pain because he didn’t. But ‘I know’ because he saw it.
Every second.
And hated every part he could not remove.
Another kiss to your forehead.
“You’re doing so well.”
You gave him a look that clearly said you did not feel well. Still, his hand stayed steady around yours.
Then his eyes flicked once toward the monitor, the rhythm of your daughter’s heartbeat.
And for a moment emotion hit him quietly enough that his next words came softer than before.
“She’s almost here.”
And then just like that after hours that felt endless and somehow too fast at once, after pain and breath and trembling hands and nurses moving around you and Seungcheol never once letting go—
the room changed.
A cry. Sharp. Small.
The kind of sound that split everything before it into before and after.
For one suspended second nobody moved inside Seungcheol’s chest because his whole body forgot how.
Then the cry came again.
Louder. Alive.
And suddenly the world narrowed to one impossible truth: your daughter was here.
He had imagined this moment for months and still nothing had prepared him for the first time he saw her.
So small she almost looked unreal. Wrapped carefully in a soft pink blanket. A tiny newborn beanie tied with a ribbon so oversized it looked absurdly precious, almost larger than the top of her head.
Her face—God.
That face.
Tiny nose. Eyes still squeezed shut. Cheeks soft and unmistakably yours. So unmistakably yours it made something in him ache instantly.
And when the nurse placed her briefly where he could see her properly, he felt it land all at once with absolute certainty.
Only one clean overwhelming fact… that he would love this little girl for the rest of his life with the same terrifying certainty he had for you.
Maybe because she came from you. Maybe because he had already been loving her before seeing her.
Maybe because the second she existed in front of him, something in him recognized her immediately.
The nurses moved gently around you while checking everything, murmuring soft instructions.
And because you needed those few moments to breathe they placed her in his arms.
Seungcheol took her like something sacred. Both hands instinctively careful. Broad arms suddenly impossibly gentle.
The weight startled him. Warm. Tiny. Fragile enough that he instinctively held his breath.
Her whole body fit against him like she had always belonged there.
Her little face tucked under the pink blanket, mouth opening slightly as if still deciding whether to protest existence again.
His voice, when it came, was softer than anyone in the room had probably ever heard it.
“Hi.”
The word barely above a whisper. Her tiny face twitched, one fist moved under the blanket.
He laughed softly through his nose, eyes already warmer than usual
“So…” a tiny pause “Nice to finally meet you.”
His thumb brushed lightly over the edge of the blanket near her cheek, careful not to disturb her.
She made another tiny sound.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, by the way.”
He shifted slightly in the chair beside your bed, angling her instinctively so she stayed supported perfectly.
“Mostly that you kick like you own every room you’re in.”
Another tiny movement. He looked almost fascinated.
“As of last month, you also apparently hated your mother sleeping.”
From the bed, you watched through tired eyes, too exhausted to fully smile but unable not to.
Because seeing him like this, seeing the way his entire face had softened around her felt almost unreal. He continued quietly, like introducing himself mattered even if she understood none of it yet.
“I’m Seungcheol” His mouth twitched slightly at how formal that sounded.
Then softer, “I know you’ll probably figure that out later.”
One finger barely touched her hand through the blanket. Her tiny fingers shifted reflexively.
And when one curled around the edge of his finger… he went silent.
Completely.
Because that one tiny reflex nearly ruined him.
His throat moved once before he found words again.
“So that’s how it is.” He looked down like she had already personally negotiated terms.
“You hold on the first day and expect me to survive this?”
His voice had gone even quieter now. As if the room disappeared and it was only him and this tiny new person who had somehow arrived already rearranging him.
He glanced toward you then. Saw your eyes on him and whatever he felt deepened further because now both of you were here safe.
He looked back at her then continued like he was telling her secrets already.
“Your mother is stubborn” You made a weak, offended sound from the bed. He smiled without looking up
“She doesn’t eat on time unless someone watches her.”
Another tiny pause.
“She also pretends she doesn’t need help when she absolutely does.”
Your tired voice came soft “She can hear you.”
“I know.”
Then to your daughter again
“You’ll learn that quickly.”
His thumb brushed her cheek this time, impossibly gently.
“And you should know she’s the bravest person I know.”
He looked at your daughter as though already making promises she would not understand for years.
“I’m going to love you very well, okay?” His voice almost broke there, just enough that he cleared it quietly after.
“Both of you.”
The baby shifted again, mouth puckering. He leaned closer immediately like every tiny movement now mattered.
“No pressure. You just got here.”
And for the first time since the cry that changed everything. Seungcheol looked completely at peace.
Like all the routes memorized, sleepless nights, fear, waiting, hospital bags, tiny onesies. all of it had led precisely here.
Your daughter had settled against him in that tiny pink blanket, ribbon tilted slightly now, one cheek pressed into the fold near his chest.
She looked impossibly small there. Like she belonged in a photograph more than real life.
And he kept looking at her like he still hadn’t fully accepted she existed outside imagination.
His thumb moved once along the blanket edge. Then stopped.
His eyes stayed on her tiny face when he said quietly
“One day…”
Another small pause.
“One day, when you think I deserve it…”
His voice lowered further.
“So I’ll earn it first” He swallowed once, barely noticeable
Then with that same quiet honesty that made every word land heavier:
“I can be your appa.”
The sentence sat in the room gently. Just simple truth offered like a promise he did not want to force into existence before she chose him herself.
He looked down at her tiny hand tucked near the blanket.
“For now…”
A faint smile touched his mouth, sad only because it carried too much tenderness.
“I’ll be whatever you want me to be.”
His finger adjusted the edge of the blanket under her chin.
“Whatever you need me to be, okay?”
The baby made a tiny sleepy sound, mouth twitching like she objected to being spoken to during important newborn business.
That made him smile properly again. A small breath of laughter left him.
“Very demanding already.”
He leaned closer, voice nearly a whisper now.
“So grow up well.”
Another pause.
“That’s all you have to do.”
He looked at her like he meant every word as contract, prayer, and vow all at once.
“Grow healthy.”
“Sleep properly.”
“Don’t scare your mother too much.”
From the bed your tired voice came hoarse but amused:
“Why is that the third thing?”
Without missing a beat he answered softly “Because I already know you’ll both team up against me.”
You almost smiled despite how exhausted every muscle felt then his eyes returned to the baby again.
And whatever humor had touched his mouth softened into something deeper.
“I’ll handle the rest.”
The kind of promise made without needing witness. He shifted slightly, careful to support her head better though she had barely moved.
Then continued, almost as if explaining the world to someone who had arrived late to it.
“You don’t have to hurry for anything. Take your time. No one’s waiting for you to become anything except yourself.”
A tiny breath from her. He watched even that like it mattered.
“And if you cry, cry.”
“If you’re stubborn…” his mouth twitched, “well, clearly that’s inherited.”
You made a weak sound of protest again.
“But if something hurts… tell me first.”
That one hit differently because it came from somewhere old. Something private. Something protective enough to sound almost fragile.
He lifted his gaze then—finally toward you. You had been watching him the entire time.
There was something almost shy in his face now, like he hadn’t expected you to hear all of it. But he did not look away.
Instead he glanced back down at her and added, quieter:
“Your mother worked hardest bringing you here.”
His thumb brushed the baby’s tiny shoulder through the blanket.
“So if you love anyone first, make it her.”
Of course that was what he chose to teach first.
Not himself.
You.
Then he leaned his head slightly toward the baby, voice almost conspiratorial now:
“But later, if you decide I’m acceptable…”
A faint smile.
“I’m very available.”
That tiny sleepy fist shifted again near his chest.
He stared like she had answered.
And for a long moment neither of you spoke.
Just watched him there, broad shoulders bent protectively around someone so tiny, face softer than you had ever seen it, every part of him already rearranged around fatherhood even before he dared fully claim the word.
=
Two years later, mornings had become their own kind of beautiful chaos.
The apartment no longer stayed neat for more than ten minutes. Soft blocks under the sofa. Picture books stacked crookedly near the living room rug. A stuffed rabbit face-down beside the hallway. Tiny socks appearing in places neither of you remembered putting them.
The dining table had permanently changed too.
One side still yours and his.
The other now occupied by a small boosted high chair strapped carefully into place, a pastel plate already waiting there, divided into tiny sections because apparently food touching each other had become a serious offense this month.
A matching pastel cup sat beside it with a bent straw. Half a banana already sliced. A tiny spoon with cartoon clouds.
The morning light poured through the kitchen window while you stood beside Seungcheol at the counter, hair clipped up lazily, still mid-sentence about groceries.
“I’m telling you, if we buy fruit from that other place it’s cheaper but somehow worse by the next day.” You were slicing strawberries while talking
He stood beside you cracking eggs into a bowl with the kind of efficiency that had only come from two years of learning how to cook one-handed while carrying a child.
“Because you keep buying too much at once.”
“We have a child who eats strawberries like she’s funding the industry.”
“She eats three and then demands yogurt.”
“Yesterday she ate seven.”
“Yesterday she was negotiating.”
You laughed softly.
Because yes your daughter negotiated meals now. Negotiated bedtime. Negotiated socks. Negotiated whether the moon looked tired.
And somehow Seungcheol took every negotiation like he was speaking to a board member rather than a toddler.
Toys littered the floor behind him. Domestic evidence everywhere.
Proof of two years. Proof of staying. Proof that somewhere between labor and sleepless nights and first fevers and first birthdays and first steps… this had quietly become home in every possible sense.
You were about to continue your story about nearly forgetting milk when it came. That small voice from down the hall.
Still sleepy, still carrying that little morning rasp toddlers had when they had only just woken up.
“Appaaaaaaa…” It floated down the hallway like a ritual now. Daily.
And still every single time it landed exactly the same.
Both of you paused because no matter how many mornings passed, that voice calling for him first always did something immediate.
You looked up first. He already had that expression. That automatic softness. That helpless almost-smile he had never learned to hide.
Again came the call, louder now, impatient because apparently one response delay of three seconds was unacceptable.
“Appaaaaaa—!” and then tiny footsteps. Unsteady only in the way toddlers still ran like their bodies slightly outran their balance.
Then she appeared.
Little Aera.
Little Choi Aera.
Hair wild from sleep, one side flattened, the other sticking out because she had clearly turned half the night. Pink pajamas wrinkled. Bare feet pattering against the floor. One hand rubbing her eye. The other clutching the ear of her stuffed rabbit by force rather than affection.
And the second she saw him arms lifted immediately. Without hesitation, without acknowledging you first because priorities remained offensively clear.
“Appa.” this one softer now
Seungcheol did not even pretend resistance. He put the whisk down immediately and bent to lift her, one smooth practiced motion like he had done this thousands of times which he had.
She landed against him automatically, head finding his shoulder like instinct.
Still half asleep. Still warm from bed and the second she settled there, one tiny hand patted his cheek as if confirming possession.
You leaned against the counter watching “Good morning to me too, apparently.”
Aera lifted her face just enough to look at you then smiled, tiny and mischievous already.
“Eomma.”
You narrowed your eyes “Oh, now I exist.”
“She’s strategic,” Seungcheol said, already rubbing her back lightly
Aera’s attention returned fully to him. Hair in his face now because she tucked closer.
And then with complete seriousness “Appa carry.”
He looked down at her, amused “I’m already carrying you.”
She considered that. Accepted it then pointed toward the stove.
“Egg.”
“You want egg?” A nod
“No green.”
You laughed immediately because yesterday’s spinach incident had apparently left scars.
“She remembers everything inconvenient.”
Aera ignored you both and simply stayed attached to him, one arm looped around his neck now while she blinked herself more awake.
And watching her there, small face still soft with babyhood despite how much toddler had arrived, it hit again, the quiet impossibility of time.
Because this was the same baby wrapped once in pink with a ribbon bigger than her head. The same tiny fist that curled around his finger before she understood anything.
The same little girl he had once whispered to:
Grow well.
And she had. God, she had.
She grew loud. Bright. Curious. Possessive over crayons. Demanding bedtime stories twice. Laughing with your eyes. Sulking with his mouth.
And somehow despite that night he once whispered love your mother first—this little girl had chosen her own order very early.
Because her first word had not been eomma. Not milk. Not ball.
It had been Appa.
Clear. Certain. Repeated endlessly ever since.
As if she had decided on her own that the man who once asked permission to deserve the title would simply have to accept he already belonged there.
Aera suddenly lifted her head again. One small palm on his cheek.
“Appa.”
“What?”
She whispered with deep toddler importance “Dream monster.”
You blinked “Oh no.”
Seungcheol instantly serious, because dream monsters were legal matters in this household.
“Still there?”
Aera nodded solemnly.
He looked toward the hallway like he might personally investigate.
“I’ll talk to it later.”
Satisfied, she leaned back down immediately. Problem solved.
You watched him kiss her hair absentmindedly while reaching one-handed to lower the stove heat.
So natural now. So far from the careful uncertainty of that hospital night.
And for a second you remembered his voice then. ‘One day, when you think I deserve it, I can be your appa.’
Meanwhile now your daughter refused breakfast unless he sat beside her. Demanded his shirt when upset. Called his name before fully opening her eyes.
And wore his acceptance of fatherhood like it had never once been in question.
Aera suddenly spotted the strawberries.
“Mine.”
You pointed at the chair “Sit first.”
“No.”
“Sit first.”
She turned to Seungcheol instantly, because appeals court existed.
“Appa.”
He tried not to laugh “Sit first.”
Her tiny face shifted into offended disbelief at united parenting then reluctantly he lowered her into the boosted chair.
She crossed her arms dramatically.
Miniature outrage. Exactly like him, unfortunately.
You slid her plate over.
She stared at it then announced “No green.”
“No green,” you repeated patiently, because yes, this would be today’s law again.
Seungcheol sat beside her, handing the tiny spoon over.
And Aera—still suspicious—finally accepted breakfast because her hand stayed touching his sleeve while eating. The way children touched people they trusted most without realizing they were doing it.
And across the table, you looked at them both. Your husband who once asked for permission to be called father, and little Choi Aera who had answered long ago by never calling him anything else.
And there you thought quietly, she had grown exactly as asked. Well loved, well held, and entirely certain where home was.
=
It happened on a day so ordinary it almost felt insulting afterward.
Late afternoon sunlight.
Aera in one of her little cotton dresses, shoes already dirty because she had decided the sandbox and grass and pavement all deserved equal attention.
The park crowded enough to feel lively. Parents talking, strollers passing, children shrieking somewhere near the swings.
One of those normal days you had come to love because normal had once felt impossible.
Aera was a few steps away near the little climbing structure, fully focused on carrying three leaves and one pebble like they were priceless treasure.
Seungcheol had gone to the kiosk by the path because Aera had demanded juice and then changed her mind twice before he left.
You stayed near the bench, eyes always on her even while half distracted by your phone.
Then someone stopped in front of you.
At first, it was only a shadow then a voice you had not heard in years.
Your name.
Everything in your body tightened before your mind fully caught up.
You looked up.
And there he was.
Older. Slightly rougher around the face. Still carrying that same expression that once made excuses sound convincing until it no longer did.
Your ex.
The man who had disappeared when consequences became real.
The man who had known about the pregnancy, the man who had known exactly what he was walking away from.
And still walked.
For one second your throat closed.
Not fear. Not anymore.
Just disgust sharp enough to feel physical.
His eyes shifted immediately past you… to Aera.
And that alone made something cold move through your spine, the way he looked at her was not earned. Not after years. Not after absence.
“She’s…” He almost smiled like he had some right to recognition
“She’s mine, isn’t she?”
The sentence barely finished because another body stepped between you before you even stood, fast enough that you almost startled.
Seungcheol.
He must have seen him from the path. Juice still in one hand, the other already free. His whole body placed squarely in front of you before any thought even finished forming.
Protective in the most immediate, instinctive way.
When he spoke, his voice came low and flat enough that even you felt the warning in it.
“Leave.” Sharp enough that it landed harder than shouting.
Your ex looked irritated immediately like he believs old entitlement would work
“I’m talking to—” “Leave.”
Still frighteningly calm. And that calm was exactly what meant danger because Seungcheol angry rarely looked explosive at first.
It looked quiet.
Your ex looked past him toward Aera again and that was the mistake.
“That’s my d—”
“My daughter.” Seungcheol cut him off so cleanly the words barely survived
Not louder just absolute. He stepped half a fraction closer, enough that the distance vanished.
“Mine.”
Your ex opened his mouth again, offended now.
Biology ready on his tongue like a weapon he thought still mattered.
But Seungcheol did not let him reach it
“She was never yours.”
Each word landed colder now.
“The moment you cheated on her mother. The moment you walked away.”
Still not raising his voice and somehow harsher because of it.
“You do not get to disappear for years and suddenly show up because you saw a child in a park.”
The juice box in his hand crinkled slightly under pressure
“You don’t deserve shit”
Your ex gave a humorless laugh, defensive now “You can’t erase what she is”
“No,” Seungcheol said “But I can make sure she never knows disappointment wearing your face”
That sentence made even your breathing pause. The exact line between anger and promise.
And your ex heard it too and the arrogance thinned.
Still, tension climbed another step, and that was when you moved.
Not because Seungcheol was wrong or not because you disagreed but because Aera was ten feet away laughing to herself over a leaf crown and did not deserve this atmosphere attaching itself to her afternoon.
You touched Seungcheol’s arm.
“Cheol”
He did not move immediately.
You squeezed once more this time softer.
“Aera.” That worked.
Always her.
His eyes shifted instantly toward your daughter. Still oblivious. Still innocent in the way only children could be while adults dragged old damage into open air.
His shoulders stayed tight another second then loosened just enough.
Your ex noticed so he tried again “You never even told me—”
“I didn’t owe you anything.” this time you answered. Your own voice surprised even you.
No apology.
“You made your choice before she was even born”
He looked at you as if expecting softness that no longer existed.
“She should know who—”
“She knows exactly who her father is.”
You did not need to look at Seungcheol when you said it.
Because the truth stood beside you already.
Visible. Proven.
At scraped knees. At midnight fevers.At first words. At hospital beds.
No hesitation. No uncertainty. No confusion about where safety lived.
He bent automatically before she even reached him. Lifted her one-handed when she collided into his legs. She wrapped both arms around his neck instantly.
Still smiling “Juice?”
He took one breath.
By the time he answered her, his voice had completely changed. Warm again.
“Here, princess”
She noticed another person then, looked over his shoulder curiously at the stranger.
No recognition. Of course none.
Then she buried her face against Seungcheol’s shoulder instead. Choosing disinterest. Choosing home.
Your ex watched that and maybe for the first time understood there was nothing here available to reclaim.
No gap.
No vacancy.
No place where his absence had left room waiting.
Because another man had filled every inch of fatherhood so completely that even blood had become irrelevant.
Seungcheol adjusted Aera higher against him.
Then looked at him once more.
Final now.
“You heard her.”
A pause.
“Leave before she remembers your face.”
And that was what ended it because there was nothing left to argue against after that. Not when the child in question already had her arms around the man who had stayed.
Your ex lingered one second too long.
Then stepped back.
Turned.
Walked away.
No apology.
No redemption.
Just departure which suited him, really.
Aera lifted her head the second he disappeared.
Completely unconcerned.
“Juice now.”
You almost laughed from the absurd whiplash of it. Seungcheol finally exhaled properly.
You touched his wrist lightly.
“I’m okay”
Aera meanwhile had already taken the straw out herself badly and announced
“Appa mad?”
He blinked once then kissed her forehead.
“No.”
Tiny suspicious eyes “Little mad”
That made you laugh despite everything. And finally even he gave in, a short breath of laughter against her hair
“Little”
Then she nodded like that was acceptable, took her juice, and leaned against his shoulder again, entirely certain the world remained exactly as it should.
And whatever tension adults carried fading outside the borders of her small safe afternoon.
The tension didn’t disappear immediately.
It lingered the way difficult things always did. You could still feel it in the way Seungcheol sat a little too still when you returned to the bench.
But Aera, entirely untouched by adult history, climbed into his lap like the world had never shifted at all.
Juice box first. Then herself. One tiny knee planted on the bench.
Then a determined little wiggle until she settled sideways against his chest, perfectly comfortable. She tucked herself there automatically, like she had done it a thousand times.
Because she had.
Her straw between her lips. Juice held with both hands for exactly three seconds before one hand abandoned it to find him.
Always him.
Tiny fingers reaching without looking until they caught one of his. Then that familiar habit, her whole fist wrapping around a single finger of his like she genuinely believed that was enough to anchor him permanently in place.
Her tiny hand absurdly small against his.
She had done that since she was small enough to fit against one forearm.
Even now, older, heavier, taller still the same instinct. When she sat on his lap. When she got sleepy. When they sat in the car.
One hand always finding his finger.
Holding him there.
Seungcheol looked down at her hand too.
And you saw it happen that exact second his anger finally broke.
Melted cleanly.
Because she looked up right then, cheeks round from the straw still in her mouth, and pointed dramatically toward the path.
“Appa, see dog” A tiny white dog trotted past
He followed her gaze obediently
“I see.”
Another sip then instantly
“Appa look flower.” A crooked yellow flower near the bench
“I see that too”
Then she leaned back against him harder, still holding his finger hostage
“Appa hug”
She said it casually this time, not even asking just declaring what should happen. And immediately his free arm tightened around her middle, pulling her closer until her back rested fully against his chest.
You watched the transformation happen in real time.
The same man who minutes ago had looked capable of frightening grown men into silence now sat entirely dismantled by a child clutching one finger and narrating flowers and dogs.
“Appa.”
“What?”
She held up her juice proudly “Mine.”
“Clearly.”
You sat beside them watching quietly, and something inside your chest settled too.
In Aera’s world there had never been confusion, no complicated definitions, no bloodline questions. no late arrivals from old mistakes.
In her language, father had always sounded like one name.
One face. One lap. One hand big enough for her entire fist.
As though no other possibility had ever existed. And truly for her, it hadn’t.
The man from earlier had been a stranger in the park and nothing more.
Because love repeated daily becomes identity stronger than biology ever can.
And Seungcheol had repeated it every day until it became the most natural fact in her life.
=
Ever since that day—and truthfully, long before it—Seungcheol had become something you sometimes still struggled to explain properly because the word partner often felt too small for what he actually was.
He had become the person your life leaned toward naturally. In ways that only became obvious when you looked back and realized how much of daily life now rested on the quiet certainty of him being there.
Yes, he was a remarkable father to Aera. That much everyone saw easily.
The patience. The consistency.
The way he remembered tiny preferences no one else noticed.
How she only liked strawberries sliced a certain way, how she wanted the blue cup in the morning but forgot by lunch, how bedtime stories had to include unnecessary voices or she would protest.
The way he never treated care as help, but simply responsibility that belonged to him too.
Forms signed before you remembered they existed, medicine stocked before bottles emptied, tiny socks folded because apparently he believed there was a correct way to fold socks small enough to fit in one hand.
And more than that, the way he never once behaved as though fatherhood had been borrowed.
There was nothing performative in it.
Nothing temporary.
Just complete belonging.
But somehow, even while being all that for Aera, he had also become the place your own tiredness went first.
Your constant support in ways you had not realized you once lacked until you had it every day.
The person who noticed before you admitted exhaustion.
Someone who knew when your silence meant overstimulation and when it meant sadness, someone who handed you water before headaches started, and someone who learned exactly how your face changed when your patience ran thin and quietly took over before you had to ask.
Years together had not dulled that attentiveness.
If anything, it had sharpened.
Like tonight.
Aera finally asleep after an unnecessarily dramatic bedtime involving two stories, one rejected blanket, one accepted blanket, and a final debate over whether stuffed rabbits required water.
The apartment quiet now.
The day long enough that both of you carried that particular adult fatigue where conversation slowed. You stood in the kitchen rinsing the last cup.
Hair tied carelessly.
One of his shirts on because at some point your own clothes had become mixed so deeply with his that ownership stopped mattering.
And without warning warm hands settled at your waist from behind.
Close enough that his chest touched your back. His chin briefly resting near your shoulder.
“You missed one” His voice low, amused
You glanced downm, one spoon still in the sink
“I was getting there”
“Clearly”
He reached around you, turned off the tap, then stayed there anyway.
His hands stayed where they were. Warm. The kind of touch years never made ordinary.
You leaned back into him automatically.
Then, as naturally as breathing, he pressed a kiss just behind your ear. One that lingered just enough to make heat climb your neck anyway.
Even now. After years.
After hospital nights and grocery lists and shared bills and school schedules and arguments over whose turn it was to buy detergent.
Somehow simple affection still caught you off guard.
You exhaled quietly
“That still works?” His mouth curved against your skin.
“You tell me”
Another kiss this one lower. Near your neck. And ridiculous as it felt, you could already feel yourself blushing which he noticed immediately because of course he did.
A soft laugh “Years later and still.”
“Stop sounding proud”
“I am proud”
He turned you gently then until your back rested against the counter and he stood between your knees.
The same ease of someone who had always believed this space beside you belonged naturally to him.
Like a habit formed by love and time. And the truth was that space had become his.
Not because he claimed it.
His thumb brushed your cheek once.
“You’re tired.”
“So are you.”
“Mm.”
Then another kiss. This one properly yours. The kind reserved only for late nights after ordinary days.
When he pulled back, only slightly, you stayed close enough to feel his breath.
“You know,” you murmured, “you’ve ruined men for me permanently”
That earned a quiet grin “A little late to compare now”
“I’m serious”
“I know” Because he did know.
You had told him before in different words.
That he had raised your standards so high they now existed somewhere unreasonable.
That after him, love no longer looked like grand effort but steady presence.
That after him, affection meant someone who noticed.
Someone who stayed. Someone who kissed your forehead while reheating leftovers. Someone who knew exactly when to say nothing and simply stand near.
His hand slipped lower again, settling at your waist
“And yet,” he said softly, “you still blush like I’m doing something impressive”
“You say that like you’re not fully aware what you’re doing”
“I am”
That honesty made you laugh.
Of course he was aware.
He had learned exactly how to undo you in the smallest ways.
A kiss to the temple while passing by. A hand at your lower back in crowded rooms.
The way he always sat close enough that knees touched if space allowed.
How every shared couch somehow ended with your legs across him.
And always those kisses reserved differently when Aera was asleep, gentler, quieter, deliberate in a way that reminded you beneath parenthood and routines, he still saw you first too.
From the hallway came a tiny sleepy voice
“Appaaaa…”
Both of you froze then immediately laughed.
He kissed you once more quickly before stepping back.
Duty calling.
But not before murmuring against your mouth
“Save my spot”
Like there had ever been doubt. Like the place beside you had not already belonged there for years.
PAIRING: F.Reader x ot13
PACK MEMBER FOCUS: Seungcheol
PACK MEETING: You're having a hard time adjusting to your new pack. Good thing your head alpha knows exactly how to help you adapt.
REQUESTED BY: @peaspeas
REQUEST: Idek if this qualifies because I'm talking like, maybe pré-rules or before they were finalised formally but I want Seungcheol finding reader whenever she's eating and sitting with her and she has no idea why. If he shows up and she's already eating, he's like oh shit, panic to make up a reason that he needs to as well etc. Almost a sort of farcical comedy vibe? Both idiots ofc
WC: 5,135
RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It may contain explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.
PACK WARNINGS: Very mild angst like wouldn't even call it that, reader has some anxiety adjusting to a new pack, she's a little in her head, Seungcheol is a little shit, some vague references to hormones and adjusting to being near others, reader being lonely and feeling a little on the outside, both of them are kind of stupid lmfaooo but in a good way, some playful arguing at the end.
A/N: Moni this is not as cracky as it was supposed to be and didn't really notice to the end I'm saur sorry lmfaoooo. Also this is not beta read we die like men guys.
HOUSE RULES M. LIST | MAIN M. LIST | ASK
THE KITCHEN IS PAINTED IN SHADES OF BLUE AT 5:47 IN THE MORNING. As the only resident of said kitchen this early in the morning the past two weeks, you've learned that the pre-dawn light that spills through the wide windows above the sink turns everything soft and cool in the morning. The white subway tile back splash starts off a muted grey before the sun finally melts away the blue and turns it bright white each morning.
This morning, the honey-colored cabinets look muted, nearly colorless as the sun hides beyond the horizon. You take another bite of cereal, listening to the old house settle around you. The house has taken getting used to - not because it's ancient, but because it's old enough to feel lived in and have its own quirks of floorboards that squeak, doors that click shut because the hinges are a little loose, pipes that groan when one of the thirteen people upstairs showers late at night.
It's a big house. It has to be, to fit the pack of thirteen - fourteen now, including you. Six alphas, seven betas, and you. A single omega, new and a little out of your comfort zone as you try to figure the ins and outs of a pack who have been together so long, they don't even have to think about how to navigate one another. They just do, planets who have been in rotation of one another for so long that it's as easy as breathing.
Where they've had years together, you've only had two weeks. It still feels like you're learning an entire new language - not because any of them are difficult or unkind, but rather because there's a difference between being welcomed into a pack and belonging, and you're somewhere in the strange gap between the two.
Unfortunately, the omega part of your brain doesn't really understand the distinction between the two, even though you do. You get that it'll take time to integrate yourself fully and to fit in as intimately as the others do with one another, but your instincts don't have that nuance. All your omega knows is that you should be surrounded by a pack, that you should be scented and claimed and constantly near people who want you.
Instead, you're sitting by yourself in a kitchen that feels too big and your instincts are ramming against you to go knock on a door and ask for company. You can't, though. Not that they wouldn't let you in - they would. You know they would. But the small fraction of the what if keeps you rooted to your seat. What if they end up not liking you? What if this doesn't work out? What if they decide they don't need an omega after all?
You stare at the cereal in your bowl, now soggy. It's something honey-flavored and generic that you took out of the pack pantry without looking. Mingyu swore you could take anything out of the pantry and fridge - anything in the house. What’s theirs is yours until you start filling the house with your favorite things, but like the anxiety of asking one of them to spend time with you, you can't seem to figure out how to ask for cinnamon sugar cereal or sweet cream coffee creamer.
Another bite confirms your cereal is as soggy as it looks. You ignore it, watching the kitchen in the morning stillness. It still smells like cinnamon and brown sugar from something Mingyu baked yesterday. Dishes pile in the sink and you know Seungcheol is going to have a field day when he sees it, adamant about dishes being done each night.
Under the layers of the smell of the kitchen is them. You're still trying to pick out the strands of scents that belong to each member, but thirteen scents layered over the top of one another is dizzying and hard to get used to, each one blending into something that you recognize as almost pack. Pack but not.
There are a few you can pick out individually, at least. You know Seungcheol's cedar and smoke, the head alpha easier to scent than the others. Jeonghan's citrus and something that you can't put your finger on. Mingyu's clean laundry smell with a hint of something soft and woody. The others remain a bit of a mess, but you're determined to try, hoping that maybe untangling each scent will lead you to untangling them and finding a sense of belonging that you'd hoped to find here and that they said they'd wanted you to find.
You try not to think about what happens if you don't find a place here. Though it's actually entirely normal not to, you don't know if you could survive that kind of embarrassment. You had already been a bit wary of using omega placement services as it was, desperate to find a pack after years of living on your own and unwilling to go back to living with your all-beta family in your tiny town where nothing much ever happened.
Thirteen pack members is a lot after coming from something small, something lonely. You'd been thrilled at the idea, realizing that you'd never be alone again, that you'd always have someone to lean on. Now you're here, in a house full of thirteen people who are supposed to be your pack, and you're still eating breakfast alone. Still sitting on the outside of their easy familiarity. Still trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between being new and being home.
Creaking stairs catch your attention. You perk up, freezing as you listen to the soft steps of someone coming down the stairs and toward the kitchen. You smell the cedar and smoke before you see him, your brain getting a little foggy before Seungcheol ever steps into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
He pulls up short when he sees you. He's surprised, and you realize he hadn't smelled you before he walked in, unused to having an omega or an outsider in his house. He looks devastating this morning in sweatpants slung low on his hips and a t-shirt that's tight enough to show off the width of him and strength in his chest. An alpha not only built strong mentally but physically, someone who feels and looks dependable, someone who looks entirely too soft and swollen and pretty in the dawn light.
He blinks at you. His eyes are dark and a little unfocused, still soft with sleep, but there's something sharp underneath. It makes you sit up straighter, you body thrumming as he flicks on the light. You squint, but when your eyes adjust, he's still looking at you with an expression he doesn't understand.
"Why are you sitting in the dark?" He asks, voice rough with sleep. "Are you alright?"
"What? Oh." You lower your spoon to the bowl, hyperaware of him. "Sorry, I'm an early riser in new places. I can go if you need the kitchen, sorry-"
"No, stay."
It's not a command, but his voice is firm enough that you nod instantly, relaxing a little. He moves further into the room, carrying the heavy presence of a head alpha with him. You can feel it in the way he moves, the way he takes up space and the gravity around him that has nothing to do with physical mass and everything to do with him.
You grip the edge of the counter, trying to stay composed as your omega instincts kick in. The last thing you want is for him to think you're awkward or needy. You don't want him to know how much you're struggling with this transition more than you should be. You're supposed to be settling in and comfortable by now, but you're not.
It scares you.
"Coffee?" he asks, already turning it on.
"No, I'm okay."
He hums, opening the cabinet next to the coffee maker. You watch him scan the mugs until he finds a specific one and selects it. You wonder if they have assigned mugs, if there's a hierarchy in the cabinet beyond your understanding like so many other things here.
Silence hangs between you as he makes his coffee, turning to lean backward against the counter with the mug tucked between his hands. His gaze drifts back to you and he gives you a soft smile that you tentatively return. The attention makes you feel exposed, like he's looking at you and sees right through the core of you despite only having been in the same room for a few minutes.
"Couldn't sleep?" You ask, desperately trying to fill the silence.
"Something like that." He gestures toward you. "What about you? Do you do this a lot? Waking up early and sitting alone in the dark, I mean."
"I guess, yeah. I have a hard time sleeping in new places and I don't like to just lay there."
"Mmm." There's a pause, and you can feel him still watching you. Still assessing. "You eat breakfast alone a lot too?"
You glance down at the bowl. "Sometimes, I guess? I'm usually up before anyone else."
"How long have you been up?"
"Maybe an hour?"
"And you've just been sitting here by yourself."
It's not quite a question, but it feels like one. You glance up at him, trying to figure out where this is going, but his expression is unreadable. His scent shifts and you realize what it is. Protectiveness. He doesn't like that you're sitting here by yourself, and the realization makes something warm unfurl in your chest.
"I don't mind," you murmur, looking down again to hide the sudden flush you feel.
He hums. "I'm hungry." You look up, confused at the statement. He points to your bowl. "What are you having?"
"Cereal. I think it's honey? I didn't want to wake anyone up by cooking."
"Cereal sounds good. Honey is Chan's. Good choice."
He moves with purpose then, crossing to the cabinets to pull down a bowl. Your eyes catch on the line of his shoulders and the way his muscles shift under the cotton tee, the way it rides up just slightly as he reaches for the milk in the fridge, revealing a tiny strip of skin at his lower back that makes your mouth go dry. You look away quickly, back down at your soggy cereal, and try to get your breathing under control.
You watch as he fixes himself a bowl of cereal and strides over to you, dragging a stool up next to you. You blink in surprise. You expected him to sit across from you, but instead he plops down next to you close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off his skin and close enough that the cedar and smoke of him makes your eyes flutter. His knee brushes yours as he adjusts and you have to physically stop yourself from leaning into him, your nervous system lighting up at the proximity.
"So," he says, pulling you from the static of your thoughts. "Tell me about yourself."
You blink at him. "Like what?"
"Anything." He takes another bite of cereal like this is completely normal. Like he wakes up at five in the morning to eat with strangers all the time. "Where are you from again?"
"Small town." You stir your cereal. The milk swirls. "Really small. Everyone-knows-everyone small."
"And you left."
"For college. I came back for a few years after but it didn't feel like I fit in anymore so I moved to the city, got an apartment by myself. Thought I wanted independence and freedom to figure things out on my own terms." You take a bite of cereal just to have something to do with your hands. "Turns out being alone and being independent aren't the same thing. I was just lonely. Really lonely. Didn't even realize how bad it was until I started looking into pack placement programs and well… now I’m here trying it out, I guess."
Seungcheol goes quiet. When you glance over, his expression is soft. "How long were you alone?"
"Three years."
"That's a long time for anyone, not specifically an omega."
"Yeah." You swallow. "I didn't know what I was missing. I'm still trying to figure it out, I think and how I… fit in."
"You're doing fine," he says.
"I eat breakfast alone every morning."
"Not this morning, though."
The words are simple and direct. When you look up at him, he's watching you with something warm in his expression. Something that makes your chest tight.
"No," you say quietly. "Not this morning."
He gives you a small smile that transforms his face. Suddenly, he's not the intimidating pack alpha - he's soft and warm, more like a person than someone you have to impress or earn the trust of. You relax a little, stirring your milk aimlessly.
"What about you?" you ask. "What made you want to lead a pack this big?"
He huffs a quiet laugh. "Honestly? I didn't set out to. It just kind of happened. We all met in college, started spending time together, and it felt right. Natural. Then more people joined and suddenly I was the one everyone looked to when decisions needed to be made. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it right. If I'm taking care of everyone the way I should be."
"I think you're doing a good job," you say. "Everyone seems happy. Settled."
He looks at you and gives you a look, one brow raised. "Everyone except you."
His words make you wince. Not because they're accusatory, but because you didn't think he noticed. You realize it's a bit of an insult for you to have doubted him - Seungcheol's entire role as the head alpha is to understand his pack, to balance the personalities, to lead. That includes you, despite not feeling like it, and you realize that he's taken notice and doesn't intend to let it go.
"We don't eat alone unless we want to in my pack," he says simply.
My pack. The possessiveness in those two words makes something flutter in your chest and you bite the inside of your cheek, trying to stop yourself from grinning, to stop yourself from getting too hopeful.
"I didn't want to be a burden," you admit.
"You're not," he promises. "You're a part of our pack which means you're never a burden. We want you here. We wouldn't have gone through the trouble of the agency and placement if we didn't think there was something missing. You were missing and we're happy to gave you, even if it's a little awkward at first."
You can feel your heart beating too fast, the warmth of him making you dizzy. Seungcheol doesn't lean closer, but you feel him closer, the smell of him overwhelming and comforting. You realize he's doing it on purpose, pheromones comforting you like he should. You glance up and he has a knowing look on his face, a little smug and a little endeared and you find yourself smiling.
"Thank you," you manage. "For noticing."
"Always," he murmurs.
You finish your cereal together as the sky outside continues to lighten. For the first time since you moved into this house, you don't feel quite so alone.
-
It's Tuesday in the middle of the day when Seungcheol interrupts your next meal. You look up as he walks onto the back porch, the apple covered in peanut butter in your hand pausing as he sits down next to you at the table. He's got a full plate with him, rice, chicken and vegetables piled high as he sighs and settles in comfortably.
"Hey," he says casually, cracking open the can of soda he's brought along.
"Hi," you say slowly, eyeing him.
"I am starving. Wanted something sweet."
You look at his plate. Then back at him. Then back at the plate.
"Seungcheol, that is not sweet."
"What?"
"You said you wanted something sweet. That's chicken."
He blinks and looks down like he's just now noticing what's on it. You press your lips together as he scratches the side of his neck, nodding. "Right. I meant I wanted something sweet after this. You like ice cream?"
"I do."
"Great." He leans over, peering at your apple slices as his shoulders brush yours, sending a spark through you. "What are you having?"
"Apple and peanut butter."
"Hmmm. Classic." He starts cutting into his chicken as you watch him, eyes narrowed. "How's your day?"
You're still processing the fact that he claimed to be starving for something sweet while holding a savory meal, but you answer anyway, amused.
"Good. I've been reading."
"Yeah? What are you reading?"
Taking another bite of your apple, you tell him. Seungcheol is an engaged listener, nodding and asking follow up questions as he devours his plate. Somehow, time passes easily. Even after he's cleared his plate, he leans back into his chair, foot up on the seat as he tells you about one of his favorite books growing up, dimples appearing every time he smiles.
You love his dimples, watching them as he ducks his head and laughs, long hair falling in his eyes. You smile too, unable to help it around him. He's infectious like that, easily shifting the mood from something tense to warm or lonely to comfortable, like an alpha should.
Eventually, he sighs heavily, stretching. You try not to notice the way his shirt peels up, revealing the barest hint of soft stomach before he drops his arms back down and grins at you.
"I have to get back to work," he says. "But this was nice. We should do it again."
"That would be nice."
He smiles and gets up, clearing his plate and reaching to grab your empty one without much preamble. You watch him go inside, shaking your head when you realize that he never wanted something sweet in the first place.
-
You've been awake for three hours.
It's not insomnia, exactly. It's more like your brain won't shut off and you keep laying in bed replaying conversations, analyzing the way Seungcheol looked at you on Wednesday, wondering if you're reading too much into the fact that Mingyu sat close enough to scent you yesterday but didn't, if any of this means anything or if you're just desperate enough to convince yourself it does. As usual, your brain is doing laps, restless and unsettled, and the quiet of the house at midnight isn't helping. It's making you hyper-aware of how alone you are in your room, how easy it would be to just stay here without anyone noticing and how good you've gotten at it.
So you give up on sleep. Again.
The kitchen is dark when you pad downstairs in your pajamas, the hum of the refrigerator going as you open it up, squinting against the light. You don't bother to turn the overhead lights on, the moon filtering in through the big windows over the sink enough to get by. You steal the honey cereal - Chan's - again from the pantry, and fix a bowl before sitting at the counter, sighing as you take a bite.
Your phone buzzes on the counter, startling you. You flip it over, squinting in the dark as you frown when you read it.
SEUNGCHEOL [12:15 AM]: What are you doing?
Your stomach does something complicated.
YOU [12:15 AM]: Eating cereal… why?
SEUNGCHEOL [12:16 AM] Be right there
You set your phone down slowly, your heart doing something erratic in your chest. He heard you come downstairs. His room is above the kitchen - you know this now - and realize that he must have heard you snooping around down here like he did that first morning he found you eating in the kitchen at five in the morning.
A minute later, he appears in the kitchen doorway and your brain short circuits a little. He's in soft cotton pajama pants and a t-shirt that's clearly old and pulled tight across his chest. His hair is completely disheveled, sticking up in about fifteen different directions, and he's rumpled and sleepy enough to tell you that he absolutely was asleep until he heard you.
"Hey," he croaks.
"I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't," he lies.
"You didn't have to come down, Seungcheol."
"I did. And you can call me Cheol, you know. Seungcheol makes it sound like I'm in trouble."
He moves to the cabinet, and grabs a bowl, making himself a matching snack before he sits down close enough that his thigh brushes yours. You shiver and if he notices, he has the decency not to point it out.
"Maybe you are in trouble," you mutter, taking a bite.
"Yeah? What for?"
"Being a liar who lies. You heard me and came down."
He grins and takes a bite of cereal. He chews thoughtfully for a few seconds, ignoring your stare. "So what if I did? I wanted to join you, so I did. Anyway, trouble sleeping again?"
"Kind of." You push cereal around your bowl, not quite meeting his eyes. "My brain won't shut off."
"Yeah?" He shifts slightly, and you're hyperaware of every point where his body is close to yours. "What's it doing?"
"Thinking."
"Pack stuff?"
"Maybe." You finally look at him. His eyes are soft in the moonlight. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Are you doing this on purpose?"
He doesn't ask what you mean. Doesn't pretend to be confused. Just smiles into his cereal, and the smile is so knowing that your face goes hot.
"Yep."
"Why?" Your voice is barely a whisper. "Why are you doing this?"
He sets his spoon down. Turns to face you fully, and there's something serious in his expression now, something that makes you sit up and pay attention to him.
"I told you already," he says softly. "We don't eat alone unless we want to. Do you want to?" You hesitate only a moment before shaking your head. "Exaclty. So until you feel confidence to ask someone - you can ask any of us, by the way - I'll make sure you're not eating alone."
It's something so simple and yet it devastates you to hear him say it. It isn't the words themselves exactly, but rather the way he says it, like it's a promise, like he's already decided that this doesn't require permission or gratitude or even for you to ask. It's just a fact that he's going to do this, no negotiation, no need to think about it.
You think about the last three years of your life of eating in your apartment along, of making meals for one, of not having to consider anyone else's schedule or preferences. Three years of being fine with it because fine was easier than admitting you were lonely. And now you have a pack you don't know what to do with, but this alpha - this head of a thirteen-person pack - is keen enough to pick up on what you need and come down to the kitchen at midnight to make sure you have what you need.
It's wonderful and terrifying all at once.
"Okay," you murmur, nodding.
You watch him in the moonlight filtering through the kitchen window. His hair is still a mess and his face is puffy with sleep, but he's soft. Warm. You notice a small scar on his collarbone you've never been close enough to notice before, and wonder where he got it from.
When he finishes his bowl of cereal, he looks at yours, raising his brows. "You finishing that?"
You shake your head and he grins, reaching over and brushing against you deliberately to steal your bowl. The contact is electric as his arm grazes your shoulder, his chest brushing your back for just a second, and your entire nervous system short-circuits. You nearly go catatonic at the contact, omega melting even when he pulls away, leaving you dizzy and touch starved and hungry for something not food. Your skin tingles where he touched you.
Seungcheol notices. This time, you see the way he grins, smug and content at your reaction. It hits you that he planned that, that he wanted you to feel it. The realization makes your chest tight in a way that's half panic, half something else entirely.
You can feel the heat crawling up your neck, your face, and it pisses you off - not at him, but at yourself for being so transparent, so easy to read. You huff and cross your arms over your chest, turning to him, temper flaring a little. You're not mad at all, but your omega instincts bristle in a way that feels playful and fun, something entirely unfamiliar to you. It's like your body knows something your brain hasn't caught up to yet.
"Well that's not fair," you huff. "You can't just do that."
"Do what?"
"Brush up against me and use your… alpha ways."
He laughs, full bellied and loud, echoing off the kitchen walls. "My alpha ways?"
"Yes!"
"That's how it works."
"Well!" You stomp your foot against the footrest on the stool. "I would like to file a complaint. Wait, who do I file a complaint with? You're head alpha."
Even as you say it, you know how ridiculous you sound. You're literally complaining to the person you're complaining about. It's absurd. But there's also a part of you that likes this game, this playful banter.
"You're cute when you panic."
The word lands like a punch. Cute. You're not cute. You're competent and sarcastic and you've survived three years alone in a city that didn't care about you. You're not cute. Except the way he says it makes you feel small in a way that isn't entirely bad. You like it, even.
"I'm not panicking," you say, which is a lie and you both know it.
"Sure."
"And for the record, I'm not cute. I am a very strong, very assertive omega." You stand up, trying to reclaim some dignity, trying to put distance between yourself and the way his presence makes your skin feel too tight. "I've even lived on my own. Very independent."
"Absolutely," he agrees, not sounding convinced at all.
Seungcheol stands with you and puts the bowls in the sink, leaving them unwashed for once. He grins at you and gestures to the door and you listen, because apparently you do that now. Your body just obeys him, no thought required, no decision made. You just move when he moves, follow when he leads. It should feel wrong, but it doesn't. It feels familiar in a way you've been craving and you finally have it.
He follows you up the stairs and you're hyperaware of him behind you, footsteps quiet and measured. . You can feel the warmth of him in the space between your bodies, close enough that you could lean back and touch him. Your omega is purring at his proximity, at the simple fact of him being there, and you hate how easy it's becoming to just accept it. To want it.
The hallway is dark except for the moonlight filtering through the window at the end, letting in enough light for you to walk to your room, third door to the left. When you reach it, you pause, your hand on the doorknob, suddenly unsure of the protocol. Do you just say goodnight? Do you invite him in? The uncertainty makes your stomach knot uncomfortably, panic spiking.
You turn to look at him and he's closer than you expected. Close enough that you have to tilt your head back slightly to meet his eyes. He's still soft from sleep, and he's looking at you like he looks at the other members of his pack, warm and soft and so gentle that it makes your omega nearly scream.
Seungcheol grins and leans down, pressing a kiss briefly to your head, soft and warm and over before you even know it's happening. Your throat tightens immediately, thoughts turning to static as he takes a step back, winking at you.
"Sleep, he murmurs. "Wake me up when you want breakfast. I mean it."
He dismisses himself then and you watch him walk back down the hallway, his silhouette disappearing into the darkness, and you don't move until you hear his door close softly upstairs.
Only then do you slip into your room and lean against the door, your heart still racing, your forehead still burning with the ghost of his kiss. You touch your fingers to the spot where he kissed you, like you can hold onto it somehow.
Crawling into bed, you do exactly what Seungcheol has asked and you sleep.
-
The next morning when you wake up, you don’t have to wake Seungcheol. You hear the noise downstairs, confusion drawing you down the steps and into the kitchen where breakfast is being made in full. You stand in the doorway, confused as you watch Mingyu and Joshua argue at the stove, the sound of eggs sizzling and the smell of bacon wafting toward you.
Seungkwan is at the coffee machine, staring lifelessly into the open air as his coffee brews while Chan stands on his tip toes to reach more coffee mugs out of the cabinet behind him. Seokmin is sitting on the counter swinging his legs, laughing animatedly at whatever Soonyoung and Jihoon are arguing about near the sink while Jeonghan lays across the counter, head in Seokmin’s lap as he dozes.
Seungcheol walks in behind you, not missing at beat as he steers you by the waist toward the counter. Jeonghan peeks an eye open and grins, lifting himself from Seokmin’s lap to make room for you just as Seungcheol grip you by the waist and halls you up to sit on the counter next to Jeonghan, the citrus and jasmine smell of him placating your immediate irritation at being lifted.
“Why is everyone in the kitchen?” You demand, turning to Jeonghan because Seungcheol is already leaving you and heading for the fridge. “The sun isn’t even up yet.”
“Rule number one,” Jeonghan yawns, scooting closer so that he’s pressed up against you. You hesitate for only a second before you let yourself relax and tentatively lean toward him. “The omega is never allowed to eat alone unless she asks to.”
Seokmin peers around him. “Do you want to?”
His question hangs in the air among the noise and chaos of the kitchen, scents hitting you from every angle, the sound of Minghao complaining about burnt bacon and Mingyu hollering as oil pops and burns his wrist.
You grin, ducking your head a little as Seungcheol catches your eyes from across the kitchen and winks.
Two years living in a cozy hut in the middle of the forest, caring for your herbs and plants, felt peaceful to you. Here, your past would not catch up with you; no one would force you to be something you aren't. However, this peace lasts only until the exiled and severely wounded Prince of Noxtus appears right outside your hut and you are drawn into a game filled with intrigue, vengeance and (to your horror) love.
Pairing: alpha! choi seungcheol x omega! reader
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut (not in this teaser)
WC: ?
Warnings: mentions of a large wound, cussing, reader is scared of being discovered, hurt Seungcheol, Reader has a nickname because y/n doesn’t hit hard enough, I don’t know I think that’s all for the teaser
Notes: I can’t believe I’m finally having enough courage to drop a fic on here. This idea has been haunting me and today I finally said „fuck it let’s write something“ and then this was the outcome. I have an idea where this should go but nothing else is written out so there’s still a long road ahead but I had fun writing at least something! Please note that english is not my first language so reading this might be a bumpy ride? This may be bad but at least I didn’t use AI so that’s an comforting thought on my side. Also I’m new to the whole omegaverse game so if there is something that doesn’t make sense at all bear with me please. But nevertheless I hope you enjoyed this little teaser and a few feedbacks would be welcome! :)
There is a man laying in your front garden - bleeding to death.
What’s even worse, he is an alpha who is bleeding to death.
The sight made you freeze mid-motion, and your eyes did not let the man leave your sight for a single second.
The scent radiating of him made you dizzy because you didn’t had an encounter with anyone in a really long time. Especially not with an damn alpha.
You forced your breath to calm itself and the omega in you roared furiously because it longed for attention and care. But that didn’t matter. It never mattered to you. You had more important things to focus on.
Panicked, your gaze darted left and right to see if anyone else could have found you—which, in reality, shouldn't be possible. You had managed to stay undercover for two whole years. Was everything you had endured now simply going to be over?
Your heartbeat only slowly calmed down as you realized the bleeding man was the only person around.
You thought about going into your hut again, forgeting about him in your front yard and continuing your peaceful day like nothing happened. But you knew already that it was a lost case.
"We always have to help for those in need, my dear." Your mothers voice rang in your ears and you feel like you will suffocate right here and now just thinking about her.
You really are your mothers daughter so you approached the man with quick steps, claiming your future with this decision.
⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢
You left him lying with his fresh stitched up wound in your front yard.
At least he wasn't bleeding out anymore, though every few minutes you glanced out your window to see if he was still lying there and that you didnt imagine him in your head. Everytime you looked out he was still there, his chest going up and down with each breath he took.
A hard reminder that this wasn't just a sick dream.
But after all, your daily routine had to go on, didn't it? You had your plants to tend to; you would probably be sadder if one of them died than you were about the man in your front yard.
As you were out in your backyard, watering your plants and home-grown vegetables, your thoughts swirled inside your head, so loudly, in fact, that you failed to notice the pained, groaning sounds. It wasn't until you went back inside your cottage and saw the man who was supposed to be lying in your front yard instead leaning against your front door, that you let out a startled scream.
Without a second thought, you grabbed the nearest available weapon and now stood facing him—armed with a weed puller. It seemed rather ridiculous, but you were certain you could inflict significant damage with it, should the man even entertain the idea of attacking you.
He, however, breathing heavily, leaned against the doorframe. And would your heart not pound so wildly again, you might have thought that an amused glint flickered in his eyes. Yet he merely raised his hands slowly, his face contorted in pain.
"I’d rather you didn’t skewer me with that thing there."
"Have you ever heard of knocking?!" you demanded indignantly, not daring to lower your weed-whacker.
"I would have knocked if I wasn't one hundred percent sure that you were the one who probably put me back together.", he looked at you and your weapon of choice in your hand and nodded towards it, "If I had known that you want to kill me now after saving my life I would rather leave now."
Your eyes immediately went to his injured side and thousands of emotions swirled inside you. To your misfortune, the omega buried deep inside you purred in delight at the sight of the Alpha and you breathed in annoyed. You ignored his remark and the stupid omega inside you and wondered how the hell he is able to stand with this kind of wound he has.
The wound you tended to was deep, and… you took a closer look at him.
It took every ounce of his strength to remain upright. Tiny beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and his hands repeatedly clenched into fists as if the mere thought of lying helplessly on the ground again would cause him even greater pain.
Slowly you lowered your „weapon" and eyed him cautiously before nodding your chin towards a chair. He was still hurt, you reminded yourself and that thought alone calmed you down even a little bit.
"Sit down. You’re about to collapse again."
A scoff escaped his lips. "It takes a lot more than that to knock me out."
You stared at him, your expression completely blank. "Bold words coming from someone whose life I saved just today." You gestured toward the chair once more. "Do us both a favor and sit down, so my efforts aren't wasted and your wound doesn't reopen."
His gaze darted back and forth before—presumably—the logical part of his brain won , and he slowly walked over to the chair and let himself sink into it. His face relaxed almost immediately, and you couldn't help but scoff. "So it doesn't take that much after all," you muttered, and with the weed-puller in your hand, you took a few steps closer.
"Whoa, get away from me with that thing!" he breathed out and looked at you with wide eyes and you rolled your eyes annoyed.
"I need to look at your wound so it doesnt get infected!" you argued and held up your weed-puller, "this is just for my own protection."
"And who is that thing supposed to protect you from?" He asked while looking at you like you’ve became insane for even pointing with it at him.
"You. I dont know you." you answered defensively and crossed your arms in front of your chest. He didnt respond, only looked at you with slightly widened and confused eyes.
"What?"
"You dont know me?" He asked carefully and his eyes told you everything you needed to know. He doesnt believe you.
"Should I?" Sarcasm dripped in your voice and gestured at him to lift up his shirt. But he didnt move, his eyes still sceptically on you and you had the feeling you'll loose all your nerves with this man in front of you.
„Do I have to know you to see your wound?“ The annoyance inside you was clearly on the table now and to your dismay, an amusing glint appeared in his dark eyes.
„Demanding little thing, aren‘t you?“
Your eyes shined with anger and wordlessly you held up your weed-puller and even if it’s just for the joke or if he’s really scared you‘ll stab him with it, he sighed and lifted his shirt up.
„Well, thank you“ you sighed and let the weed-puller fall down on the floor while your eyes examined the neat line of stitches. You did a pretty well job for such a big gash and it didn’t seemed to be infected. At least one good thing that worked today.
„I‘ll make you a compress with some plants that will help the healing“ you mumured and made your way to your little kitchen sink. „That way you‘ll heal faster“ And with that leave faster.
You pretended to didn’t notice the way his eyes stare at the back of your head or how they wandered through the room. You tried to focus on making the compress until a question from him made you freeze.
„Whats your name?“
„I‘ll tell you mine if you tell me yours“ you said without thinking much and almost immediately cursed yourself out internally. You didn’t want to know him. And you certainly don’t want him to know your name.
Maybe it was the starved omega in you that made you behave like that. You made a note for yourself to drink a fresh tea of cyperus leaves later to suppress your omega needs again. The cyperus plant was a lifesaver to you. It help you with your heat, suppressing it until you almost had no problems with it at all, but it seemed the presence of the alpha brings everything down to zero.
Another reason why he needs to leave as soon as possible.
„I don’t think that’s a fair deal“ he only muttered and laid his head back against the wall.
„Are you a wanted criminal or something like that?“ You asked with a scoff.
He hummed tiredly and just shook his head. „Worse.“
You turned your head around and looked at him, truly looked at him for a few seconds. His dark eyes shined in a devastating sadness as he stared up the wall and the empathy in you screamed to help him.
That’s also a trait from your mother like the saying that you‘ll need to help someone who truly needs it.
And this man almost screamed quietly for help.
You blame your dead mother for your next words.
„You can call me Daisy.“
It wasn’t your real name but it was not nothing. His eyes immediately went back to yours and a glitter of peace appeared in them.
„Thank your for saving me, Daisy.“
The nickname on his tongue made you shiver and before he could notice you quickly turned around again, finishing up the compress. You just wanted to turn around to attach it to him, when his voice mumured again in your little hut.
drabble.⠀⠀wc: 692 (edit)⠀⠀tags: seuncheol x fem!reader, established relationship, fluff, pet names (cheollie, baby/babe, princess), domestic, mentions of menstruation, slighty suggestive.
“Cheollie!” you whimpered, crossing the front door with the biggest pout on your lips and glistening eyes. That was enough for Seungcheol to stop doing whatever he was busy with and give you his full attention.
He was sprawled all over the couch, watching some TV junk food in a plain white oversized tee and pajama pants. He looked very cozy and relaxed. Yet, in the moment you started walking towards him, looking like a kicked puppy, all his muscles tensed, then he immediately fixed his posture, opened his arms, and pulled you into his lap.
“What happened?” he said with a gentle voice, tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, “Mm?”
“I had a terrible day”, you hid your face in the junction of his neck and shoulder, melting into him.
“Did you?”
You nodded.
“I woke up late, with a terrible tummy ache and cramps”, you began telling him your tale of woe, “my breakfast was tasteless, my coffee went all cold and disgusting because it took me a while to finish my boring breakfast, and you know how I hate cold coffee,” you pouted.
“Yeah, baby, I know.” his hand found its way beneath your skirt, tenderly caressing the side of your bare thigh under the thin fabric.
“Then there was so much traffic, it was unbearable. The weather is so hot and I felt like melting throughout the day. My lunch was also bad and I missed you the whole day…” you whined again, hugging him tightly.
Choi Seungcheol is a very observant man. He knew a scenario like this would happen soon, since last week you were all over him, touching here and there, always looking for an excuse to be close, and actively seeking intimacy with him.
At first, he thought it was your ovulation making you need him so bad, but then, in the middle of a messy and handsy make-out session, he noticed your breasts felt slightly heavier. They were more tender and sensitive than usual. He did a quick calculation and realized that your period was just around the corner.
He didn’t complain about the proximity whatsoever. He enjoyed intimacy with you just as much as you, but he knew he had to be prepared for anything you needed; he bought painkillers, refilled your pads drawer with large and overnight-sized pads. He bought some chocolate and your favorite red fruit tea. He even bought you two new sets of cotton panties just to make sure you had something comfortable to wear.
You’ve told him multiple times that he doesn’t have to do all that, that you can buy your period supplies by yourself, but he just won’t listen.
It's not like you don’t appreciate it. You do. And you always keep in mind how attentive he is. You simply don’t want to feel like a bother.
The first time you voiced the fear of annoying him with your menstrual stuff one random night in bed, he almost gasped. The expression on his face was nearly offended.
“Babe… What?” he blinked twice, before practically smothering you in bed, “don’t you ever think such a thing again. Nothing about you could ever bother me.”
“You’re being a little dramatic.”
“I can’t let you think you could ever annoy me with something like that. Maybe with refilling the water pitcher, but not this."
“Ugh, back off, you're so annoying” you pushed his shoulders, trying to get him off of you, but it was useless; he’s just too big and strong.
“Mm, no,” he teased, and peppered your face with small kisses between whispers of sweet nothings.
You’re truly grateful he’s stubborn because, if he weren’t, he wouldn’t be cuddling you on the couch. His hand deep under your dress, stroking the small of your back, where he knows it always aches the most when you have cramps.
He’s carefully listening to you, kissing your forehead every once in a while, and holding you so steadily, he grounds you with his soothing caresses.
“Tomorrow will be a brighter day, princess. And if it’s not, I’ll be here just to hold you and love you. As always.”
Pure self indulgence because I'm on my period and that was literaly my day. I hope you enjoy it anyway! Likes, rebogls and comments are appreciated 🫶🏼 specially if you have any writing suggestions. English is not my first language so I'd like to know how I'm doing so far, hehe. 🩷
› pairings: yoon jeonghan x female reader
› aus: dilf jeonghan, boyfriend jeonghan, jeonghan is a dad
› genres: fluff, smut (18+)
› word count: 9.7k
› warnings: porn with a sliver (🤏🏻) of plot, jeonghan is so down bad, he likes to dom you just a little, pussy eating, masturbation, reader is on birth control but this is not mentioned, unprotected p in v sex, breeding kink, creampies, light choking, dirty talk, daddy kink, after care. pet names: baby, babe, darling, sweetheart (hers) babe, daddy (his)
› author's note: i lost my mind and just wrote this. i never write drabbles but yoon jeonghan always changes my mind simply by existing LOL DRABBLE—THIS THING TURNED INTO A FULLY FLEDGED ONE SHOT HAHAKJDHKGJH THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A DRABBLE HAKJHF
› shoutout to @aeristudios for suggesting baby names, and for giving me the inspiration to do this, jskdfjh.
and to @coupsiedaisee for watching me spiral in real time for the yoon jeonghan. thanks. thank you for working out certain plot points with me and for proofing this! 🩵🥺
› disclaimer: minors DO NOT INTERACT. this post is intended for 18+ readers ONLY. please have your age stated in your blog description and try not to look like a bot please 🙂
It was only supposed to be a nap.
You and Yoon Jeonghan have been dating for a few months now. Ever since you met him, your life has turned around, and you’ve never felt luckier. Jeonghan walked into your life with the smoothness of a trainwreck—in the best way possible. One afternoon, you came out of work and started getting rained on out of nowhere. And he happened to be the only guy willing to share his umbrella.
You started talking, waiting for the storm to subside. He took your number, and you were surprised to receive a phone call the very next day. It wasn’t exactly easy to navigate the waters since you learned he was a single parent. Dating was hard enough already, and all of your friends thought you had lost your mind when you started dating a single parent in his thirties.
“I’m barely thirty,” he’d say with a laugh, the tips of his ears turning bright red whenever someone commented on it.
Jeonghan made things feel lighter, even if his life was a complete mess sometimes. He provided you with a sense of normalcy, a sense of security. Even though you were in your mid-twenties, sometimes you worried you were on different wavelengths. But as the months went by, you found that it was easier than breathing.
Both of you fell into a rhythm. Sometimes you’d visit him, sometimes he’d come to yours with his two-year-old strapped to his hip. You’d dine together, watch some mindless TV, or play games. And whenever he could get the chance to, he’d take you out on dates, just the two of you.
Tonight, you came to his apartment straight from work. It was pasta and pizza night, and it was one of the very first nights that you would stay so late at his house. Neither Jeonghan nor you would stay at each other’s places. You weren’t quite there yet.
Typically, you’d see him wearing his clothes from work—a button-down white shirt, black pants, slacks, belt that matched his shoes. Very clean cut in his work uniform, to the exception of the pair of wacky socks he wore—like salmon pink socks with cute little potted cacti. That’s the kind of man Jeonghan was.
But when he answered the door, you were surprised by what you saw. Sometimes you would see him wearing his uniform still, but with some bits already dishevelled, like his tie would be loose around his neck and his shirt with the buttons half-undone. No. This time, Jeonghan was wearing a white oversized white tee, with bright green shorts and a white cap on his head.
And something about it made your blood stir.
But you had to remain composed. You cleared your throat as you padded through his apartment barefoot.
“What are you cooking tonight, sir?” you asked playfully, following him into the open kitchen of his apartment.
The place was small, but perfect for him and Sohee—it felt lived in, toys scattered in the living room where most of life happened. There was a creamy white rug placed in the centre of the room, a baby chair where Sohee was hyper fixating on a bag of water and peas, while Jeonghan was busy in the kitchen.
Jeonghan eyed you briefly. A smirk broke into the frown he was previously wearing. “Cooking?” he drawled slowly as he appeared to be fighting to open a bottle of wine. “Pasta and pizza. I got up at the crack of dawn to make the spaghetti from scratch with my bare hands.”
“Oh, really?” you smirked, clearly catching on to his game.
“Yeah, obviously,” he said, masking a giggle with a cough. “What, did you think I would order food and then reheat it in the oven?”
You eyed the oven, which showed you the pizza that was currently being heated up. “I would never,” you giggled softly, pushing yourself to your tiptoes to reach for a kiss.
Jeonghan tilted his head to you, aiming for you to kiss him on the lips. But coordination between you failed. In the midst of him focusing on stopping the pasta from burning, and you standing on your tiptoes, you ended up kissing his cheek.
“Stay still,” you whined, making him chuckle. Bringing a hand to cup his cheek, you fixed him in place for you to prop a quick kiss on his lips.
Jeonghan clicked his tongue. “Kiss me properly,” he complained, pouting and knitting his eyebrows in a frown.
“Pay attention to me, then,” you argued, laughing at his reaction.
“I can’t—I’m cooking,” he emphasized with half a laugh. But then he turned the stove off, quickly placing his hands on your waist to push you back against the kitchen sink. The movement was smooth, making you think that he had wanted to do this the moment he saw you walk into the kitchen.
“You are a kitchen hazard,” he huffed, his voice low, barely audible.
“Why?” you asked, laughing softly.
He tilted his head to yours, the tip of his nose bumping against your own. “Cause you’re distracting the chef,” he whispered, joining his lips to yours. The kiss was gentle, almost as if he wanted just to feel your lips with his own and nothing else. Then slowly, as he kissed you again, his tongue brushed your bottom lip ever so slightly, drawing an airy moan from you.
But then, an alarm went off, snapping him back to reality. Jeonghan tensed at the sharp sound, but leaned his forehead against yours. “Dinner’s ready.”
“I’ll get Sohee,” you whispered without opening your eyes yet.
That gained you another kiss—this one was even more brief, fleeting. But it denoted the need he had to have his lips on yours. He stepped back, though begrudgingly.
This was the only push and pull you had with Jeonghan.
In all of the months you’ve been dating, you have never gone past kissing. The only times you both have been close to doing something other than kissing were the few make-out sessions where he dared to slip his hands beneath your blouse, only to feel your back or your waist.
Yoon Jeonghan was the only man in your life who exerted control over himself.
And it was confusing at times.
Not because you questioned his affection, or his desire for you. You knew he wanted you. But for some reason, he controlled himself every time things got a little too heated. And well you… you wanted this man. More than you allowed yourself to admit.
The boyish aspect he sported as he wore his cap, the laid back look… you found it too hard to resist.
But you resisted it anyway. You skirted through the living room, through the rug cluttered with toys that told a story—a train was on the ground, surrounded by little cowboys and ponies. You smirked to yourself, knowing what story Jeonghan might’ve crafted for baby Sohee moments before he got up to get dinner ready.
You lifted Sohee from her chair, mirroring the little squeal she let out as you wrapped her in your arms. “Hi, young lady,” you cooed, smiling at her as she clapped her tiny hands together. Sohee was a perfect little girl with big bright eyes, a head full of messy black hair and the cutest smile— just like her father’s.
Jeonghan had finished setting up the small round table and was approaching you with a small towel he normally used to wipe the drool off of Sohee’s chin. “She might not be hungry, though. Apparently, she ate all of her meals at day care, not just animal crackers,” he commented with a slight but noticeably contented look on his face.
You made a shocked expression, grabbing her attention fully. “She did?” you asked, and the baby giggled at your face. “That’s awesome! Daddy must be so proud of you!”
Jeonghan blinked, his gaze shifting from his daughter’s face to yours. Now, this wasn’t the first time you called him daddy, but you were beginning to notice that it had an effect on him. His eyes widened slightly, and he seemed to stumble over his words before he even uttered them.
He ended up just smiling shyly.
“Come on, let’s put you in your chair,” you said, pretending not to have seen his reaction.
As you safely put Sohee in her highchair, she held onto your hair, making fists around the loose strands and clenching them tightly as you placed her safely.
“Sohee,” Jeonghan sighed reproachfully, catching her tiny fists around your hair before you did.
“Oh—” you muttered.
But Jeonghan was quick, grabbing Sohee’s favorite cup and placing it in front of her strategically. “Look here, Sohee!” he cooed, his tone rising in a way that made you go a little feral with cuteness aggression.
But it did the trick—Sohee instantly went for her sippy cup, silently latching her mouth to it and started drinking from it.
“You okay, sweetheart?” he muttered as you stood back. Jeonghan was standing behind you, so you bumped back against him blindly, his hand falling on your lower hip by accident.
Your whole body became alight with excitement. A little too much of it. “Yeah!” you sighed, your tone sounding too high. You cleared your throat.
If Jeonghan noticed, he did not react. “Please,” he motioned to the chair for you to sit.
You sat down beside Sohee, looking at the table as Jeonghan placed the pizza at the centre. “Hawaiian pizza?” you arched an eyebrow.
Jeonghan stopped, two empty glasses in his hands as he was just about to place them on the table. “Isn’t it your favourite?” he asked, sounding horrified.
“Yes, i-it is,” you replied, face switching into a frown. “How did you know?”
He relaxed visibly, his shoulders going slack as he resumed putting the glasses on the table, then turned to grab the bottle of wine. “Well, you told me,” he said, smirking.
“I did?” you asked.
Jeonghan joined the round table, and it was small enough that he was close to you and Sohee at the same time. “Yeah, you did. Our second date, remember?”
“Uh, yeah. Totally,” you said, not hiding the evident unseriousness in your tone.
Jeonghan huffed. “Ah, you don’t remember,” he clicked his tongue again. “Maybe you should pay more attention to me,” he emphasized jokingly.
You giggled. “You’re right, it is my favorite,” you said, leaning in to place a quick kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for remembering.”
Jeonghan smiled shyly, looking down as you pressed your lips against his cheek. He directed a long look at you as you leaned back on your chair. “Let’s hope she likes it too,” he mumbled, cutting a small piece from his slice of pizza and pinching it with a fork.
“She might not be big on it,” you mumbled softly, looking at Jeonghan as he drove the fork in front of her face. “Not everyone likes pineapple on pizza.”
He glanced at you. “You’re right about that,” he huffed playfully.
“You don’t like it?”
He shrugged, still waiting for Sohee to take the bite. “I don’t mind it,” he replied. “I just think it changes the whole meal. A snack turned into a dessert.”
“So you think pizza is a snack?” you inquired, arching an eyebrow.
“I just don’t think it’s a meal on its own, you know? It needs to have company, like pasta,” he replied with a light smile, his gaze shifting between your face to his daughter’s as she finally took the piece of pizza into her mouth.
“Oh, moment of truth,” you muttered, completely forgetting what Jeonghan just told you.
Sohee appeared to be completely intrigued by the piece of food that had just entered her mouth. She chewed, her face progressively becoming more and more interested in swallowing just to get another mouthful immediately.
“It appears she likes it,” Jeonghan mumbled happily, exchanging a look with you.
“Of course she does,” you asserted. You gave him a confident wink. “Sohee’s like me. She has good taste.”
Jeonghan smiled, content that Sohee was liking the food she was trying for the first time. But there was more in the twinkle of his eyes as he looked at you—you were able to appreciate it.
He was happy.
After dinner, you offered to tidy the kitchen as he bathed Sohee and got her ready for bed. Usually Fridays were more relaxed for you both, since none of you had to work the next day—but something about that day had left you feeling tired, and sleepy. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was work, you didn’t know.
But you were feeling too tired to drive back home, and in all honesty, you didn’t want to leave yet.
You sat on the couch, waiting for Jeonghan as he put Sohee to bed, and then you could have a moment between you two—which was probably going to end up with you watching something on TV, occasionally stopping to kiss until it got too steamy for either of you. It was usually like this. And this rhythm had you slowly falling into a steady step—familiarity.
You realized you liked it. You could get used to it.
However, tonight, your body had other plans for you.
One moment you were waiting for Jeonghan on the sofa, shutting your eyes, and the next you opened them to find yourself in his queen-sized bed, covered with a weighted blanket.
You instantly tensed, scrambling to sit up.
Jeonghan was lying beside you, not completely asleep but not quite awake either.
The lights were off, but the curtains weren’t exactly fully closed, so you could see his face thanks to the sliver of light that slipped through the parted curtains. He lifted his eyebrows, blinking slowly at you. “Hey,” he croaked.
“Oh my god,” you mumbled. “I’m sorry, I fell asleep.”
In the darkness, you saw him frown. “Why are you sorry for that?” he asked, his voice soft, laced with tiredness.
You realized that he was still wearing the same clothes, sans the cap. Now, you could see his black hair, which he kept trimmed short. You gulped. “I—” you sighed, finding no excuses to give him. “I should go home.”
Jeonghan lifted his head from the pillows, still frowning. “It’s late,” he mumbled. “And you don’t have to go. You could stay.”
The air in your lungs seemed to vanish in an instant. You knew the implications of staying the night at his place—sharing a bed with him meant you taking things to the next level. A whole more intimate level.
“Jeonghan…” you muttered, but there was no reason for you to say no. You wanted to stay. And you were aching to lie down next to him.
He noticed something in your tone, the hesitation perhaps. Because he smiled softly, stretching an arm towards you. “Come,” he whispered, motioning over to his side of the bed.
You turned over, lying down in front of him. Jeonghan received you in his arms instantly, wrapping one arm over your waist and slipping the other under you, effortlessly pulling your chest closer to his.
Your breath hitched when you felt his warmth, instinctively finding his chest with your palm and pushing some invisible inches of distance between you. It was futile.
Jeonghan started giggling, crushing his lips on your face. “You’re nervous,” he finally realized, pressing his lips repeatedly against yours. “It’s not like we’ve never slept together before.”
“No, we’ve slept naps together,” you interjected. “And on a couch. Never on a bed.”
“Imagine this as taking a longer nap,” he said, shrugging slightly.
“In a bed,” you added shakily, skirting the pads of your fingers down his chest nervously.
Jeonghan laughed, aiming for another kiss. “Mm-mmph,” he hummed against your lips.
Your pulse quickened. The kisses Jeonghan was giving you were mere pecks, lips pressing against yours repeatedly, gently. It wasn’t until a grunt escaped him, the arm perched on your waist switching so his hand could park on your lower back. He tilted his head, pushing yours so you could part your lips, giving him access.
Jeonghan had a killer factor. And it wasn’t his good looks, or that he was a great kisser, no. Yoon Jeonghan had a duality that only you knew. He could appear composed to some people, fun to others. A good father. A good co-worker. But the thing that never failed to make you want to die a little was just how sexy he could be.
And given the fact that he’d never gone past kisses made you a little crazy.
He kissed you again, now locking his lips with yours, humming into your mouth as you dared to swipe the tip of your tongue on his bottom lip. His hand slipped from your lower back, circling your waist and sliding to meet your hip. Inches closer to your bottom.
“Jeonghan,” you whispered, bringing a hand to cup the side of his neck.
“Want me to stop?” he mumbled, his tone gentle and sweet.
You moved your hand from his neck, shaking your head in tiny motions as you cupped his chin. “No—just a bit longer,” you whispered, diving for another kiss.
Jeonghan returned the kiss just as heatedly, his hand on your hip pressing slightly so his fingertips dipped into the fabric of your skirt. You didn’t even realize that he’d pushed the blanket down, or had you done it?
The sweet pecks had turned into a make-out session. It became harder to breathe, your body felt heavier and hotter. His lips were losing their gentleness, his chest closer to yours to the point it was noticeable in the shift in his breathing.
He pulled away, just slightly, so he could speak. “Tell me when to stop,” he said, his tone rising a bit in desperation. As though he was getting closer to a line he wouldn’t be able to come back from.
“Just as long as you are comfortable, I’m okay,” you whispered, still unable to get a grip on your nervousness.
Now, you weren’t completely inexperienced in sex. You’ve had your fair share of experiences, multiple partners in the past. But there was something about Jeonghan, something about his kiss that melted you away completely—it made you feel like a beginner all over again.
“Me?” he whispered, chuckling softly.
“Yeah, dummy, you,” you said, frowning slightly. “I thought you didn’t want to…”
He pulled away, getting a better look at your face. “Didn’t want to what?” he asked, matching the frown on your face with his own.
“You know,” you mumbled, shrugging with reluctance. “You always pull away when the kissing gets too much, or when your hands go too far.”
He blinked. “I never realized you saw it like that,” he said, softer now.
“Well, explain to me how you think I saw it,” you mumbled, showing him a coy smile.
He seemed to slow down. “I thought you wanted to take things slowly,” he emphasized, still speaking gently.
The statement made your mind race. All the occasions that Jeonghan left you feeling a little too hot, panting, and wet have been because he thought you were the one pulling the brakes? “Jeonghan, what?” you asked, genuinely confused. “I thought you didn’t want to take things there yet,” you replied, hating yourself for speaking figuratively. Your face heated up.
He smiled fondly at you. “Really?” he mumbled, raising his eyebrows briefly as he leaned his forehead against yours. “You have no idea.”
Jeonghan kissed you again, your breath catching as his lips locked with yours. The arm that was under your body wrapped over your back, as the hand on your hip held you tightly. You never would’ve guessed what he was attempting to do, because when he turned over on his back, he brought your body with him too. Now, you were lying on top of him, your full body weight pressing down on his body.
You had no time to protest—not that you actually had something to protest. But this was the very first time you both dared to do something like this. And it wasn’t because of any kind of convictions you had, it was just because you both failed to interpret the assumed distance.
And now that he knew you also wanted him, it was as though he was released from a self-imposed prison.
Jeonghan let his hands roam free on your back, leaving your hips to press his palms on the line of your back, feeling you over your clothes. He hummed into your mouth as you continued to kiss him fervently, as though his lips were magnetic, calling you to him.
Suddenly, your clothes became too much. You wanted to get rid of his oversized t-shirt, the shorts. Everything.
And Jeonghan was thinking the same, apparently. Because his hands moved further down on your body, his fingers pinched the stiff fabric of your dress shirt from your work uniform, hiking it up so he could hide his hands beneath it.
Despite his touch being cold, you welcomed it. Your body was hot, feverish as his lips continued to explore yours, his tongue meeting your own in a seamless dance. Your heartbeat was going a mile per second, so fast and so hard you could hear it thumping in your temples. It was almost embarrassing how a simple make-out session could make you feel like you were running a marathon.
It was his effect.
“Hannie,” you called, your tone honeyed and airy.
“Should I stop now?” he asked again, and you realized from his tone that he was aroused as well. It sounded low, raspy.
“No, no,” you mumbled dumbly. “Please, just give it to me. Give me everything,” you pleaded, past caring how pathetic you sounded.
But again, you wanted this man.
Jeonghan didn’t need further confirmation.
His hands slipped from under your dress shirt down and over your skirt, fully cupping your ass over your clothes. “Sit on me,” he mumbled gruffly, swallowing hard.
You let out a strangled and tiny noise from your mouth. But you followed his instruction, moving your knees to each side of his hips—not caring that the movement was hiking your skirt up your thighs, to the point that it barely covered your butt anymore.
Jeonghan didn’t skip a beat, his hand circling your neck to motion you back on his lips. You were straddling now, so it was easier to lean over him to kiss him fully. You grabbed his face with one hand, while the other slipped on the side of his head, fingernails grazing his scalp, feeling his short hair in between your fingertips.
He moaned, the sound muffled by your mouth, reverberating in your chest. It made your blood dance, arousal sizzling under your skin, your heart race even quicker. Instinctively, you pressed your hips down, accidentally grinding your crotch against his. You could feel him through your panties, the hardening bulge beneath his shorts—its warmth.
His hands gripped you harder, motioning you to repeat that same movement by pressing your hips down on him, making you feel his growing boner. You broke the kiss, but only to feel his breath on your lips. “God, Jeonghan,” you whispered shakily.
Jeonghan knew you were nervous by your tone alone. “Tell me what you need, baby,” he told you, his voice still sounding raspy.
After hearing the word baby come out of his mouth, you could not speak past this point. All you knew was his hands on you, the very evident hard-on pressing against your crotch. And Jeonghan’s warmth, the need he had for you, all of that just robbed you of words.
But you could only utter one word. “More,” you said, already knowing that without your consent, he wouldn’t do anything.
You were sure that Jeonghan could feel your rapid pulse beneath his fingertips, his hand still parked around your neck. He motioned you to his lips again, a tiny gasp spilling from his mouth when you shifted on top of him, pressing your ass on his hardened cock. It made you moan too, the sound muffled by his mouth.
His hand slipped from your neck, fingers fumbling over the buttons of your dress shirt. The second his thumb went over the first button, your core started pulsing with need and heavy arousal.
You kissed his mouth, your hand feeling his short hair while the other one felt him up his chest. His heart was beating rapidly too. You could feel it vibrating beneath your palm. His fingers continued their descent down the buttons of your shirt, undoing each one of them with great care. Like giving you ample time to stop him if you changed your mind.
But you, on the other hand, were aching for him to get it done. To get your clothes off so you could start taking his. However, Jeonghan seemed to be taking his sweet time to the point that you began to think that he was doing it to fluster you more.
As soon as the last button of your shirt came off, you pulled back from his lips, leaning back on top of him so you could get a better view of his face. His eyes roamed all over your face and body as you let the dress shirt slip off your shoulders, taking it off your arms to then discard it somewhere on the floor.
Jeonghan’s eyes widened slightly when he saw your chest, covered only by the white lace bra that you were debating to take off at that moment. But Jeonghan sat up with you still straddling him, his hands switched from your hips to your back, palms feeling you up as he reached for the line of your bra.
He looked at your face directly, his eyes reading yours as his fingers unclasped your bra. Your skin immediately prickled, a shudder running down from your nape to your tailbone. You felt his hands move, fingers reaching the straps of your pretty bra to slide them down your shoulders, then your arms.
He paused, his eyes outlining the features of your face one more time before his gaze dove into your chest. Then he leaned over, pressing a sweet kiss on your collarbone, his wet lips brushing your skin made your eyelids flutter close.
Your mouth parted, his mouth continuing to kiss down your chest, was slowly driving you insane. “Oh, Hannie,” you moaned, the sound sweet and almost pathetic.
He responded with a moan of his own, but his sounded raspy, almost animalistic. It made your blood surge, pushing you to press down on him harder. Jeonghan grunted again, this time in protest, as though you were fighting for control, and he would not allow that.
In one motion, he flipped your body over, pressing your back against the mattress. You gasped, your eyes finding him. He never handled you with such force, let alone put you down like this, because he wanted to cage your body with his.
He made no comment about your alarmed expression, but a cheeky smile drew on his beautiful lips before he dipped his head to kiss you again. You were now lying on your back, Jeonghan was slotting his body between your thighs, which you were parting for him, careless that your skirt was already up your belly.
Jeonghan slipped his hands between the mattress and your butt, finding the zipper with his fingers all too effortlessly. It made you think that he had already located the zipper way before this, which meant he’d been looking at your ass as well. The zipper came down, and his hands quickly moved the skirt down.
“I love when you wear this,” he said gruffly, pulling away to remove the skirt from your legs. “But right now, it needs to go.”
He discarded your skirt somewhere in the bedroom, and you heard the metallic sound of the zipper hitting the floor, snapping you to reality. Your hands acted on their own, finding his oversized t-shirt and pulling it over his head, which he let you do all too willingly, even helped you with tossing the shirt to the floor as well.
You giggled softly, stretching your arms to him so he could come back to slotting his hips between your thighs. Once he pressed his bare chest with yours, you wrapped your arms around him, skirting the pads of your fingers along the line of his back, feeling his skin prickle as well.
You loved that he showed no hesitation. He wanted this as much as you did, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. He initially bristled when your fingers started dancing on his bare skin, but as he let out a brief giggle, you realized that he was just ticklish and responding to your touch.
The sound alone made you go entirely feral, if you weren’t feeling like that already. You let your hands roam on his back, searching for the waistband of his green shorts, beginning to pull them down.
But Jeonghan seized your hands, grabbing them by the wrists and pinning them up your head. “Hold them right there,” he said, his tone raspy and laced with a hint of playfulness.
You did what he said, though not by obedience alone, but because Jeonghan had caged you with his body. He lowered his hips on yours, making you feel the size of his hard cock, then the warmth of his chest against yours.
He made a trail of kisses, starting from your cheekbone to your lips, then trailing down to meet the line of your jaw, the crook of your neck and your collarbones. Then, with a fleeting glance at your face, he dipped his head to kiss your chest, kissing your boobs with such deliberation that it made you think he wanted to do this for a long time. He hummed against your skin, tasting your skin as he wrapped his mouth around your left nipple.
You winced slightly under him, but then relaxed instantly when the tip of his tongue swirled around your areola, to then suckle at it and kiss it. Then he did the same with your other nipple, now the feeling was so sweet that you closed your eyes, moaning salaciously.
Jeonghan lifted his head, shushing you softly. But then he giggled bashfully. “We don’t want to wake the baby up,” he warned you, the same spark of playfulness making a return.
“Right,” you whispered, shame tingling beneath your cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
Jeonghan shook his head. “No, you’re alright,” he whispered back, pushing his forehead against yours before propping a light kiss on your lips. “You’re perfect.”
Your heart shuddered. You cupped his face with your hands, meeting his lips with your own with soft pecks. “Want to keep going?” you whispered, your tone rising a little, making you sound shy.
“Yes,” he replied with determination. He swallowed hard, but then you felt him raise his eyebrows slightly. “And you?”
“Yeah,” you replied, giggling at yourself. “I’ve wanted you for so long,” you admitted.
“Mmn,” he hummed, giving you another light kiss. “If only you knew how badly I wanted you,” he replied, matching your giggle.
“You can show me now,” you told him, your tone sweet and melted in arousal for him. “I’ll be quiet.”
“But not too quiet,” he said. “I like the way you sound.”
Something came over you, like a bright light bulb going on and off inside your brain. You smiled cheekily, even though he was still leaning his forehead on yours and couldn’t see you. “Yes, daddy,” you replied.
Jeonghan let out a sigh, and you knew that he was smiling just by the sound alone. He hummed, closing the space between his mouth and yours to kiss it. “You will be the end of me,” he told you, giggling softly.
But then he wasted no time, continuing to explore your bare skin with his lips. He returned to kissing your chest, teasing your nipples with the tip of his tongue, and he did this slowly, as though getting to know how your skin tasted, how it felt on his lips. You were sure now—Yoon Jeonghan had been wanting to do this for a long time.
You remained silent, feeling too aroused and too needy to get things done to even speak. You felt as though your tongue had grown heavy in your mouth, and you were submitted to only watch and feel what Jeonghan did to you. He saw back on his knees, his fingers hooking around the waistband of your panties.
You exchanged a glance with him, and you knew that he was asking for permission just with a look. You nodded, and he started to pull your panties in his direction, taking them off your legs. You retracted your legs, lifting your knees up for him to take your panties off completely, and left them aside on the bed.
Now, you were utterly naked on his bed. For a split second, you wondered how this situation would look from afar—pitch black in the dead of night, only a sliver of streetlight seeping through a crack in the curtains. Jeonghan, half-naked and crawling on top of your body, as you welcomed him in your arms, parting your legs for him.
“You’re so beautiful,” he drawled, pushing his lips against your own. “You don’t know how many times I imagined you here with me,” he whispered coyly.
“Yeah?” you replied in kind.
“Mm-mmph,” he hummed. “So many times. And even then, all those things I thought about don’t even come close to the beauty you are in real life.”
“Hannie,” you giggled sheepishly.
He laughed against your mouth. “My pretty girl,” he said tenderly, kissing you one more time. “So perfect. And sweet.”
Your eyelids fluttered close, as he kissed the underside of your jaw, then your neck. You sighed. “All yours, daddy.”
Now, you were sure that word had an effect on him. He let out a hum against your skin, moving to kiss your collarbones, your chest, your belly. “All fucking mine,” he said aloofly, leaving wet kisses around your belly button.
The room fell silent again, all to the exception of your quiet moans and sighs, and the smacking of Jeonghan’s wet lips as he kissed your lower tummy, inching closer to where you needed him the most.
Now, part of you was finding it hard to believe what he was doing. Even if you had experiences with other people, they were never close to the man Yoon Jeonghan was. All of your past partners seemed to shrink in comparison just by the confidence he exuded—every move was deliberate despite his initial nervousness.
And you attributed that nervousness to how much he cared about this—about taking this step with you. Because you were also nervous. You had never liked someone this much. And had never even waited to have sex with someone for so long while dating.
“Hannie,” you mumbled shakily when he kissed your mound, sending you furtive glances to check in on you.
He lifted his head, and you saw his face. His lips were swollen and wet from kissing you, his eyes darkened and half-lidded with lust. “Want daddy to eat you out, baby?”
“Oh god—” you gasped. “Yes, yes, please.”
Jeonghan only smiled in response. It was a small smile, drawing on his face slowly. He said nothing, keeping his darkened gaze on you as he moved his mouth to kiss the top of your pussy.
You blinked repeatedly, mouth parting to let out a tiny moan. Your body twitched, and you laughed at your own involuntary response as his lips pressed a kiss just an inch lower. “God, Jeonghan, please just do it already,” you pleaded.
Jeonghan grabbed your thighs, holding them open as he bowed his head between them, pulling out his tongue and running it against your outer lips. The feeling was exquisite, making your back stir on his bed, and your head sink on his pillow. Your mouth fell open, and you had to clamp your palm against it to muffle a moan.
He blinked, raising his gaze to look at you briefly before he continued licking your outer lips. You noticed he was doing this to tease you only, right before he did the real thing. He licked your outer lips, kissed them and nipped them with his lips until you were a squirming mess.
“Please, please, please,” you begged over and over, sounding even more pathetic than before.
And he obliged, even if you weren’t voicing what you actually needed. Which was his mouth on your clit. But he did this slowly, working up to it. He gave you a broad stroke with his tongue in between your folds, drinking your arousal straight from your core with a pleased moan on his part.
He licked you over and over until his mouth found your swollen clit, wrapping his lips around it once, as though kissing it only. He flicked it with the tip of his tongue, only to get you to moan and thrash under him.
But he did not comment on it, even if you couldn’t see his face, you knew he was enjoying this. He brought a hand to your tummy, placing it flat against the top of your mound and then he latched his mouth around your clit again, beginning to suckle at it.
“Oh—” you gasped, leaving your mouth open wide as he teased your clit with his lips around it, sucking and pressing his wet tongue against it, moving it slightly from side to side. “God,” you cried out, squeezing your eyes shut.
He did this for a couple of minutes, only switching the pace and motion of his tongue when your moans became raunchier.
The room was soon flooded with the sounds you made and the sounds of Jeonghan’s mouth against your dripping wet pussy. Other than that, it was dead silent in the house, and you were becoming addicted to this game of sorts, of trying and failing to keep quiet. And part of you began to think that this was why Jeonghan kept edging you with his mouth.
“Daddy, I want to cum,” you told him. Running your fingertips on his scalp, feeling his short hair underneath your fingernails. “Please, help me cum,” you pleaded, your tone raw and sweet.
Your thighs were shaking. The rest of your body was so tense with arousal, you were sure you would break. But Jeonghan gave you what you so desperately wanted—sucking and licking your clit until you reached your climax. Tension broke in your body, filling you up with sweet, sweet pleasure.
Your fingers coiled around his hair, back arching as you let your orgasm consume you. “Fuck! Yes, yes, yes, Jeonghan,” you whined quietly, pleasure robbing you of sanity as you started sobbing and shaking on his bed.
He didn’t stop, not until you began panting and heaving. He left a sweet kiss on your top mound again, lifting his head from your ruined pussy. “Felt good?” he asked.
You pushed yourself to sit on the bed, hands quickly finding the waistband of his shorts and started tugging them down with shaky fingers. “Yeah. Amazing,” you sighed, not caring how pathetic you sounded.
Jeonghan was on his knees, looking at you fumble with the remainder of his clothes. He brought a hand to cup your cheek once you got rid of both his green shorts and his grey boxers. You raised your head to meet his gaze, and you knew that he just wanted to have an image of you like this.
You bent down, grabbing his hard cock with one hand and propping a prim kiss on his cockhead. You sent him a glance, moving your lips to press them on his shaft. Jeonghan was well-groomed and had a pretty cock. It was long, and the tip matched the color of his lips. And it was warm, hard and leaking precum from his slit.
His eyelids fluttered slightly. “Lay back, baby,” he whispered.
You obeyed, moving to lie back again on the pillows as he moved on his knees slowly. His gaze roved all over your naked body as he placed his hands on each side of your head, and then lowered himself to his elbows.
You ran your palms down his chest, feeling the muscle of his abdomen clenching slightly when your fingernails grazed against his skin. But he was kissing you again, as though he couldn’t go for too long without joining his lips with your own. His breathing shifted, and your fingers wrapping around his hard cock again made him groan into the kiss.
You rolled your hand on his cock, stroking him languidly as he positioned his knees on the bed, making you open your thighs wide for him. And then you guided the tip of his cock to your pussy, rubbing his cockhead up and down your wet folds just to get a reaction from him.
Jeonghan groaned, but didn’t stop you. And when his cockhead finally notched against your entrance, he pushed his hips against yours, slipping his bare cock inside you all in one go.
The kiss was broken. Your head sank on the pillows, and Jeonghan pulled back to see your face as he stuffed you full of his cock. Your eyebrows knitted, mouth parting as you let out a silent cry.
“You’re good?” he asked you softly, but his breath was ragged already.
You wanted to say yes. You felt better than you ever had in your entire life. An exhale came from your nose; you were already fucked out.
Jeonghan nudged the tip of his nose against yours. “Mn?” he hummed gently. “Baby?”
“I’m good, Jeonghan,” you mumbled, wrapping your arms over his shoulders. “Perfect,” you mouthed.
Jeonghan giggled, starting to move. “Yes, you are, baby,” he said sweetly. “So perfect.”
You wished you could say something just as endearing. But you were quickly robbed of speech completely. Your mind had gone blank, going from the shocking orgasm Jeonghan gave you with his mouth to stuffing you full of his cock.
Jeonghan let his head fall on the crook of your neck, using your hair to muffle a raw moan as he moved his hips against yours, thrusting his cock inside you at an insanely good and steady pace.
You had closed your eyes, letting him take you however he pleased. You were too gone, melted in a puddle of arousal—it was then you realized just how wet you were. Your skin was covered in a sheen layer of sweat, your face smeared with tears of pleasure, and you could feel your pussy dripping with a mixture of your arousal and his spit. So wet in fact that every time Jeonghan moved, you could hear it.
You had started to match Jeonghan’s moans, except that he could muffle them on the curve of your neck. You were trying not to be loud, but it was proving to be a harder task than it initially was.
Jeonghan moved his head, probably thinking the same thing you were, because he crushed his mouth against yours—kissing you so passionately that all you could think was that he was trying to get you to shut up.
But he leaned his forehead against yours, breathing raggedly as his thrusts picked the pace up. “You feel so good,” he whispered shakily. “I’m not going to last long.”
“It’s okay. I want you to cum,” you replied, letting your fingers feel his skin. His back, his lats, his hips as he rolled them on top of yours.
The moan he let out this time was raspy, but he was able to drown it out in your mouth. “Where do you want me?”
Your mind spun with the question. And you knew then—you were crazy. Because you had to be. “Cum inside me,” you said, hating the sound that came from your lips. Raw, honeyed, like a whine.
Jeonghan grunted in a near-animalistic way, his thrusts stuttering in their pace, but he kept ramming his cock in and out of your pussy. “Fuck,” he whispered. And he rarely cussed when he was with you, and that was how you knew he was growing more and more desperate. Closer to his orgasm.
“Jeonghan,” you whined, knowing now that he was just as insane as you were. You cupped the back of his head with your hands, feeling his trimmed hair in between your fingers. “I want you to fill me up, daddy. Please, please.”
He let out a long, raspy moan, his breath caressing your lips as he started gasping more, pushing his hips against yours in a languid manner. You knew he was cumming inside you, and the thought of it made you moan with him, tilting your hips for him to fuck his cum deeper into you.
Jeonghan opened his hand, finding your head to caress your hair. He was panting, his chest touching your own every time he drew in air through his mouth. His thumb started moving side to side, caressing your temple.
You were shaking, hands slipping from his head, but stopped at his neck, feeling his pulse.
Then you felt his lips over yours, making you part your lips for him to have access to your mouth. His tongue rolled inside your mouth, drawing an airy moan from you. You could taste yourself on his tongue, on his lips. The act alone made your walls clench around him.
And he felt it.
Jeonghan grunted. And for a split second, you thought you were beginning to go insane because you felt him move, pushing his hips ever so slightly against yours. But no, Jeonghan was thrusting inside you again, moving his hips languidly, so slowly.
But before you could utter a question, something, he pulled back. Now sitting on his knees, Jeonghan grabbed your hips, starting to fuck you down his cock, which was beginning to harden again.
“Fuck,” Jeonghan sighed, tilting his head back but only briefly. His gaze roved all over you, from your face to your body and down your pussy, where his cum was spilling out of your swollen and tight entrance.
You could only look at him. He had a fucked out look on his face, and you realized that his skin was also covered in a sheen film of sweat. Your gaze trailed down to his abdomen and the way it contracted slightly with each thrust of his hips against yours, to then his happy trail leading down his pubic hair, which was smeared with a creamy white string of your arousal. And he was also looking at you, where your bodies joined, where his cum was dripping out.
His cock slipped out of you, making you both emit a sound at the same time. You smiled softly at him, and he mirrored your smile back. He grabbed his cock, coated with his cum and your juices, only to drive it back in your pussy, pushing his cum deep inside your walls.
Your entire body was overtaken with an intense shudder. Jeonghan kept fucking you like this, moving your hips to meet his rapid thrusts. He was beginning to look tired, but that didn’t stop him from grabbing one of your thighs with one hand and hiking it up his shoulder.
You whined at the change in position, now you could feel his cock reaching deeper inside you at each thrust.
“Fuck,” he whispered tiredly, letting his head tilt back. “You feel so good, baby,” he repeated. “You’re squeezing me so good.”
You could only moan in response, which made Jeonghan smile, turning his face to press a kiss on the inner side of your knee. The feeling of his lips on your skin only intensified the pleasure building inside you.
“Jeonghan,” you called.
“Yes, baby?”
“Fuck me harder,” you pleaded.
It was at that moment you knew—you could never let go of this man. Because Yoon Jeonghan smiled at your request and gave in anyway. He grabbed your other leg and hiked it on his shoulder, now fucking you harder, driving his cock inside you deeper.
You let out a whine. The deeper he went inside you, the closer you felt to your second orgasm. And this time it was quicker, being so stimulated that pleasure built easily in your body. But it was the whole situation that drove you insane—trying to keep quiet while Jeonghan rammed his cock inside you, his cum spilling out of you, headboard slamming softly against the wall, everything.
“Jeonghan!” you gasped, a strangled noise coming out of you as your second orgasm barreled down your spine, so hard you had to squeeze your eyes shut and clench the blanket with your hands.
He let out a sound through gritted teeth, and you knew by the way his thrusts slowed down that he was cumming with you, too. “Fuck,” he whispered, thrusting tiredly now, sloppily. He eased your legs back to the bed, crawling back on top of your body to kiss you again.
The kiss was languid, heavy with the need to rest and go back to sleep. But you were both latched to each other, kissing passionately despite the urge to breathe properly again. You were tired, yes, but were also happy beyond belief.
You cupped his cheek as he broke the kiss with a gasp. “You okay?” he asked.
You giggled. “You have to stop asking me that,” you replied, caressing his cheek with your thumb. “Yes, Hannie. I’m okay.”
He blinked slowly, bumping the tip of your nose with his own. “Do you want to sleep now?”
You nodded. “Definitely,” you said.
Jeonghan smiled fondly at you. “Okay. But before that, let me take care of you. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” you replied, your tone tiny and so sweet.
It made Jeonghan smile. “Alright,” he said, kissing you one more time before he peeled his body off of yours.
He climbed off the bed and walked to the bathroom. Moments later, you heard the water from the shower running. As he came back to the bedroom, you got a better view of your boyfriend. He was glorious—wholly naked, fucked out look on his face. And all yours.
“Don’t give me that look,” he said as soon as he noticed you, smiling knowingly.
“What? What look?” you asked, playing coy.
He leaned over the bed, placing his hands at each side of your face. “The kind of look that makes me want to climb up here and keep making love to you all night long.”
You giggled amusedly. “Jeonghan, you’re threatening me with a good time.”
He smirked. “Oh, darling. And I haven’t even started with you,” he said, pressing a kiss on the corner of your mouth.
A tingling sensation shot down, straight to your core.
Jeonghan must’ve caught a reaction on your face, because he only giggled. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Once back in the bedroom, your tummy twisted anxiously when you saw the aftermath of what you had done—clothes scattered on the floor, the blanket tousled on one side of the bed and the messy covers and pillows.
You began to pick the clothes from the floor, gathering them in a neat pile while Jeonghan checked in on Sohee quickly. When he came back, your tummy fluttered again. He looked different, recently showered and ready to sleep, a different side to his confident face.
He had given you a t-shirt to wear and also offered to lend you sweatpants, which you declined, given that his t-shirt was already oversized and almost reached your knees.
A part of you felt different now. Not bad, exactly. Like you had reached the end of a chapter and were now beginning another. You and Jeonghan had had this routine of sorts for months before you started a sexual relationship, but it just felt so different now. It made you nervous.
Would he look at you differently now?
“Is something wrong?” Jeonghan asked, the sound of his voice snapping you out of your thoughts.
Jeonghan was opening the bedcovers and sheets for you both, motioning you over with his head.
“No. Nothing’s wrong,” you replied, trying your best to mask your self-doubt. You crossed the bedroom and slipped into the bed.
When Jeonghan clicked his tongue, you realized that you had taken a space that was far from his usual spot on his bed. “Come here,” he giggled softly, noticing your shyness now.
“Sorry,” you whispered, cuddling up to him. “Force of habit.”
“Mmn, yeah,” he muttered, looking at you as you leaned your head on his shoulder. He emitted a soft laugh, wrapping an arm around you. “Not anymore. Mkay?”
“Okay,” you replied, letting your worries go.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
You moved your head on his chest to look at him briefly. “Of course.”
“Why did you think I wanted to take things slow?” he asked. His tone was soft, quiet.
You blinked. “Because I thought you didn’t want to risk things changing between us…” You trailed off. “You know? You have a lot on your plate with Sohee and your ex.”
The last word spilled from you like a curse.
You and Jeonghan always skirted around that topic of conversation. All you knew was that Jeonghan had a very fleeting relationship with Sohee’s mother, and it ended up with her getting pregnant. Jeonghan had full custody of Sohee, and you had also come to learn that his ex only liked to appear in both Jeonghan’s and Sohee’s lives sporadically. But on those occasions, she always seemed to make it a living hell for him.
Jeonghan blinked, and you knew your words had left a heavy impact on him.
Your heart squeezed. “I shouldn’t have,” you added nervously, looking away. “I’m so sorry.”
A pause.
Jeonghan slipped his fingers beneath your chin, tilting your head up to meet your eye again. “No,” he mumbled. “We can talk about it.”
“Okay,” you whispered shakily.
“I don’t want you to think that there are things we can’t talk about, you know?” he said, worry beginning to set into the features of his face. “And maybe I’m to blame here, because I didn’t want to bombard you with my stuff.”
“What do you mean?” you said.
Jeonghan sighed, and it wasn’t out of tiredness or exasperation. He was looking for the words to say. “When I met you, I was terrified of some things. I debated whether to tell you about Sohee on the first date. I just didn’t want to say something that would scare you away,” he lowered his gaze briefly. “And I debated even more on telling you about my ex.”
“But you did tell me about Sohee on our first date,” you reminded him, frowning a little. “And about your ex on our second date.”
Jeonghan smirked slowly. “So you do remember our second date.”
“Of course I do, dummy,” you said. And then it clicked. You didn’t remember telling Jeonghan about your favorite kind of pizza because he had just told you about his evil ex. And that was his way of changing the topic. “I must’ve been digesting a lot of information while we talked about Hawaiian pizza, you know?”
He offered you a solemn look. “And you still stuck around. You could’ve walked away, but you didn’t,” he whispered, looking at you longingly. “You still haven’t.”
You parted your mouth. “I don’t think I want to, Jeonghan,” you replied in kind.
His gaze softened. “If something happens, will you talk about it with me?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” you mouthed. “Can I ask you now?”
Jeonghan nodded, blinking at you sleepily.
“Why did you think I wanted to take things slow?”
“Same thing,” he responded reluctantly at first. He let out a sigh. “I thought you didn’t want things to get messy, you know? I have a kid and I’m alone in this. I didn’t want to hold it against you if you didn’t want to get sexually involved with me.”
A smile broke into the features of your face. You pushed yourself up to kiss him tenderly. “You’re such a dummy,” you whispered.
“Me?” he giggled, holding you closer so he could press another kiss on your lips. “What did I do?”
“I’ve wanted you from the moment we met,” you told him, and it was the truth.
“How was I supposed to know?” he said, clearly clueless.
“I thought you always noticed,” you said, still in disbelief.
“But you never said anything.”
“Jeonghan,” you deadpanned. “I really like you. Like really, really like you.”
He smiled sheepishly, blinking slowly. “Well, I know that. I really like you too. I just wanted to wait until you felt ready to take things to the next level.”
“Babe, I literally called you daddy and let you cum inside me not only once, but twice,” you told him with a flat tone.
Jeonghan almost choked on his laughter. “Sweetheart! You can’t just say those things,” he said, sounding both scandalized and amused.
“Why not?” you said, clicking your tongue. “You’re always saying weird stuff as well.”
“Really?” he said, and you nodded at him. “Am I weird?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, I’m weird then,” he said with a faux defeated tone.
“You’re weird like pineapple on pizza,” you said. “Sweet and salty at the same time.”
He emitted a low chuckle. “That’s really corny, babe. I’m impressed.”
“Thank you. I work hard on my metaphors,” you replied primly.
“I’ll give this metaphor a seven out of ten,” he smirked.
You gasped. “Admit it, you love my metaphors.”
“Yeah, like I love pineapple on pizza,” he said, letting the sarcasm coat his words. He brushed his fingers down the line of your jaw, looking at you fondly. “You’re weird too.”
“The kind of weird that matches yours,” you said confidently.
Jeonghan smirked, closing the space between his lips and yours. “Absolutely.”
› author's note pt. 2: i need to give him a kid. or kids, plural. like asap, please. i'm begging 😭
i literally wrote this in between calls from work. like it literally took me 24 hours to write this, no joke. jeonghan just drives me insane. i have no explanation for this 🧍🏻♀️ i might just be ovulating but let's be real — i'm always thinking about jeonghan, and right now the baby fever is going wild. you'll see in future fics lololol
i want to thank you all for being here and for reading so far!! i recently gave away 25 free spots on my patreon!! i'm so excited hehe, i might giveaway more spots in the future! thank you guys for joining! 🥺🩵
pairing - non idol ! seungcheol x f.reader [fluff/angst]
summary → you and seungcheol became best friends freshman year of college, drifting into something softer and unspoken by junior year when you became roommates. now, after graduating, he has one week left before enlistment— a countdown tied to his future at his father’s company and the life waiting for him after completing service. but between a simple haircut in your shared bathroom and the weight of leaving, everything he’s kept buried finally spills out, because what he’s really afraid of isn’t enlistment… it’s leaving the person he’s been secretly in love with for years
word count - 3.7k
warnings! → friends to lovers, roommates to lovers, mutual pining, love confession, yearning, seungcheol being devastatingly in love, military enlistment mention, pre-enlistment emotions, kissing/making out- no smut, years of repressed feelings, bathroom confession scene, soft/domestic intimacy, suggestive ending, happy ending, two idiots finally communicating
The bathroom smelled like vanilla, clean laundry, and Seungcheol’s cologne. The one he always wore without thinking. That warm, slightly spicy scent that clung to his hoodies and lingered in the apartment long after he’d walked out of a room.
It mixed with the softness of vanilla melting through the air in slow, comforting waves, trying to wrap the moment in something gentler than what it really was.
Clean laundry hung nearby from the rack beside the shower, still faintly warm from the dryer, fabric softener folding itself into the air every time you moved. It made the space feel lived in, like any other night, like nothing was about to change.
Like he wasn’t leaving in a week.
You’d lit the candle earlier to keep things feeling normal. Because to you, this wasn’t goodbye.
Not really.
It was just something difficult he had to get through before coming back home again.
But sitting in front of the mirror while strands of dark hair fell steadily around him, Seungcheol felt every inch of this moment settling into his chest with terrifying finality.
The low buzz of the clippers sounded too loud in the small bathroom. Every pass against his scalp stripped away another piece of familiarity, and with each lock of hair hitting the tile floor, the reality became harder to ignore.
One week.
One week before he left behind the apartment that had become more his home than any place ever had before.
One week before leaving you.
Meanwhile, you stayed focused carefully behind him. Occasionally brushing loose strands from his shoulders and chatting softly about completely ordinary things. The grocery list for tomorrow, your cafe manager finally fixing the broken espresso machine, and which of your friends would inevitably cry the most dramatically at the enlistment send off.
Like this was temporary. Like the two of you would naturally fall back into this exact rhythm again once he returned.
And maybe that should’ve comforted him. Instead, it only made the ache in his chest worse.
You swallowed around the lump in your throat and focused on the careful motion of your wrist.
One more pass.
The clippers hummed over the back of his head, leaving behind soft dark stubble. You stepped back slightly, examining your work before flicking the power off. Silence settled heavily between you.
“There,” you said quietly.
You brushed the loose hair from his neck before running your palm gently over the freshly shaved skin. The texture made your chest ache unexpectedly.
“All done.” A small smile tugged at your lips as you leaned down into his line of sight through the mirror. “Wow. Okay, it definitely looks weird.”
His brows lifted faintly.
“Not bad weird,” you corrected quickly, laughing softly. “Just.. you’ve never had your hair this short before.” Your fingers rubbed over the top of his head again playfully. “You actually look really cute.”
You moved around the stool until you stood between his knees, his legs naturally parting to make room for you in the cramped bathroom. Your hands stayed on his head, thumbs brushing along his temples while you grinned down at him.
It was the smile that always ruined him.
The one that crinkled your eyes slightly. That he’d watched across lecture halls and grocery aisles and lazy Sunday mornings in your shared apartment kitchen. The one that had slowly, disastrously made him fall in love with you years ago.
But instead of smiling back, his expression only seemed to sink further.
Your own smile faltered.
“Cheol?”
He looked away. His gaze dropped to the floor instead, landing on the ridiculous fuzzy green house slippers covering your feet.
The pair he bought you two winters ago after you’d spent twenty minutes dramatically mourning them in the middle of a department store because you couldn’t afford “unnecessary purchases” until your next paycheck from the café.
You’d worn them nearly every day since.
“Seungcheol,” you said again, softer this time, but still nothing.
You reached down, fingers curling around his chin until you gently tilted his face back toward you.
“Earth to Cheol?”
He swallowed hard, his eyes still locked downwards.
“I don’t want to go.”
The words came out rough, and your chest tightened immediately.
“I know,” you said carefully. “It’s not exactly an easy thing.”
You tried to give a reassuring smile again, thumb brushing along his cheek.
“But you’ll be back before you know it. And then you’ll start at your dad’s company and everything’ll work out.” You shrugged lightly. “Unless you can convince your dad to rearrange the plan somehow?”
He shook his head once.
“That’s not it.”
“Then what?”
His eyes finally met yours fully, and it nearly undid him.
Because you were looking at him the same way you always did. Soft, patient, worried for him before yourself. Standing between his knees in those stupid fuzzy green slippers, your fingers still warm against his skin from where you’d rubbed over his freshly shaved head, completely unaware you were holding his entire heart in your hands.
God. How was he supposed to leave this?
How was he supposed to pack up two years of shared mornings, late night convenience store runs and you humming in the kitchen while making coffee half asleep and just, walk away from it? From you?
His chest tightened painfully. All he could think about was time.
A week from now, he’d be gone, and life would keep moving without him.
You’d still go to the café on weekends. Burn pancakes every Sunday morning because you refuse to turn the heat down, and still laugh so hard at dumb movies you’d snort without realizing it.
But eventually, someone else might be there to see it. Someone else might start memorizing the little things about you the way he had.
Someone else might carry your grocery bags, and sit in his spot beside you at bars. Walk home with you at night, or hear you call their name from another room instead of his.
The thought made him feel sick.
Because Seungcheol had spent years pretending what existed between you was enough. Pretending friendship didn’t already feel dangerously close to love. Pretending he could survive watching you belong to somebody else someday.
But now there was an expiration date looming over him, and suddenly every second with you felt fragile. Temporary.
His throat tightened before speaking again.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
The words came out quieter than he intended. Not because he was unsure, but because saying them out loud made everything terrifyingly real.
Your heart stumbled at the words, a sharp, disorienting skip you immediately tried to dismiss. No, that wasn’t what he meant. It couldn’t be.
You latched onto the thought almost instinctively, like a reflex. Like you’d done a hundred times before whenever something about him felt like it tipped too close to something you weren’t supposed to look at too long.
He’s Seungcheol. Your best friend. Your roommate. The person who had been woven into the shape of your days for four years until it didn’t even feel like separate lives anymore.
That’s all this was. It had to be.
So you laughed softly anyways, a little too quick, a little too light, as if you could smooth the moment over before it had time to turn into anything else in your mind.
“You’re such a baby,” you teased gently. “I’ll still be here when you get out.” You squeezed his shoulders. “Plus, you’ll get leave sometimes, right? We’ll still hang out.”
He shook his head again, sharper this time.
Before you could say anything else, his hands suddenly wrapped around your wrists, stopping your movements against his shoulders. Slowly, he slid his hands down until his fingers intertwined with yours. And when he spoke again, his voice had changed completely.
Serious. Low. Almost trembling.
“I don’t want to leave you,” He repeated, his tone vulnerable and bare.
The air shifted. Your smile faded entirely now.
“Cheol..”
“I don’t want to leave and come back and..” He exhaled shakily, eyes squeezing shut for a second before reopening. “Be replaced.”
Confusion flickered across your face.
“Replaced? Seungcheol, what are you talking about? You’ll always—”
“I don’t want another guy taking my place in your life.”
The words hit you so hard you went completely still. For a second, your brain genuinely couldn’t process them. Not because you didn’t understand what he was saying, but because some terrified hidden part of you had spent years convincing yourself you imagined all of it.
The lingering looks, the way his hand always found the small of your back in crowded places. How naturally the two of you moved around each other like you’d built a life together without realizing it. The quiet domesticity of him bringing you home your favorite snacks without asking. Falling asleep together on the couch, sharing inside jokes, or tying his tie for him when he has to visit his fathers company building.
Like he belonged in every crevice of your daily life.
You had spent so long forcing yourself not to read into it. Because Seungcheol was Seungcheol. Your best friend, Your roommate, the person who had become home so slowly you never even noticed it happening.
And loving him had always felt dangerous. So instead, you suppressed it.
Buried every flutter in your chest when strangers mistakenly called you his girlfriend. How much you loved hearing him laugh from another room. Locked away the embarrassing ache you felt whenever he looked especially handsome before going out somewhere. Ignoring the way your heart would sink anytime another woman flirted with him in front of you.
You told yourself it was safer that way. Better to keep him as your best friend than risk losing him entirely. But now he was sitting in front of you looking terrified of losing you, and suddenly every moment over the last four years came crashing together so violently it almost made your chest hurt.
Your throat tightened painfully as you stared at him, your pulse pounding so hard you could hear it in your ears.
Meanwhile Seungcheol looked seconds away from unraveling completely, like he already regretted saying it out loud.
And somehow that made it worse. Because all this time, he’d been carrying the same feelings you had.
He laughed once under his breath, but there was nothing amusing about it.
“We live together,” he said quietly. “We cook together. We grocery shop together. We do laundry together. We spend every stupid Sunday rotting on the couch watching movies neither of us actually likes because we’re too lazy to change them.”
Your lips parted slightly.
“And somewhere along the way my feelings stopped being normal.”” He shook his head, his thumbs rubbed nervously against your knuckles.
“I like when strangers think we’re together.”
Your breath caught.
“I like when we argue over ramen flavors in the store and old women smile at us like we’re married already.” His eyes flickered up to yours finally. “I like when we go out drinking and some guy starts trying to flirt with you, but the second I walk back over beside you he leaves because he thinks I’m your boyfriend.” His voice softened painfully. “I like taking care of you.”
Your chest felt impossibly tight now, every feeling you had spent years carefully locking away had suddenly cracked open all at once.
It hurt. Not in a bad way, not really. Just, too much.
Too much affection. Too much relief. Too much longing you’d trained yourself not to touch because wanting Seungcheol had always felt like standing too close to the edge of something dangerous.
Your eyes burned as you stared at him. At the boy who had unknowingly become the center of your entire life, and now he was sitting here looking at you like losing you would ruin him.
The realization nearly knocked the air from your lungs. Because all this time, you thought you were the only one aching quietly through all those little moments.
All those nights lying awake in your room wondering what would happen if you reached for him first. All those mornings watching him half asleep in the kitchen, thinking with painful certainty that someday another woman would get this version of him instead.
But he was looking at you now with the same fear.
“I like knowing how you take your coffee.” He laughed quietly. “I like that you steal my hoodies and leave hair ties everywhere and sing badly when you clean the apartment. I like that you always save me the last dumpling even though it’s your favorite food.” His eyes glistened slightly. “I like coming home to you.”
The room felt too small, too warm.
The tiny bathroom that had always felt ordinary suddenly seemed intimate in a way it never had before. His knees brushing against your thighs, your hands still trapped in his, the soft buzz of the overhead light filling the silence between every shaky breath.
You could hear everything. The uneven rhythm of his breathing. The faint drip of the faucet. Your own heartbeat pounding violently in your ears.
And Seungcheol was close. So close enough that you could see the nervous swallow in his throat. Close enough to notice the slight tremble in his fingers where they held yours. Close enough that if you leaned forward even an inch, both of your foreheads would touch.
It made you dizzy.
Because suddenly every little domestic moment you both shared in this apartment over the years felt charged with something you’d spent too long pretending not to notice.
Late night conversations in this same bathroom while brushing your teeth. Him standing shirtless in the doorway after showers with wet hair dripping onto the floor while you complained at him to clean it up. You sitting on the counter while he shaved, talking about absolutely nothing for an hour because being near each other had always been enough.
How had you both survived living like this for years without combusting?
The warmth crawling up your neck had nothing to do with the bathroom anymore. It was him.
The way he was looking at you now, open and terrified, aching with love he could barely contain made the entire room feel suffocatingly small.. and he still wasn’t done.
“I love how excited you get over stupid little things,” he whispered. “Like finding books at thrift stores or those ugly ceramic frogs you keep collecting for some reason—”
“They’re vintage,” you muttered automatically through the overwhelming emotion building in your chest.
He huffed out a broken laugh. “See?”
And there it was again. That ridiculous, earnest defensiveness over something objectively stupid. Even now, standing in the middle of a life altering confession, both of you seconds from emotionally unraveling, you still couldn’t help correcting him about the ceramic frogs. It hit him with such painful affection he thought his chest might split open.
Because that was you.
You cared so deeply about little things, threw your whole heart behind harmless, ridiculous things without embarrassment. You made ordinary moments feel alive simply because you existed inside them so fully, and Seungcheol had spent years helplessly falling in love with every tiny piece of it.
The way you argued passionately about thrift store finds. How you got distracted halfway through serious conversations because a dog walked past the window. The way you always, always found something to love in things other people overlooked.
Even now, with tears gathering in your eyes and his confession hanging heavily between you, your instinct has been to defend your stupid frog collection.
God. How was he ever supposed to leave someone like you behind?
Your eyes burned.
“I’m in love with you,” he finally admitted.
The words hung between you, raw and terrifying.
“And I’m horrified that while I’m gone, somebody else is gonna get all of this instead.” His voice cracked slightly now. “Somebody else gets to live with you and cook with you and hear you laugh at two in the morning and hold your hand in public and–” He stopped to breathe shakily. “I had to tell you before I left,” he whispered. “Even if you don’t feel the same. Because I think it would actually kill me if I came back and you belonged to someone else.”
Silence. Complete silence. Seungcheol’s heart pounded so violently he thought he might actually throw up.
Then suddenly, you laughed.
His brows furrowed immediately.
“What?”
You laughed harder, one hand flying up to cover your mouth as tears filled your eyes now.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked, completely bewildered as you breathed between laughs.
“We are two huge idiots.”
He blinked at you.
“What?”
You shook your head, smiling so brightly it nearly knocked the breath from him.
Then you leaned down and kissed him.
Seungcheol froze. For one stunned second, his brain stopped functioning altogether.
But then his hands were suddenly at your waist, gripping tightly as he kissed you back with years of buried longing crashing into the moment all at once.
The kiss deepened instantly. Messy, desperate, relieved.
You could feel the shaky exhale leave him as he pulled you closer between his legs, your fingers sliding over the newly shaved sides of his head as you kissed him again and again.
When you finally pulled apart for air, both of you breathless, he rested his forehead against yours in disbelief.
“You idiot,” you whispered fondly, still smiling like you couldn’t quite believe him.
“You love me?” he asked, quieter this time, like saying it wrong might make it disappear. Like he still couldn’t fully trust it was real.
You hummed, pretending to think about it as your fingers absently traced the back of his hand.
“Unfortunately for you,” you said lightly, “yes.”
His breath caught just slightly. Then, like something finally clicking into place behind his eyes, his expression shifted.
“Since when?”
The question wasn’t playful anymore. It was careful and serious.
Your teasing smile softened at the edges, but you didn’t look away. “Junior year,” you said simply.
His brows pulled together immediately. “Junior year?”
You nodded once, like it should’ve been obvious, but it wasn’t. And you let him sit in it for a second longer before you added, softer now, just a little less teasing.
“You came back to the apartment at like 1am during midterms week,” you said. “And I was on the kitchen floor because I’d completely given up on studying.” Something in his expression shifted instantly.
“Oh.”
You nodded, watching him remember it piece by piece.
“I wasn’t sick,” you continued. “I wasn’t anything dramatic. I was just.. exhausted. Like, the kind where you feel stupid for crying but you can’t stop anyway.” His thumb tightened slightly against your hand. “And you didn’t try to fix it,” you said, voice quieter now. “You just sat down next to me on the floor like it was the most normal thing in the world and started going through my notes with me.”
A faint, almost disbelieving smile flickered on his lips. He remembered now, too. Especially how pretty you still looked when you sat in front of the kitchen stove covered in a sea of notebook paper.
“And you didn’t say anything about it being late, or how tired you were,” you added. “You just stayed until I stopped crying.” You shrugged slightly, like you were trying to make it sound small.
Seungcheol went quiet. Really quiet. Like he was realizing something he’d never considered before, that for him it had just been another night of taking care of you, showing up for you, but for you, it had been the night you started loving him.
A disbelieving laugh escaped him.
Then you grinned suddenly, mischief returning to your expression.
“So while you’re gone,” you said casually, “which room should I combine our stuff into?”
He blinked.
“Huh?”
“You know,” you continued innocently, in a way only you could. “Since obviously one room becomes ours and the other becomes a spare room.”
He let out a loud scoff laugh, shaking his head in disbelief before suddenly standing up. You squealed as he grabbed your thighs and lifted you effortlessly.
“Wow,” you laughed breathlessly, your arms sliding around his shoulders while your legs wrapped around his waist. “Someone got confident really fast.”
Seungcheol looked up at you with a grin that was equal parts smug and completely lovestruck.
“You kissed me first,” he pointed out.
“You confessed first.”
“And now I’m making up for lost time.”
Heat rushed to your face instantly at the way he said it, low and certain, like something in him had finally snapped after years of holding himself back.
You tried to laugh it off anyway. “Oh, so this is who you are now?”
“This,” he said, tightening his grip slightly beneath your thighs, “is who I’ve been trying not to be around you for four years.”
Your stomach flipped violently.
“Cheol–”
“I’m serious.” His eyes flickered down to your lips again. “Do you know how hard it’s been living with you looking like that all the time?”
You let out an incredulous laugh. “Looking like what?”
“Like my girlfriend,” he answered immediately.
The bluntness of it made your breath catch.
“And now you actually are. No take backs,” he murmured, sounding a little stunned by the realization himself. Then his mouth curled into something more teasing. “So yeah,” he said softly, stepping closer until your back brushed the bathroom wall, “I’m gonna be confident for a minute.”
Before you could recover from that, he kissed you again, slower this time, deeper, like now that he finally had permission he never wanted to stop touching you.
Butterflies exploded in your stomach.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours again, eyes softer than you’d ever seen them.
“We can figure the room thing out later,” he murmured. “But we only have one week before I leave.” Your breath caught at the look in his eyes. “And there are a lot of things I’ve been fantasizing about doing with you.”
Heat rushed to your face instantly.
“Choi Seungcheol!”
He grinned for the first time all night. Then he carried you out of the bathroom and down the hall toward his bedroom while your laughter echoed through the apartment the two of you had unknowingly turned into a home together years ago.
✧✎ synopsis: seungcheol's gotten used to living alone. he's turning a new leaf. closing doors but opening windows. taking life one day at a time. however, he's also learned a window left open lets in many things. a voiceless girl, for instance, unconscious and tattered on his step.
pairing: fem!reader x seungcheol
chapter word count: 16.6k
series word count: 80k
genres/tropes: widower!seungcheol + he's a retired private investigator + jeonghan/joshua are a couple bc i can't write anything without making people gay + original characters + an attempt at mystery (ooOOuuUU) + time travel!au + gets a bit sci-fi down the line but it's not overbearing + slowburn obviously + romance + very angsty so pls read the warnings! + some intense action scenes + comfort/fluff + smut
(!) warnings: PLEASE READDD PLEASUHHH > multiple mentions of character death + grief of losing a loved one + a side character's suicide is brought up various times + a particular character is a PHYSICAL ABUSER (scenes are not at all frequent but the moment is indeed graphic) + use of knives and a gun + gets quite bloody/gorey at a certain point + one instance of homophobia + mature language
✎ a/n: SORRY FOR LATE UPLOAD 😭 my roommate was showing me zootopia two lahmao. it's possible part four's upload may also be a little off schedule bc i have an exam coming up 😔 i'll try my best!!
important bullets:
chapter releases are every saturday at ~10pm EST
msg/dm/inbox me to be added to the taglist
the series is split into 5 chapters (14-18k)
majority is told from scoups pov!
✎ 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05
PLEASE NOTE: i block contentless blogs who interact with my posts! if you like something, pls let the poster know 🫶
“Well… that’s as good as it’s gonna get.”
Seungcheol tore the final strand of gauze, letting the tail drape from your elbow. You were robustly wrapped from head to toe—a mixture of medical gauze he bought from the pharmacy and standard toilet paper—the perfect mummy. He left a slit for your eyes. It was all he could see of your body. When you examined yourself in his bedroom mirror, there wasn’t much reaction apart from some nitpicking adjustments. Seungcheol offered the siren, showed you some costume pictures for reference off his laptop and vouched for Joshua’s clever little plotline to cover your muteness, but you didn’t seem convinced.
For whatever reason, the mummy spoke to you.
He assumed it might be the coverage. Being completely embalmed in toilet paper, he assumed, was a lot more effective at preserving your anonymity, your privacy. Seungcheol wanted you to be comfortable; he didn’t admit that it would have been nice to see your face all night, even if it was sponged over with a scaly blue paint. A siren was much more complementary to his costume—a pirate. He wore a dark navy jacket shiny in detailed swirls of silk, an old ruffled shirt airy underneath, a cavalier hat with a fake striped feather. Around his neck lay some plastic gold necklaces. Seungcheol owned a few expensive chains—he wasn’t going to wear them to a damn Halloween party.
“We’ll have to head out soon,” he acknowledged with a sigh, checking his wristwatch. “I still can’t believe we’re going to this.” You followed him into the dim living room, where he helped you slide into his rain jacket. “We’ll have to make sure you don’t unravel,” he teased.
You didn’t want to bring your notebook.
That made him nervous.
It was based on an insistence to fit in, you had expressed. Even when he offered to hold it for you the entire night, you still disagreed.
On the drive to Joshua and Jeonghan’s house, Seungcheol rehearsed your pretend storyline while his thumbs patted against the steering wheel. “You’re an old high school friend whose stopping by for a few days. On a trip to visit your parents. You’re just getting over a nasty case of laryngitis so you’re not talking. Uh… that’s it, right?” Seungcheol asked, catching the glinting slits of your eyes in the rear-view mirror.
You coughed a bit. It was weak and dry.
“That’s a terrible cough,” he chuckled.
So you sat up against the seatbelt and really started to hack.
“Way better,” he contested. “Way more laryngitis-y.”
He parked about two blocks down from Joshua’s house. His heart was pattering unstoppably, anxious for himself and for you. When he opened the passenger door, you slid out the car cautiously and adjusted the dressings around your eyes before reaching for his hand.
Joshua loved to decorate, no matter the occasion. A gigantic blow-up jack-o-lantern was glowing in the middle of the lawn like a molten orange sun. There were fake cobwebs strewn over the hedges and cheap, hacked limbs hanging from their apple tree. A skeleton was sat in a chair at their front porch holding onto a bowl of candy that had already been steadily picked through. Seungcheol took a chocolate bar for himself and you picked out a lollypop—something unlikely to melt.
“We can do this shit, right?” Seungcheol said while smiling at you gingerly, listening to the peal of the doorbell he just pressed.
He saw your wrapped head nod, noticed your scintillating eyes.
The door unlocked.
“Hey guys!” Joshua shouted with enthusiasm. He was dressed in the starry garb of what Seungcheol assumed to be a wizard. There was a fake, wispy beard attached to his chin and a pointed cone-shaped hat sitting tall and purple on his head. “Welcome to the bash!” Joshua sang while unveiling a makeshift wand from underneath his cloak—a twinkling star adorned with fluttery bits of tinsel that made it shimmer.
“Damn, Josh. You sure know how to pull together a costume,” Seungcheol commended, stepping inside behind you.
The floors crawled with a thick, obscuring fog. Light was purposefully minimal apart from an undulating orange oozing outside the bulbs that draped the ceilings. Carved pumpkins sat on their vanity corridor, demonstrating Joshua’s natural flourish of artistry. Seungcheol swore he could smell popcorn and caramel. It was pure sweetness in his nose. He had forgotten how devoted a party-planner Joshua was.
“Thanks. I had to make like, ten separate trips to Michael’s, but it all came together last night.” Joshua helped you remove the rain jacket, then arranged it neatly within an organized closet space. “I see you decided on the mummy. Do I get any credit for my suggestion?”
Seungcheol cleared his throat. “Of course.”
“Well,” his friend huffed as he scratched an itch underneath his fake beard, careful not to rupture its position, “I do hope you guys enjoy.”
“This is the best I’ve ever seen it.”
“Oh, wait ‘till you see our snacks,” Joshua goaded. “I can show you around a bit if you’d like. Or you can venture on your own. If you want to do any events, apple bobbing starts at ten, some classic beer pong at ten-thirty, cupcake contest at eleven, and the scary story contest kicks off at midnight. There’s an itinerary on the fridge to keep track!”
“I think we’ll look around on our own,” Seungcheol answered, smiling at his friend warmly as he began to pick up the lengthy ends to his mystique cloak. “I figure I’m an experienced tour guide.”
“That, you are, Seungcheol,” Joshua acknowledged. “Make sure you get some punch! Keep hydrated. Have fun. Insert more typical hosting shenanigans I’ve repeated to twenty others. Later!”
Joshua then slipped his way through the fog and haze.
Seungcheol glanced at you, somewhat frustrated that he had nothing but your eyes to glean. “Still into it?” he asked, half-smiling.
You looked around at the meticulous decor, kicked your foot through the mist. He couldn’t tell if it was hesitance or intrigue until you fixed a loose dressing tossed over your shoulder and nodded.
In reality, Seungcheol was only well acquainted with a small percentage of the guests in attendance. Most were personal friends of Joshua and Jeonghan, fellow staff from Rosseau Elementary and Jeonghan’s medical gig, cousins, neighbours— all people Seungcheol would struggle to recognize through a guise—and there were some pretty fascinating ones. He pointed out a guy in a werewolf costume, his face carved in gruff prosthetics, fur, and makeup, while he voraciously chomped at a caramel-dipped apple. Your shoulders pushed up to your ears in disgust and you shook your head disapprovingly.
Not a fan of werewolves, Seungcheol noted. Got it.
While Seungcheol ate his chocolate in the kitchen, he diverted your attention to a woman dressed as a butterfly. She wore antenna on her head and had spray-painted, cardboard wings on her shoulder blades, highlighted with dashes of vibrant, fairy glitter. When she turned to ladle some blood orange punch into a glass, Seungcheol bristled at the complete blackness of the contacts she had placed in her eyes. He felt you shiver, too. Noticed you had made another slit in the gauze bundled around your face so that you could stick the lollypop in your mouth.
He nudged your elbow. “What flavour?”
You removed the glistering candy.
“Watermelon?”
A nod.
“Cherry’s better.”
He felt a reciprocated, bony push into his arm.
Together, you examined the organized cupcake platters spread out on the dining table. Some designs were more technical, others crude but probably just as delicious. Each platter had a small, bent piece of cardstock to label the flavour and provide the name of the baker.
Lucy’s red velvet!
Matt’s confetti!
Charlotte’s French vanilla!
Dana’s cream cheese and pumpkin spice!
Seungcheol pointed at the pumpkin spice cupcakes, frosted generously with cream cheese icing that ended in a perfect swirl. “I would fuck those up,” he said. “Very elite flavour combination.”
You shook your head, pointed to Lucy’s red velvet.
“Did you know red velvet is just chocolate? It’s a lie, man.”
He could see the way your eyes squinched.
“It’s true! I like red velvet. But it’s not Halloween in the way pumpkin spice is. I guess Lucy’s designs are better, though.”
You nodded.
Seungcheol appreciated that he could still… talk to you… without really talking to you. By just interpreting passing lights in your eyes, like he was reading an astrological map; by measuring the softness or hardness of your body language. He wanted to believe it was making him more percipient, that your connection was strengthening.
“Apple-bobbing is gonna start soon,” Seungcheol hummed, checking the time on his wristwatch, perhaps not historically accurate, although there was no nitpicky costume content as far as he knew. “It’s out back. Wanna watch?”
You swirled the lollypop with your tongue, nodded.
Outside was a scramble of shouting and cheers. Apple-bobbing came down to a timed effort amongst three teams. Jeonghan was judging the competition, stood on top a stepladder and gripping a stopwatch in his hand. You and Seungcheol stayed on the back porch, purposefully avoiding the rambunctious crowd and the unappealing splashes of cold, cold water each time someone’s soaking head burst out from a tin.
Seungcheol was attempting to interpret Jeonghan’s costume through the glow of a crackling fire—a blue dress, a braided red wig fastened into ponytails, and an intense blush powdered onto his cheekbones—thinking he could be a Raggedy Anne doll. It would make sense, Seungcheol thought, considering the year before he dressed as Cameron from the Bratz Boyz line while Joshua matched as Dylan.
He looked at you continuing to gnaw on your lollypop.
“Is this everything you imagined?” Seungcheol asked.
Under the layers of paper, he noticed your nose scrunch.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I don’t really get it either.”
Suddenly, the clear, sharp sound of a whistle silenced the commotion. Jeonghan was holding the stopwatch high into the night like he was some officiated, esteemed referee, the whistle still perched between his lips. He spat it out with gusto. “That’s time! We have a winner!” After making his way down the stepladder, Jeonghan proceeded to reveal a flashy envelope from a deep pocket on his dress. “The winner, who I will name promptly, shall receive the enticing prize within this obnoxiously neon-coloured envelop! Give me a magnificent drumroll!”
The audience began to harshly smack their thighs or the plastic surface of the foldable table unearthed from the basement, amplifying a crescendo of anticipation. Seungcheol couldn’t help but glance at you again from his peripheral, desperate to observe your every reaction.
“The winner is… Team Matt!”
Seungcheol shrugged, clapping with everyone else.
“Team Matt secured thirty-two apples in three minutes! An all-time record!” Jeonghan entertained to the costumed crowd, his face glistening in the firelight. “And for his victory, Matt and his team will share a one-hundred-dollar gift card to a local favourite—Chifferi!”
“Oh, that’s a good prize,” Seungcheol noted.
You removed the lollypop, looked at him sideways.
“It’s an Italian restaurant. Best pasta I’ve ever had.”
Jeonghan handed the smiley winner, perhaps dressed as a pizza delivery man, his enveloped prize. “The next question is,” Jeonghan engaged, “will Mr. Matty here also take home first place for his cupcakes?” to which the audience returned a mixed chorus of cheering and nagging. “Alright, beer pong is coming up next! Take a break for now, enjoy some more snacks, or perfect your throw!”
Most of the crowd began to return up the porch steps and back into the house, allowing a languorous silence to settle outdoors. A few stayed behind to continue enjoying the warmth of the broiling, scarlet fire, sipping beer and keeping their voices to a murmur. Seungcheol could hear the wood crackling, smell the delicious charred smoke.
“Hey, Cheol!”
Jeonghan was there, an apple in his hand.
Seungcheol smiled, furrowing his brow. “Hey… Raggedy Anne?”
“Nah! I’m Dorothy, dumbass!”
He snorted. “You could also be the logo for Wendy’s.”
“Bladdey, blah, blah. How’d you find apple-bobbing?”
Seungcheol shrugged. “I thought you would participate.”
Jeonghan scoffed, tore a bite from his apple. “Absolutely not,” the boy mumbled while ungracefully chewing, taking another bite before swallowing his first. “I’m the hossft!” Gulp. “The host doesn’t play!”
“Joshua wouldn’t. You might.”
“I didn’t wanna get yelled at again,” he stated simply. Jeonghan’s eyes fell somewhere behind Seungcheol. “Who’s the mummy?”
His chest stiffened, suddenly full of frost. But he couldn’t afford to screw anything up for you. “Oh—uh—I brought a friend from high school.” Seungcheol’s brain coughed up the script. “She really got suckered with a bad case of laryngitis, so she’s saving her voice.”
There was only the hissing, popping fire and the juicy piece of apple Jeonghan crunched between his teeth. He stared at you for a moment, who was completely enshrouded in gauze and toilet paper, until he finally swallowed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Jeonghan nodded, flexed his jaw. “Cool.” Then waved. “Well, hello friend from Seungcheol’s high school. Enjoy the party.”
You waved back. Tiny. Unsure.
“I need to help set up for beer pong,” Jeonghan sighed. “And by set up, I mean purloin Mingyu from upstairs and force him to carry the table back to the basement. Did you see him? He’s Frankenstein!”
“I haven’t. Maybe later. Good luck.”
Jeonghan smiled and then slipped inside, a warm breath escaping the house as the door winged shut, encouraging a new depth of pink to Seungcheol’s numbing cheeks. He was relieved Jeonghan didn’t linger, ask questions, pry in that keening way he mischievously liked.
Seungcheol wondered if that should alarm him.
However, he hated for worry to take up his time with you.
Later in the night, Seungcheol finally ran into Phoebe. He took you to the basement to grab a cold soda from the freezer following the mayhem that appeared to be beer pong. Popped confetti littered the floor like tissued gems and spilt cups sticky in leftover liquids covered the recreational table. Phoebe came swinging down the staircase, her coiled hair straightened and reaching far down her back in a black, shiny sea. She was dressed in a simple white tank-top, meanwhile her eyelids were smudged with dark, kohl-like makeup. Phoebe was a notorious drink-mixer, especially when she craved the headstrong spiciness of a good rum without the unbearable burn.
“Hey!” Seungcheol called as she swayed her way over.
“Oh—fuck—Seungcheol?” Phoebe cackled. “No way!”
He felt you press closer to his side, inhale sharply.
“Yeah. I know, right?”
She smiled, examining his costume. “A good ole’ pirate.”
He nodded. “And you’re… uh… the white tank-top ghost?”
Phoebe snorted, slapped her hip. “No! Avril Lavigne!”
“Oh… oh! Okay. I see it.”
“No you don’t,” she snickered, proceeding to slide around him to open the freezer lid. “Is there anything good in here? Root Beer?”
Seungcheol felt the bubbles evaporate on his tongue as he took a small sip from his soda. “No. Only Sprite. And sparkling water.”
“Aw, boo. Sprite will do.” Phoebe promptly slammed the freezer lid shut and the emanating, foggy cold was pulled away with it. She acknowledged you, the smile on her face bright and friendly—always very typical of Phoebe—never one to spurn or ignore. “Hey there!”
You nodded. Seungcheol noticed your fists clenching.
“That’s a pretty good mummy!” Phoebe complimented while cracking open the tab on her soda. “Are you a friend of Seungcheol’s?”
The can beneath his fingertips became warmer.
He cleared his throat, hated to regurgitate the lie because it felt like sand in his mouth. Regardless, he feigned normalcy. “She’s an old friend from high school, swinging through on a visit. But she’s getting over laryngitis. She’s trying to avoid using her voice.”
Phoebe winced. “Aw, sorry!”
You nodded again. It seemed hurried, uncomfortable.
Seungcheol knew he had to keep the conversation flowing, keep pauses short. Similar to Jeonghan, Phoebe would sink her teeth into things if given the opportunity. “Is Rory here, too?”
“Oh, yeah. Upstairs. Talking to Josh or something.”
“And what’s his costume?”
She sighed and slurped at her drink. “A doctor. I wanted him to be a rockstar. Like, Curt Cobain or Ozzy or something. But he didn’t want to go all out. He’s shy like that. I’m hoping I can get him next year.”
Seungcheol smiled. “Well, I’m a pirate and she’s a mummy,” he said, bumping your arm. “We’re the most basic of the basic, I assume.”
“I guess so, but I can see the effort in your costumes,” Phoebe commented, reaching out to flick the striped feather on Seungcheol’s cavalier hat. “All he’s wearing is a dirty lab coat and a stethoscope around his neck.” She shrugged, seeming unbothered. “Anyway. I’m being gentle with him and such. Scary stories are starting soon, by the way!” In a scamper, Phoebe rushed back up the creaking, wooden staircase.
He went back to his soda for another sip. “Phoebe,” he said, swallowing, “another friend from uni. She’s always bubbly.”
You pointed to the drink in his hand.
Seungcheol chuckled. “Yeah. Exactly.” Then he glanced down at his wristwatch, attempting to remember the fridge itinerary. “She’s right, though. The scary story contest is gonna start in a few minutes.” He glanced back at you, studied your eyes. “We could leave now, honestly, if you wanted to,” Seungcheol said, making sure you knew the offer was there in the event the party was getting to be too much. He didn’t want you to feel alone, pigeonholed in an unfamiliar place. “Or we can stay for the stories. They probably won’t be that scary, anyway.”
To his surprise, you nodded.
You wanted to stay.
He smiled. It was immediate and earnest. Even though you were nervous, uncertain, you were still trying, still pushing yourself. That was something he deeply admired. Was even a little envious of. When you both proceeded toward the staircase, Seungcheol heard a grunt—you had banged your hip against the corner of the recreational table. He saw you rubbing the area sorely before pushing at the wrappings around your eyes.
“Jesus,” he huffed. “We’re hitting our limits, aren’t we?”
You nodded. He could differentiate the plump of your cheeks rounded in a smile, and there was a small but evident buzz in your throat, maybe an attempt to agree with him.
“Here,” Seungcheol hummed, setting his drink down, gently placing a hand to your forearm and guiding you a bit closer into his space. Positioning his thumbs, he began to adjust the gauze that had slipped down. In a delicate manner, he moved the wrappings away, and your eyes were revealed, large and glistering like moonlit wells. He smiled at the sight. At you. Unbeknownst to the own softness in his expression, as soft as tearing apart fresh wool.
Back upstairs, most guests had gathered into the living room. It was dark, apart from the natural light provided by a candelabra placed on the coffee table, and Seungcheol was convinced Joshua must have plucked it from a garage sale. Nonetheless, it gave the room eerie depth as shadows prowled along the walls, aglow in the flickering, rosy atmosphere. The couch was already squeezed with people. Some were sitting on pillows, picking at leftover snacks. A few others were standing aside, finishing their cups of blood orange punch.
Seungcheol stood behind the couch with you at his side.
He saw Phoebe and Rory sitting on pillows, sharing some caramel corn between them. Joshua was at the coffee table. His fake beard managed to look looser than it had before, and Seungcheol thought there was something stuck in it—maybe cupcake frosting.
“Alright everyone,” Joshua spoke, running a finger under the strap at his chin “are we ready for the final event of the evening? The creepiest, the scariest; the event with the most satisfying prize of the—”
Eeeerieeeee.
Some people gasped; others jumped.
The noise came from upstairs.
Joshua sighed and began to rub his browbone. “Sorry, friends. I promise that wasn’t planned. Jeonghan had to go upstairs and is doing, uh… God knows what, actually. Anyway!” He clapped his hands briskly, refocusing his startled guests. “As I was saying, this event may not have the biggest or grandest prize, but perhaps, the most satisfying.” Joshua reached into the blackness under the coffee table, only to place down what appeared to be a pottery-made hand. “Now, I know what you might be thinking. Joshua, isn’t that one of those hands you keep at the sink to avoid losing rings and jewelry down the drain? Well, tonight, this is a trophy! And once you win it, we invite you to paint it! If someone manages to steal it from you next year, maybe they’ll paint over your precious design…” he rubbed his fingers together theatrically, flicked away some imaginary dust. “So get creative! Let’s Creepypasta it up!”
You glanced at Seungcheol, seeming confused.
“Creepypasta—basically internet horror stories,” he whispered.
Joshua gestured at the couch, squished with four bodies. “Our first storyteller is Mingyu. Come sit here, by the candelabra.” As Mingyu apologized his way between the crowded guests on the floor, Joshua stood from his seat and adjusted his wizard hat. “It’s a voting system, people! We’ll get everyone to vote at the end for the scariest!”
To be honest, Seungcheol wasn’t a fan of horror movies. He would avoid them at every turn, unable to understand their purpose in film—why fucking terrorize yourself? However, Hunter had made him watch a few on occasion. It always surprised Seungcheol that she enjoyed their content. Years after her passing, it still boggled his mind. Maybe she secretly indulged in the vulnerable moments of Seungcheol burying his head into her warm thighs, hands pressed overtop his ears, as he waited for the gore to end, waited for her fingers to brush through his hair in a soothing, tingling gesture. It’s over. You can look now, baby.
Scary stories were easier. There wasn’t really a visual.
Unless squinting at Mingyu’s potent green Frankenstein face paint through hazy candlelight counted. His story was a personal experience, an old family vacation to Jeju Island. The retelling of a hotel maid who routinely visited the room when only Mingyu was present. As a teenager—grumpy, sensitive, and delighted to sleep in past noon—he often spent time alone in the two-bedroom suite. Mingyu detailed how her behaviour was… peculiar at times. She always shut the doors to the rooms she cleaned, noted that she would turn the lights off, not a sound to be made until she emerged with her bucket of cleaning supplies.
In fact, Mingyu’s voice seemed to be quaking ever so slightly, sounding dry and tacky, upon his revelation that the rooms she closed herself inside were never actually… cleaned. On their final day at the hotel, Mingyu decided to ask about the maid at the service desk.
“Her name—she said it was Jung. I’ll never forget the look the clerk gave me. It was amused, almost. Like he thought I was lying, or telling a stupid joke. There’s never been a Jung here, he said.”
Seungcheol shivered a little.
The story was well-told, eerie, to Mingyu’s credit, as he let the ending bleed into silence, leaving the room to absorb the discomfort like a thick filter paper. He noticed you fingering a thread on the back of the couch, seeming stiff, and so he caressed a hand along your shoulders.
You glanced at him. He felt your tension gracefully ease.
“Okay?” Seungcheol whispered.
An affirmative nod.
The next storyteller took Mingyu’s place by the candelabra.
While she got comfortable, tucking her knees under the coffee table, Seungcheol realized it was the girl from earlier, in the butterfly costume. Her stark, black contacts held the candlelight so purely, as though her eyes were the smoothest, most burnished glass.
“I used to go to camp every summer, when I was a kid,” she started, her tone fluid and silky. “There were a lot of stories told around that campfire. A lot of ones I remember being good. But not… scary, you know? Anyway, camp saw a lot of the same kids every year. Our stories were tired. But then, finally, we got a new girl. Every night, we badgered her for a story, but she was evasive. Didn’t really seem into it. But we knew she had to have something. I mean, it’s critical fucking camp etiquette to come prepared with a creepy story!” she laughed, and a few others joined her, easing the rigged nature of the shadowed room.
“Anyway, one night, we’re all packed around the fire, roasting hotdogs and marshmallows. She finally comes up to us and says, I’ve got a story. Immediately, we’re listening, all leaned forward, even putting our snacks away. We’re fucking starved of campfire stories! Once it got real quiet, like, irritatingly quiet, almost, she grabs a rock off the ground, starts doing this thing with her nail.” The girl picked a coaster up from the table. Using a long, manicured nail, the entire room maintained a bated silence as she proceeded to summon a patterned noise: a tap, a tap, a long, dreary scratch; a tap, a tap, a long, dreary scratch. She set the coaster down, swallowed. “This story’s called Tick Tick Scratch.”
Seungcheol caught you glancing at him.
He smiled back even though he felt the thumps in his chest.
“This story takes place on a farm,” she continued. “An isolated farm. There’s nothing in the area but the house and the barn, all surrounded by corn fields, going on for miles. It’s only a mom and her two children: a little boy, a little girl. They have a strict bedtime. It’s eight-pm. Every night, without exception. The mom always makes sure they’re tired. She gives them bubble baths, warm milk, reads them stories until their eyelids start to droop. It’s imperative they go to bed. And if they happen to wake up, need to use the washroom, get a class of water, the mom always tells them—too bad. Stay. In. Bed.”
“But one night, the little boy, he can’t help it. He stole more milk than usual when his mom wasn’t looking, and now he’s awake, squirming around in his bed, his bladder painfully full. So, he breaks the mom’s most important rule. He leaves his room to pee. But nothing bad happens. He’s back in his room in less than a minute. He doesn’t get why his mom is always on his ass about bedtimes and staying in his room at night. He snuggles up with his teddy bear, rubs his feet together, all cozy and warm, comfortable. His eyelids get heavy again. But… then he hears something.” She grabbed the cork coaster again to repeated the rhythmically dreadful noise.
Tick Tick Scratchhhh.
Tick Tick Scratchhhh.
“His eyes fly open. He thinks the sound came from the ceiling, but it’s stopped now and he can’t tell. What he does know is that his heart’s suddenly racing. But… again… nothing happens. Of course, he doesn’t tell his mom the next morning, too afraid to admit he broke a rule, and not totally unphased by the sound that he won’t ever drink too much milk again. As his mom puts his little sister to bed, he sneaks downstairs and drinks more warm milk from the kettle, making sure to squeeze back underneath his covers before she notices. Hours later, he's awake. He has to pee. Tries to go back to sleep but… hears something.”
Seungcheol watched her slip the coaster back into her hand.
Everyone had fallen into a quiet, thick trance, observing her nail move along the coaster, listening to the dissonant, perfectly timed noises.
Tick Tick Scratchhhh.
Tick Tick Scratchhhh.
“Is that all his mom is worried about? He doesn’t get it. He’s a little unsettled, but he’s also approaching that age where curiosity and rule-breaking is kinda inevitable. Still, nothing happens… so, why should he stick to this rule that has zero apparent consequences? The next night, his mom puts him to bed first, before his sister. She closes his bedroom door and sits right next to him on the covers. Suddenly, he finds that his face is being squeezed like a grape between his mom’s hands. She’s an inch from her little boy’s face, her eyes larger than they’ve ever been as she whispers to him in a reedy, quivering voice, don’t you dare steal that milk again. Do you hear me? If you steal it again, I can’t protect you.”
“She lets go of her child’s face. He sinks back into his pillows, his heart pumping in his throat, but after a moment, he swallows, finds the courage to question her. Why, mom? Nothing happens? It’s stupid. The mom covers her mouth, hiding a broken laugh. She doesn’t want to show her son this. It might be too much, too soon. But he’s pressing back and she can’t risk anything. She leaves his room for a few minutes. When she returns, she sighs and makes sure he’s staring right at her. Remember when I told you about our sheep? The sickness they caught? I had to take them away so it wouldn’t spread? He nods, noticing photographs in her hand. Well, she says, it… wasn’t a sickness.”
“She hands him a photograph. It’s a terrible, terrible picture, of the sheep dismembered. It’s bloody, graphic, unthinkable. The boy can hardly stomach it. He feels flushed, nauseous. This family has a curse, she reveals, and until I can get rid of it… we can’t risk anything. We can’t even live around other people. He hugs his teddy bear to his chest, tighter than he’s ever held it. What about the noises? She freezes, holds his small, confused stare. What noises? He shrugs. You know, the noise that goes, Tick Tick Scratch. The mom sits up straighter than a pin and grips his shoulder, hard. How many times have you heard it? His throat closes up, but he forces the answer out. anyway. Two. Her face goes pale, as pale as the skin of the disembowelled sheep.”
“She collects his hands into hers. Three times, the maximum is three times, okay? If you hear it a third time… it’s… she can’t bring herself to finish the thought. But she knows. It’s lingering. It’s watching him. It’s… waiting… for him to question her again, get doubtful. After a story, plenty reassurance, and a kiss on the forehead, she gets ready to leave her son’s room. Right before she flicks the switch… she notices marks on his ceiling… scratch marks. She flicks the light off anyway, doesn’t let the panic show, and goes to tuck her daughter in. The daughter, however, she’s cleverer than anyone could have thought.”
“She knows her brother gets out of bed to use the washroom. She knows nothing’s happened. So she’s been downstairs… twice. She’s been taking cookies. She hears the scratches but figures if her brother doesn’t care—why should she? Her mom is tired, looking weary, ghostly pale. She doesn’t read the bedtime story with the same cadence and magic gestures. She’s distracted. Maybe two hours later, the little girl kicks off her sheets, tiptoes downstairs and stuffs her face with three sugary gingersnaps. Back to bed, with Princess Bunny tucked sweetly under her arm. She waits to hear the noises, to know they’ll pass, and everything will be okay, and she can do it all again the next night. In fact, she… grins… a little when she hears it. Tick Tick Scratch. Tick Tick Scratch.”
“It goes away… that’s what she expects, anyway. But then she hears the noise again. It’s… along her wall. Tick Tick Scratch. Tick Tick Scratch. She sits up in bed and peaks around at the dark shapes, her little heart beginning to race. She hears it again… at her window. Tick Tick Scratch. Tick Tick Scratch. Princess Bunny is pulled right against her chest, the pink fur almost stuffed into the girl’s mouth. Now, the sound echoes through her closet doors. Tick Tick Scratch. Tick Tick Scratch.”
“She’s panicking now. Was this normal? What her brother heard? Was it going to go away? Should she call for help and admit she’s been breaking rules? When the sound stops, she gently places her rabbit beside her, fisting her sheets tightly instead. Okay, it’s gone away, she thinks, and begins to sink back down, pulling up her covers. But… gone isn’t exactly right. Because the sound comes back, louder than ever, closer than ever, right underneath the little girl’s bed.”
The coaster was in her palm again. Seungcheol sensed the horrible, sour churning of his stomach. Not a single person was daring to move. The sipping of drinks and crunching of popcorn had gradually stifled throughout the girl’s magnetic story telling. Her nail met the coaster. Everyone tightened, listening to the icy, chilling pattern.
Tick Tick Scratchhhh.
Tick Tick Scratchhhh.
She proceeded to clear her throat. “I’m sure you can all imagine what happened next. Anyway, that’s where the story ends. But we all figured out something a little weird at camp. The girl was gone the next day. Her bunk—totally wiped. We overheard the counsellors talking about her family, said they were weird, isolated farm folk who didn’t really know how to speak to people. But us, us at camp, we always say, if you hear this noise—” she recreated it against the coffee table, “—we say the curse is following you. We liked to say she brought it to us.”
Silence sat so heavy in the room, it could be a boulder.
Even Joshua, who hadn’t seemed the least bit frightened during Mingyu’s storytelling, had moved closer into Rory’s left side. Phoebe was clutching his arm from the right in what appeared to be a white-knuckle grasp. He was shackled. At last, however, someone coughed.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Isabelle.”
There was a gradual and shared sigh of relief.
Boom!
But another unexpected disturbance echoed from upstairs. One person screamed; several people lurched, slipping out guttural profanities. You were grasping onto Seungcheol’s elbow, squeezing it with a teething grip, and nuzzled close, as everyone looked to the ceiling in question. He chose to sling his arm around your shoulders instead.
Joshua stood up, attempting to calm the guests and readjust his synthetic beard. “Okay, okay. Easy, everyone. Jeonghan’s upstairs. I’ll go check on him. Uh, let’s take a little break in the meantime. You might possibly win this in a landslide, Isabelle,” he pointedly laughed.
Upon his disappearance, a quiet, uneasy wave of murmuring reached its way around the living room and its flickering tenebrosity.
“Hey, dude. Is your costume supposed to glow like that?”
Someone—Seungcheol didn’t recognize who—was speaking to you, in a very obvious, loud, unfettered tone. All the guests held their tongues again. Beady eyes stung into you and Seungcheol like needles.
But Seungcheol understood why.
Through the thickly wrapped toilet paper, there was a faint, violet glow beaming at your neck, and the only thing in his mind was that it was your goddamn chip—whatever the fuck it was—causing trouble.
He thought quick, pulled you away from the stranger. “Yeah, it’s a cool little effect,” Seungcheol remedied, just managing not to cringe at himself. “Really visible in the dark.” He glanced at you, noticed the racing, frolicking panic. “Care to get more soda from downstairs?”
Immediately, you nodded.
Nod, nod, nod!
Seungcheol already had your hand in his, guiding you away from the cramped, tense living room and into the cool basement, bereft of costumed, nosy people Seungcheol couldn’t identify. There was his pop, left sitting on the confetti-strewn recreational table.
“I’ve never seen the chip glow this bright,” he sighed, attempting to keep his voice worriless even though he was most certainly worrying.
You started to unwrap the toilet paper from your head, your wrist turning in hurried loops that made it seem like you were suffocating. He helped you remove some gauze wrapped around your neck, dumping the strands on the table until your face was bare. There was a warm dewiness to your skin. You breathed heavy, immediately pressing two fingers against the reactive glow pulsing underneath your neck, your expression stern but concentrated in the search for understanding. Seungcheol didn’t interrupt. After a moment, you slowly removed the fingers from the heated chip, glanced up at the ceiling.
He swallowed. “What is it? Do you… sense something?”
God, he knew he should have brought your notebook, even if it meant sneaking it. Your head was a on a swivel, looking for something to write with, anything that could help you communicate what it was you wanted to say, because Seungcheol could tell it was sizzling to escape.
“Uh—here.” He had a phone. Most people did, and rarely went anywhere without it. Seungcheol opened the Notes app, handed the device to you, watched as you perused its miniature keyboard and squinted into the lurid screen, using a single fingertip to type. He supposed you hadn’t ever really used a phone since he found you.
But only you knew what you needed to say.
ITS RSSPONDIMG TO SPMETHNG.
“Was it because of the scary story contest?”
Your face softened somewhat and you huffed in amusement, shaking your head. He let you continue to type at a very slow, agonizing pace, suddenly feeling overheated with nerves that buzzed and chirped, creating a sauna inside his costume. The screen flashed again.
ITA CALLED A RIFT.
Seungcheol took the phone back from you. “A rift?”
You nodded eagerly.
Silence sat in his mouth, heavy like a frog.
But the weight leapt away when he heard the chatter upstairs start to swell again. The party was resuming and you were unwrapped.
“I think we should go,” Seungcheol said. “This feels like something big and I don’t want it to get shoved to the backburner. I mean, we did a lot, didn’t we? We stayed for almost all of it?”
You agreed.
“We’ll head back upstairs. You can throw on my raincoat to help cover the glow, and I’ll pull Josh aside to let him know we’re leaving so we don’t look like assholes. Everybody wins. Sound like a plan?”
Another nod.
Upon sleuthing out from the basement, Seungcheol quietly ushered you down the hallway to the front door, where Joshua had neatly stored the raincoat away in a closet space. He followed behind you, but diverged into the living room, now hushed as the final contender sat perched behind the flickering candelabra, getting to the crux of their scary story. Seungcheol found Joshua leaning against the wall in his silver-starred robe, sipping concentratedly from a red cup.
“What?” he whispered back, swallowing his drink that had appeared to stain the white, synthetic fibres around his mouth. “You can’t! It’s the final story! And we’re giving out cupcakes after!”
Abruptly, Jeonghan’s red-wigged head poked around Joshua’s body. “You’re leaving? Before the cupcake giveaway? That’s cold.”
Seungcheol nodded. “Uh, yeah. I’m sorry, guys. She’s still feeling a bit sick and I’m her ride. This was a blast, though. Super fun.”
Joshua frowned empathetically. He knew Seungcheol’s spiel about you being an old friend from high school, getting over a case of laryngitis, was totally fabricated, but he could also surmise that the departure was a cover for something else. Seungcheol was relieved.
“That makes sense,” Joshua acknowledged, the corner of his lip a bit twisted. “Thanks for coming. Text me once you get home.”
“’Course. Later, guys.”
When he turned back to the orange-lit hallway, you were swallowed into his black raincoat, waiting patiently by the front door as the mist from their fog machine swirled around your ankles like spells brewed in a cauldron. Together, you walked outside into the damp night, leaving behind the porch skeleton and his candy bowl, the enormous inflatable pumpkin that no one had bothered to shut off yet and was surely beaming through neighbour’s windows. The glow was still emanating from your neck, although the further you got from the house, the chip’s luminosity seemed to dull until it was hardly there.
Seungcheol hoped your memory wouldn’t slip away.
The moment you stepped through the doorway to the apartment, the very first thing you did was a beeline toward the kitchen island. Laid upon the reflective marble, unmoved, was the notebook. Your voice, your instrument, your memories. As Seungcheol removed his boots and threw his cavalier hat over the point on the coat rack, he never really stopped watching you—how you embraced the notebook tight against your chest for a moment, a suckle of relief rasping deep down in in your rusted throat—and it was almost like you were a mother, separated from her child, but now reunited.
Seungcheol was aptly ebullient he gave it to you.
“I’m going to get the rest of this costume off, okay?” he called to you while hustling to his bedroom. “I”ll only be a few minutes!”
But you were faster than he could ever be. When Seungcheol wandered back out to the living room, you were already there, plopped cross-legged on the sofa with your head hanging down over the notebook, chiselling into the paper using the fluid ballpoint pen you had always favoured so much. He noticed the remnants of your costume clumped in a heap on the tiles of the washroom floor, leaving you in the thin, black leggings and tank-top worn underneath the thick dressings. He sat next to you, listening to the rhythmic scritches made by the pen.
Then you clicked it, placed the notebook on his lap.
I REMEMBER. RIFT IS A WEAK SPOT IN MATTER. MAKES IT EASIER TO PASS BETWEEN TIME. WHEN RIFTS ARE BEING USED, THEY GIVE OFF ENERGY. MY CHIP CAN REACT TO IT.
Seungcheol focused on each word, ensuring his expression was unchanging. He didn’t want to seem judgemental—sometimes his face just quirked, or twitched, without him intending it. The explanation sounded akin to script straight out of a science-fiction novel. But how could he question anything when there was a glowing chunk embedded in the skin under your neck? Instead, he took a deep, grounding breath.
“It only gives off energy when it’s being used?”
You met his eyeline fiercely and nodded.
His throat felt tacky. “So… what’s the distance of this, then? How close would the rift need to be for your chip to react that… strongly?”
Seungcheol handed the notebook back to you, already disparaging the answer before he could read it off the paper.
A rift? In Joshua and Jeonghan’s home?
Being used?
Similar to the sickness of his hangover, Seungcheol began to recognize a flushed, sweltering feeling reverberate through him, blurring the room and dulling what he could perceive as though his senses were sloshing, noisy waves. Suddenly, the notebook was back in his lap.
He brushed the hair off his forehead.
NOT SURE. BUT MY NECK WAS TINGLING. THE CHIP WAS SO HOT I THOUGHT IT WAS BURNING ME. IT HAD TO BE CLOSE.
His thumb flicked the corner of the paper.
“Close… as in…” Seungcheol glanced at you, and it seemed his flummoxed expression was a pristine mirror to yours. “Someone in their home was using a rift… actively using it. While we were there.”
You didn’t agree nor disagree, but stared solemnly at the notebook Seungcheol was fiddling with, anxiety perspiring hot against his fingertips as though they were made from scorched wax. He didn’t want to think about who wasn’t present during the scary story contest, who seemed the most reserved about your appearance when they were typically pithy. Seungcheol found his body slipping back into the couch like it was softened butter. His mind was overcome with unprecedented lassitude. The heels of his palms dug into his eyes and the pressure seemed to alleviate the thick knot that bulged between his brows.
“I know this might sound fucking stupid,” he groaned. “But can we have this conversation tomorrow? I’ve got mental whiplash.”
He felt the weight of the notebook disappear from his lap.
You were nodding at him, declaring a gentle smile.
Seungcheol pushed himself up. “Okay, thanks.” He then left you alone in the living room and promptly collapsed into his big bed.
Penetrating the depth of his restless, nonsensical dreams, he thought he heard something. A tinny hinge. Bare footsteps. Seungcheol’s eyes were heavy, so heavy, refusing to open, as though a stickiness were drying them shut. He sensed pressure stirring around on the bed, swore he heard a listless but tender exhale of breath. There was a twitch from his fingertip—that was all his body seemed to allow—and abruptly, he found there was no more noises, or movements, for a very long while.
Until the dark room jolted.
He was more cognizant now, enough to hear a consistent, rhythmic bumping, like the bedframe was rocking against the wall. As his senses gradually opened, unfurling with the grace of a budding flower, he realized there was a crescendoing moan, slipping from low, sultry grunts to louder cracks of something plainly carnal. And then he started to feel—most notably—pleasure. A soft, soaking warmth he hadn’t experienced in years leaked through the fog in his head. There was an overwhelming ache, and it was almost bruising, between his muscular thighs.
“Fuck. Fuck, Seungcheol. Feels so fucking good.”
Pressure was swiveling over his hips. While still struggling to open his eyes, Seungcheol’s hands travelled on their own accord, coming to grasp a fleshy waist that moulded to his palms like warm and slippery clay. He encouraged the rocking, realized how desperate he was for that stowed-away climax—the kind that could only come from the gift of another body sinking into his—to sear under his skin. Suction and wetness and moaning continued, one sound blending over the other until they seemed inseparable and alive as thunder in his ears.
“F-Fuck. I-I… I love you. Fuck. I love you, baby.”
He was right there, like a glass of water one drop from overflowing. That voice. The comfort it carried; melted honey to a sore throat. Seungcheol’s thick fingers clutched the waist, his nails scraping down to squeeze the shifting hips that controlled the tempo with experience and passion—just the way he liked—and he almost didn’t want to believe it was true. That he could feel this ecstasy again.
“Seungcheol. Baby. Look at me.”
Unencumbered, his eyes flickered open, the darkness flying away in pixels and amorphous dots. But he felt the world start to make sense again. At least, that’s what his mind wanted him to believe.
Because it wasn’t his wife he saw.
It was you.
He sucked in a dry, choking gasp. Air hit the inside of his lungs with the spontaneity of a firecracker. Seungcheol was sitting up, feeling around the dimpled comforter, moving a quivering hand onto his nightstand, prying the analogue alarm clock into his grip. In a dull blue, he squinched at the time—a little past two in the morning—and placed the clock back on the nightstand with a disoriented clunk. He pulled the chain on the side-lamp. As his bedroom lit up with the solacing hue of a gold-toned yellow, Seungcheol realized, finally, painfully, it was a dream. A dream he could never confess, not even to himself.
The worst, however, was hidden under the bedsheets. He pulled them back, grimaced at the sight. His body started to register the arousing ache, the stiffness, the desperation to alleviate and satisfy.
Don’t fucking sit here and ruminate in your shame, he behest to himself. You had a stupid dream. That’s it. That’s fucking it.
So he got up, locked himself in the washroom, and started a hot, steaming shower. He focused only on the sensation, the gliding water, refused to let any person slip between the creases of his determined mind. It was over within minutes, all down the drain, never to be thought about or acknowledged again. Seungcheol turned the shower off. He dried himself, slipped back into his sweats and t-shirt, ruffled the damp towel against his hair until it was more fluffy than wet.
When Seungcheol turned the lock on the washroom door and opened it with a weathered sigh, he nearly—literally—exploded. You were there, leaned against the wall across from the washroom, arms crossed, a droopy, sallow softness cloudy in your eyes.
“Jesus—what the—what the fuck are you doing?” Seungcheol cursed, more guttural and aggressive in tone than he would have wanted it to be, but you were not someone his fresh shame wanted to embrace.
You tilted your head in question, squinted at him.
“I was showering,” he huffed, continuing to sound flat and annoyed. There was hurt on your face. “All yours. I’m going to bed.”
But once he made it to the threshold of his bedroom, he stopped.
Your eyes were singeing over his neck, his back, like beestings.
And then Seungcheol sighed, turned around. “Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like such a prick. I wasn’t sleeping well.”
Suddenly, you dipped back into the black living room. After a bit of rustling, you returned with your notebook, in the midst of scribbling.
ME TOO :(
He stared at the words. Some of his tension dissolved.
You angled the notebook back into your chest.
I DREAMT ABOUT THAT GIRL’S STORY. THE TICK TICK SCRATCH. I’VE BEEN STARING AT THE CEILING FOR AN HOUR!!
Seungcheol smiled, proceeding to shake his head and a rub a palm against his eye. At least he wasn’t the only one being tormented in his dreams, although he would have much rather dreamt about being a little boy afraid under his sheets because he heard noises on his ceiling.
“Yeah,” he exhaled. “It was creepier than I thought.”
You both stood in the dim hallway, the light from his bedroom splashing out in a faded, golden carpet. There was a thin air of awkwardness, and Seungcheol knew it was coming from him, although he wasn’t sure if you could even… tell. Because you were smiling at him again, small and soft, appreciative, like usual. But that was you.
Seungcheol scratched through his thick, damp hair and decided to throw you an offer he shouldn’t make. “If you’re feeling worried, or restless or whatever, you can sleep in my room. It’s not a big deal.”
It wasn’t a big deal because… it wasn’t a big deal.
And he found himself repeating that unimportant phrase—as you collected your favourite pillow off the couch, set your glass of water onto the left nightstand right beside your notebook, threw the covers aside and squirmed underneath until he could just decipher your wriggling toes—to the point where he felt maybe it had more weight than surmised. But he pushed the inkling away.
Pushed it hard and fast.
He settled beside you. There was distance in between.
Maybe not enough.
Seungcheol could already feel the heat your body was radiating, smell the rose-water lotion you liked to wear. He bought if for you after you smelled the sample off a beauty tester in the mall. These weren’t really things he paid attention to most times, and he knew the reason he was paying attention to them now. His face started to boil.
You tapped his shoulder.
He glanced at you—at the notebook you were presenting.
THIS FEELS LIKE A SLEEPOVER. LOL!
Seungcheol raised his brows in acknowledgement, noted the sparkle in your eyes. “You remember going to a sleepover?”
You shook your head, wrote out something else.
NO. BUT I SEE THEM ON THE TV.
“Oh. Right. Makes sense.”
There you went, smiling at him again as you scribbled.
OKAY. I’LL SLEEP NOW.
He huffed, decided to tease you a little. “That’s not very sleepover of you, is it? Aren’t we supposed to stay up and watch movies and, like, eat candy? Smack each other with pillows? Tell secrets?”
You rolled your eyes. How droll—he knew.
HAH. I ALREADY KNOW YOUR BIGGEST SECRET.
Seungcheol chortled, crossed his arms, although, somewhere deep in his chest, he felt a nauseating, burning twinge. “And what would that be?” he asked regardless, teething down on his inner cheek.
The answer you proceeded to show him was awfully simple.
ME.
“Okay,” he hummed, nodding factually. “You got me on that one.”
You stuck out your tongue in a show of satisfaction. Then you rested the notebook onto your adjacent nightstand, snuggled down until the bedsheets swallowed around your chin, and gave him your back.
“Night,” he sighed, turning off his lamp.
His sleep was still and calm.
THE RIFT.
The next morning, you and Seungcheol decided to go on a walk through the park. Admittedly, he hadn’t been running very consistently ever since his gradual adaptation to your presence in his life, although he thought the cold early air and general isolation of the area would make it a fitting place to be, especially considering the discussion at stake. You wore a grey knitted hat with a gigantic pom-pom, a scarf bundled around your neck to protect the moisture of your lips from the chilly breeze, and another old coat once buried in Seungcheol’s closet, seldom used. It made him realize he might need to get you more clothes, especially as the telltale signs of winter pushed in—stuffy, morose skies and trees becoming brittle with bareness—which was a season he didn’t particularly enjoy. Winter was already bleak, depressing. It didn’t make it much better that it was also the sixth-year anniversary of Hunter’s death.
For the time being, he burrowed the thought away.
There was already too much to think about.
“So, how do we know the microchip was specifically reacting to the activity of a rift? Could it have been something else, maybe?”
He glanced down at the notebook as you wrote.
COULD BE. BUT IF WE KEEP THE POSSIBILTIES TOO OPEN, I DON’T THINK WE’LL EVER FIND AN ANSWER, YOU KNOW?
Seungcheol nodded, hating that you were right. His boots kicked through a dry, crunchy mass of browned leaves and he huffed placidly as they scattered along the walkway. “It’s just so hard for me to wrap my head around Jeonghan using a rift. I mean… fucking Jeonghan… the same dude that fell down three different flights of stairs at uni because he was so batshit drunk… the same dude that was showing up with a new job every month. He still eats animal crackers. And buys squeeze-pouches. I think Joshua cuts his sandwiches into shapes. If I had to peg one of them as a time-traveler, it would be Joshua.”
You stared at him compassionately as he spoke. Let Seungcheol’s words hang in the air for a moment before you wrote to him again.
I UNDERSTAND. BUT THINK OF HOW LITTLE WE KNOW. A TIME TRAVELLER COULD BE ANYONE. FOR ANY REASON.
“Well… then… do you think Joshua knows? They’ve been attached at the hip since first-year.” He bit his lip, frustrated, the cold a dry fire that burned the inside of his nose. “When he met you, and we dumped all that shit on him… his reaction seemed… apt, I guess? But then again, he did believe you pretty readily and I’m not sure if that’s… weird?”
I THINK HE’S JUST A GOOD FRIEND.
Seungcheol nodded. “He is.”
Keeping pace, you walked further along the walkway, passing by the duck pond that had frosted over with morning silver, the surrounding plants wilted, breaking down under the weather. There was still one fact yet to confront. It made Seungcheol’s gut shrink into a pebble.
“How do we go about finding more information? Like, am I supposed to straight up ask him? Or should we wait a little more?”
You sighed.
WAIT FOR WHAT?
Seungcheol half-groaned, half-chuckled, his fingers tearing at a stringy hole in his coat pocket. “Man, I don’t know. Your memory?”
WELL, WE SHOULDN’T WAIT LONG. IF JEONGHAN IS USING A RIFT, HE MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP ME.
Finally, Seungcheol stopped walking.
You were a few paces ahead, but slowed when you realized he wasn’t at your side. There was a deep frown wedged into your mouth.
“But help you with what?” Seungcheol questioned, hearing the crack of uncharacteristic sternness in his tone. “Let’s say he has the knowledge to help with your situation. He can get you back to whatever dimension or timeline you came from. Is your memory supposed to magically come back to you?” Seungcheol paused, studied the conflict that iced over your expression. He took a step toward you. “What about that person you were trying to draw? The person you insisted wanted to hurt you. What if you’re just walking back into their power? What if you were trying to… I don’t know… get away? Escape?”
At that moment, Seungcheol worried he went too far. You turned away from him and hung your head. He came up behind you, placing a gentle arm around your waist as you stared into the scribbled page of your notebook, perhaps the apotheosis of your existence here.
“Listen,” he hummed, exhaling a cobwebbed breath. “I’m sorry if I’m making this feel harder than it needs to be. I just… I want to make sure you’re making the right choices. I don’t want you to get blinded by what seems easiest and then it all betrays you.” There was a glossiness in your evasive eyes, although it seemed to be receding as you glanced at him sideways. “I know it’s frustrating, but why don’t we let this marinate a little more? Let’s head back into town and get breakfast.”
You wiped off your nose and nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized again, moving his fingers to sit the top of your spine. “I can’t imagine what it’s like. But I won’t let you fail, okay?”
He saw your lips move despite the lack of sound.
Thank you.
Seungcheol decided to choose a rustic café that wasn’t as busy come morning time compared to other modern places he frequented. Of course, he didn’t want to chance the possibility of running into someone he knew, not when his mind was so conflated with ruminations. The café wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t full either. Perfect. There were a few students sitting beside their backpacks, drinking hot coffee and perusing their laptop screens with glazed, listless eyes.
Seungcheol already knew what he wanted, although he waited for you to finish looking through the display glass, taking your time to inspect every pastry, every bagel, every sandwich and wrap, until you started poking the glass overtop a chocolate éclair.
“That’s what you want?”
Yes, you nodded.
“Okay. Looks good. I’ll get one, too.” He looked at the fancily handwritten chalkboards placed behind the counter. “A drink?”
After squinting through all the options, you pulled out your notebook. Seungcheol made you peppermint tea most mornings.
PEPPERMINT TEA!
He smiled. “Guess I could have figured that out.”
As you stood together at the counter, two chocolate eclairs slipped inside a pastry bag and still waitinon Seungcheol’s coffee, he noticed your legs crossed; a lot of twisting and wriggling.
“Everything okay?”
You pulled out your notebook again.
I NEED TO PEE!
“Oh—uh—there’s a washroom down there,” he offered, pointing.
You followed his finger in a rush.
“Wrong door! Other way!” Seungcheol couldn’t help but shout when you almost barreled into the men’s washroom.
He supposed that wasn’t something you had ever considered. It was fascinating how the little things still escaped you, even when you had become so habituated. Seungcheol bit the pastry big between his teeth as the barista handed him his coffee and your tea. He chose a cozy seat in the corner, proceeded to unzip his coat and leave it bunched behind his back. Upon pulling out his phone, he noticed a notification.
Reminder – Hunter – November 19th
It’s not as though he needed to be reminded. The memory always rose to the surface like an ugly, rotting bruise. But every year he set the reminder in place, horrified that somehow, someway, he might forget.
Last year he forgot her birthday.
The year before he forgot the anniversary of their first date.
Was it against his will? He never understood. It was like his mind was shifting through a process of selection, weeding out significant, treasured moments in a desperate attempt to protect himself from the grief that banged against his mental shutters akin to a howling wind. He stared down at the notification, gripping his tresses until his scalp started to sting. Any sensation other than the perforating hole in his gut was more tolerable.
“Well. Look who it is!”
Seungcheol was quick to shut off his phone and turn it face down on the table, feign as though his body hadn’t been wilted over with lachrymose. When he glanced up, completely off-guard, he choked a little. Millie. She was holding a coffee cup, a patterned scarf cast around her neck and thrown over the shoulder to her black leather jacket.
“Mr. Choi Seungcheol,” she teased, waltzing her way over. “I see you missed grief counseling last week. Not very exemplary of you.”
His skin felt unusually taut against his face. “I know.”
“Good to see you out and about. You know I’m just joking.”
“Yeah, ‘course. Good to see you, too. How’s it been?”
Seungcheol prayed she wouldn’t sit down. Her hand was resting along the back of the chair across from him, as though she were considering it, testing the idea. It was nothing personal. In fact, he really did enjoy talking to Millie. She was charismatic, wise in ways most wouldn’t assume, and unafraid to bring humour to the bleak. But the timing wasn’t right. There was already enough on his plate. Maybe she spotted your steaming peppermint tea sitting across from him and realized he already had someone in his company.
“Oh, fine, I guess,” Millie sighed. “Hey, I had some really spectacular answers at the session last week. Marshall said so himself. I think you would have been proud. Shit about adaptation and patience and what it means to love. It was truly whimsical.”
He chuckled a little. “Write it down next time.”
“Yeah… missed opportunity. What have you been up to?”
“Well, I went to a Halloween party the other night. Dressed up as a pirate. Witnessed the archaic art of apple-bobbing and scary stories. I missed the cupcake giveaway, which seemed to be worse than murder.”
Millie laughed. “The cupcake giveaway was worse than murder, or you missing the cupcake giveaway was worse than murder?”
“Uh… both? Maybe?”
She nodded, satisfied. “Sounds like fun.”
Inadvertently, his eyes kept lunging to the space behind Millie. A woman walked out from the hallway, shaking her hands off like they were wet, and Seungcheol felt the knot thicken in his throat.
“Oh, hey—since I have you here—can I ask something?”
He squeezed his coffee cup. “Uh, sure.”
“Not this week, next week, I’m gonna be gone for a few days. And the shtick is I’m fostering a cat, Evie's actually. So I really need someone to swing by the place, give her food and water, litterbox, play with her for a bit. It’s totally okay if you can’t. I didn’t expect that I would be gone. Just curious.”
Seungcheol didn’t even question if that was something he would be available to do—he simply agreed—wanting to move Millie along.
“Sure. I can do that.”
“Really? That’s awesome. Okay—I’ve gotta run—but I’ll text you later tonight, though!” She started to walk away from the table, waving politely, her smile sunny with relief. “Talk to you later!”
No less than a minute after Millie left the café, you were popping out from the hallway, looking somewhat disgruntled upon tugging out the chair across from him and plopping yourself down. Before he could ask, you were already slapping the notebook on the table to write.
ONLY TWO STALLS! ONE OUT OF ORDER. ANOTHER WOMAN IN THE OTHER. TAKING TEN YEARS!
You flapped out your wrist from pressing so hard.
ALMOST PISSED MYSELF!
Seungcheol laughed, pushing your peppermint tea across the table for you to try. “Not a good moment to be out of a voice.”
There was a frustrated scratchiness desperate in your throat when you couldn’t understand how to open the lid of the tea.
He dipped his hand over, flicked the little white tab. “Pull this.”
Once you had torn the tab back, steam started to curdle out.
While you blew the heat away and set the perfect, glossy éclair onto the pastry bag for later, Seungcheol debated if he should mention his conversation with Millie and the favour of being a sudden dad to her foster cat. But he found himself enjoying the sight of you fumbling around, still huffing grumpily about the insensitive washroom lady, and impatiently blowing at your tea too infectious to look away from.
The thought flittered out his mind like a quiet dove.
A few days later, Seungcheol was back in Joshua and Jeonghan’s home, drinking tea and eating a very crispy grilled cheese that Joshua toasted inside their air fryer. Joshua was tired, continuously yawning and rubbing his eyes and trying his hardest to focus on Seungcheol’s purposefully longwinded dialogue despite the utter mistiness weighing him down. In a way, it was sort of perfect.
Joshua turned on a movie in the living room, promptly covering himself with a knotted throw while reassuring Seungcheol he could at least stay awake until Jeonghan came home. It was just shy of half-an-hour when Joshua suddenly stopped half-mindedly humming in response to Seungcheol’s commentary. His friend was asleep.
And although Seungcheol didn’t feel great about what he was going to do, it was best to do it now, without Jeonghan in the house. So he quietly slipped off the couch and tiptoed his way upstairs, hearing the movie become an indiscernible buzz. It’s not like he had never been in their bedroom before, but he couldn’t deny how different it felt now that he was sleuthing, investigating, looking for the unordinary.
Fortunately, it was easy to tell which side of the room was Jeonghan’s—his drawers were messy, half-pulled open with t-shirts spilling out, socks dappled all across the floor, a laundry hamper on the verge of toppling over, a bedside table with miscellaneous clutter that could only be his—meanwhile Joshua’s side was nearly perfect, like a hotel suite. Seungcheol figured that if Jeonghan were going to hide something, he wouldn’t really hide it at all. His prerogative had always been plain site. It was like the time he bought a hamster in college.
Seungcheol hadn’t realized until he was helping Jeonghan move across campus a year later and nearly threw a ball into a trash bag.
“Don’t fucking toss that, dumbass! Debbie’s in there!”
The thing was, Seungcheol had no idea what he was even looking for amongst the clutter. Yes—something weird, something strange—but that was Jeonghan in a nutshell. There was probably an authentic-sized skeleton in his closet that he stole from a teaching hospital.
He started by opening drawers. One was full of notebooks. Seungcheol flipped through about three of them, but they didn’t seem anything more than study notes, labelled diagrams, and protocols from his old days as a research assistant. But Seungcheol kept searching nonetheless, opened the top drawer on Jeonghan’s nightstand, saw a pair of handcuffs padded with black velvet, and immediately slammed the compartment shut.
He moved to the bottom drawer and rifled through nothing but mismatched socks, most with holes worn into the toes and heels.
Jeonghan would wear a sock until it was a single thread.
The dresser had some silver photo frames, two white, intimidatingly-sized binders stacked on top each other, his scattered cologne collection (Seungcheol recognized a Dior Sauvage bottle he lent Jeonghan last year and still hadn’t gotten back), some handwritten cards from his parents, a few palettes of makeup, and a pile of folded clothes no doubt left by Joshua. Seungcheol wasn’t sure why he did it, or what was influencing him, but he picked up the folded clothes and lay them at his feet.
Bingo.
Or, maybe not. Seungcheol wasn’t sure.
Regardless, he had never seen a device like this before. It seemed to resemble the shape of a spider, big enough to sit domineeringly, spaciously, in his palm. There was a hexagonal centre, smooth and flat like black glass, perhaps the electronic interface of the device if Seungcheol had to guess. Six legs jutted from the hexagon. Well, not legs, but something alike. Bionic-looking in nature. Hard and riveted. Before he touched it, Seungcheol took out his phone and snapped a photo. When he reached out to grab the device, he noticed restraint.
“It’s probably some toy,” Seungcheol murmured to himself.
So, going against the throbbing in his gut, Seungcheol scooped the cold, black arachnid device into his hand. His first thought—this is fucking heavier than it looks—almost like an oversized paperweight doubling as a bludgeon. The metal was so icy that it seemed to tingle against his palm. When Seungcheol gently swiped his thumb along the hexagonal interface dark enough to see his own reflection, the glass came to life, although with a harsh, stunning red blip that bit a shock along his arm up to his neck. Seungcheol nearly threw the device to the floor as the crackling suffused under his skin. He hugged his ear against his shoulder, feeling the shock begin to dim, as he placed the technology back down onto the dresser.
Some fucking toy. His heart was racing.
Wait. The screen said something, he realized.
What did it say?
If Seungcheol wanted to know, then he would need to touch the screen again, feel the prickle of that hot, serrated shock as it scored through his muscle like a venom. Fuck. He’d been through worse.
Seungcheol pressed his thumb against the glass face of the device, waiting intensely for that second to pass. The screen pulsed red and the shock punched through him, even stronger than last time, but he merely gritted his teeth and swallowed the discomfort.
He saw the message.
RECOGNITION FAILURE!
Suddenly, Seungcheol heard the staircase creak. Before he could even process what such technology was doing in Jeonghan’s possession, or what it was intended for, he immediately picked up the folded clothes at his feet and placed them back over the spiderlike device. No less than a second later, Jeonghan was walking into the bedroom, still dressed in his lilac scrubs, a backpack drooping off his shoulder.
“Cheol?” he questioned, rubbing his eyebrow. “What the fuck?”
Without thought, Seungcheol grabbed the old, tinted bottle of Dior Sauvage off the dresser. “Thanks for giving this back, asshole.”
And Jeonghan’s shoulders sagged even lower. He flung his backpack onto the bed. “Why do you care now?” Jeonghan laughed, taking a seat beside his bag. “You lent me that bottle, like, a year ago.”
“A bottle this size cost me over one-hundred dollars.”
Seungcheol pulled out Millie’s keys from his coat pocket, thumbing through each individually until he found the one with the red-rubber cap. He unlocked her door, stuck his head inside cautiously to inspect for her foster cat. But he saw nothing. Only the dusty, sunlit emptiness of her apartment. Millie mentioned she was shy, liked to sleep under the bed and only finished food when no one was looking.
“Okay,” Seungcheol said. “I’ll start with the litter box.”
You slipped in behind him.
Maybe Seungcheol shouldn’t bring a stranger into Millie’s apartment without permission, although you weren’t exactly trouble—at least, not in the typical sense—and so he gave you the duty of walking around the apartment while shaking a treat bag, hoping to lure the spotted calico out from hiding. As Seungcheol tended to the litter box in the storage space, he thought he noticed something… marble and glinting… behind the water tank. He shuffled over on his knees.
“Lizzie?” Seungcheol murmured. You were suddenly in the doorway behind him, watching him stick a gentle hand out for the nervous cat to sniff. She was hesitant. “You don’t have to be scared, honey,” Seungcheol whispered. “We’re okay. We have treats for you.”
Just as Lizzie began sniffing along Seungcheol’s finger, her ears far less pinned, the neighbour across the hallway ungraciously slammed their door shut, blathering aloud on what he assumed was a phone. Lizzie spooked, darting out from between the wall and the water tank, shooting liquidly around your legs, and disappearing into another room.
“Damn. She probably went under Millie’s bed.”
In the kitchen, you stood next to Seungcheol while he peeled open a golden tin of wet cat food. The smell was overly salty and tart, leading your face to dramatically pucker while he scooped the food into a small bowl. He offered for you to refill her water so it could be fresh, though he wasn’t sure it mattered all that much to Lizzie who had been a lonesome stray drinking from rain puddles and craters in the street.
Nonetheless, Seungcheol preferred to think it mattered.
After setting the food and water onto a small mat in the kitchen corner, Seungcheol grabbed the treat bag you had been holding. “Let’s see if we can coax her out,” he suggested. “Want this thingy? Millie said it’s her favourite.” He then handed you one of Lizzie’s toys from the robust collection scattered along the couch—a long, flimsy rod with a catnip-filled salmon dangling off the end. A definite cat-classic.
Together, you and Seungcheol settled onto your stomachs, the carpeted floor stiff underneath, at the base of Millie’s bed. Lizzie stared back, the tip of her tail twitching. Seungcheol shook out some treats into his hand and squirmed underneath the bed to leave it close to her before rescinding. You flopped out the catnip-filled salmon, jittered the toy around for a bit until it seemed that Lizzie had likely seen the routine one too many times for it to have any effect. Millie mentioned that it took about three days before Lizzie felt comfortable outside her bed.
“Since we’re just waiting here…” Seungcheol grunted, fishing the phone out from his back pocket. “I can show you something.”
With your cheek slumped into a fist, an eyebrow piqued.
“I went over to Joshua and Jeonghan’s the other day,” he started explaining, holding his phone out and swiping in the passcode, not caring to hide it from you at that point. “Now, obviously I went over there to be in a good friend’s company, listen to his work qualms—not poke around in secret like a fucking weirdo, as you can imagine.” You giggled a little, and Seungcheol pulled up the photo he had taken. “But let’s say the latter happened, on accident, though. And let’s say I saw this spider-looking device on Jeonghan’s dresser—” he let you handle his phone, “—and when I touched the middle, it fucking shocked me. Let’s say that.”
You glared into the photo, and then back at Seungcheol, bottom lip worried under your teeth, inscrutability hard-crusted to your face.
He shrugged. “It’s just—it’s weird. It’s fucking weird. By the way, you can zoom in like this—” Seungcheol leaned over, placing two fingers on the screen, pinching, “—and out goes the other way.” You maneuvered around the magnified photo, bringing the phone closer to your inspection, and he hoped something about the peculiar device was familiar. “I think it comes down to fingerprint recognition. When someone who isn’t Jeonghan tries to open the interface, or whatever that screen is in the middle, it zaps them. I mean, that’s strange, right?”
You didn’t agree nor disagree.
After a brief pause, you handed over his phone.
“Doesn’t ring a bell, does it?”
No, you shook your head.
“Fuck. Well, what are we supposed to make of it?”
For a moment, you squirmed uncomfortably, attempting to remove the satchel crossed along your torso. You dumped out the contents onto the bedroom carpet, your notebook and pen.
IT’S SOMETHING.
“So… what do we think? Jeonghan’s involved? Or maybe he’s not involved but he’s time travelled.” Seungcheol paused, feeling a seething, horrible thrum move around his head like an orbiting planet. He pressed into his temple and exhaled. “God, I can’t believe this. That I’m actually saying this. Maybe it hasn’t sunk in as much as I thought.”
IF ANYTHING, HE KNOWS THE TECHNOLOGY.
“How are we sure this is time travel tech and not… you know… some bizarre toy he bought. Jeonghan has his ways, unfortunately.”
You patted his shoulder.
He watched you write, noted how concentrated you were.
REMEMBER WHAT I SAID? ABOUT KEEPING OUR POSSIBILITES TOO OPEN? WE HAVE SOMETHING AND WE NEED TO RUN WITH IT LIKE IT’S MEANINFUL. JEONGHAN KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT TIME TRAVEL. WE NEED TO GO DEEPER.
Seungcheol half-smiled. “Like—what? Just asking him?”
You shrugged; lip pursed. He knew what that meant.
The clanging passed around his head again. “Fuck.”
Suddenly, there was a crunch. You and Seungcheol glanced toward Lizzie who was now crouched in front of the treats, beginning to gnaw on them, break them between her small but exact teeth.
Seungcheol smiled. So did you.
Delicately picking up the stuffed salmon toy, you slowly dragged it back and forth. Lizzie responded with interest. She batted out a paw, clamped the toy against the floor, her mosaiced tail flicking. Although she was still tentative to leave the shaded safety underneath Millie’s bed, you were able to get some good play out of Lizzie. Seungcheol assumed she would finally eat the wet food in the kitchen once you two left. Promptly, you each wriggled onto your knees, huffing in sync as you rose to your feet, rubbing elbows and shaking out stiff limbs.
On the way out, Seungcheol noticed that you had paused by the photograph in the hallway. He stopped, came back to your side and looked, too.
“That’s Millie and her sister, Marisol,” he mumbled.
Your reaction was slight, a soft swallow, as you studied Millie and her younger sister along the blue trim of a coastal sea, the sun shining into their adolescent faces, making them squint and twist their smiles.
He could almost hear their laughter through the photo.
It turned him solemn.
Seungcheol cleared his throat. “Marisol’s gone… dead.”
He had mentioned Millie before – the story of how they met through grief counselling – although he had never talked about her younger sister. If anything, Seungcheol knew firsthand how the loss of a loved one subtly altered people’s behaviour. He remembered an old conversation with Phoebe, her rum-fueled ranting about Anton, and the manner in which she suddenly stopped, froze, a skim of fear flashing over her eyes as she stared into Seungcheol. And then she snapped – “let’s talk about something else” – while sinking quickly into her drink.
Not to mention the fact that it wasn’t exactly Seungcheol’s place to speak about Marisol’s death. In fact, a part of him felt like he had betrayed Millie. So he didn’t say anything else until you seemed to gather everything you needed from the photograph, though he didn’t know what, because you simply faced him with a sympathetic smile and walked toward the front door. It must have been a personal thought. He couldn’t help but wish that he knew the thought, too.
Hunter’s death.
It was the first notification he saw on his phone screen that morning alongside some minimized texts from a groupchat. He didn’t read the messages—he already knew what Jeonghan, Phoebe, and Joshua were discussing. The anniversary of her death had gradually reshaped into a celebration of her life as the years moved Hunter further away from existence, usually a rendezvous at Seungcheol or Phoebe’s apartment—a chance to look through physical photographs, watch old video clips, and retell stories that kept her spirit vibrant.
Although time had eased some wounds, there remained a part of Seungcheol that dreaded the celebration. His mind could be a frail, etiolated thing, losing memories like a child loses teeth, and the last thing he wanted was to be surrounded by Hunter’s closest friends—as her husband—and forget the sacredness of a story he used to treasure.
He knew being with his friends was always good company.
Nonetheless, he wanted to spend Hunter’s anniversary a bit differently that year. He wanted to extend his vulnerability in a way that was more than just hearty, albeit teary, laughter with the few who knew her almost as intimately as he did. They would understand.
When Seungcheol walked into the living room already dressed for the day, a thick jacket thrown overtop his quarter-zip, he was quick to catch your attention. You eyed him from over a cereal bowl, feeding a spoonful of Mini Wheats to your mouth as the television crackled with your favourite morning cartoon, Spongebob, because you had quite the routine going and there was something about Seungcheol’s expression that indicated he might throw a wrench into it.
“Whenever you’re done eating, care to join me for a trip?”
You sipped some sweet milk, kept lasering him in a stare.
“Of course, I don’t mean to interrupt your morning hour of cartoons,” Seungcheol said, baring his palms in a comedic defense.
Ship! / Spongebob, how long are you gonna stay in your little fantasy world? / No, Patrick, look! It’s a ship!
He grabbed his car keys, plopped onto the couch cushion beside you. “Although…” Seungcheol hummed, “this is a good episode...”
And your eyebrows furrowed, like you already knew.
Nonetheless, Seungcheol figured he had at least intrigued you, because you sped through your cereal and hadn’t even stayed seated for the rest of the episode. Instead, you disappeared into his bedroom, the door clicking shut. At one point, you kept all your clothes in the living room, folded into a spare laundry basket with a broken handle he kept forgetting to discard. But since the first night you slept in his bed, little by little, more of your clothes were moved into his room.
He had even made space for your shirts and pants in his closet.
Beyond that, you had slept more frequently in his bed, too.
Nothing ever happened, most certainly. There was no reason, Seungcheol emphasized to himself. Put simply, he thought a memory-foam mattress, a proper-sized pillow, and the lushness of his expensive bedsheets might feel better than scratchy couch cushions and a single limp comforter. It wasn’t every night. You had communicated to him that you liked the couch on certain occasions; when the night sky was clear and crisp, not a single cloud dragging along akin to the end of a child’s tangled blanket, you had a perfect view of the stars through his living room window. You would stay awake and sketch them.
There was a drawing of the constellations in your notebook. He pointed out that you had drawn the Big and Little Dipper.
“Because they resemble spoons, don’t you think? I mean, I wasn't the one who coined it. So if you think it's inaccurate, don't look at me.”
THEN THE GALAXY IS SORT OF LIKE A CEREAL.
He remembered chuckling at your thoughtful note.
“You eat the galaxy every morning.”
SO THERE ARE STARS INSIDE ME.
Seungcheol had smiled, gazing across your charming expression.
“Must be. Some could say that’s why you glow.”
You popped out from his bedroom, dressed warmly. He helped you slide into a newly bought winter coat, long and forest green with a fur-embellished hood. It was his favourite colour. Seungcheol then handed you the auburn satchel with your notebook safely slid inside.
Outdoors, there was mostly scintillating frost and hard, lumpy bits of snow. But the air was flat, sharp, with a cold that dried inside his nose and stung his eyes. At least there was no wind.
Winter wind was evil.
As he opened the passenger door for you, he paused.
“Your scarf—should I go back inside and get your scarf?”
You strapped on the seatbelt, shook your head.
“I can run back up. It won’t take long. It’s fucking freezing.”
Another shake. More insistent.
“Really? Don’t you feel that burn in your nose?”
Then you reached out, taking the car keys from his hand. A slip into the ignition. The engine rumbled, coughing chestily like it was sick.
Although he knew you must be curious, you didn’t write him any questions, not even when he stalled the car outside Massey Park, the lot empty. Too early, too frigid. You walked along beside Seungcheol, following the pathway he always ran in the warmer months, nose buried into the hilt of your jacket, the hood’s warm, furry interior doing its best to keep your ears toasty. It wasn’t until the duck pond started coming into view that you finally wavered, footsteps trailing into stillness. Unusual concrete barricades were set around the pond. He stopped at one, peered over the barricade into the pond, the ice frozen thin and white like cartilage flakes. Reeds dead. Rocks glistening with morning frost.
You were beside him again.
Seungcheol cleared his throat. “I feel close to her, here.”
For a moment, your face scrunched.
He focused on a lone water bubble stuck under the ice, pressing back and forth, unsure where to escape, how to pop. “It seems crazy, I guess. Every spring, every summer, every fall, I run past the place where my wife died. I pass the spot where she slipped, the rocks she banged her head on, the murky water her body slid into. I pass it for three seasons. I believe if I do it enough… I should be fine. I should still remember. There’s nothing about that moment I should be able to forget.” His jaw tightened with bitterness. “But I do… I forgot which ankle she twisted when she fell. I forgot which side of her skull hit the rock. I forgot which of her lungs filled with water first when she sank into the pond. I forgot the time I received the call. How her body looked when I went to the morgue. Things I fucking swore would be carved in my memory forever… just… disappeared.”
Seungcheol sighed, flicked some dirt off the concrete in an attempt to maintain some level of pristine. “And the worst part is… I’m terrified to remember them. To feel the way I felt when I first learned she was dead. It’s like she’s being erased, cell by cell, moment by moment, and as much as I don’t want to let Hunter fall out of my mind, I’m just as afraid to never let her go. To never move on. To keep up this fucking insufferable loneliness. This numb routine. And now you’re in my life. Things are different, exciting, so twistedly confusing for the first time in years and it’s fucking beautiful, but it feels like it’s at the cost of her. And I just don’t know where to go with that.” Seungcheol finally drew his red, stinging fingers away, stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. He chuckled, pushed his shoulders up to his ears, and tried to smile at you in a way that eased the moment’s tightness.
“I don’t need an answer, or advice, or even comfort,” he assured you, finding the centre of your unmoving gaze. “I just wanted to say it. Get it off my chest. Tell someone I trust. Someone who won’t judge me. I’m sorry if you’re feeling the pressure of that person being you. We’ve been spending so much time together, you know. That’s all.”
You simply nodded.
“Anyway,” Seungcheol huffed, creating a cloud with his breath as he pulled out his phone, checking the additional text messages. “I’m supposed to meet up with Josh, Jeonghan, and Phoebe today... but maybe I’ll rain-check.” He looked up at you, the softness pressed into your face like flowers, a light sheen in your eyes. Now that he had honestly told you about his wife, he felt his body naturally rise and crack. There wasn't that painful knot at the top of his spine, wedged right under his neck. “Wanna get hot chocolate?”
Something about your expression was tender, bashful.
Again, you nodded.
He picked up your hand in his.
“I know a good spot.”
The day grew wheels.
It started one place—a scarce, cold park with dead trees and a frozen pond, then a small café already decorated to the nines for the holidays, kettles whirring with fresh milk and homemade hot chocolate; your introduction to whipped cream—and started rolling forward. You stumbled into a bustling Christmas market at the mall, started at one end where two ladies were selling fried doughnut holes powdered in cinnamon sugar. Seungcheol bought some, and you continued around the market while snacking. Beaded earrings of winter birds, crocheted tote bags, enamel pins, flower arrangements—you stopped and looked at just about everything—with Seungcheol asking all the questions, to no surprise. Where do you source your seashells? How did you think of lavender-infused syrup? About how long do these live?
He made sure to show you the grand Christmas tree placed on the ground-floor, a shiny glory in the mall’s centre. It was dauntingly tall, reaching up to nearly the second floor. Every branch was spiraled in lights. Gorgeous, glittering bulbs in a multitude of colours gave the tree iridescence. It wasn’t real, but it still managed to smell like sharp pine.
You pointed at the fixture sitting on top.
“It’s an angel topper,” he told you. “Stars are common, too.”
Seungcheol took you to second-floor balcony to better examine the upper half of the tree. After a moment spent looking at the golden angel, strumming her small harp, you unveiled your notebook.
THE ANGEL LOOKS LIKE YOU.
He furrowed his brow. “Are you blind?”
HER ROSY CHEEKS!
“Oh… I guess I could see it,” Seungcheol simply agreed to appease you as his eyes fluttered over the hurried people down below, winding their way between others with shopping bags and cups of coffee and breifcases. He felt you nudge his shoulder for attention.
YOU GLOW TOO.
There was a shooting prickle underneath his cheeks, warm enough to emanate heat. Maybe he could understand your point.
The next stop was lunch. You were starving and weary, but thankfully there was a decent restaurant inside the mall. Together you shared a spinach-artichoke dip appetizer. The tortilla chips were fresh and crunchy. Seungcheol never bothered correcting you on the policy of double-dipping because he didn’t care. Over and over, you both stabbed chip after chip into the bowl, scraping out the dip voraciously. Sometimes your chips would clash for the same dollop of dip and it made you smile whenever Seungcheol dutifully relented. He then walked you through the rest of the menu, reading out each main dish and all the fixings, the sides, the different pricing options. You listened while fervently sucking at the straw to your sweet cocktail, perhaps your first, newly formed memory of alcohol. Seungcheol kept his drink to a soda since he needed to drive.
The waiter introduced your mains. For you, a voluptuously stacked burger with a side of macaroni and cheese. Seungcheol ordered tagliatelle and grilled chicken. At first, he was uncertain you could finish your plate considering how filling everything was, but then twenty minutes had passed in the blink of an eye and there wasn’t a speck of food left behind. Seungcheol didn’t know why he doubted you.
What he did know was that his stomach was about to burst.
The waiter pedalled back to collect plates.
“Dessert?” he queried, chiefly fixing his gaze to you because Seungcheol was leaned back in the booth like a wounded solider, a hand spread over his aching stomach. “Our special is a cherry cheesecake.”
You nodded quite vigorously.
“Don’t expect me to help you finish that,” Seungcheol groaned.
The corner of your mouth snagged in disdain.
“I-I mean, not that you wanted to share.”
As you tore the decadent slice of cheesecake apart with a fork, he received a buzzing phone call from Joshua. Still incapacitated against the corner of the restaurant booth, Seungcheol limply held the phone between his ear and shoulder, watching you stick a cherry in your mouth.
“Hey, Cheol! How are things?” Joshua chirped.
He shrugged. “Everything’s fine. How ‘bout you?”
“Nothing much. Just hanging out with Jeonghan. We were playing cards for a bit. Phoebe is coming over for dinner.” There was a preceptive pause, a swallow. “You’re totally invited by the way.”
“Cool,” Seungcheol said while shifting up his sleeve to read his wrist watch. It was later than he expected. Time was being eaten faster than you could plow through your cheesecake. “I’m good.”
He heard the hitch in Joshua’s soft, careful tone. “Oh... yeah, for sure. You’re doing okay, right? I mean, you sound okay.”
You slid your fork across some cherry syrup pooled on the plate, licking off every glister, and Seungcheol absentmindedly watched. “I know you can’t help but worry. But I really am fine. I promise.”
Joshua’s somewhat skeptical yet ultimately accepting sigh crackled through the line. “Alright. I trust you. Talk later?”
Seungcheol nodded like his friend could see. “Talk later.” He then hung up the phone and proceeded to admire the stark whiteness of your plate, as though your dessert was imaginary. “Satisfied, yeah?”
A sudden fizzle in your throat, and then a burp.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Seungcheol said, smacking his lips. “Let me flag down our waiter…” he mumbled, attempting to spot him behind the counter, filling up a beer glass. “You’ve got your card, right?”
At once, a very droll, slanted look fell over your face.
Seungcheol chuckled. “Good one, huh?”
You tossed him an eye roll, lighthearted yet pointed.
Upon exiting the restaurant—taking a moment to fix your jackets back on and do up zippers—you noticed a large poster stood near the escalator. You wandered over, letting your fingertip ghost just above the plastic cover to follow the words. Seungcheol chewed his inner cheek the entire time, already sensing the direction of your next restless whim. A moment later, you were scurrying something down in your notebook.
CAN WE SEE THIS?
He scratched his temple. “You want to watch a movie about a killer snowman that comes to life and taunts a group of Arctic explorers?” God—he puddled at horror movies. “Are you sure?”
YES. IT LOOKS STUPID BUT FUN.
Seungcheol tried his luck bargaining. “The movie theatre is on the bottom floor at the very end of the mall. I’m sure there will be more options available.” The last time he watched a horror movie, it was forced upon him by Phoebe and one of her slightly off-putting friends that she was sneakily attempting to set him up with. But he was certain her friend had actually developed negative interest in him when the killer appeared for half a second in a window glare and Seungcheol screamed.
At least you were open to his idea.
Unfortunately, every other movie the theatre was pushing seemed concerningly worse than Artic Nightmare. He was counting on there being a silly romcom or a rerun of a Christmas classic. Instead there was a poorly animated movie about a bible tale and a documentary on the evolution of board games. Seungcheol did try to angle you toward the board game documentary, but then you saw another huge poster for Arctic Nightmare and the plush-toy snowmen they were selling at the concession, and he knew there was no changing your mind.
The theatre wasn’t very full apart from a small group of whispering teenagers and a couple with their shoes kicked off (he was undoubtedly grateful), and since you were equally stuffed on lunch, he hadn’t needed to burn cash paying for popcorn, drinks, and overpriced, half-filled snacks. Although, Seungcheol did like a good Twizzler.
You hadn’t been inside a theatre before. The small walk up the stairway to your seats was an adventure in itself, and he partially regretted not buying you popcorn and a drink to complete your ‘first’ cinema experience. You wriggled into your seat with satisfaction.
He stuck a piece of spearmint gum in his mouth. For some odd, perhaps factual reason, he found that having something to chew helped distract his taunted mind. You swatted his arm and gestured for a piece.
“It's gum. Have you had this yet?”
You shook your head.
“Well, don’t swallow it,” Seungcheol whispered, reopening his bulky wallet. “Just chew. And stick it back in the wrapper when you’re done because we aren’t littering pieces of shit, okay?”
The movie was terrible, of course.
He spent more than half the runtime watching every scene from between his fingers. You, on the other hand, were much more attuned to the action, able to stomach the flashes of cheap gore and hardly twitched at the shoddy jump scares. If anything, it seemed that you were taking pleasure in Seungcheol’s uncharacteristic cowardice. Every so often he would groan or slump down in his seat or cover his eyes. Then he would hear you snicker. Dare to snicker. At one point, an obvious scare shook him so unexpectedly that he couldn’t help but yelp, and you were fighting so laboriously not to laugh that the gum flew out your mouth, your foot was stomping, and the weight of a serious wheeze was hot on your lips.
When you left the theatre, stopping at the trash can to toss your gum, the teenagers shuffled past you, empty soda cups in hand.
“Hey—were you the one that screamed?” a boy from the group asked, his hair a floppy mess and his skin pink with acne.
You whipped around, laughter muffled into your hand.
“Um…” Seungcheol trailed off, chewed his lip. “No.”
The boy sipped from his drink for a moment. “Sure, bud.”
His friends were crowding the doorway, all anxious smiles and antsy swaying. One gestured for him. Another pretended to take a call.
“Are you even old enough to watch this movie?” Seungcheol bit.
The boy sucked on his straw again. “Are you?”
At last, the only girl in the group stepped forward, grabbing onto her mouthy friend’s elbow, tugging him away while her cheeks sang a stinging red blush. You were still snorting, your eyes watery.
“Thanks for the fucking help,” he tutted.
Immediately, your arms swung up in amused confusion.
Seungcheol smiled. “You’re supposed to beat him up. You don’t get in trouble for that, you know. Punching teenagers is legal.”
You wrested the notebook outside the satchel.
SORRY. THAT WAS FUCKING HILARIOUS.
“There’s still a chance, you know. If you run after him.”
ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TRYING TO CONVINCE ME THAT PUNCHING A TEENAGER AS A GROWN ADULT IS LEGAL?
He scratched his ear. “Well… is it working?”
You snapped the notebook closed and returned it to the auburn satchel. His hand was suddenly scooped into yours.
Outside the mall, the sky was open wide and dilated with darkness. Seungcheol couldn’t see the moon from his point, but he saw a few constellations and their demure twinkle, somewhat like a tree branch holding crests of glistening snow. He stuck his arm out, his fingertip resting just underneath the Big Dipper as though he were holding the constellation up, keeping its place in the black abyss.
Perhaps the inherently magical duty of an angel.
“Recognize it?” Seungcheol asked.
You nodded. Smiled.
“Good night to sleep on the couch,” he murmured, his warm breath practically vapour in the cold. Nonetheless, the chilliness was more than pleasant. It hit the rosy apples of his cheeks like an icy kiss.
⤷ “ would you die for me? or should i live for you? ”
pairing: prisoner!jaebum x reader
genre: angst, smut, dark/triggering
type: strangers 2 lovers ; prison!au
warnings: sexual content, some violence. talks of death. mentions of drugs & alcohol. strong language. ( 18+ )
word count: 2.5k
a/n: here’s the first chapter of my new jaebum series! hope you guys enjoy it. leave some feedback & let me know what you think, if you want. i’ll try to do weekly updates so make sure to keep an eye on my wips page to see when the next chapter will be posted!
The big dilapidated building soon came into view and you could see the high concrete walls, painted a pale white but still managing to look dead and dull. There was sharp fencing, barbed wires, and rust on the corners of the main gate, making this place look like it had been abandoned for years.
How was this run-down place supposed to confine dangerous criminals?
“Are you scared?” your dad glanced over at you. His wrist draped lazily over the steering wheel of his Range Rover.
“What’s there to be scared of? We’re just going to a prison filled with murderers and rapists…” you trailed off.
“Welcome to my life.” your dad mumbles, as he took a turn down a dark, narrow, and uneven road.
“Why do I have to be here again?” you asked.
“Because you want to be a correctional counselor, and in order to do that you need to earn some work experience first. And what better way to gain some experience then to learn from your own father.” your dad rambled on.
